Lauren and Brandon’s Trip
Lauren and Brandon’s trip came about a week after we returned from the US. Basically, we had just enough time to get home, unpack, clean out all the spiders that decided to occupy our home while we were away, and then head off to Schiphol Airport to pick them up.
Our guests had indicated that they wanted an easy vacation - a bit of sight seeing here, a bit of hanging out there - so that’s what we did. They had about 13 days here, and they split the stay by spending 9 days with us and 3 full days in Amsterdam before catching an early morning flight home.
Their red-eye flight into Amsterdam was, well, a red-eye flight across 5 time zones. They didn’t get much sleep so their bodies were way off kilter when they arrived. They got a good look at how flat the Netherlands is on the drive back to Didam, and there was a lot of the usual, “wow, this is different than home” comments.
The next couple of days were spent relaxing and letting their bodies catch up with the time zones. That doesn’t mean we just sat around. On Friday, we walked into Didam to show them around our village (and to find out that our usual Friday Market bread guy was taking the weekend off in celebration of Kings Day), and on Saturday, we drove into Zevenaar to show them the closest town we live to (and to have some ice cream).
The day before picking them up, I ran into our landlord Wim at the Shell station. I asked him where I should take Lauren and Brandon to see tulips and he recommended a self driving tour in Flevoland by the IJsselmeer. So that’s what we did on Sunday.
Yeah, they grow a lot of tulips here. The first year we moved to Didam, we were told the neighbor had planted a million tulips. They had just started blooming when we had to leave to go on our trip to the US, so we missed the big show, but even then, the number of tulips in the field was impressive. These fields were significantly larger than our neighbors. There has to be a couple of million tulips in the image above.
It was an interesting way to see them. We had an audio and map guide to take us from one field to another. Since it was Sunday, a lot of the extra amenities at stops were closed unfortunately (coffee would have been nice), but there were plenty of places to pull over and take a look around.
And yes, there was a surprising range of colors we saw during the drive. I guess Brandon, Lauren and Ann weren’t too disappointed.
We wound up stopping off for a delicious lunch and a good wander in Elberg, the small fort-town that we took John and Judy to when they visited, and then headed home.
The next day was a relaxing day (I was able to take a break from work, so this became the vacation I didn’t really get when in the US) and we all took a long walk on Ann and my usual morning walk route.
For the next day I’d done a bit of research and decided they might enjoy the Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem - Dutch for the Open Air Museum. It’s a 44 hectare park where they’ve relocated buildings from various historic periods of Dutch history and where they try to preserve the trades, crafts and cultural heritage from their past.
It’s a beautiful area to walk around, take your time and enjoy the sights. They still have craftsmen (or in this case, craftswoman) plying their trades with traditional tools in traditional buildings.
We saw all sorts of windmills (granaries, irrigation, industrial and . . . one that was a brewery). All in a beautiful park setting with gardens, historic tram lines and plenty of animals to gawk at. I was a worried that it might be a bit tacky, but it wasn’t. Plus, we had a very lovely day for wandering.
After another day of hanging out and enjoying their company, we headed out to the coast. As you know, we made a trip to the Kazemattan, the Dutch fort where 2,500 Dutch troops held back 17,000 Nazis until the country surrendered in WWII. I didn’t take any real photos of the fort itself, but we did enjoy views of the massive sluice gates that control the water levels inside the IJsselmeer and allows massive parts of the Netherlands to remain dry.
And given the ever present North Sea winds, one of the off-shore windmill farms scattered throughout the IJsselmeer.
And that was it for the Didam part of Lauren and Brandon’s stay. The next day they packed things up, we went out for a nice dinner and on Friday we took them into Amsterdam. Lauren had booked a down-town hotel, right in the center of town where everything worth seeing was in walking distance.
That choice of locations had its up side and down sides. For them, the downside was that it apparently was a very raucous part of town and they didn’t get much sleep. For me, well, I got a ticket (following my damn GPS instructions). I think I know where I got it, but I can’t say for sure - it’s almost as bad to drive in as a city in Portugal. I don’t feel that bad though, one of the folks at the Shell station who saw the envelope it came in (yeah, they still get our mail sometimes) said, “Uh oh, a ticket” (the envelopes have a distinct color). I said, “Oh, it must have been when I was in Amsterdam.” They replied, “Yeah, that’s why nobody from here drives in that city. You can’t drive anywhere downtown and not get a ticket.” Lesson learned.
We had a great time with Lauren and Brandon and I think they enjoyed their stay with us and the Netherlands in general. If you’re thinking of visiting, well, we’ve got an open room (though a bit of a packed calendar from late July to October). Come check it out, you too might just like village life.