I AMsterdam

We got up this morning and hit the road before even having breakfast because we were just about twenty minutes from Amsterdam and we wanted to spend as much time in the city as possible. It was a good thing we left when we did because the minute we took the off-ramp on the freeway to check into our next hotel, the skies opened up and an incredible downpour ensued. The lighting and thunder were right overhead and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard thunder that was so close or all-encompassing like that before. It was quite the deal.
We left our car in the safety of the hotel parking lot and took the tram into the heart of Amsterdam. It rained off and on all morning but by afternoon it was blue sky and sunshine so we had a bit of everything today. The downtown area was not in the least affected by the weather as the streets were just as full and crowded as they are on any summer day with people coming and going like ants working an ant hill.
Amsterdam is not exactly a family destination, but I wanted Kaleb to see the Anne Frank House, so that was my only goal in coming here. He read her diary and I thought it would be a good way to teach him about the war without going to any concentration camps (I don’t think he’s ready for that just yet.) When I was here in 1983, her house was just like any other house on the block and I walked in the front door, went into the opening behind the bookcase and up the stairs to the loft where she lived with seven other people who were hidden for 25 months during the war. There wasn’t much to see and there wasn’t much pomp and circumstance around it. But now, time has certainly changed that place. The museum has bought up all the houses on the block to on one side – given them a new modern face and made a huge museum in them where we entered. In a way, it was better because there was more information and it was more interesting on the inside, but I wasn’t too fond of how much it changed the looks of the whole block. Kaleb was able to recognize each room inside by the details she’d written about and he did seem interested in it all, so I felt like my mission was accomplished. After that tour, we really didn’t have much else to do so we wandered around the city and looked at the canals and buildings and tried to avoid the whiff of marijuana in the air.
When the rain kicked in again Kory decided he wanted to go on a city bus tour so we did that for an hour and didn’t learn much, but Kory enjoyed seeing all the buildings and how they lean every which way. Most of the city was built on pilings so I guess after living in The Sinking Houses he felt right at home. It was difficult to keep Kaleb away from all the “liberalism” of the city, but I think he was clueless, even if I was a bit stressed about it. Between the Red Light District, the Sex Museum, Torture Museum, Erotic shops, marijuana bars and disgusting postcards displayed in the racks out on the sidewalks, I began to wonder why I even had this on our agenda. But I did see in the travel book there was a Bible Museum in town so we made a bee-line for there, figuring at least the content was family friendly. It was a pretty cool place with quite the collection of old Dutch Bibles (and many others) – some of them even hand written. They also had large scale models of Solomon’s temple and the portable Temple that was made for the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. I could have stayed there all day, but as it was, they kicked us out at closing time.
Kaleb sampled some of the famous Gouda cheese in one of the shops and fell in love with the smoked gouda variety so we had to stop at a grocery store on the way back to the hotel to buy him some for dinner- all he wanted was bread and cheese. Me too, as the bread we bought was super good. (I’ll so miss all the good breads in Europe.) Kaleb was a non-stop talker today and it totally got on my nerves. Normally I can just let it go, but I couldn’t say one thing that he didn’t come back with “What do you mean…” and then he repeated everything I just said. He wanted to understand every little detail of every little thing – even if it was obvious. I told Kory, “Look at all the hooks up at the top of the buildings,” then Kaleb asked, “What do you mean look at the hooks up at the top of the buildings?” He swore he wasn’t intentionally being obnoxious, but he was. (The hooks were to hoist furniture in and out of the building through the windows because the staircases are too small.) Normally I enjoy Kaleb’s curious nature, but not so much today. I guess I needed more sleep. (What do you mean, you needed more sleep?)

Hello Holland!

