Dutch family time, made in Made

19 - 26 June

I arrived at the tiny train station of Lage Zwaluwe, where my Oma, Opa and great auntie Tante Cock were waiting for me - thankfully - since the tiny train station is in the middle of nowhere! Cock lives in the tiny town of Made, in the Dutch south, a very quaint little town that became my base for a week. My time there was very enjoyable, and I got treated to some very nice hospitality. It was very comforting staying in a proper house again, even though it had only been 10 days since I last did that in Vancouver.

It was relaxing not feeling sort-of obliged to head out and experience all the tourist sites - instead, I was experiencing Dutch breakfasts (nice meats, cheeses and chocolate hail!), Dutch villages (Made is pretty small, but still has a huge old church and bells chiming every half-hour), Dutch language ("Dank u wel", or "Eet smakelijk"), and Dutch countryside on several walks with Opa. Since all four of us are avid bridge players, we also sat down for a few games of bridge.

Out and about in the Dutch countryside with Opa

A game of bridge after dinner

The Hoop Doet Leven molen (windmill) in Made

Kroketten for lunch in Drimmelen on a typical Dutch summer's day (i.e., windy and cold!) - Opa, Tante Cock, Oma and I

A very important appointment for Opa and I (but not the ladies) - All Blacks vs France!

On the Sunday, a big Scheffers family reunion was organised on Oma's side of the family. She has three sisters and a brother, who where all there, with most of the next 2 generations down as well - about 40 people in the end. There were more 2nd cousins and 1st cousins once removed than I could keep count of!

It was a very enjoyable afternoon & evening, and despite being the only one who didn't speak Dutch, no-one seemed to mind and everyone was very welcoming and happy to talk to me. Once again, speaking in English was not a problem for anyone and I was very grateful for this!

Three generations of Scheffers. This is what happens when five siblings, all their children, their children's children and the various partners all come together!

Meeting some of the relations

The 4 Scheffers sisters - Oma Miep, Tante Thea, Tante Cock, and Tante Bep

We went for a couple more excursions as well, including a day where we visited the gorgeous little town of Geertruidenberg (try and pronounce that properly!) and then to Leerdam. In Leerdam we went past the Wipwatermolen windmill, where the young molenaar (windmill keeper) showed us inside and got the waterwheel going for us. It was very interesting inside and fascinating seeing the old wooden cogs groaning around. Standing up close to the shafts is a bit frightening when they're going at full speed!

Leerdam Wipwatermolen

Opa at the Wipwatermolen

The Wipwatermolen in operation from the outside...

... And from the inside.

After that we wandered around the town briefly, having lunch there, then headed for the Nederlands Bridge Museum. It was set up by a private collector, who had a very impressive collection of cards, trump indicators, crockery, books, and many other items from the last 100 years (he even had collections of the New Zealand Bridge Magazine!).

On the Prinses Wilhelmina Brug (Oma's name is Wilhelmina!)

Opa and I in Leerdam

One of the items on display at the bridge museum - will probably only be funny to bridge players!

My final day, we headed together to Amersfoort, where Oma and Opa were due to stay for 3 days with Opa's sister, Tanta Wil. There were some interesting sights in the town, and we had a bit of a look around before a nice lunch in the main square.

Onze-Lieve-Vrouwentoren (The Tower of Our Lady) - if you look carefully you can see Oma, Opa and Wil at the doors at the bottom!

Amersfoort town gate

I only came to Amersfoort for half the day to meet Wil, before catching the train to stay with my great auntie and uncle (Tante Trees and Oom Kees) in Rhoon, near Rotterdam. So I left them mid-afternoon and caught the train to Rotterdam then the metro to Rhoon, where I was for the next three days. Those stories will have to wait!

Groningen & Utrecht

15 - 19 June

I had a few days spare to explore a bit more of the Netherlands before meeting my grandparents, and headed first for Groningen (try and pronounce that with a proper Dutch accent!!), in the north of the country. It's a much smaller and less touristy town, that's now quite a university city.

The first evening I went for a bit of a wander, and after some takeaway kebab for dinner (which seems to be the cheapest food anywhere in the Netherlands!) found a small plaza where some free live jazz was playing. I watched them for a while, and when they finished watched the Dutch play Italy in a Euro under-19 football semi-final. It was quite a good game, but the Italians scored late to win 1-0.

