We visited the
Reptile Zoo Serpo on Wednesday. I think their mission of teaching people that snakes are not scary and dangerous was hard to achieve with the snakes being so close to us. This
cobra was trying hard to get out and kept rearing its head. The pythons were so huge and close that my stomach turned. The yellow rattlesnack even had a few rattles for Miles. I usually am not scared of snakes, but the way they looked at us, I was very very glad they were behind glass. Eliot was a little cautious, but both he and Miles got right up to the glass. Miles kept waving at the snakes.
Our friend the "iguana likes us; he came to say hello." The zoo had an amazing number of snakes, quite a few
crocodiles, including a Mississippi alligator, and some turtles and frogs.
In the morning, we visited our favorite shop for some yummy cheese. Eliot refers to his favorite kind, Boer Bel Stolwj, as "the kind that I really like at the cheese store." They give raisins to the kids too, so it's a great visit. We also got our veggies, shopped at the natural foods store, and bought some fish at the fish market.
In the afternoon, we went to the playground. It has an attendant and is only open from 1:30-5:30; interestingly, it is closed Sundays and national holidays. This is the coolest playground I have ever seen. The area is fenced with picnic tables for adults all over. There is a big sand box (closed today), a wooden train with little picnic tables on one car, and a water pump.
The boys first had to take a turn on the regular swings. The seats are hard plastic, so they are a little trickier than those at home. The
basket swing was a big hit - check out Miles holding on for dear life. Yes, that is blue mulch you see!!
It is a fantastic park located on Van Bleyswijckstraat. It's not huge in terms of area, but has some really great equipment. The
merry-go-round was self propelled by the tricycle pedals. I just watched while Eliot pedal Miles around and around and around. Quite ingeneous, really. They had three climbing structures with play houses, climbing walls, and slides. There were kids up to 10 years old there. The boys liked the vehicles (always);
Eliot gave Miles a ride in the sidecar. Eliot even rode the zip line by himself. Miles tried it with me holding him.
TRUCKS - It's interesting that trucks are one of the first things Eliot noticed upon our arrival in The Netherlands. They are the same as home, but different too - mainly more compact. On the runway, we saw track excavators - blue, yellow and orange ones. At the car rental place, there was a 30-ft scissors lift. Today I woke to a
cherry picker on the sidewalk below; a man was cleaning our windows (it rained an hour later). The dump trucks are tractors pulling trailers with dirt. We've seen narrow street sweepers on the cobbled roads. A fire truck zooming by was the size of a large van and very boxy.
TRAINS - the trains and tram hold are attention the most. We see
Tram 1 from our front window every 5 or 10 minutes. Eliot has seen a purple tram too. Trains pass constantly, it seems. We've noticed 4 color combinations so far: medium blue and yellow; dark blue and yellow; maroon and yellow; bright orange. The engines and cars are of all sizes and shapes. Jim's favorite is the one that looks a little bit like a 747 on the front (with a big hump and upper row of windows).
The weather was nice on Sunday. Eliot wanted to do "something fun outside with Miles." The Waterspeeltuin (water playgound) at Heempark in Delftse Hout (Delft Woods) fit the bill. This place is really cool. They have a small stream flowing through the park with sand and a small "beach" area.
Eliot and Miles swang on the tire swing. Daddy pushed them so high that Miles squealed with delight. Next it was time to captain the pirate ship.
Miles was in charge of throwing down the "anchor" while Eliot hoisted the sail. The ship and sailboat (behind) had moveable rudders and they both rocked back and forth. The water features at the park included a zip line across the creek, a windmill-related device (looks like a large corkscrew) for pulling water into a basin to be released into canals, and Eliot's favorite: a rope bridge across the water. After playing on the playground, we visited the animal farm (and petting zoo) in the park. We got to pet a shetland pony, calves, sheep, and goats. They also had parakeets, chickens, rodents of all varieties, peacocks, rabbits, pigs, and a loud donkey.
Interestingly, we found that the Indianapolis 500 was being shown live on Dutch TV, so we got to see the race. Only the interviews and the feed were in english; all the announcing was Dutch. It was an excellent race with a great finish. I felt quite at home getting to see Gomer Pile (Jim Nabors) singing
Back Home Again in Indiana. It felt like my old Hoosier Days.
Today was a bit of an errands and lay around sort of day. We were able to open a bank account and go to a grocery store. Since all the writing is in Dutch and we forgot the dictionary, it was a little challenging just finding the flour. All was fine though. After lunch, Eliot and Jim walked to the Markt to visit the bakery to order his birthday cake. This specific bakery has been around since 1796! Saturday is another market day, where people line the streets selling all sorts of odd things (bric-a-brac is how the guidebook describes it). Jim brought home 10 gerbera daisies for our anniversary (just $2.60).
Observations After Week 1
LANGUAGE: Everyone really does speak English, at least enough to help me navigate around town without knowing any Dutch. People say Hallo when you come in a store or see you on the street. The shopkeepers always say good-bye when we leave (in English once they know I don't speak Dutch). I asked some people if they lived here (to ask if they knew the location of the post office) and they responded "we are also strange[rs] here." They were Dutch tourists; apparently there will be a lot of tourists in Delft this summer.
