The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

Cesar R M

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
Songbird76 said:
After finally getting food, we went to bed, and it was such a nice bed. I woke up several times in the middle of the night, not sure why, because I was sooooo comfortable. But I gave up going back to sleep at 6:30 and got up to shower. Nice shower!!! And they gave us conditioner as well as shampoo, which is awesome because most hotels don't.
We had breakfast included at the hotel. It was a pretty nice buffet. They had scrambled and fried eggs, bacon, sausage links, yogurt, fruit, granola, croissants, bread, rolls, ham, cheese, salami, etc, nutella, jam, butter, and they had french toast made from sugar bread, which is kind of like brioche, but has clumps of caramelized sugar in it....they don't use maple syrup here in the netherlands, so it was a bit dry, but it tasted good. I made sure to fill up at breakfast, not knowing what kind of food we'd get for lunch or when. Our tour guide was picking us up at 10, and we needed to leave right then, because we had a very tight schedule.
It was a walking tour through the city. We started with the hotel, which is how we heard the story of the dynamite. Then we went to various places and he told about the history. There was a sort of courtyard outside of the "jewish school". Apparently, prior to WWII, that was the Jewish district....a lot of jewish people lived in that area, and that's where all their stores were and things, and their school. Jewish children went to public school, but did lessons in Hebrew and the Torah at the Jewish school on Wednesday afternoons when they other children were free. Once the Germans took over, they banned Jewish children from public schools....so the only education they got was in the Jewish school, but children started disappearing as they were sent to camps or went into hiding. There's a placque on the wall that says in Hebrew and in Dutch "There are no children here anymore". Next to that square is a catholic church, which I didn't bother to take a picture of, because there was scaffolding around it, and we didn't get to go inside. The Dutch Royal family was originally from Leeuwarden, and they had their own entrance to the church, and their seats were raised up above even the priest's lecturn, because they were supposed to be the most important people. :rolleyes:

There was a subsidized housing area in that section of town, that was set aside for single elderly women and the rich people of the town paid for them. In order to live there, you had to be a single woman of at least 45 years old. 45 was elderly.

He also showed us the highest point of the city....which was basically just a few inches higher than every other point in the city. I don't remember why he said it was build on this "hill", but I do remember him telling us that the reason the corners at intersections were rounded was because carriages needed the extra space to get around the corner.

We saw a statue of the man considered to be the father of Leeuwarden, and he was always depicted as a soldier, even though he was actually crippled, because he was a brilliant military strategist, even though he had never been a soldier before. Out of respect for him, he was depicted in a dignified and honored manner, instead of with a cane and crippled. We couldn't get to the statue because there was a huge Judo demonstration going on in that square, so he told us the story, but the statue was across the square from where we were standing.

We visited the St. Anthony guesthouse which was for the elderly, and had a gorgeous garden, that we couldn't go into. It looked like a really nice place to live. Apparently, as legend has it, St. Anthony was a pig farmer, and his symbol is a little bell, because back in those days, people were superstitious and believed pigs ate children. So a pig farmer would need to ring a bell before entering a city so all the children were warned to go inside so they wouldn't be eaten by pigs. So all the buildings in that area had a bell on the gable. It was also surrounded by scaffolding.

We went to the Princessenhof, which was apparently where MC Escher was born. Well, I am not sure if he was born in that building, or just in Leeuwarden, and they have a tribute to him in that building. But he was mentioned. Inside the building, which I believe is now a museum, though we didn't get to go inside, there are 2 japanese vases that depict a woman from Leeuwarden. Back in the 1800s, the Dutch had a trade agreement with Japan. The Japanese were afraid of colonization and Catholic conversion, so they would not allow westerners into Japan. They had stopped trading with the Portugese and now only had trade agreements with the Netherlands. There was an island off the mainland in Japan and Dutch traders were allowed to be on the island, but could not enter mainland Japan. Japanese traders would come to the island. The head of the Dutch trading company missed his wife and children while he was on trading expedition. No women or children were allowed on the island with the merchants, because the Japanese wanted the Dutchmen to want to go home eventually. But the head guy brought his wife and child anyway, and the Japanese refused her. A standard trade trip would last 3 months on the island, and he kept applying to officials, trying to get permission for his family to stay in those 3 months that they were there. Of course, the Japanese had never seen a western woman before and had heard from the Japanese merchants about the strange-looking western woman with long curly red hair and big blue eyes. In that 3 month span, she had been painted 500 times by japanese artists. People were so curious about her, and copies of the paintings were made, and copies of those copies were made....her image was on 4,000,000 items, including the 2 vases that are now housed in the Princessenhof. Eventually, Titsia Bergsma was sent home when that trading expedition ended , and ended up in Den Haag, and her husband never saw her again, and she had no idea that her image had been famous in Japan and was on 4,000,000 different items sent all over the world.

We also saw a tower, and I wish I had thought to take a picture of it....it was right near the end of the tour. The tower was built by a famous builder, commissioned by the Catholic church. The original plans included a tower, 120 meters high, that would be the highest tower in the Netherlands. As the tower was being built, it was discovered after only 10 meters that it was crooked. They let it settle and then tried to build it straight up, but it didn't work. After 40 meters, they realized there was no sense in completing it, as it would most likely fall over. So there's this very crooked tower there. At the time, the Catholic church was the main religion and Protestants were trying to gain status, etc....it was fortuitous for them because they said that for the tower to already be so crooked, it must be a sign from God that the Catholic church was done, and the city of Leeuwarden has been more Protestant from that point on.

