A Very Irish Christmas

Ireland was so cold this Christmas that there just wasn't much point in going outside. That was fine, however, as there was plenty to be eaten inside.

We had a traditional Christmas dinner with a turkey from a local farm and stuffing made with mashed potatoes (I was informed that bread stuffing is so American). My Irish aunties also introduced me to a Cork specialty, spiced beef, which they described (accurately) as akin to pastrami but flavored with Christmas spices like cloves, allspice, and mace.

And when we did make it out of the house (to another warm, sheltered location), we rewarded ourselves with freshly baked Irish scones: crisp on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside, and layered with clotted cream and raspberry jam.

(For the Christmas turkey and spiced ham, my Aunts relied on their favorite purveyors at the old-school English Market in downtown Cork. For very civilized tea and scones, visit Hayfield Manor, where tea is served in the hotel's library and sitting room in cozy nooks next to fireplaces or overlooking the manicured courtyard.)

Apple Pie

There are in Den Haag a plethora of little twee cafes that serve basic sandwiches and homemade sweets on mismatched china. I was at our favorite (based on quality of coffee, value, and general homeyness)* with a new friend the weekend before Christmas. We both ordered apple pie - Dutch apple pie, which is a towering mess of diced apples, dried fruit, and crumbly crust.

Our very kind waitress explained that there wasn't much pie left, and also that it wasn't very good (I did not catch why she thought it wasn't very good, but at any rate she turned out to be wrong). She offered to bring us what they had left, with some whipped cream, for half price.

She re-emerged carefully balancing a large baking sheet with a third of an apple pie and roughly a cup of whipped cream mounded next to it. "I'm sorry," she explained, "it started to fall apart when I cut into it, so I just brought you everything we had." We didn't complain.

Half an hour of chatting later, we had made a major dent in the pie, but progress had significantly slowed. That was when the thin Dutch man, with whom we were sharing a large communal table, leaned over. "Excuse me," he said with an exceedingly polite Dutch accent. "I would like you to know that if you need any help with the problem you seem to be having," he inclined his head towards the pie plate, "I would be very happy to be of whatever assistance I can." And he smiled.

It took us a moment, but then we laughed and slid the baking sheet with the ruins of the apple pie over to him. A few minutes later, he slid it back to us. "As you can see," he informed us, "I have been able to take care of the problem. I am very happy that I could be of some assistance."

Four euros for a third of an apple pie and some cross-cultural bonding? Now that's a value.

* "Appeltje Eitje" (roughly, little apples little eggs)

Snowpocalypse, Den Haag edition

Holy icefield, Batman! I brought the Snowpocalypse of 2010 to the Hague!

What started as a heavy snowfall on Friday has grown by maybe an inch or six per day since. But it isn't the amount of snow that has me alarmed - it's that the snow is staying put.

Friday

Today

I don't mean that the snow isn't melting - though it's not. I mean that no one seems to be making any effort to move it.

Christmas shopping on an icefield

I can sympathize with a city government that doesn't own any snow plows because it "never snows". This is why a light dusting of snow can shut down Portland. But there is a further disconcerting cultural/legal difference I was not expecting: No one here clears their sidewalk. Not homeowners, not the government, not even businesses.

So five days later, it's more or less like it just stopped snowing two minutes ago. The snow on the roads is browner than that on the sidewalks, but otherwise it can be hard to tell where the sidewalks end and the streets begin. Or where the sidewalks are, period. Venturing outside is like an arctic expedition.

Sidewalk? Who needs a sidewalk?

But venture outside I must, because I will give the locals this: there is no capitulating to the snow here. Sure, the trams may stop running, and people may be slipping all over the sidewalks, but as fas as I can tell - since I cannot understand Dutch TV news - schools do not close, government offices do not have snow days, shops stay open, trash gets collected, drivers (particularly bus drivers) seem oblivious to the snow on the roads, and so I along with everyone else must suffer through two-hour commutes until things return to normal.

(Yes, there are still some hardy bicyclists out there, and yes, they do not wear helmets even when riding over snow and ice while sharing the road with cars likewise ill-equipped for the weather. And yes, I have seen at least two bicyclists wipe out in the middle of the road.)

I admire this chutzpah in the face of Snowmageddon II. But tonight I have to make my way to Schiphol Airport - a rail trip that has been challenging recently in good weather. Nervous? Yes. Ready for adventure? Yes. Eager to escape the icefield of Den Haag? Definitely.