The next day I went exploring a bit. Though the central square was pretty quiet - the place had pretty much shut down, being a Sunday - I enjoyed looking at a few of the churches and nice parks around the town, just generally relaxing for the day.

Prinsenhof Gardens

Dutch towns are seemingly always chiming - every quarter of an hour (sometimes half an hour) an elaborate short tune is played on the church bells in most churches. Since there are so many churches, you always hear one somewhere.

The Aa Kerk as the rains came in...

And of course, more canals - I couldn't help being amused by this spot:

Canal intersection signs!

After 2 nights I headed south again to another university town, Utrecht. There I stayed 2 nights with a friend I'd met in Cusco, Mathilde, who studies there. It was great meeting someone back from my time in Cusco again, and Mathilde showed me around the city a wee bit on my first afternoon there. I went for a tour up the Domtoren, the highest church tower in the Netherlands...

90-something metres up to the viewing platform, the top is 112.5 m up. There is a by-law in Utrecht that no other buildings may be taller than the Dom!
The tower is now free standing after the nave of the church partially collapsed in a tornado in the 1600s, and was never rebuilt.

The views from the top were stunning, and it was possible to see the high-rises of Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the distance (although unfortunately I'd forgotten my camera!). We also got to see the large automated wheel that plays the bells every 15 minutes.

The Domtoren, canals and lots of parked bikes - quickly becoming a very common sight in the Netherlands!

The next day the weather suddenly came out for the party - a scorching 32+ day. Mathilde lives in student accommodation at the university, and one of her roommates had set up a paddling pool on the roof, so we spent most of the afternoon up there in the sun - in fact it was so hot that I couldn't sit out of the water for more than about 10 minutes without having to get back in the water to cool down! It was also a great spot for a couple of beers in the evening.

Mathilde's roommates were all really friendly and very tolerant of the fact I couldn't speak Dutch - everyone in the Netherlands is quite happy to speak English and a lot of them speak it completely fluently, which makes it quite a welcoming place to travel for someone without a word of Dutch.

The next morning it was off to the tiny town of Made, in the south of the country, where my great-auntie Cock lives, and where my Oma & Opa were also staying. Once again, I was on the very efficient train system - although I did spot this sign walking to Utrecht's train station:

My church?

Finally, somewhere where other people spell my name with an "I"!

The Dam of the Amstel River

10 - 15 June

I arrived in Amsterdam late in the evening after a 9 hour flight Vancouver - London, a 2 hour stopover in the truly massive Heathrow terminal 5, and then a short hop across the English Channel to the Netherlands. It's a country I've wanted to visit for a long time, being half-Dutch by ancestry, and one of my primary destinations on my world trip.

I was pretty out-of-it time wise, with a 9 hour time difference from Vancouver - it felt like I should be having lunch as it was getting dark, but I'd got next to no sleep on the plane so I was tired anyway. I had 5 days to explore Amsterdam, so I headed straight to my hostel and had a quiet night, but couldn't help noticing the very efficient train system and the picturesque canals as I made my way in from the airport...

Look! Canals!

My first day in Amsterdam was mainly walking around, looking at all the impressive sights - the many canals, the massive Westerkerk, the trams, the Centraal train station, Dam Square... It was almost just as I'd imagined. Lovely old architecture, and of course the streets are dominated more by bikes than cars.

Central harbour area with houses right on the canals

Westerkerk (West Church)

Elaborate organ inside Westerkerk

Amsterdam Centraal train station

More canals... And parked bikes

There's something about Dutch people that make them look Dutch too. Certainly I didn't stand out any more - here, blond hair and blue eyes are the norm! I did have a few situations where I had to apologise that despite my very Dutch name, I didn't actually speak any Dutch! (At least not yet...)

I headed for Museumplein the next day, which is home to several of Amsterdam's truly famous and excellent museums. I left the newly-reopened Rijksmuseum for another day, but went to the Van Gogh Museum. They had an excellent set of displays on the life and works of the famed Dutch painter, with lots of really interesting information about his painting habits too. He often reused canvasses, painting on top of older studies or on the back of the canvas, since he was so poor, and x-ray images have evidenced what was originally painted underneath.

Oh, and there were some of his famous paintings too!

One of Van Gogh's famous self-portraits

The famous Sunflowers... Or is it? There are actually two very similar sunflower paintings, which he painted about a year apart. Both were on display at the museum, though one of them was on loan and not allowed to be photographed.

