Muiderslot Castle and Volendam village

On Monday Claire and I ventured out to Muiderslot castle. Its a pretty small castle but a great example of something really really old.

Look, it even has a moat!

Here's me outside the front.

It was pretty cool to stand inside something which has been standing since 1200 and something. (Although its recently refurbished and has been added onto about a million times since it was first built).

The only bad thing was the large school group of very annoying dutch children.

The funniest part - we took the guided audio tour (in English of course). The English of this was pretty bad - sometimes there were lots of words but they didn't make much sense! Clearly the person who wrote the script seemed obsessed with the ceilings (which in all honestly looked the same as each other). It was classic!

After the castle we headed out to Volendam - this adorable little dutch village on the coast of the Zuidersee. There are heaps of little souvenir shops and so we shopped up a storm - gifts as well as stuff for us. It was great! I love souvenir shops and so I was like a kid at christmas, darting in and out of the stores while Claire begged me to stop for lunch!

Sunday with Shando

On Sunday Shando and I headed up to Enkhuizen to the Zuidersee Museum. It's a collection of really old buildings which has activities and little stores within it. Its like an old-time village.

You have to take a boat from the railway station to the ticket office, and then across to the museum.

Here's me on the boat to the ticket office -

These cute little houses are hundreds of years old. It was amazing to see the tiny little houses where people spent so much time - there's not much room in there!

And what Dutch village would be complete without a windmill!

The cute little streets with the canals and bridges - so adorable!

We stopped off at the candy store for some boiled sweets -

And stopped and tasted some of the cheese from this amazing store!

Half way around the village we came across this guy playing the accordian - oooh, what a stud!

(I was scared of him, but Shando took a picture)

Here's another picture that Shando took - the accounting records from a hundred years ago! HAHA - she's an accounting nerd :)








What still surprises me about Europe is how old everything is! Like this building - over 300 years old and still being used!



After the Zuidersee Museum, we headed over the Dijk. This is what the Dutch use to keep the sea off their land (two thirds is under sea level). It was quite windy...

And the sky was kind of scary!

Weekend with Ange - Saturday

On Saturday Shando and I packed up the tiny car and drove down to Zeeland - yes the right one this time. It was (officially, actually) the place that our country was named after. Hooray!

On the way there, the weather was so lovely and we came across this cool area so we stopped and went for a bit of a walk around. It would have been awesome in summer.

We walked along this little path out to the pole in the middle. It was really windy!

Then we went to this really lame water park (sorry Shando!) in Neeltje Jans where we learned about the deltawerken and the way the Dutch keep the sea off their country.

We walked along the sea wall (and saw the gates).

Afterwards, we went back to Kinderdijk (where i took Dad) to see it at sunset. I felt a bit sorry for this poor guy who was near us... we were waiting for the sun to set and he was too. He looked semi-professional - he had a tripod and everything. We were being loud and obnoxious and quite clearly standing in the right spot, because he edged closer and closer to us. When it got to the point where Ange was trying to take photos using my head as the tripod, I think he must have been struggling not to laugh out loud.

Monday Road Trip with Dad

On Monday we got up early (although not as early as we'd intended) and headed for the Delft province. This is where they hand-paint the Delft porcelain tiles, vases, etc.

We went to the sole remaining factory and painted a tile each.

Then we went on a wander through the museum part. There were heaps of really old Delftware that were pretty impressive. There are also some special Christmas things they do every year. The Christmas plates have been produced since a long time ago (can't remember exactly but it was ages...) and since then they have added some christmas bell ornaments and other things too.

Here's me with the Christmas plate display - different every year.

After a spot of shopping at the giftshop, we headed to their cafeteria for some pie and coffee. Dad had some Dutch apple pie (and so did I). It was so yummy!!

Scott's trip, Cirque du Soleil and Boom Chicago

Scott arrived late on Tuesday night (after the big Easter weekend). He had with him a crunchie bar! And some Reece's peanut butter cups.... mmmmmmm.....


We set him up a foldout bed in our lounge that we borrowed from one of the managers at work.


During the day he explored the city (he was here on secondment two years ago but they travelled so much he hadn't done the touristy stuff in Amsterdam!).


On Wednesday night all the NZ secondees, plus Scott plus Aussie Jen went to Cirque du Soleil - Varekai. It was AMAZING! The music was fantastic too, and I bought the soundtrack! I was terrified the whole performance that one (or more) of the performers was going to smack into one of the lighting towers while swinging around in mid-air, or that they'd fall off the strings or nets that they were holding onto. Kind of stressful to be doing all that worrying! But they were all very talented and amazing, no one fell or anything. The show was beautiful and the strength of these performers is just amazing. It has convinced me that I'll definitely be going to another Cirque du Soleil show, probably in Las Vegas.


On the Thursday night Kinga, Scott and I went to Boom Chicago - a comedy club run by Americans in the centre of Amsterdam. It was so funny! Some of the stuff they said was so true, they mentioned a number of things that had happened to me since I've been in the Netherlands. The same club has a late night show, which we're planning on going to for my birthday in a few weeks time.


Friday morning Scott jetted off to New York City - just a fleeting visit from him. He's off to the Cayman Islands to work for a bank. Bye!!

Easter in Spain - Part Three (Easter Sunday and Monday)

EASTER SUNDAY





Sunday was Day Two of our hop-on/hop-off tour. It was a gorgeous day so good for some blue sky shots. We saw the palace (including these columns at the bottom of the street that leads to the palace:

The road on the way to the palace -

And here's the palace itself -




It was pretty nice (from outside). We sat in the sun and I visited the most disgusting public toilets I've ever seen in my life - quite an experience!