Little Luxuries

I recently learned something very important about living in Holland: fresh cut flowers are cheap. Cheap as in a bouquet of flowers costs 2 or 3 euros (and with the exchange rate swinging back in our favor, that's a pretty sweet deal).

Now that we have bikes (at the same ratio that Americans own TVs and we used to own computers), my next step for going Dutch? Buy myself fresh flowers every week.

Snow day!

It snowed all day today, and since I was doubtful of the reliability of the Dutch trams (this isn't Boston, or Copenhagen, you know), I stayed home. I won't bore you with details (they largely consist of me, a couch, a feather duvet, tea from Paris, and falling snow), but here are pictures of my view. It's a far cry from a couple months ago.

Traveling in the Off-Season

We went to Copenhagen to celebrate my 30th birthday, an endeavor that inherently meant (at least in Europe) that we would be traveling in the off-season. We are becoming pros in off-season travel.

The most obvious downside of off-season travel is the weather, which in Copenhagen meant arctic temperatures, lots of snow, and general darkness. Personally, I'm not a big fan of snow: it's cold, wet, makes life difficult, and then turns to slush. And if it's cold and snowing (hard), it's not easy to force yourself to look up and around at whatever you happen to be hurrying past on your way to the next warm place.

Other difficulties: typical tourist highlights are closed for the season or have severely reduced hours. OK, maybe that's the only other downside, but I'm still bitter I didn't get to go into the casements (underground tunnels) of Luxembourg City's fortifications.

However, December travel also means holiday festivities, and Copenhagen was in full Christmas swing. Evidently, when it comes to Christmas shopping and Christmas markets, the locals are undeterred by the generally uncomfortable weather.

Our favorite: a church holiday bazaar, where I bought a fabulous retro apron, homemade Danish cookies for my colleagues, and a refreshingly cheap cup of glogg. (We always appreciate a good value.)

The kind Danish church ladies were also making fresh aebleskiver (doughnut balls), and an older gentleman was playing simple Christmas songs on a piano. Except for the distinctly Danish flavor of the handmade Christmas decorations (the white-on-red cross of the Danish flag featured prominently), it could have been a church bazaar anywhere.

Other upsides of off-season travel: we had a personally guided tour through a palace, generally avoided all lines, were introduced to the wonders of glogg, and got to watch Danish kids sledding.

Despite the long hours we spent at the airports, and the windburn I suffered on exposed portions of my skin, I would call our Copenhagen adventure a success. After all, as with any travel, it really comes down to your attitude.

Dutch or Danish?

From my American-centric perspective, the Dutch and the Danish are easily confused (hey, it's not my fault they sound alike). But as soon as we stepped off the plane in Copenhagen (literally, in the airport), I realized there were significant - if often subtle - differences between the Dutch and the Danish aesthetic and way of life. Which prompted the immediate question (as any good American would ask): which is better?

Traditional sweets: Jeff loves his hot n' fresh stroopwaffel, but I love real "Danish", with raspberry jam. Mmmm. Point: Danish.

Design: As Jeff pointed out, the problem here is that the Dutch are too practical (by which I mean cheap) to invest in the best of Nordic-style design. We love the Dutch frugality, but I also loved the Copenhagen department stores full of beautiful Danish housewares. (Can I register for a wedding in Denmark?) Point: Danish.

Hot spiced wine: The Danish glogg is omnipresent - sold in every restaurant, on every street corner, and at every church bazaar. The gluhwein available in the Netherlands just doesn't have the same punch (and also lacks the almonds and raisins). Point: Danish.

Money: I was annoyed to find that Denmark does not use the Euro. But the kroner is not all that bad. For one thing, it's called "kroner," which sounds friendly. For another, the kroner coins have hearts on them, which is super-friendly. Furthermore, I like any coins that have holes, which makes for instant jewelry. Point: Danish, for friendliness.

Street food: Raw herring or hot dogs served with glogg? Point: Danish.

Language: Neither are pronounceable (for Americans at least) and neither have much re-use potential outside of traveling to Suriname or Greenland, respectively. But Dutch is becoming comfortably familiar, and it also has funnier sounding words. Point: Dutch.

Snow: When it snows, the Dutch are like Portlanders and the Danish are like Bostonians. It snowed most of the time we were in Copenhagen, which translated into a lot of little kids in full body snow suits, sledding down park slopes. Meanwhile, the trains in the Hague stopped running. Point: Danish.