I also went on the so-called Heineken Experience, a pretty overly touristic tour through their original brewery, but it was actually quite interesting. Aside from the usual beer-brewing stuff, they had some good history on the company, a proper tasting, and of course practicing how to pour a beer exactly right so that it gets just to the top of the arms of the red star on the glass.

One of the original Heineken brewing vats from the 1870's

Pouring the perfect Heineken...

The next morning I ran into this guy...

It's Dan Skipper!

Well, actually, we'd organised it a few days before, but by coincidence we both ended up in Amsterdam at the same time on our separate trips. We went on a canal cruise tour together, which got us to see a few other interesting sights and learn a bit of Amsterdam's history too.

Amsterdam's skinniest building

We then went to the recently re-opened and very impressive Rijksmuseum. I'm not normally one for walking through museums a lot, unless they're particularly dedicated to one thing, but the sheer size of the museum and the range of displays here was quite something.

The late afternoon and evening was then devoted to beers and a bit of a catchup, both with Dan and his friend Hamish Silverwood, who now lives in Amsterdam studying towards his PhD. We tried a few Belgian beers, and then Hamish showed us around the famed red light district. This was very, well, interesting, if you can call it that - the fact that prostitution is so blatantly on display over several blocks of the inner city is strange compared to the regulations I'm used to in New Zealand. The large majority of people walking around were, indeed, foreign tourists just curious to see what it was all about.

Having seen a lot of Amsterdam's sights, I had a quiet morning the next day, doing a bit of shopping and diary writing before meeting up with Dan again for lunch. We went for a bit of a wander around the harbour front, spotting a windmill (a real windmill!) and then walking through a Dutch market. It's quite a different thing to a Peruvian market, with a few delicatessen-type places and, of course, some Dutch cheese stalls...

There's a windmill back there!

Dutch cheeses for sale in the market... I love Dutch cheeses!

I left Dan at Hamish's apartment, where he was staying, and went back to my hostel before meeting up with them and a few other friends of Hamish's for dinner, and then of course another round of Belgian beers. It was nice to catch up with a couple more people I knew from back home, rather than just being another tourist in a big city, and once again I have to say it is definitely my preference to spend a bit of time with locals (or at least people living there) than just staying with tourists and doing touristy things all the time.

In a few days, I was due to meet up with my Oma & Opa (my Dutch grandparents) who were also visiting the Netherlands and staying with family in the southn. So with a few days to spare, I booked a couple of nights in the northern town of Groningen, which was my destination on the very efficient train system the next morning (after managing to find a pub to watch the All Blacks beat France!).

Already I was enjoying being in the country, it was living up to my hopes quite well!

Dusk over an Amsterdam canal

Vancouver & surrounds with Nic and Mike

May 26 - June 9

I was quite glad to arrive in Vancouver and very happy to hear a real kiwi accent from a friend back home when Nic met me at the airport to take me back to their flat.

It was very nice to be back in a Western home again. For all the wonders of travelling South America, the joys of hot water for washing the dishes, of being able to flush toilet paper, of being able to look up public transport information on the internet and of speciality, craft beers was a welcome relief.

Mike was away for a few days, but Nic and I amused ourselves with a museum trip, and a little party in honour of Jono's birthday back home. I was also very glad to be eating home-cooked Western meals... Like roast carrots... And cereal (although no weet-bix!)

A happy birthday from Vancouver to Auckland!

Nic was then working for a couple of days, and suggested I head over to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. Despite being a lot smaller (now) that Vancouver, it is the capital of British Columbia* and is quite a nice city, with very much a British influence on some of the architecture. So after a bus, three Skytrains (Vancouver's metro), another bus, a ferry and a final bus, I arrived in Victoria.

During my stay, I spent some time exploring the city area, with a very picturesque inner harbour and prominently placed state government buildings, where I did a very interesting free tour. Apparently after their recent elections, the new Prime Minister is not actually a member of parliament - under First Past the Post, she did not win her electorate but is still head of the governing party. For all the detractors of MMP in NZ, at least our Prime Minister gets a vote!

British Columbia Parliament

I also visited a very impressive miniatures museum:

One of the miniatures displays

On one day, I hired a bicycle and spent the day exploring more of the surrounds of Victoria. I spent a while following the "Galloping Goose Trail", (along an old railway line where a train nicknamed the "Goose" used to run), as well as a few parks and then around the southern coast. It was very pleasant biking through a pine tree forest, and I spotted quite a few squirrels in an inner-city park too.