Not my picture:
View attachment 318900

And then the last stop was this part that used to be the harbor there, back when there was a channel of water there. It was the seedy part of Leeuwarden. Not long ago, it was decided to clean it up, and they demolished a lot of the old grafiti covered buildings. When they rebuilt, the artist said he wanted to pay homage to that old broken down part of the city, and they used the graffiti covered bricks to build the new building. So, they had a bunch of people who helped to rebuild and when the artist came to look at the work, he found they had used professionals and the whole thing was all pretty and straight and nice, which was not the image he wanted, so they knocked it down and rebuilt. He wanted to show that it's new, built on a foundation of the old. So I had a hard time finding pictures, but this, without the guitar: (not my pictures)
View attachment 318903

And if you look in the center of this one, you can see the 2 colors of the wall on that building. Red brick on the top, grey on the bottom. The lower part is the graffiti bricks, and that looks like the above picture, but without the guitar:
View attachment 318904

So basically, they used the old bricks to build up and then switched to new bricks on top...new, built on top of the old.

After that, we went to the Achmea tower. These are DH's pictures, because I'm terrified of heights and refused to go near the windows. Had I realized what we were doing, I would have stayed below.
View attachment 318905View attachment 318906View attachment 318907

After that, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags, and got back on the bus. We felt bad because there were apparently some people who had paid for a tour, only when we left achmea, they saw us and thought we were the tour group, and they followed us. They thought something was up when they noticed there was no guide saying anything. We got all the way back to the hotel and tried to follow us in when they saw us talking with the bus driver and they realized they had followed the wrong group. I don't know why they thought we were their group....but then they had to walk all the way back and try to get placed with a different tour.
We got on the bus and went to Willemsoord for lunch. It was after 2pm before we got there...I was hungry. And then our meal was announced....the organization had seen this place in a popular newspaper here as having won an award for the best meatball in the Netherlands. The dutch meatball is basically like a hamburger, but without a bun and it's got certain seasonings in it. I can't stand the things. Whatever seasoning they use is just nasty to me. And it's surved with mayonnaise, which I also won't touch. So....lunch was a meatball, served on a bed of bell peppers and onions. :banghead::banghead::banghead: DH looks at me, and mouths "I'm so sorry!!!!" because it was yet another meal I wouldn't eat. Fortunately, I still had the rest of the doritos from the night before, so once we were back on the bus, I broke out the chips and that was my "lunch" on the way home at 3:30 in the afternoon.
We got back to the office and said goodbye to everyone and went home.
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Yikes, seems you had an horrible time food wise.
In my case.. I would be extremely angry if I was in a city that only served vegan and there were no variations or choices..!! D:
 
Figgy1

Figgy1

Premium Member
I'm full of DD coffee and slightly calmer now that the prep work is well under way. The butt has been rubbed, the beans are assembled except for the bacon and onions, all the baking items are together for the corn bread, the eggs are boiled for the potato salad and the water is coming to a boil for the mac for the mac and cheese.
 
Gabe1

Gabe1

Ivory Tower Squabble EST 2011. WINDMILL SURVIVOR
figmentfan423 said:
The salon was swamped today with girls going to a homecoming dance so there's no way I want to feel rushed so moving my appointment to tomorrow means I get a free deep conditioner:joyfull:
The guys know what fabric I got because I had 2 pack animals with me:D but they don't know what I'm making:D:angelic:
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lol. I just assumed when you said it was 'somebody's Homecoming you were speaking of your youngest manchild...couldn't wrap my brain around him asking you to get a haircut.
 
Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
MySmallWorldof4 said:
Those were meager choices to choose from. They also don't seem to serve a lot of vegetables with the main dish.
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No, but that's very common here. When I can get veggies in a restaurant, I'm pretty happy. There is a Greek restaurant in Arnhem that I love, just for the fact that you get veggies with your main! And you can order more if you want. I love my vegetables, and it's so rare to get an actual portion of them over here.
 
Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
MySmallWorldof4 said:
Beets have an earthy flavor. The pickled ones are really good though. I found that out by accident. It was in a salad and I just decided to try it and I liked it.
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Nope....I don't like anything pickled. At least not that I have tried. My mom used to make zucchini pickles that were very popular, and I think I'm the only person I ever knew who DIDN'T like them. Everyone else always raved about them. But pickled beets, dill pickles, sweet pickles, saurkraut, pretty much anything pickled is a no no for me. I've never had beets prepared in a way that I could stomach them. They are very "in" right now. I don't know about other places, but here in Europe, at this particular moment, they are EVERYWHERE. Most vegetarian dishes are going to be centered around beets. Last weekend, one of the appetizers at the restaurant that I wouldn't eat was beet hummus. One of the sandwiches at lunch this past Friday was beet and goat cheese. (Goat cheese is also incredibly "in" at the moment) Everything seems to have beets or cucumbers.
 

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