We are moving around so much that Kaleb asks every once in a while, “What country are we in now?” I think Kory wonders the same. And besides not knowing what day of the week it is, we don’t know if something happened this morning, yesterday, or the day before, as all the days are starting to run together. We’re on the downward slide now though, so home is within sight. Kory is having to do all the driving because my driver’s license was stolen, but he’s holding up well. He says it’s less stressful than having me drive, but the only reason that’s true is because when I drive he has to navigate and that’s not his strong suit, as we’ve found out through trial and error. This trip has been good for us all in one way or another, but mostly to teach us all a bit more tolerance.
We enjoyed breakfast in downtown Brugge this morning at a fancy bakery that brought the coffee cup on a little tray with a bowl full of an assortment of sugar cubes (no two were alike). I love the little European touches we see in things here and there – like that we were given a knife and fork in which to eat our croissants. In America, they are finger food, but not here (neither is pizza, French fries or hamburgers.) One time when I told someone I blog about all the differences between American and Norwegian culture they said, “Oh, like that Americans don’t know how to use a knife,” because most Norwegians think it’s strange Americans cut their food with the side of their fork. We are so unrefined, we Americans.
The rain came down hard all morning as we drove out of Belgium into Holland, but at least we weren’t stuck in any traffic jams. Today was the day to go see Kinderdjik – a canal in Holland with 17 very old windmills lining both sides. I was a little worried about the rain, but the minute we showed up, the rain stopped and we were able to rent bikes and ride all over the area. All the clouds to the west of us were black as night, and same for the clouds east of us, but right over our heads we had blue sky and sunshine and it didn’t rain one drop on us for the two plus hours we were riding – it was nearly a miracle. We also got to go inside one of the windmills to see how they worked and how people lived in them years ago. One stretch of eight straw thatched windmills were all built in 1740 – others were built in the 1500s and people continue to live in them even today. I don’t know the rules about who gets to live there but each one had a picture perfect little yard complete with boat anchored out front ready to go explore the canals. It looks classic Holland more than any other place in all the land. There are so many canals around that area that even the horses didn’t need fences as they were completely surrounded by ditches full of water – all perfectly spaced marking off the home lots – with a house in the front near the street and the back few acres surrounded on three sides by water. It was all nice and orderly and looked so well planned.
Our destination for the night was about half an hour away from the windmills so we headed over to Gorinchem to check into our room and see the area around the hotel. As it turned out, Gorinchem is not at all a tourist town but still cute as can be – completely surrounded by canals, windmills, locks and buildings as old as the hills. It was originally a fortified city so the bird’s eye view of it shows a well planned five pointed star pattern – typical of the times. Many of the buildings in town were built in the 1500s and some were much older and even leaned a little. The town was full of locals out shopping in the heart of the city, where no cars were allowed. Fortunately for us, everything was open until 9pm (quite unusual) so we stayed in town and had dinner and did some souvenir and gift shopping as everything was so much cheaper than the tourist towns. We ate dinner out on a sidewalk café (as we have for most our meals on this trip). We were right in the town square so quite typically, there was a water fountain which attracts all the kid’s attention. Kaleb insisted on running around while waiting for our food but he was blessed tonight to have several other kids who were doing the same. One 11 year old Dutch boy he befriended right away spoke perfect English because he had lived in South Africa for a year. They played hide and seek for a long time around the town square with some other kids – it was just too cute. They talked to each other– sharing notes about how old they were when they first learned to read and how quickly they can get through certain books they both have read. I’m so pleased when Kaleb can kick into social mode and make friends like that. He’s upset he didn’t get his e-mail address so they could stay in touch, as they had many things in common.
I’m not too thrilled with the new camera I bought and I’m missing my old one terribly. I saw a mother loon in the canal today with two little black and white stripped babies peeking out from under her wings every once in a while. My new camera wouldn’t focus so I couldn’t get a good shot of them. I guess the camera is having the same problem we are – as everything is becoming a blur as we move from one city to the next, but there are still plenty of memories to be made on the road ahead of us, so onward we go and hopefully I’ll have a few clear photos to remember it all by.

Can you say HALLELUJAH?!

We just finished the first LEG of our journey (hence the silly photo).

Let’s just say the day could have started a little smoother than it did, but we are shouting HALLELUJAH nonetheless.

We spent the night with Grammy J in Mountlake Terrace – up at 6am, off by 7am to get to our apartment building in Seattle by 8:00. We scheduled a limo ride to the airport (knowing a cab could never fit all our luggage). When the limo showed up, he didn’t even TRY to get our luggage in his car, he just said, “no way” and drove off! Here we were – the height of rush traffic, with no one to call and no backup plans on how to get down to the airport within an hour. Panic nearly set in at that point.