RAIN: It has rained for the last 5 days. Everyone is still out, walking and biking, but there is a noticeable explosion of people on the streets when the sun does show itself. Last night it was partly cloudy/sunny from 5:30 to 7 pm; people were everywhere. I miss the sunny days in Boulder. Eliot doesn't want to go out in the rain (and cold). I think you just learn to buck up and go outside when you have to. I have not yet mastered steering the stroller hunched over while holding an umbrella in the rain and wind. It is windy here.
SOUNDS: Everything is so close. It's deceivingly quiet in our apartment. The walls are well insulated and the windows have double panes, so when the windows are closed you don't hear anything, except maybe a siren out the front. But when you open up, you hear the sounds of a city. Everything is so dense; there are so many people, even in this small town. The train passes every few minutes. The express ones zoom through town; but the others screech to a stop at the station across the street. You can hear the heavy rolling of the tram wheels directly outside every 10 minutes. Then, there is the ringing of the bells of New Church. It seems to be a song at the quarter hour, and it chimes the time on the hour. You can hear people talking and laughing as they walk by, four stories below. The sirens are the European variety (doo-d0-doo-do-doo-do). We heard the clip-clop of horse feet on the brick street giving some tourists a ride.
Visited the
train station to get some close-ups of the
trains. We get trains every few minutes during the day. The train goes to Amsterdam, den Haag, and all over Europe.
Yellow and blue train and the
double-decker train.
Wandering around Delft via stroller going with mom to the various shops. Sites along the way:
Delft city tours via the canal
Oude Kerk (old church, built in 12th century)
Nieuwe Kerk (new church, because it is 200 years younger than old church)
A Richard Scarry car
We traveled to the
Keukenhof Gardens, near Lisse (outside of Leiden). These gardens provide the most spectacular display of flowers in The Netherlands. The gardens are only open 8 weeks a year. This year was such a late spring that they extended the opening 2 days, so we were able to visit on the last day! It was well worth the trip. The commercial blulb fields had already passed but the tulips, azaleas, rhododendrons, and hyacinths were still in bloom at the gardens.
The greenhouses (pavilions) had special displays of cut flowers and plants including carnations, calla lillies, and
day lillies (Miles at the fountain) and a hot house for orchids. Our favorites were the maroon calla lillies with the "lion wild flowers" and the orchids colored like cheetahs and zebras. Of the inspirational gardens, we enjoyed the mediteranean garden with purple stucco patio and wisteria vine and flowers and the urban garden with floating planters (on the canal) and a trickle fountain.
We walked through a shrub maze; saw pigs, pygmie goats, and sheep at the animal; played on a great playground; walked on a z-shaped ladder over the water; walked on wooden circles in the lake; saw a windmill turning in the wind and walked up to its platform; wandered through lots of paths amongst the flowers and trees; and crossed lots of bridges. We spent about 5 hours in the gardens and were quite tired by the end.
In contrast to yesterday, we had a very American day today. We needed to get a babygate because of the steep stairs (not really for Dutch standards) and concrete floors. So we went to the mall in Rijsvijk. There we found a DVD player and a printer. We ate at McDonalds ($27 - yikes) where you have to buy a small thing of ketchup for $0.70 and played at the playgorund on top of the underground parking garage.
Then we drove home to check the web for location of the Mega stores - which happened to be in den Haag (the Hague) back the direction past the mall! After finding the baby gate, we went to IKEA in Delft to buy a desk for Jim and some hangers. When we got home at 7:30 pm, we ordered Domino's Pizza (4 doors down from our apartment). Pretty crazy but it did taste like home.
"Is this heaven?" she asks. Pretty much. This is
Verkade & Jacques Kaas & Wijn (cheese and wine shop). It is amazing, and there are a hundred different cheese choices.
We had a very Oude (old world) Delft day on Friday. Our friend Deborah took us on a tour of the city center. We visited a bakery, an Indonesian market, the natural foods store, the Markt (square), the vegetable & fruit market, the cheese shop, and topped off our tour with the C1000 (think small Safeway). All of this adventuring was via the stroller loading up our bags along the way.
We are on the southeast corner of city center and most shops are accessible within a 5 to 10 minute walk. The streets are mainly brick. Most are so small that you are sure they must be bike and pedestrian paths until a car comes down the lane between the buildings and the canal. The square (markt) is closed to most cars.
First full day in Delft. Our day was confused: we played from 1:30-4 am and then slept again until 11:30.
Eliot fell asleep in his plate of Kraft mac-n-cheese. Quite a sad site really; he was feeling under the weather. I met another American mom, Gina, and her children. Deborah and Laurents invited us over for a traditional Dutch meal of pancakes with cheese, mushrooms, apples, and bacon. It was fabulous. Then on the way home, we enjoyed a
nice stroll by the canal behind our apartment building. Right now it gets dark about 10 pm.
Leaving from
Denver for the Netherlands via
Houston. Arrived at noon the following day in
Amsterdam with 7 suitcases, 2 car seats, 7 carry-on bags and a stroller. We were a sight! Luckily Jim's colleague Sven picked us up to help us get to the apartment.
