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.

Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral and flying through the US

May 23 - 25

I had a morning flight to Bogotá, Colombia's capital, where I would spend just one night before a very early departure on towards Vancouver. My flight with Avianca was all on time, and I got a taxi to my hostel in the city centre. At some 9 million inhabitants, the city itself is twice as populous as the whole of New Zealand, and I have to admit I hadn't heard of it before I left home.

It reminded me in many ways of Lima - big, sprawling, busy and not that many interesting things to do. There was one thing near Bogotá, however, that is unique in the world - a massive Catedral de Sal (salt cathedral) built out of the disused areas of a salt mine by a town called Zipaquirá. Rather than wander the same-old, same-old churches and museums in town, I worked out the metro and bus system and made my way to Zipaquirá.

After briefly walking through part of the lovely little quaint town, I headed up to the salt mine on the hill and was greeted with this entranceway - and a smell of salt:

Entrance to the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral

The cathedral is constructed in a now-disused part of a large salt mine, with three massive naves, the 12 stations of the cross, and a small chapel, all lit up in very eerie dark re/purple colours. It was mined between 1950 and 1989, was opened as a cathedral in 2001, and is actually available for weddings etc as well as the standard guided tours, with capacity for 3000 people. The walls, ceiling and floor are all constructed out of original salt rock (believe me - I tasted it).

The guide (and everyone else working there) had to wear a safety helmet but we didn't. Apparently the risk to us is considered low enough if only visiting, but high enough if working there. It didn't fill me with much confidence, especially when he later pointed out a large block, about one metre square, which had apparently fallen from the ceiling just three hours earlier. They do keep a lot of monitoring of movements and gas levels inside the mine, however.

I'm not a religous man, but I have to say the cathedral was very nicely presented and constructed. The guide led us down past the 14 stations of the cross, most of which were at the ends of long tunnels carved out for the mining process. This was one of them:

Station of the Cross, IX: Jesus falls for the third time

A lookout showed a very commanding view of the main nave of the cathedral. The cross carved into the back of this nave is a massive 15 m high, 10 m wide and 70 cm deep, to give you a bit of an idea of scale. Let's also not forget the floor is 180 m below ground level.

Main nave (Nave de la Vida - the life of Jesus) of the cathedral.
On either side are the Nave del Nacimiento (the birth of Jesus) and the Nave de la Resurreción

The cylindrical columns comprising the walls between each nave are massive - probably at least 10 m diameter at a guess.

Large pillar looking from the left-hand nave towards the middle

Further down inside I found some neat carvings in the walls.

A beautiful tree carved into the salt walls

It was well worth the trip out to Zipaquirá and I was glad I'd visited something else than the sites in the city in my limited timeframe.

The next morning, I was in the taxi at 3:20 am on my way to the airport for a long day of flying. Little did I know the miserable, driving rain was an omen of worse things to come...

American Airlines flight in Bogotá airport

The first flight to Miami went OK, a bit late leaving but we caught up time and I got a neat view of Jamaica and Cuba out the window. Then things started going wrong:

• Miami immigration took over an hour in one queue, then another 40 minutes to get through customs - with no provision for people close to missing their flights at all
• With 1:50 to make my connection, including re-checking in my bag, I missed it by a mile
• I got rebooked on the next flight to Dallas so that I should still make my original Dallas-Vancouver flight - very simple, but it seemed a very "reactive" rather than "proactive" customer service
• Flight to Dallas was half an hour late leaving
• Halfway through taxiing to the runway we then returned to the gate and after waiting half an hour on the plane, were told that the plane was being taken out of service
• New plane arrived in Dallas 2 hours late in severe thunder and rain (fitting my mood!)
• Got put up in a Marriott Hotel for the night (which was actually good - I managed to refresh myself and it was easily the most expensive place I stayed in on my trip)
• Then immigration officials in Vancouver took me aside to a special questioning area - suspicious over my plans to go from Colombia to Amsterdam and visit a couple of old friends in Canada - they thought I might be carrying drugs
• After lots of questions about how much money I had, what my friends do in Vancouver, etc, I finally was allowed to enter Vancouver over 36 hours after leaving my hostel in Bogotá

I have to add my voice to the many swearing against air connections in the US - while the American Airlines service was pretty reasonable in the end, the whole experience was a terrible one. 

I was very glad to spot my old friend Nic waiting for me when I finally got to the arrivals hall. Two weeks of fun in Vancouver, here we come!