Reflections

A perfect desert rainbow

It's been 22 days since I said I would write about what we learned in our six months of boating in The Netherlands.  Yes, there's been a slight delay but then I've been busy.  I hadn't seen my grandchildren in 6 months.  I needed to visit with them and I'd forgotten how tall a 13 year old boy can grow in that amount of time.  Our house was thick with desert dust, our backyard plants had grown wild because of the heavy monsoons this year and I, quite honestly, just wanted to sit and stare for a bit.  Now it's time to think and type.........  

Even my small front yard cactus grew up this summer

Our number one lesson was that lots of bicycling reduces waistlines.  As our only form of transportation, our much loved Dutch bikes, provided us with enough exercise to drop a noticeable amount of weight. I dropped a whole size, so did Dwight.  Pleased?  You betcha!

I'd thought that my bicycling days were over.  My U.S. mountain style bike tips me forward so much that it pains my old arthritic hands to ride it.  My Dutch bike, an "omafiets" (grandma's bike)  lets me sit up straight which makes for an easy comfortable ride.  No pain with lots of gain. 

No more mountain bikes for me..this one's for sale now

We learned that age really doesn't matter.  We are in our 70s, so what?  We can sit at home waiting for the undertaker to ring our doorbell or we can do.  Doing is infinitely preferable.


I learned that in the Netherlands, my height at 5 feet 9-3/4 inches, is practically short.  Boy, they grow 'em tall.  I am used to being about the tallest woman around, but sometimes in Holland I felt short.  Didn't like that feeling at all.

We both learned that Dwight's idea of the perfect boat is certainly far from mine.   Dwight was the one who went to Holland, hunted down the boat and convinced me that I would love, love, love it.  Boy, was he wrong.  This boat is going to take some work to reconfigure the inside and lots of painting on the outside before I will become just slightly fond of it.  

A boat in need of TLC

We learned that the weather in Holland is stinky.  We are heading south next year.  'Nuff said.


We learned that the world's most accommodating people live in Holland.  Nice folks.

We learned that sparkling clean windows, exquisitely kept gardens and litter free streets do not ever make up for the bad habit of leaving dog poop all over the ground, everywhere.


We learned canal water in The Netherlands can sometimes kill your garden.  I watered my plants with canal water for 3 seasons in France and always had beautiful flowers and herbs.  Something in the water in Holland killed my garden this year.  I will be more careful next time. 

I learned that I like having company on the boat.  We make more of an effort to get out and see and do than we would if it was just the two of us.  We argue less, too. 

One of our picture-taking guests

We learned that having an elderly cat on a boat is lots easier than having an energetic little dog.  Never mind Yogi, we love you anyway (but we still miss Captain Kitty).

Yogi taking the sun on the foredeck

We learned that six months on our boat is abut 1 month too long.  Next time we'll stay, max, 5 months.

We learned that we miss the company of other cruisers.  Almost all the cruisers in Holland are locals, out for a weekend or, at most, a month or so.   While very friendly and helpful, understandably, they are not really interested in comparing cruising notes with foreigners. 

A Union Jack in Holland

We will do a little more thinking about our time in Holland.  There must be a thousand more lessons we learned......or are we just too old to glean new knowledge.  Hope not.

Another Beeeeach and more

Bergen aan Zee

Ride your bike to the beach

The sign reads "Fietsenstalling"....bicycle parking

 Take a walk along the shore

  Too much beach running makes one dog tired

 There's always a place to rest, have drinks and watch the ocean.  Dogs welcome on the deck.

 

Beaches are wonderful but airplanes with their schedules are waiting so after way too many hours inside a plane...... home.

 

A desert sunrise

Now it's time for some reflection.  What have we learned, what wouldn't we do again, what will (can) we change when we go back to the boat?   Give us a week to distill our memories and we'll get right back to you with that.

A Little Bit of This and A Small Amount of That

Two swans are here.  I've missed feeding swans and listening to them make horrendous flapping noises as they take off into flight.  There don’t seem to be as many swans plying the Dutch waterways are there are on the French canals.  I feel lucky that these two have come visiting before we leave.

Some goofy mother Grebe has hatched an egg at exactly the wrong time of year.  Just the other day a baby grebe came swimming by the boat.  I was so astonished to see an immature bird this time of year that I almost didn’t get the camera out in time.  It’s rained every day since the first of September and it is getting colder.  Winter is icumen in!  Hope that baby gets its feathers soon.

We are moored at the confluence of two canals, the Kraspolder Kanaal and the Noordhollandsch Kanaal (really nails it down for you, doesn’t it?).  Not only do we get swans and baby grebes swimming by, we are occasionally entertained by an outrigger and a big drum canoe.  You can hear the drummer beating time for the paddlers while they are still a long way off.  Gives us something to look forward to while we’re sitting here.

Kind of off the subject of boating  but relevant to our crew and Holland……….

The leader of Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad, said that Muslims don’t hate the U.S.  I am so glad because we have a member of our crew, namely one native born AmericanYogi-dog, who absolutely loves Muslims despite their feelings for him.

Whenever he is off leash and spies a lady in a head scarf or a man wearing a prayer cap, he runs to them.  “Hi, hi, hi,” he seems to say, “I really like you, wanna’ pet me?”

Naturally, if they are “good” Muslims, they turn away from our friendly little dog because so many Muslim clerics teach that owning a dog negates any positive points you may need to get into paradise when you die.  Hummm, paradise without dogs?  Impossible!

We Americans have an old saying: love me, love my dog.  I’ll modify that into don’t hate me, don’t hate my dog. 

Anybody listening?

 

Notice Yogi-dog?  He's the small black dot on the left.

Closing in on the End

Greetings from Alkmaar, Noordholland.  Our guide book told us that this town has all the things tourists usually look for in a Dutch town.  We can attest to that.

 
My favorite little house in Alkmaar has a red dutch door with bird

house to match

Alkmaar, a Tucson size city about a 30 minute train ride north of Amsterdam, has an old fashioned cheese market each Friday during the summer; it has a beer museum; the required cathedral; it has outdoor concerts; a beach nearby; it has boat rentals for touring the canals that surround the old part of town; it has a clock tower that chimes a sprightly little tune which echoes over the marina every half hour...24 hours a day.  

The noisy clock tower

 The cathedral's tower also has loud bells

 A boat lift that's able to carry almost anything

 Winter storage for our boat

This town is charming and quaint with good restaurants, great shopping and…a minor miracle…a place to store our boat for the winter.  We are happy.

 The Alkmaar cheese market

Oh, yummy

Yogi-dog and I heading home after the cheese market

Alkmaar has nice parks for dog walking

A gay pride parade through the marina

Shoppers enjoying a McDonald's drum band

The drum band beginning their parade through Alkmaar