Then we went up this gondola on the hill to a castle - the views over the city were gorgeous.



In the afternoon, the others went to a soccer game and I wandered around the markets buying gifts and looking at the artwork. I loved being immersed in the Spanish (and Catalan) and would love to go back!

EASTER MONDAY

Monday was for more shopping - lots of things were closed but I found this excellent little art/souvenir store. I wanted to buy so many things but there was the small issue of the fact that my suitcase was already packed full to the brim!

Easter in Spain - Part Two (Good Friday and Saturday)

GOOD FRIDAY

To our surprise most of the shops and things were open on Good Friday. Amanda and I looked around at the mall, had a wander up La Rambla, and generally hung about.

The first thing you notice on La Rambla is the crazy busker statues that are up and down the street. The costumes are elaborate and look like they'd be impractical in extreme temperatures.

Here are a couple we saw:

One of the first things you notice about Barcelona is that most of the 'landmarks' were created as part of the city's revamp for the 1992 Olympics, including this

And this...

The Spanish sure do love their monuments. The entire city is littered with them (most of which I have no idea what they're for).

Near the waterfront, at the bottom of La Rambla there is a statue of Christopher Columbus. He seems to be pointing out towards the water - it was put up to remember him setting off towards 'The New World'. Unfortunately he's actually pointing in the wrong direction, but never mind.

The waterfront is very pretty:

Amanda and I sampled some real Spanish Paella for dinner and then headed back to the hostel to find the boys had had a few too many beers and causing havoc in the hostel bar. We gently encouraged them to head off to the clubs, and hit the sack for an early night - it was going to be a big day on Saturday!

EASTER SATURDAY

Rebecca, Amanda and I got on a hop-on/hop-off tour around Barcelona, and saw some amazing stuff. The architecture of Spanish favourite 'Gaudi' is all over the city, including in 'Parc Guell' which was where he lived. Here are a few of the crazy things he designed -

Casa Batllo

Casa Mila (La Pedrera)

La Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia is this huge cathedral, started in 1882. It was left unfinished at Gaudi's death and construction halted during the Spanish Civil War in 1932. In 1940 construction started again (so the photos are all littered with cranes) and they expect to be done by 2026 (yes that's another 18 years!). All the construction is funded by donations and by the entrance tickets of tourists - no government or official church people are paying for it. Randomly, the Executive Architect is actually a Kiwi, called Mark Burry.

The design is incredibly detailed and very grand - there are three facades and will eventually be 18 towers. To look at it, you could stand there for hours. For starters, its huge. And you can walk right around it and see close-up literally hundreds of little features that Gaudi has designed for it. There is so much to look at and its not even done yet! It was very amazing, but the line to get in was so long that if we had gone inside we wouldn't have seen anything else of Barcelona!

We saw a few other bits and pieces too, like

The Arc de Triomf

The Building that doesn't reach the ground

and Spanish Starbucks!!

That night, we went to a Flamenco show and had Paella for dinner again (but at a different place).

Sculpture Garden of Kroller-Muller

Ok so my last post was a total novel so here's a separate one for the sculptures!!



They're all pretty strange actually, but really cool too! There were these balls:





These huge metal sticks (which are more impressive after you realise they're about 40 metres tall or something):

There was also this sculpture which Kinga was obsessed with - from outside it looked like this:

But there is a staircase underneath it, and you go up and come out on top (in the middle) of it. It is kind of like an igloo, there is no flat surfaces anywhere and the lines that are painted black aren't straight either. Some kids were running around on there as we were leaving, and someone said 'that's going to end in tears'. And wouldn't ya know it? Before we were out of earshot we could hear crying from one of the kids falling over.

Here's Cherilyn and I inside the museum after eating some hearty Dutch pea soup.

Kroller-Muller Museum and biking in the rain

Yesterday Cherilyn, Kinga, Karen and I made a trek out to the Kroller-Muller Museum. It is in a National Park in between a few towns in the Netherlands, like Arnhem and Otterlo. We went to the Otterlo entrance, cos its closer to our house!

Here's the front museum entrance sign - note the puddles and general drizzly day!

In the front yard there are some random pieces of 'art', like this one -

The museum was started by the wife of a rich guy about a hundred years ago when she started collecting 'contemporary' art (she was probably bored!). She liked Vincent Van Gogh a lot, and decided to make a large collection of his work because she thought that it would give his work more weight if someone had a collection of it. The Van Gogh collection is the second largest in the world (second only to the Van Gogh Museum).

Around the 1950s the museum was donated to the state, the grounds and art included. Since then, they've added to the collection every year with new 'contemporary' art.

This is 'Man with Guitar' - see if you can find him. It took us a few minutes of squinty eyes before we worked it out - its weird!

The coolest thing is that you're allowed to take pictures of whatever, you just can't use your flash. Excuse the random photos, they probably need some cropping, but you get the idea.

I saw some pretty amazing paintings, like the original of this one:

And this pretty windmill painting too:

Then there were some weird 'art' things, which I kind of question whether they're art (quietly).

Like this - it looks suspiciously like something my brother drew when he was 8 and entitled it 'The Boncing Elephant' (spelling mistake and all).

Then there was this weird wooden thing:

And this giant alligator-type thing - big huge stuffed animal. The signs said don't touch so we didn't, but Cherilyn did hide behind it. And consider trying to smuggle it on board her flight home as carry on luggage.

Outside the museum, there is a scupture garden and outside of that there is the National Park, with biking paths and other things to see. We biked the 10k path in the rain before meandering through the sculpture garden. Of course it was raining the whole time, but we didn't let that get in our way.