Auf Schönburg

Around here, Easter Monday is a work holiday so we took advantage of the long weekend to achieve one of my long-term life goals: to stay at a castle on the Rhine in Germany. I formulated this goal back in 2007 at the age of 19 when I lived in Germany for 3 months for a summer internship. After taking a boat ride up the Rhine, which is literally littered with old castles, I learned that many of them have been turned into hotels and hostels. I thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever so I decided that I would go back and stay in one of the hostels some day. Nine years later and no longer a student, I decided to splurge a little (actually a lot) and stay in a fancy hotel in a castle: Burghotel auf Schönburg (literally castle hotel at the pretty castle). Hendrik got dragged along for the adventure.

Hendrik beating me at life-sized speed-chess in the castle garden (top left), Nancy in the castle looking down on the town of Oberwesel in the Lorelei valley and the Rhine (top right), Hendrik in front of Oberwesel and with Schönburg on the hill in the background (bottom).

The castle, town, and Rhine valley were every bit as charming as I had hoped. The weather even mostly cooperated, alternating between sunny so we could hike and explore the castle gardens and windy and rainy so we could feel extra-cozy inside the thick, stone castle walls. In the extensive gardens, we managed to find a giant chess set (Hendrik won), a Bocce ball court (Hendrik won a best of 5), darts (Hendrik won), and billiards (Hendrik won a best of 3). We also got to experience exquisite local Rieslings at every meal, including Riesling champagne at breakfast! Also Spargel (asparagus) season just started so all of the meals were heavily based on Spargel, about which the Germans (and also Dutch) are absolutely crazy!

Alas our fairy-tale weekend has come to an end. Back to work until the next big adventure!

 

Good Friday, a.k.a. J.S. Bach Day

These days the Dutch are not so religious, but today is the day they all head to church to hear Bach’s Matthäus Passion (Matthew Passion). Apparently it is a kind of annual tradition to go hear it and even the orchestra performs it this time of year.
Listen here.

In case you want statistics:
The Dutch are about 24% Catholic, 16% Protestant, and 51% unaffiliated as compared to the US which is
21% Catholic, 48% Protestant, and 23% unaffiliated.

At lunch today, the topic of religion came up and someone said, “the Savior died yesterday,” and everyone laughed and then broke into rapid Dutch chatter. At first I was pretty confused, because I naively thought they were taking about Jesus. It turns out that Johan Cruyff, the most legendary Dutch football (soccer) player ever, picked a fortuitous day to pass away. I guess that’s the Dutch sense of humor for you.

In Holland March is a spring month

The days have grown very long and I get to enjoy plenty of scattered sunlight:

Holland, where I work, is well north of Limburg (where Nancy is talking about the rain). This flat land is probably mostly drained river beds, or however the Dutch made Holland. They have a saying: god created the earth, but the Dutch created Holland.

Wednesday was my penultimate day of teaching, as Good Friday canceled my second lecture this week. In 7 days I start my new position at the bank, for which I’m thoroughly excited.

-Hendrik

Just because it’s Spring…

… doesn’t mean the weather can’t remind us it is still winter. After a lovely, sunny (although not very warm) week full of cycling and joy, we are being punished with a cloudy, cold (possibly rainy) week. Time to start gulping down the vitamin D and using these ominous clouds as an excuse to have a lazy week.

Hendrik is coping with the weather by sipping jenever, a Dutch herbal liquor similar to gin.

Hendrik and his bottle of jenever from Lanaken, Belgium.

Spring Planting and Polo

I celebrated the first day of Spring by planting seeds for my balcony container garden. If all goes well, we should have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, chili peppers, and of course marigolds.

It is also the last day of TEFAF, a week-long art sale in Maastricht for very rich people (we’re talking original Picasso’s and that kind of thing). We don’t pay much attention to most of the events because it is so far out of our price range and social class, but this year we couldn’t help going to watch the polo game. They ship in truckloads of sand so they can turn the city square into a half-court polo field and they even set up bleachers so the city-folk can watch too (the rich people sit in those tents and sip champagne I think). I googled the rules of polo so I could understand what was happening, but it makes even less sense than football.

Hamburg

Last week I spent a few days in Hamburg visiting my grandmother. As always this included a visit to the Fischereihafen:

We had bizarrely good weather for Hamburg in March; the locals seemed confused.

I also got to spend an evening hanging out with my cousin Martin.

Traveling by train is just so lovely. Here’s the city on my way out.

-Hendrik

100 Miles!

I totaled up the  distance I cycled this week and was surprised to determine I had gone about 164 km, and even more surprised when I converted that to miles and found that I made 100 miles this week.

How did this happen? Well Hendrik was visiting his grandmother in Hamburg (blog post coming soon) so what else was I supposed to do with my time? I put it to good use cycling all the way home from work and being so exhausted that I slept 10 hours every night!

Hoge Kempen National Park, Belgium

This Sunday we took Vroomeer and Van Go out for a spin through Belgium (see our meandering route below). Our planned destination was Hoge Kempen National Park but on the way there we got a bit lost. On the bright side we found a yummy Chinese restaurant in a Belgian village (near point 11, not sure which one) where Zhiyi helped us order in Chinese. Then we found the national park, which was a bit of a disappointment compared to US national parks, but it was still the closest thing to a forest we have seen around here. On the way back we passed another park with a medieval manor and fortress called Pietersheim (see photo). Nearly 40 km in all!

Hendrik’s Birthday Week

Hendrik had quite a birthday week!

Monday: Hendrik accepted a job offer! Now he’s a fancy Banker. Excellent timing for his birthday, bank!

Tuesday: Dutch lessons and pizza. I even managed to bake a cake in a bundt pan in our combi-oven.

Wednesday: Hendrik’s actual birthday. I had a business trip to Germany and Hendrik had to work late in Utrecht so it wasn’t the most eventful birthday. The highlight for me was going 150 kph on the autobahn.

Thursday: At donderdag koopavond (Thursday evening shopping), Hendrik bought a birthday suit. No, not that kind of birthday suit. The grey wool kind you wear to a bank if you are a banker!

Friday: We took the train to Amsterdam to pick up Hendrik’s Birthday present. We also found delicious Ethiopian food.

Hendrik gleefully demolishing his dinner, injeera in hand.

Saturday: We went to the science museum and picked up Hendrik’s present, a new folding bicycle!

Hendrik at NEMO, the science museum.

The Nancy and the Ij.

Hendrik with his new toy, Van Go.

Hollandse Banken

After quite some time spent on interviews and negotiations, I’m excited to say that I’ve accepted an offer to do some kind of mathematics (working with risk models) at a bank in Holland. I’m looking forward to wearing a suit and tie every day, and to trying something new and different.

Once I get started next month, I can post some photos from the top of some fancy banking tower.

-Hendrik