Ride the Galloping Goose Trail!

Squirrel! (OK, it might not be exciting to you, but we don't get them in New Zealand)

On my last day, to the ferry, I visited the Butchart Gardens, a sort of private botanic gardens with some very nice flowers in bloom and some other neat additions too. I discovered my camera was able to pick up some amazing detail on the flowers, most of which had droplets of water (yes, it was raining again) and I quite enjoyed taking photos of all of them.

Butchart Gardens pretty flower photo #1

Butchart Gardens pretty flower photo #2

Butchart Gardens pretty flower photo #3

Butchart Gardens pretty flower photo #4

Nice fountain

Creative hedge trimming

Totem poles ("American Indian" tribes of course existed - and still do - in Canada too)

After I got back to Vancouver on the Wednesday, Nic had a couple of days off work, so we explored Vancouver city a bit. It's a very nicely laid out place - a lot more space than South American cities, I guess - and there's a lovely waterfront area, and Stanley Park (a nice spot right near the city). We even got some fine summer weather!

Vancouver waterfront

Vancouver Harbour

Steam clock in the older Gastown part of the city centre

The thing that struck me the most was the distances - Vancouver (and it's satellite cities) is very spread out, and it can take a long time to get anywhere, with a high reliance on private cars. This was such a contrast to the density of places like Cusco, Santa Marta, or various others, where travel was by bus or foot, maybe taxi. Vancouver was certainly a very well

It was nice to just to be relaxing in a house, getting up when I wanted, having a quiet day at home, recharging the batteries a bit after a pretty busy last couple of weeks in Colombia. I went for a couple of walks in a nearby park, where I watched a bit of a local baseball game there, caught up on my diary a bit, and enjoyed the pine forest surroundings.

Gorgeous reflection on a lake in Mundy park near Nic & Mike's place

I was keen to see some ice hockey, but it was out of season, so instead, one evening, Nic and I went to a roller derby - the Vancouver team was well-beaten by the London team - for a rather hilarious night of "sport", and left talking like seasoned derby pros!

When Mike got back we had a good catch-up, played some computer games, went for a little walk, and reminisced about good old times back in out Christchurch Puna St flat (miss you guys - Jono, Elana, Hamish, Jade and Rachel!). I also even managed a game of bridge at a local club - my first in over 4 months - with Nic and Mike's landlady, Betsy.

I should mention that Betsy was also very hospitable during my stay - Nic and Mike's place is the downstairs part of her house, and she let me stay in her own guest bedroom upstairs for the whole two weeks. Thanks Betsy!

I was lucky enough to have my birthday there too, and it was nice to spend it with a couple of old friends. Mum had sent a parcel all the way from NZ, which was really special too, with some gifts to remind me of home. We went out for dinner, had a few beers, played some good ol' Split Enz up loud in the living room, and watched the All Blacks demolish France at 3am in the morning. A great birthday!

Birthday day brunch - yummy omelette!

Cards and gifts from back home in NZ - and NZ$15 won on a couple of scratchies!

It seemed silly not to go to Whistler while we were there, so for my last night we drove there and stayed in a house owned by Betsy. It was worth it just for the drive - there was some lovely scenery - even if it was out of the skiing season.

One of the most awesome road signs I've ever seen the words in brackets are the names given to those places by the local tribes

Mike & I at Shannon Falls

The "Chief"

Gorgeous pine forest scenery at Whistler

Whistler hosted the 2010 Winter Olympic Games

And with that, all of a sudden, 2 very enjoyable weeks in Vancouver were gone. I had a great time with my old mates Nic & Mike - thanks so much for having me there & I hope to see you guys again soon! Come to Europe!


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* I just realised I travelled from Colombia to British Columbia. Apparently this spelling discrepancy has existed for a long time. I'd thought with a "u" would be more correct, since they are named after Christopher Columbus. However, he was an Italian man and apparently in Italian his name is Cristoforo Colombo. So I guess both are equally "correct".

To confuse the situation more, his name in Spanish is Cristóbal Colón, and strictly speaking the man is from Genoa, where it is Christoffa Corombo. If Wikipedia is to be believed, there are further different spellings in Portuguese, Latin and Catalan too.