musing

I got to catch up with a good friend yesterday, sharing stories and such. I became convinced that if you want any relationship to be successful, one only needs 3 things: anecdotes, quotes, and advice. Maybe add a good bike ride together in there every once in a while, but that's it.

Think about it.

finally, more bits and bobs!

Yes, America, I finally have enough to say to start blogging again, soon. To welcome the new post enjoy a definition of my blog's new name:

Olla Podrida noun -- an incongruous jumble.

Example: "Vanessa's fashion sense is an olla podrida of patterns, colors, and decades that sassy and classy!"

In other news: I love words. I collect them as some would, say, stamps, boyfriends, or books. There's something about tossing in words such as barmecidal, bon ton, fulsome, and, logorrhea, into my vocabulary that makes me happy, much like a mathematics buff would get a kick out of counting cards at a blackjack table or a perpetual thief stealing beer from the liquor store. Yeah, just like that.

I realized, too, that I'm a syllabic conservationist, using rich, quirky words to lessen the amount of syllables I need to utter to get my point across. I'm always looking for ways to spend less energy and thus, why say, "toss your cares out the window and have a good time," when you can save your self a solid syllable and two entire words by spicing it up and declaring "defenestrate your cares and have a good time!"

Just don't defenestrate the baby with the bath water and we'll be okay.

And We're Back

It's hard for me to keep ideas of traveling out of my mind: stories of travels past and the potential of travels ahead. I'm addicted to getting more stamps in my passport and using exact change in foreign currency.

One of my great friends asked me this winter, over Christmas cookies, to go with her to Europe for a week to celebrate big--she's graduating from medical school for Pete's sake! And it's actually happening; she and I are in the midst of planning our week-long trip to Paris, France and Geneva, Switzerland from March 27th to April 3rd. Which also means I will be welcoming my 30th year on April 1st in Geneva--not a bad place to celebrate, eh?

I'm looking forward to picking up where my brother and I left of in Paris last September and making new shared stories together with my friend! Yahoo! More travel stories to come!

The end of the road

My brother and I arrived in Berlin last night, the last stop on my European tour. I've realized I'm not the best of travel writers, frequently not keeping up with the days activities. Sorry about that. Nonetheless, a brief recap:

Munich, Germany:

• We stayed at my brother's friend's house who insisted on feeding us Bavarian food every day. Sausage for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yikes! Fun to experience, but, whew! However, I now appreciate spatzel and will have to try making it when I get home
  
• I spent the better half of a day perusing the Deutches Museum, a museum of industrial history. Planes, trains, bridges, locks and keys, motors, printing, computers, my gosh--it just didn't stop and we didn't even see it all!
• I ate a lot of pretzels and only near the end, did I realize how good they taste with mustard! 
• Enjoyed a swim at one of the oldest public schwimmbads in Germany

Berlin, Germany:

• Enjoyed some phenomenal sushi two buildings down from my hostel.
• Walked to Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenberg Gate, Murdered European Jew memorial (very neat--at least the above-ground part!), and a remaining chunk of the Berlin Wall. Check an online photo tour here 
• Enjoyed a brief, half-understood, but very enjoyable conversation with an old man on the sidewalk who exclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner!" after I told him I was from America. He told my brother and I that he was a seaman back in the day. It would have been so cool to hear more of his story!
• I've had fun having the "green man" guide me across the streets of East Berlin who is quite a local favorite and a tourist favorite as his silhouette is pasted on many a trinket
• Playing Frisbee on the lawn in front of the capital building
  

No photos, as my camera is up in my room, but I shall certainly post many upon my return home this weekend! 

Schermerhorn, Nederlands

Okay, okay, I really should write about Schermerhorn, Netherlands, after all, it is my homeland of sorts. However, I'm enjoying the hills and slight hint of fall in Heidelberg right now and being here is something to write home about, too.

Nonetheless, I'll write about Heidelberg when I can--I still need to let you know how great Amsterdam had been as well! Now with a cup of NesCafe cappuccino in hand, about my homeland.

So, Schermerhorn is a little village of about 1,500 people in Holland, the northwest part of the Netherlands. My brother and I learned that there once was a Lake Schermerhorn that the Dutch drained 300 or so years ago to use as farmland. Now the area is called Schermer (kind of a county name for us back home), and Schermerhorn is one of a few towns in the area. The Dutch used a handful of windmills to drain the lake into dikes and out to sea and if I remember correctly, it took about 3 years for the lake to be completely drained. Judging by the water I saw pumped at the windmill museum--it was one big lake.

