Free wireless internet at Schiphol airport and crossing the American border

Something new at Schiphol: two wireless internet sessions of 30 minutes each absolutely for free, noppes, zip, nada! After that you get charged a hefty fee, I’m sure.

It’s six in the morning. I got up at 01:30, having slept about an hour. The highways were empty, so was the immense corridor that leads from the parking garage to the departure hall. Gate E19, however, where the flight to Detroit originates, is full of fellow travelers; all wearing expressions of dismay and self loathing. Next to us the walking conveyer urges to ‘mind your step,’ whenever a walker boards, which is every second and a half.

Abandoned Schiphol Airport

I’ve seen dozens of airports but Schiphol beats them all. The signs are clear, the people friendly, and the whole place is dressed in that charming introvert exuberance the Dutch are known for. Christmas trees are arranged in rigid patterns, commercial signs are controlled and matter-of-fact. No shouting, no chaos. Just order on order, a line here a line there.

Soon I’ll be on the other side of the Atlantic, in the country I’ve felt at home in for so long. There’ll be bright colors and loud noises. There’ll be a squadron of heavily armed Chuck Norris aficionados awaiting us. They’ll have bullhorns and cattle prods, and drive us towards customs booths, where we must leave our finger prints and pictures. A sign with pledges of friendliness and curtsey will have slid behind the counter.

Am I here for business or pleasure, officer Burley demands to know after I’ve stood in the non-residents line for two hours.

“Little bit of both. I’m boarding a ship.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“Home,” I foolishly submit.

“Home is America,” officer Burley replies sternly. How could I have been so ill informed?

“I come from the Netherlands,” I say.

“Are you a terrorist?”

“No sir!”

He lets me in, this time, and there it is: land of the free, home of the brave. I’m still in love with this country. She’s like an ex-girlfriend who broke us up when her options lured, who’s changed the locks and warned the neighbors, but now lives on in paranoid seclusion frantically clutching the belief that she’s been wronged.

God bless America; their home sweet home.

The Netherlands - Home is where my Wooden Shoes are.

It was long ago but as some point I was born in the Netherlands. I’m too long gone to call this country my home; things have avertedly changed beyond my recognition. The buildings, the skies, the perpetual drizzle are still there but the people are no longer those from whom I sprang. I see the friends of my youth shimmer in the glances of middle-aged men, whose grown up children call me sir. We rode bikes then. Now we drive family cars and show each other the reach of our companies; profit margins, real estate, port folio’s. They ask me where I’ve been and when I will leave again, and my eyes drift towards a pair of wooden shoes that were parked there in the fall. I know those wooden shoes; they’re there every winter. Some day I’m going to take those shoes and put them on. And I’ll stand somewhere, anywhere, and I won’t leave ever again. Home will be where my wooden shoes are.

Wooden shoes at my friend's house

Yellow pears on a blue stone

Lone walker on the beach at Ellemeet

Driving in Boston, Netherlands, Poland and Belgrade



Branko Bridge at midnight - Belgrade, Serbia

 Looking at how people behave in their cars is an excellent way to estimate how people are when they’re not in their cars. I’ve driven all over the world but taking the car into any metropolis remains a daunting enterprise.

In Boston, for instance, driving means partaking in a collective panic attack. The flow of traffic is largely organic, meaning that drivers don’t typically stay in their lanes but go wherever the traffic pushes them to go. Honking the horn is ultimately ineffective in congested traffic but Bostonians lean in on that thing like there’s no tomorrow. Leaning out the window and diverting blame is also an integral part of Bostonian automotion. Meet a Bostonian out of his car and he’ll seem to apogee of chivalry. But beneath that composed exterior shudders the heart of a chicken.

In the Netherlands people drive with calculated precision. They also drive 120 kilometer per hour, stay at a safe distance from the next guy and rarely honk their horns. Once there was a fire in a tunnel. Folks that drove into the tunnel brought their cars slowly to a standstill, waited until the cars behind them were stopped too, put the car in reverse and slowly backed the whole herd out of the tunnel. No one was hurt. No car was damaged.

Driving in Poland is like driving in Boston during a Martian invasion. It’s not unusual to see five cars side by side going in three directions on a two-lane road full of holes. Poles will honk at each other for stopping, accelerating, overtaking or refraining from doing those things. Poles loath foreigners, loath Poles and loath themselves, and make that known by turning driving into a perpetual assassination-slash-suicide attempt. Speed limits mean nothing in Poland. Stripes on the road mean even less. Fans of demolition derbies should all move to Poland and let it rip.

