After our trip to Italy, Nancy and I met up with family in Hamburg, enjoying some nice weather:
And then descending the Himmelsleiter, or stairway to heaven, down to the Elbe:
We celebrated my grandmother’s 85th:
And visited my uncle in Lüneburg:
My parents and I are now enjoying some downtime in Maastricht.
-Hendrik
Today we said sorrowful goodbyes to Vernazza over a breakfast of giant cappuccinos, delicious Italian pastries, and frozen Sicilian slushes before hopping on a train to Pisa.
Once in Pisa, we grabbed some pasta, checked in to our haunted hotel (seriously, the reviews say it is haunted!), and acquired antibiotics for Amy’s snorkeling-induced sinus infection. Then we dashed off for an afternoon of speed-sightseeing.
The current manifestation of Hendrik’s penchant for pushing toddlers:
Hendrik at Cavalieri Piazza posing in front of the Palazzo Della Carovana:
It is the start of our proper European summer holiday, which will be three whole weeks! We are currently in Vernazza, Italy, where we are enjoying the sunshine and hot weather.
The fabulous and picturesque town of Vernazza, Italy on the Mediterranean coast:
Today we hiked 3.6 km (200 m elevation gain) to Monterosso, a nearby coastal town where we had lunch and enjoyed the beach and gelato before braving the afternoon heat to walk back. Then we went snorkeling (again).
Hendrik enjoying pizza at lunch:
We arrived here yesterday and spent the afternoon snorkeling and sunning ourselves (ok, ok I was in the shade) on the beach. Amy saw an octopus; Nancy saw a crab…
Nancy and Amy walking back to the hotel after some snorkeling:
-Nancy
We have been learning Dutch for a while now and it is a truly peculiar experience. As you may imagine from the fact the the Netherlands is more or less between England and Germany, Dutch is more or less a blend of English and German with a bit of French. Then they sprinkle in a few words from out of nowhere just for fun.
Oddly, from looking at Dutch words we would never have guessed that they are related to ones we already know. However, once we learned the pronunciation rules, sounding them out allowed us to make the connections. For example the word for “out” is “uit,” but they are pronounced almost the same way. The Dutch like to have a lot of unnecessary vowels (at least two letters for most vowel sounds). For example the word for “new” is “nieuw” (pronounced almost the same) and the word for “never,” which is “nie” in German is “nooit” in Dutch. As you may have noticed there are also a lot of what appear to be random “j’s.” It is actually always “ij,” which appears frequently and makes an “aye” sound.
If you want to know more about the crazy, Dutch vowels, here is a website with a soundboard so you can click and hear the sounds. http://stichtingtaalhulp.nl/klankbord/
The similarities have made life fairly easy for Hendrik who has native fluency in both English and German. He can easily understand most basic interactions, although he does have some trouble remembering exactly how to transform the German words into Dutch words.
For me it is a little trickier. My German is not very good so I get confused a lot about vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. At this point (whether attempting Dutch or German), I speak something that resembles an unholy blend of Dutch and German with an American accent. This confuses people and we have been mistaken as Welsh and Finnish so far. My German “sch” and “g” sounds now sound like the Dutch equivalent which is choking on acorns and my Dutch “st” and “sp” sounds still have the characteristic German “sht” and “shp” added in. My Dutch teacher disdainfully tells me I sound like I am speaking a border dialect. I personally think I should just go ahead and learn the dialect.
We have started to supplement our Dutch lessons with Dutch television. There is a show called Flikken Maastricht, which is basically a cop show set in our town here. It is really fun to see all of the chase scenes that are filmed in the city with places we recognize. Even though we don’t understand most of the dialogue, we can follow most of the plot so I think it is good show for us to start with.
We still have a lot to learn, but after all of this I think we will be experts in modern Germanic languages!
– Nancy
We have completed another important step toward integrating into Dutch culture – we exchanged our California driver’s licenses for Dutch ones. Now I should probably learn the Dutch traffic rules. Because of our tax status as knowledge immigrant workers (kennismigrant), we are able to exchange our licenses without taking a written or practical exam. As a result, we are technically allowed to drive without really knowing all of the rules! Once we get that figured out, we are going to try to sign up for a car sharing program so we can easily rent cars for a few hours at a time. I’m a little worried that will require proficiency with manual transmission though, because Europeans almost never drive automatics.
