Chicken Song

Today I walked by a pretty famous bar on the beach called Crazy Pianos.  Apparently on summer nights, you can't get in and the cover is 20 euros.  Anyways, I was intrigued, so I wandered closer and they were playing the following song (in Dutch) live with band.  This makes me wonder about the integrity of the reviews of Crazy Pianos (all of which were extremely positive).

A - you will enjoy this (if you are reading this)

On any given Sunday....

.....you could find me at the beach.  I checked back through my old posts and realised I didn't document the first time I went to the beach.  What a shame.

 

The first time was back in September - first weekend here actually.  My parents and I had chased apartments all day long and decided to do something touristy that night on a Friday.  We took the tram down to the sea and enjoyed the boardwalk, as well as some seafood from one of the seaside restaurants.  It was warmish then (oh the memories) and we enjoyed eating outside and putting our feet in the North Sea (freezing).  On the way back, along the boardwalk, I got hit in the head by a seagull.  No joke.  My hair was crusty after that....I didn't want to find out with what.  That was the cue to leave and get a nice hot shower.

 

Today was round two.  Scheveningen (try pronouncing that....don't hurt yourself) is the place to be in the summer when it gets warmish.  During WWII, the name of the town was used to identify German spies....if you can't pronouce it, you are clearly not Dutch.

 

The beach on the North Sea here has the classic boardwalk feel with places to eat, shop and relax all along the sea.



The only appropriate caption for this restaurant is "buyer beware".  I didn't eat there, but my experiences from "mexican" food here in Holland have been sketchy at best.  My thoughts are it is neither Tex nor Mex.

 

This is the grand hotel on the board walk (opposite side from the beach)

 

Look at that zooooooom!  Caught a sail boat (brrrrr) out on the water.  The sun came out for a bit today...being Lent, I can't say the H or A words, but I was thinking them realllly loud.  Only my Lutheran friends will get that.  Speaking of Lent, I made the mistake of giving up hot chocolate for Lent.  While in Europe.  Not smart.  I will report I have fully abstained and it definitely is a sacrifice.  Mission accomplished.  It's like giving up Blue Bell ice cream and knowing Spring Break falls right in the middle of Lent.  I never made it through those years.  So far, so good this time around.

Tanker off in the distance.  The North Sea is to Contintental Europe, the UK and Norway what Alaska is to the US.  Drill baby drill.

As soon as it gets remotely warm (i.e. read the post about Spring being a TEASE), beach bars start to crop up down on the beach level.  They stretch as far as the eye can see.

This picture has the big pier out in the distance and more beach bars.  Many of them were open - I grabbed one that had a slightly indoor area for some hot tea and a quick meal.  Great view of the ocean - made for perfect reading.

Sand and sea as far as the eye can see. 

View of the promenade/boardwalk.  Beach bars everywhere!  So many of them had those big open flame gas fireplaces, dangerously close to chairs.  There were several times I thought a woman's scarf or a guy's jacket would go up in flames as they pulled them off sitting next to the fire.  Safety definitely doesn't come before warmth!

After my light lunch on the beach, I saw Silver Linings Playbook at the cinema right next to the beach.  Great movie!  Jennifer Lawrence was incredible - definitely an Oscar winning performance.  Had it not been for Lincoln's Daniel Day-Lewis, I would have put Bradley Cooper at the top of that list as well.  He was excellent...not just a pretty face!  Strongly recommend seeing it.  After the movie, I took another long walk down the boardwalk until I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

On the way back, I noticed this place - sorry the picture is blurry due to movement, but if you catch the sign, it says "Midget Golf".  My trusted Dutch esteemed colleague let me know that's it is just an unfortunate translation of Miniature Golf.  You would think someone would let the owners know.......

The one with all the bikes



I've been meaning to do this for a while - a new camera is a perfect excuse!  I took some pictures today of bikes to give a flavor of what I see every day.

 

 

 

 

This bike is the traditional dutch bike with basket.  I see these everywhere - this one is supposed to be a girls bike because of the step through, but to be honest, I see both guys and girls riding step through bikes here.  Most of them are white or black.  Guys bikes usually have a crate on the front instead of a basket.



 

 

I see these kinds of bikes everywhere - people refurbish old bikes in all new colors and add strange baskets and crates onto them.  When in the Netherlands.....

 

 

This bike has a nice child's seat on the back for a two seater.  It's also got a crate on the front, probably a guys bike who takes his kid to school in the mornings.



 

This is what I've started to call the minivan bike.  Room for 2 kids (safely) or more (at your own risk), these bikes are everywhere.  I see dads and moms pedaling their kids to school, through the park, everywhere.  I don't know how the keep them upright at lights.  It's impressive.

