Van Der House - Part 2

Van Der Dad took us to a bunch of beautiful towns in the area



If there is a place in the world that has more mobility scooters than rural and suburban America it is rural and suburban Holland.  I saw sooooo many



tons of houses still use thatched roofs.  pretty cool looking.  looks like they also do the whole having the roof be 90% of the house thing.



La Chouffe beer.  i was going to kick this adorable magical gnome off my blog because he's from Belgium and not Dutch but dutch people drink a lot of this guys magical brew so he can stay.



a beat up Citroen DS something in Zutphen



the europeans and they're symbols.  I wish america had some of this going on, it looks pretty cool.



that's it for Zutphen. 



a 2 minute car ferry ride over the river to Bronckhorst





We were riding along and all of the sudden Van Der Dad was like look at that cock!!! and pulled the car over.  He didn't mean Kock he meant cock as in the black rooster, because he wanted some eggs to shove under their hen at home that was sitting on a nest with no eggs in it.  he went and asked the lady for some eggs and she just gave him some.  so now i guess they will have some Portuguese black roosters if they're lucky.  Feel free to elaborate on the play on words joke here on your own.



Van Der Kock said there are no windmills in Holland but look there is one.  I was disappointment that i didn't see anyone clomping around in clogs (or klompen as Van Der Kock likes to correctly say).



Here we are in Doesburg eating Haring (Herring).  its raw fish and served with raw onions



Van Der Dad displaying the proper Dutch way to eat it.  Hahahaha i can't stop laughing every time i look at this photo.  It was quite a bit of fish but tasty.   



Kibbeling is fried cod fish.  good stuff.




liking the way lots of peeps have these painted window shutters







Venema Antiques and Classic Cars



there was also an antique store next door, and Van Der Kock and Van Der Dad knew they guy.  there was this awesome KLM airlines DC-10 poster that had an all blue line illustration cutaway of the plane.



some nice arse places out here.



some dutch beers



the men's bathroom at De Brugwachter.  Is it really that funny ladies?



taking the bandage off after a day.  painful stuff that caused more bleeding for hours.



Van Der Kock is a machine.  he has to ride his bike for 150 km to Hoek to get the Ferry to somewhere in England and then ride another 150 km from there to London.  He did this to get to Amsterdam too. 







this is a few days later at home actually and its still bleeding every day i have to tear the gauze off to put on a fresh one.  its finally on its way. 

Netherlands conclusion:  The dutch are friendly and laid back.  Dutch food is actually good and was a welcome change from Hungarian and German food.  A lot of people have landscaping that rivals what the Japanese have.  Also Van Der Kock's Van Der Parent's bathroom rivaled Japanese bathrooms, they even had a Toto like electronic toilet but it wasn't Japanese.  Everyone seems pretty happy and people have their thing going on.  I have to come back to amsterdam again sometime when its not Queen's day and see what it's like normally.  It was awesome having my good pal Van Der Kock there to be our Dutch guide.  I can't eat anymore fries for a while, fries seem to be the common denominator throughout europe.  I love bike so i love the dutch bike culture.  Dutch sounds like French and German smashed together.  But at the end of the day, Stroop Waffles.  Boom.
 

Van Der House - Part 1

a trip to Van Der Kock's Van Der House  Where his parents live.  They live in Eerbeek







we made it in time for Van Der BBQ



as you can see they have a beautiful landscaped Van Der property as did every other house in the area that i saw





Melo-Cakes used to be called "N*gger Kisses" until a few years ago they said.



a 15 km bike ride to Nationaal Park Veluwezoom



There's even bike paths through the forest.



Wild roosters?!!!! actually it means cows.



are we in africa?



Gouda galore.  gouda is the iconic dutch cheese.  it was so cheap too. 



cumin gouda and some kind of middle aged gouda.  we were having a great cheesy time until.....



I sliced off half of my thumbnail and a big chunk of my thumb!!!  blood pouring out.  Van Der Mom did what mom's do.  Dank u wel Helen!




that is half of my thumbnail there.  if you know how this kind of cheese slicer works then it makes it even more painful to look at this photo and imagine slicing off your own thumbnail.



it wouldn't stop bleeding for a few days but now it looks like its gonna be ok.



Van Der Dog



Van Der Kock's parents have are antique map and globe dealers and restorers.  Iris Antique Globes and Maps.  They're always going to Paris and other places to buy and sell.  They have some heavy hitting stuff like a pair of 2,000,000 euro globes  http://restauratiepaulpeters.nl/



they deal in mostly maps that are so old that the continents are all weird shaped.



or California was thought to be an island



or australia (Hollandia cuz it was discovered by the dutch) isn't even completely drawn because it was still uncharted territory like most of western canada.  Super interesting stuff.  They also sell quite a few maps and globes to Koreans where the map say Sea of Korea instead of Sea of Japan like it does on modern maps.



Yoon made this Korean feast, I was supposed to help but because of my thumb injury i didn't do much

Amsterdam - Part 2

All three of us hungover we saw queen's day on TV from the hotel instead of outside.  we finally got out at 3pm



I tried to rally the troops by doing most dutch thing i knew, dancing around in the decorative "klompen" from the hotel room wall.



look at the map of amsterdam, it literally is all canals.



orange is the color of the netherlands so everyone wears orange and parties on boats, etc...





at the King's Day festival.  a huge festival of the all the music i hate but everyone was going so i said ok.  it was a pre meditated ok because we had to buy tix weeks in advance and even then we ended up with the late late bird tickets for 29 euros.  we were all so worn out from the night before that this was kind of a waste.  but the only way i would have had fun with all this techno/electronic/electro playing is if i was in the state i was the night before.  it was a young crowd with lots of pretty young things and yoon came to the realization that he is middle aged.





Van der Sister.  bye bye Bea(trix).



the day after nothing was cleaned up.  we saw some garbage trucks going around lazily picking up a ripped beer box here, a bottle there.  it looked like it would take weeks for the city to be cleaned up at this rate.  many people were just cleaning the streets in front of their house by themselves.



dutch pancakes are these huge things with different stuff mixed in like cheese and bacon.  i forgot to take a photo of the actual pancake i was so hungry.



you pour this stroop (syrup) over it.  its not like maple syrup but more like molasses and its not the same stroop in stroop waffles.



wall of dreams







nothing gets us up off the grass in the sun faster then recieving a text from Van Der Kock's dad saying if we can get to their house by 6:00pm there will be BBQ.  we ran for the train but in the end were late because a stickler conductor said no bikes on the train during rush hour (which is the rule).  so we had to wait and take the next one after rush hour.  we still got our bbq.  next stop, Van Der House!