Much to my surprise, driving in Belgrade is much more like driving in the Netherlands than driving in Poland. Even though Belgrade is fantastically congested, Belgradians are courteous, cautious and precise. They’ll let you in, give you right of way and only honk at you when you really deserve it. Drivers in Belgrade all seem to share the knowledge that cars are expensive and lives are easily destroyed. As in any big city, drivers in Belgrade will suffer an occasional ‘Flojd moment,’ but in general the going is slow and easy.

I have a theory about that.

When the iron curtain fell, only very few people in Poland owned a car. In the early nineties especially young people went abroad to earn money, and when they came back (if they came back) they would buy cars. That means that the collective driving tradition in Poland is very young and upheld largely by impetuous and discontented kids.

In Serbia, owning a car was very common during the Tito years. When the economy collapsed, salaries decimated but the cars that people had stayed those same cars. Somebody with a car that once set him back an annual salary suddenly owned a car that was worth ten years of labor. When the gas prices went up, people drove less and very careful when they did.

Nowadays salaries in Serbia are about 10% of what they are in the West, but the traffic seems quite equal to that of the West. There are very few shitty-olds and many well-maintained small sedans. Occasionally the stray Mercedes or BMW will zip by, but cars in Belgrade are mostly 10 year old hand downs from Germany and Italy. And they’re driven with the same grace and hospitality the Serbs will show when they’re not driving.

Restaurant Het Zwarte Schaep, Brielle, Netherlands – Review

Brielle is a quaint little village just south of Rotterdam. It’s a web of picturesque alleys and a few bustling main streets with probably as many restaurants and bars as there are shops. Brielle, a.k.a. Den Briel played a major role in the libaration war of the Netherlands (15^th century) and some say that the first shot that would lead to the free world as we know it, was shot just off the coats of Briele. It’s definitely a town worth visiting during your holiday in the Netherlands.

And when you’re there, make sure you have your dinner in Restaurant Het Zwarte Schaep (The Black Sheep). You’ll never have seen anything like it; it’s like stepping into somebody’s living room. They can’t have more than six or seven tables, but in a mere few years they’ve managed to become one of the most popular restaurants in the area.

A dedicated team of culinary wizards will surely make your evening a memorable one. And the spare ribs - ah! the spare ribs! – make you think they’ve slaughtered a unicorn. Nobody knows how they do it - as their secrets are guarded passionately behind the amicable smiles of the charming proprietor – but they do it, and that’s what counts.

Het Zwarte Schaep is located on the edge of the inner town, and it overlooks part of the marina. This marina goes all the way around the town, so it’s hard to miss. After your dinner the banks of the canals make for an excellent stroll.

See you there!

On Holiday in The Hague (Den Haag) the Netherlands

A holiday in the Netherlands wouldn’t be complete without a visit to The Haag, or Den Haag as the Dutch call it. It’s an astonishing old town with lots to see and even more to do. It’s on the coast so it has beaches and boulevards galore. Hotels range in price from ridiculous to somewhat affordable, and backpackers will find their home in the youth hostel, just a few minutes walk from down town. Trains come in from all over the place and buses and trams take you wherever you want to go.

When I’m in the Hague on a Sunday, I always stop by at Crossroads International Church. It’s a pleasant gathering of people from all over the world, students or employees of international companies, or travelers like myself and tourists and vacationers. The church is situated in the British School at Vlaskamp 19.

After the service I leave the car parked and walk over to the city center, which is pleasant walk when it doesn’t rain, which it did today. I’ve made it a habit to stop at the American Bookstore on the street called Lange Poten, to browse the latest import from the colonies. Today I was looking for something on Serbia, as I’m planning a trip there next week. And I also stocked up on Bill Brysons, because traveling without a foot of Bryson’s strapped cover to cover on the back seat, is asking for trouble.

When I’m done chatting with the kind proprietor, I saunter over to Subway, which is a few doors down from the American Bookstore, and have a foot-long sub with tuna and lettuce and tomatoes, and look through the window to watch the passers by. The Hague is a truly pleasant town and most suitable for people watching.

Every visit to The Hague must also feature a walk-about of the ancient government buildings. It’s quite amazing how the general public is allowed to walk this imposing square hemmed in by buildings such as the Ridderzaal and the private offices of ministers and the prime minister. Calvinistic prudence has kept these buildings modest, and though very few Calvinists still stroll the corridors these days. Save for, maybe the ghosts of Oldenbarnevelt and Johan de Wit.