Public transit: Despite the recent inability of the Dutch train system to operate between the Hague and the Amsterdam airport, I really appreciate the coverage and convenience of the Dutch public transit system. The much-hyped Copenhagen metro, meanwhile, does not really go anywhere and also smells like spilled beer. And while kids love the fact that the trains have no drivers, I am merely reminded of how computers caused the deadly Red Line crash in DC last year. Point: Dutch.

I could go on, but I've already lost count. It doesn't really matter, though, because the Danish had me at glogg. Game, set, match.

Say what?

In the Netherlands, I share my birthday with Sinterklas.* This seemed like a good idea, until my colleagues filled me in on the darker side (literally) of the Dutch St. Nicholas.

More than Sinterklas himself, the Dutch love his little helpers, all of whom are called Zwarte Piet (literally, "Black Peter"). Zwarte Piet is a Dutch tradition that is entirely lost in translation, at least for Americans scarred by the legacy of Jim Crow.

For a country that prides itself on being forward-thinking, how can its adults love to dress up in black face, complete with big red lips and curly "Afro" wigs, to dance around clumsily to bad hip-hop? (For examples, see here and here.) How can otherwise-normal seeming stores deck themselves out with grinning black-face caricatures, both as decorations and as merchandise?










I am very confused, and have heard no satisfactory explanation (including the more recent effort to recast Zwarte Piet as a chimney sweep: I know a socially inappropriate stereotype of a dumb but happy black slave when I see one).

There's so much to say on the subject, but I expect everything I could say has already occurred to you. (And if it hasn't, just try googling "zwarte piet" - it's all been said before.) Instead, check out Jeff's post, which also links to the quintessential David Sedaris take on this inexplicably popular Dutch tradition.

* In the U.S., St. Nicholas Day is celebrated - if it is celebrated at all - on December 6.

My favorite place in Paris

My favorite place in Paris is Sacre Couer. I do not claim originality, nor will I make excuses. It just is, and has been going back at least ten years. There's something about the carnival aspect at the bottom, the winding touristy streets of Montmarte, the ample supply of crepes, the bright carousel (which our four-year-old friend actually got to ride - lucky kid!). That's stage 1 of the Sacre Couer experience.

Stage 2 is the meandering walk up through the gardens, a process that feels vaguely like a mini-pilgrimage. Amelie nicely captured the whimsy and charm of Steps 1 and 2. Step 3 (really a half step, or a resting point) is posing for a picture at the top, with Paris spread out below. If only I had access to all my pictures, I could create a montage of photos taken against an always overcast sky with Paris an indiscernible grey behind me. But it always feels special at the time.

Step 4 is walking through the basilica itself. That's a very personal experience, but I will risk saying this much: it's one of the very few places in the world where I can always feel the peace of god. It is, to me, a special place. If you know what I mean, and know of other such places, please be kind enough to share them with me.

Street food, French edition

We were in Paris with our friends a few weekends ago, and Jeff took my favorite picture of the trip: crepes being made on a street near our apartment in the Latin Quarter on a cold November evening. The four-year-old with us was mesmerized.

And then the Villagers Stormed the Castle

View of Vianden castle from the hostel

Cold, wet, and (in Jeff's case) sick, we headed out of Luxembourg City Saturday night for the little town of Vianden along the German border - home of Luxembourg's only current nomination for the World Heritage list (perhaps you can sense a theme). This involved a train and then a country bus, and then a trudge up a steep hill under the shadow of Vianden's medieval castle.

I asked the nice lady at the hostel to recommend a place for dinner, and she mentioned that the town was having a little parade that night, followed by food stands in the school yard. A little odd to have a parade at 8 on a cold and rainy November evening, I thought, but hey - we're game for anything.

As we trudged back down the hill in the rain at 7:58, there was a seismic boom, followed by another - it was less friendly-crackle-of-firecrackers and more heavy-artillery-bombarding-the-town. I think we heard the crackling of the fires before we actually saw them: two giant bonfires on opposite hilltops that looked like they were raging out of control (Jeff voiced concern for our belongings back at the hostel).

UNESCO World Heritage, check

I have (another) somewhat arbitrary life goal of visiting all 900+ sites on UNESCO's World Heritage list. Luxembourg has a grand total of one.

Last Saturday may have been cold, it may have been rainy, the wind may have been so strong that no umbrella could stay right side out for long, but we were not deterred: we walked every cobblestone street and every stony rampart of "The City of Luxembourg: its old quarters and fortifications".

This was no easy task: Luxembourg City was what it was (the "Gibraltar of the North") because it sits on top of a rocky promontory, surrounded on three sides by a deep river valley (we're talking a straight drop). Up, down, up, down - this is not a walking tour for the faint of heart.