When your kids out grow the minivan style, you can convert it into a hauling bike.  Essentially, it's a wheelbarrow on the front of your bike.

I'm going to be more intentional about snapping shots of bikes as I see them to post.  Look for part 2 coming soon! 



Through a new lens

I meant to do this before left Houston in September and then I thought about it over Christmas while at home, but I finally pulled the trigger today.  Drum roll....

I have a new camera!

I decided on the Europe equivalent of the Panasonic Lumix ZS20 - which here is a TZ30.  I upgraded a bit to the TZ35.  The difference is incredible!  I had so much fun strolling the Hague to today taking new pictures.  What was a kind of cold, dreary and miserable day turned out pretty great.

I've fallen 2 more times on my bike in the last 24 hours.  Thankfully, both have been slow motion tip overs.  And only one led to bruising and only one of them was witnessed.  That's what happens when I go a week without riding!  I'm not doing that again.  Thankfully both times I got back up and just tried again.  To be fair, the first time was due to rain and snow.  The second was due to wearing the wrong shoes.  I can't cycle in Uggs.  Ugg.

Here are some examples of the new camera



Dutch Parliament from the Plein - no zoom - can you spot the clock?

 

Same spot - full zoom.  There's the clock!

 More of the Parliament

 

 More of the Parliament

 

 Easy to do cheesy self shots - took no effort at all.  Doesn't help the crazy hair or strange smiles I'm so good at in pictures, but at least they are easier to take!

 

Top of the statue in front of Parliament

 

 That's my work tram!

 

 Wall of what I'm guessing are different Dutch flags

 



Outside of Parliament

Queen's palace (soon to be King's!)

Statue in front of palace

 

British bookstore near the Queen's palace - great suggestion!

Funky bench!

Overall, very happy with the new camera.  So easy to use and so much better photo quality as well as such a great zoom!

Spring, the big tease.

I've been MIA for a while!  Sorry about that.....while I was gone, I finished my 8th busy season.  Say what???  I don't think they will ever be normal to me or easy, but this one was by far the best one I've ever had.  I love it over here.

2 weeks ago, while I was working like mad, I watched as Monday-Friday passed with 55+ degree temperatures and sun.  I unfortunately was unable to sneak outside during that time frame, which now I really regret.  Spring seemed to be here with full force.  I was riding my bike to work everyday, loving the 40+ degrees in the morning and evening when I got home.  Then Saturday turned to crap again.  Rain for 24 hours straight with temperatures hovering at freezing.  What a tease........I can deal with it when it's cold straight all the time, but peaking my hopes with warmer temperatures is just cruel.

However, because of the weather, these little diddies popped up outside of work and I took an opportunity to take a touristy picture as I was going in to work:

No idea what these flowers are, but purple and white....gorgeous. 

This week, I went to London for work.  It was pretty uneventful.  I flew out on Monday night after working in Amsterdam.  I stayed again at the Hilton Hyde Park.  Best rate I can find that's in a decent spot in the city.  And score - it's on the Central tube line, which happened to be the line the building I was working was at.  It was still about 8 stops from where I needed to be.  I still think that one of the greatest rushes in London is the commute.  Anything can happen....you could get run over on the way to the tube, crushed while in the tube, not be able to get out at your correct stop, etc.  I love it.  It's like playing Russian roulette before you've had breakfast.  And I've learned to not care about fashion....the fashion trainers are a necessary weapon to avoid getting crushed in the tube.  Seriously, it's an adrenaline rush.  Even better is to take your suit case in the tube in rush hour.  By the time I got to work, I felt like it was time to go home.

Anyways, when I got out of the tube at Liverpool Station, the first thing I see is:

Let's hear it Ags....that looks like a Freebirds right?!  Upon further web investigation, I found out that the College Station burrito heaven includes the "s" on Freebirds.  This one is Freebird (singular).  No idea if it's similar in quality, but for a second I thought I was close to home.

On Tuesday night, I happened to get off earlyish, which I really wasn't expecting.  I thought I'd be doing dinner with co-workers, but that didn't work out.  I made mad dash for the tube and got a half price ticket to Spamalot.  I'm a Holy Grail fan....I confess I haven't seen any other Monty Python's and it had been a while since I had seen the Holy Grail.  However, that made it better because the jokes were semi fresh for me.  Great show.  African swallow interaction is probably my favorite.  Or the coconuts.  Or the collective community discussion.  Or the "not dead yet".  GOODNESS.  I love that movie and musical.  Great theatre too.  I came back on Wednesday night late....so it's been a long week.  I haven't had dinner tonight and it's so cold outside that I really don't want to go out to get it.  Prediction:  I fall asleep on the couch and wake up at 2AM not knowing where I'm at.  And hungry.

Off to plan the weekend.  Go England!