During our visit to Switzerland, we had about an hour layover in Basel before our train home, so of course we went sightseeing. We managed to see a couple of churches and the Rhine before we had to head back to the train station. The view of the Rhine was fantastic and we could see all the countries from there (Switzerland, Germany, and France)! The best part was the people floating down the river. It was again at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the clever Swiss decided to take advantage of their unnaturally blue, crystal clear, perfectly calm river to cool off. As result, the river was packed with people peacefully floating along. We were rather envious after three days of hiking steep mountains in the hot weather.
Here we are in Basel:
Day 0
Immediately after work on Friday, we went to Utrecht and hopped on a night train to Basel. We were lucky and due to mechanical problems, we got upgraded from a car with reclining chairs to a compartment with small bunkbeds.
Day 1
We woke up just before crossing the border from Germany into Switzerland and arrived at Basel SBB shortly after! We were interested to learn that Basel has three main train stations – one each in Germany, France, and Switzerland as well as having its main airport in France. From Basel, we took another train to Interlaken and then a sightseeing train to Grindelwald (1034 m). We had a nice Swiss lunch (fondue and pastetli) and started hiking along the Via Alpina up the pass Kleine Scheidegg (2061 m). Europe was having a heat wave so it was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit when we started and even at the tops of the passes it was still quite hot.
Nancy and Hendrik starting the hike near Grindelwald and a view of alpine glaciers from the top of Kleine Scheidegg:
From there we started hiking downhill to Lauterbrunnen (818 m), but realized we wouldn’t make it in time for the last gondola up to Muerren (1650 m) so we took the tram the rest of the way. We spent the night in a hotel with a view of the Eiger, Jungfrau, and surrounding peaks.
View from Hotel Regina in Muerren:
Day 2
The second day was the real deal. We hiked a full 16 km from Muerren to Griesalp (1400 m). To get there we had to go over Sefinenfurgge (2610 m). The views were gorgeous but the hike was grueling. We made good time though, avoiding a thunderstorm on the pass and arriving at our next hotel in plenty of time for dinner.
Nancy and Amy at the top of the pass, and the view down either side:
Day 3
We abandoned our plans for the next stage of the Via Alpina which would have involved another 16 km hike over an even higher pass and instead explored Reichenbach and Spiez near the Thunersee.
Picnicking by the Thunersee:
We had some relaxing hikes by the lake and enjoyed more Swiss food and beer. Our favorite thing that we tried in Switzerland was Roesti, which is kind of like extra-delicious Swiss hashbrowns served with various meats and sauces. That evening we all took the train back to Basel. Amy took a night train to Prague and we returned to the Netherlands.
The Via Alpina is absolutely gorgeous and we would love to hike more of it in the future. The mountain scenery, forests, meadows, and waterfalls were right out of a story book. Even the smells and sounds were idyllic. One of the surprising things was that all Swiss cows really do have cow bells, and when there is a whole herd of them, they make a cacophony that sounds like a group of preschoolers playing the xylophone.
We just got back home after a few days hiking the Alps with Amy. My first night train. Nancy has most of the photos, but here’s the two of them at Grindelwald, where we started on Saturday.
-Hendrik
As Nancy mentioned, we toured a BMW motorcycle factory in Berlin. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the cool stuff inside, but we did sit down on a model:
We also did some of the standard things:
There was enormous chaos at the gate because the queen of England was staying in the adjacent hotel. We of course saw the wall too:
-Hendrik
We visited Amsterdam for the third time – this time with Marc and Ariana. The weather was warm and sunny, making for an atypical Amsterdam experience. Here we are enjoying the canals in the Jordaan district:
We also took an afternoon trip to a quaint, little, historical replica village near Zaandam, where we got to learn about cheese, chocolate, and klompen (clogs). Here we are with some picturesque windmills:
EisenOrem Adventures 