Schermerhorn itself is a pretty lazy town, really consisting of only one main road, a church, two cafes, and dozens of canals. Check out the Google map of Schermerhorn to see what I mean. It sounds like it is a pretty wealthy town, judging by the English video we watched at the windmill museum, because the people in the area became wealthy form shipping various wares and food, including herring--ack!

Nonetheless, here's a photo of one of two ways of getting into town by car. (There are numerous ways to get into town by boat.)

I'm not sure what Schermerhorn residence do for work; they were everywhere in the middle of the day on a weekday.

And packed so tightly into this cafe, that my brother and I decided to leave before we got coffee. We think we might have walked in on some sort of town meeting or funeral luncheon of an old community member. Situations like this make it unfortunate that one doesn't speak the local language.

Ah, and canals. Oh, the canals!

How cool--and handy--to have a canal at the back of your backyard? At the very least, the neighbor kids wouldn't cut through your yard on the way to school and tromp on your rosebushes.

By the end of our time in Amsterdam, I was ready for more land, less water, and more elevation changes. The most elevation gained was climbing the 5 flights of stairs to our hostel every night. My brother and I rode across one of the Netherlands giant dikes and dams which just shows that the whole part of Holland (again, just the upper part of the Netherlands; Southern Netherlands is quite hilly, actually) and then some is naturally below sea level. In fact, Amsterdam used to be wetlands. (Yeppers, that's out the car window.)

The first houses were built on wooden stilts. Many of the old houses in downtown Amsterdam are built on top of tree trunks that were shoved vertically into the mud. Very strange, and it produces some pretty crooked houses.(Back in Amsterdam, anyway.)

And here are some windmill photos from our fantastic time at the windmill museum. It was pretty windy that day so the mill was cranking pretty fast.

 

I had a brief, yet exciting, video of looking out the third-floor window toward the arms of the windmill, but sadly, it won't load onto blogger. Oh, well.

More about Amsterdam and/or Heidelberg next. Have a good one!

Maastricht, Netherlands

Hello, from another wonderful, cool evening in Amsterdam. Today my brother and I went to our family's homeland, Schermerhorn, and it was great, especially the windmill museum. Why pay amusement park prices when you can have as much fun on the third story of a windmill for only €4? More on that later, but for now enjoy a sneak preview

Here are a few photos from Maastricht. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of work or my coworkers. Oh, well--a reason to go back again...

 

 

 

 What's interesting about Maastricht is that it was first built as a Roman outpost. Here's part of the Roman wall built to protect the original city, with a bonus hot air balloon.

 

 

 Man, there's so many stories to share, but not enough time to write them all down now while traveling--or as I've realized, time to write them eloquently, too. I'm looking forward to sharing them in person with you!

I'll try to post again about Amsterdam and Schermerhorn soon. Have a good one!

Brussels, Belgium

I'm a few days behind on writing about where I've been so, I'll be writing about Brussels while sitting in the Amsterdam sunshine.

I'd like to start this post out by commenting on chocolate. Belgium will not allow Cadbury chocolate to import into Belgium for their chocolate is really a chocolate treat, laced with a lot of sugar. Cadbury refuses to label their "chocolate" as a candy treat and therefore is not sold in Belgium. Thus, what we have in Belgium is only the most excellent chocolate as depicted below:

 Phenomenal. But, one must eat it in moderation. The photo above was taken at a sweet little park in Brussels that featured a great fountain and gardens.

 

My brother had a friend, An, in Brussels who was kind enough to take us around Brussels, on foot, for the afternoon. What's handy about being a tourist willing to walk or ride bikes is that it's a great excuse to eat a lot of local food! I've probably walked 20 miles so far on this trip, which is at least 10 pounds not gained.

Nonetheless, I just took these photos while wandering around (my brother is the one who has the picture of the Manneken Pis statue on his camera, so read that website for more quirky information)...

 

 

 

I really enjoyed my time in Brussles, espeically walking around (and oh, how far we walked! and let's be honest, it was really a tour of chocolate stores). I would have loved to spend another day there, but my time was cut short as I had to head to Maastricht, Netherlands to meet up with some coworkers (more on that next!). My favorite was waiting in line for some frites and meat at a one-off frites-mobile down some street. Their fries were fantastic, and you get to choose from among 10+ kinds of sauce you want with them (Brazil, Jamician, curry, garlic, spicy ketkup, et al). A fun-- and quite inexpensive--time.

And a quick note on train stations. The Brussels station was small, but lots to eat and the best coffee thus far on my trip at Sam's cafe. It's super easy to catch a train to anywhere at European stations, with either handy e-ticket stations or at ticket windows. Which really makes traveling by train all the more enjoyable than by plane.(Though I don't sleep much since I feel obligated to take in the countryside and other scenes from my seat.)

Up next: Fun times in Maastricht, Netherlands!