Het Mauritshuis - an exquisite museum

Swerving to the left, we soon come face to face with Paleis Noordeinde, the work palace of the Queen of the Netherlands. And right across from it is a bookstore of some note. A few doors down in the Genever Museum, or whatever the name is. It’s a delightful place full of bottled vice and a confused lady with a plumeau. The Netherlands shows it’s charm in streets like this, where a Queen, a bookstore owner and a nervous Genever lady can work side by side without anybody wondering who owes rent to who.

Het Torentje; Prime Minister's work place

Paleis Noordeinde

Ridderzaal

Gin joint

Holiday in Flushing (Vlissingen, Netherlands)

Having lived in fair Vlissingen for many years, I go back there whenever I am in the area, even when it means braving torrential rains and a raging storm that grazes the clay clods from the dikes.

In all kinds of weathers, Vlissingen is a delightful little town on the semi-island of Walcheren, in the province of Zeeland, in the Netherland’s south west, and an excellent place to spend a holiday, ranging from a day or two to a sun-baking, hot-dining, movie-going, beach-bumming month and a half. There are hotels all over the place, excellent parking all over town, and everybody speaks English, German and possibly French. And Dutch of course.

Only obscure historians know where the name Vlissingen comes from, but the English name, Flushing, means something very regular, whereas Vlissingen does not. There is no Dutch verb to vliss; there is no Dutch noun vlissing. A prominent economist called Iman Wilkens proponed at some point in the eighties, that Vlissingen comes from Odysseus, also know as Ulysses, which in Latin is Vlysses. Wilkens did that in his celebrated book Where Troy Once Stood, which was celebrated mostly by Vlissingen natives who found it a case of historical justice that their town was mentioned in Homer, and had secretly always believed such a thing. Wilkens also insisted that the entire Illiad played in north west Europe, with all the best parts on the beaches of Zeeland. And although Vlissingen still glows in an air of classical sophistication, nobody’s heard much of Wilkens lately.

Having said all that: by all means, come to Vlissingen for your awesome holiday. Vlissingen has beaches that dazzle you eyes. In the summer the whole town smells like sun-block but even in the winter the beaches are fabulous to walk on. Fearless die-hards march from Vlissingen all around the island to Veere, which is an even so picturesque, albeit slight smaller town. Folks of less heroic leanings usually veer off the beaten track and into the first beach bar, of which there are many. In the summer their wooden decks are filled with folks nipping beer in the sun, in between dips in the North Sea.

Should you choose to stay on the beach closest to town - which is obviously also the busiest; and ‘close-to-town’ should be understood on a European scale because all beaches on Walcheren are close to Vlissingen – have your lunch at the fine restaurant De Bourgondier on Boulevard Bankert, or else, hop into a charming sandwich place called Het Smoske, which is right behind the Bourgondier. Het Smoske offers sandwiches of all kinds and for very reasonable prices.

Speaking of restaurants, Vlissingen has them of all sorts. There’s local cuisine galore, scores of specialized haunts such as  Japanese Restaurant, a Chinese Restaurant and even an Egyptian kebab joint. Some overlook the water, some are in town, but all are charmingly small and often down right cute. Vlissingen is very Dutch that way: no ostensible haste but always highly efficient. No move-em-through feed barns but eateries the size of a bedroom where you will always feel welcome.

 

The local movie theatre in Vlissingen always offers the latest flicks to make your vacation complete. The rooms slope so your never looking at the head of the guy in front of you. The chairs alone are worth going to Cinecity (as it is called); blue velvet sinker-inners with lots of space on all sides. The screens are as wide as the room and the sound systems are exquisite. Their bar-restaurant offers anything from snacks to full meals and boasts the Biggest Burger in the whole of Zeeland!

If you’re into shopping, you’ll love the main shopping street called the Walstraat. All shops have long Plexiglas overhangs and when it rains, you’ll be grateful that they’re there. The shopping district runs from the Walstraat to the Arsenaal Teatre – which also contains an enormous game hall – and ventures off towards the Bellemy Park, the heart of the town, and the location of all the goings on. Late summer it hosts an enormous carnival, concerts and expositions. Speaking of which, Iguana the Reptile Zoo is right there on Bellemy Park and a definite can’t miss during your vacation.

 In between shopping and movie going, you might enjoy a stroll along the boulevard, which stretches along the full length of the town, from the beach on the far west end to smack in town, where a statue of a man named Michiel the Ruyter stands catching wind. In Vlissingen everybody is very proud of Michiel the Ruyter (half the town’s enterprises are named after him, including the maritime academy, which is situated on the Boulevard) but only very few actually know what he’s famous for.

Be that as it may, your vacation in Vlissingen will be a full and rewarding experience. Let us know if you actually went there!