I called a few friends in Seattle only to be greeted by answering machines. We found a phone book and called a few taxi companies but when they answered with the “automatic greeting system” (aka VOICE JAIL), I hung up as I have no time for pressing option buttons when I’m trying to get to the airport ASAP. So then my brain scanned other options and landed on the one where we bother one of our tenants to take us in our van down the airport. We actually woke up Otto and Sarah to explain our dilemma and they came to our rescue! (Otto has lived in our building for over 20 years and all I can say is “we know how to pick ‘em”). So Kory drove us down in our van and Sarah returned the vehicle to the garage at our apartment building and there our van will sit for a year or so until we return (as planned). I told Sarah she was our savior, but Kaleb piped up and said that only JESUS is our savior. I stand corrected, but she was at least an angel.

When we got to the airport we were told that US Airways had a delayed plane coming into Seattle so our flight out was delayed and we’d miss our connection to London. We only thought we were stressed at that point dealing with the taxi and all… but more stress was yet to come.

I pride myself on getting the best fares possible when it comes to our many travels over the years. I’ve discovered that SAS gives deep discounts to Norwegian residents but you have to have a Norwegian bank account to pull it off. I’m not sure if they are just ripping off Americans when they fly SAS or if they are subsidizing Norwegian citizens. (We have a Norwegian bank account so there’s no problem with getting the discount.) I booked our flight from London to Aalesund, Norway separately as I paid for the trip to London with dollars, and the trip to Aalesund with Norwegian kroner. I now know this has a potential for disaster so I don’t recommend this money saving tip to anyone – ever – and I promise myself not to do it again. (But I will say that I saved over $1,500 in doing it this way).

So what happened was that USAirways said they couldn’t get us to London to catch our flight to Aalesund until the next day. I booked the connections 12 hours apart but that didn’t help in this case. They had many people who were going to miss the same connection and they were fresh out of options for us as “all flights are full” to London (even on other airlines). They said they would get us to Copenhagen but then we were on our own. I called SAS and the tickets to Aalesund from Copenhagen were $1,500 so there would have gone my savings… except that I had to eat the $250 I paid for the tickets from London to Aalesund, which I was willing to do at that point…. So when we went back to the counter to book the tickets to Copenhagen, the supervisor nixed that idea because she said she is only obligated to get us to London, which they could do tomorrow. Big problem. I called SAS again to find out how much it would be to change our tickets to the next day and when they told me it would be over $1,000 PER person (3k total), I nearly cried. And all US Airways could say is “you shouldn’t have booked your tickets separately – we are only obligated to get you to London…” so there is the fatal flaw in my plans.
I am fairly confident that Satan does NOT want us to go to Norway at this point – which can only be interpreted as a good thing. So, we prayed. I told God I’m not asking him to part the sea, just find a way for us to fly over it. It’s all his money anyway if and he wants to spend it so frivolously then that’s his business. I know Satan comes to lie, steal and destroy (according to the Bible) … and I really didn’t want to feel like I was being ripped off to the tune of $3,000 just to get from London to Aalesund so we left it in God’s hands and we shouted HALLELUJAH!

After nearly three hours of all this monkey-business, the USAirways guy told us that he finally found a flight for us to Los Angeles and then we can go British Airways to London and we’ll get in 2.5 hours later than our original flight. The only hitch is we were flying in and out of Gatwick airport and now we are flying into Heathrow and out of Gatwick so we need to schlep our luggage from one side of London to the other and forego our planned day at the science museum. Kaleb is a bit upset by that but I taught him the Serenity Prayer and he’s been saying it over and over “God grant me the ability to change the things I can, to accept the things I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

We are now at the LA Airport awaiting our non-stop flight to London. We figure God doesn’t take away anything he doesn’t give us something better so my next post will be the blessings we’ve encountered along the way. HALLELUJAH! (So far this whole ordeal has saved us $25 as USAirways was going to charge $50 for our extra piece of luggage and Alaska Airlines only charged us $25.)