Looking for a short cut.

Jeff dwarfed by one of many old gates.

But I love scrambling over rocky ruins, especially those of fortresses that are labyrinthine and terraced. We climbed up watch towers, snaked across old sentry walks, took pictures from every redoubt (don't worry, I'll spare you).

If you ever find yourself in Luxembourg, most hotels and tourist places will have brochures for two self-guided walks: The City Promenade (for the city center) and the Wenzel Walk (for the ruins of the fortress). I would more strongly recommend the latter, though the former is a nice addition (and would be even more lovely on a non-tempestuous day).


UNESCO World Heritage cite, check. Next up: watching the villagers storm the castle...

Why Luxembourg

I have a somewhat arbitrary life goal to visit two new countries every year. Granted, this goal is only three years old, but I figure that's all the more reason not to give up on it yet.

I might have moved to a new country this year - a major life goal in itself - but as we entered November of the year 2010, I had yet to visit any new countries. With time rapidly running out and without much vacation time to spare, I found my solution: Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is a five or six hour train ride from the Hague, is stereotypically European (think church bells ringing through town squares and ruins of ancient castles on the hillsides), and is ripe with amusing factoids.

Luxembourg, like Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino, is inherently amusing just for being a historical anomaly that American school children have often never heard of. Luxembourg's mystique is further increased (for me) by the fact that it's actually not all that small - by which I mean, it has a full train system, and the length of the country would take more than an hour to traverse. There are plenty of rural towns in Luxembourg that are entirely distinct from Luxembourg City.

Other interesting/amusing factoids we learned during our 36 hours in Luxembourg:

10 things I like about Rotterdam

Rotterdam gets a bad rap in the travel guides for being modern and cold and lacking in the quaint charms of canal towns like Delft and Leiden. But there are only so many canals one can tolerate in any given year.

Rotterdam is definitely a "real" city, full of grime and big buildings, but it is designed on a human scale and doesn't take itself too seriously. I like that. In fact, there's a lot I like about Rotterdam. From our first visit to the city last Saturday, here are just 10 of the things I liked about Rotterdam (in rough order of appearance):

1. Cool architecture

A selection of new, multipurpose buildings down by the docks.

You cannot talk about Rotterdam without talking about cutting-edge modern architecture. (Indeed, Gridskipper just published a nice new map of Rotterdam's most striking buildings.) But cutting-edge modern architecture requires constant construction - of which we saw plenty around town. I could live without the mess, but I love the final results.

2. Graffiti art

Rotterdam is a city of modern whimsy, and even its graffiti is bright and playful.

Pirate cats for Katie. Yaar.

3. Mussels in the Market

I regret now not ordering my own heap of steaming mussels from this mussels stand in Rotterdam's bustling market (Jeff was worried about having fish-hands for the rest of the day). They were cooking the mussels en masse, and people stood shoulder-to-shoulder eating piles of them with their fingers. We also appreciated that a vlaamses frites stand set up shop right next door.

4. Kubiswoningen

It turns out these tilted houses set up on giant concrete pylons are not all that practical to live in, but there's something about their color and shape and misplaced sense of urban utopia that feels sweetly optimistic.

(Designed by Piet Blom and built in the early 1980s, the entire complex is referred to as a "forest," with the cubes as the tree houses.)

With Het Potlood ("The Pencil")

5. Zakinde's Monument to a Devastated City

Why, you might ask, is Rotterdam full of tilted cube houses and modern skyscrappers? Why no traditional Dutch aesthetic like you might find in Amsterdam or the Hague? Because Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe (we're talking huge), was bombed to oblivion during WWII by first the Germans and then the Allies (with the Germans sabotaging what was left on their way out of town). The people of Rotterdam might have rebuilt, but they have not forgotten.

On our walk last Saturday, we counted at least four monuments commemorating the war. The most famous, and the most moving, is Zakinde's Monument to a Devastated City: a statute of a man reeling back in anguish, a gaping hole where his heart used to be.

Rotterdam's history makes me appreciate its modern sensibilities all the more: I like that the people of Rotterdam after the war chose to look forward and build a new city with new ideas, to experiment with open spaces and public art, to make the proverbial lemonade when life gave them rubble.

From another war memorial.

6. The coat check at the art museum

While we were standing in line at the art museum to flex a little museumkaart muscle, I was fascinated by the automated coat check: you turn a key on a chord, and a string with a hanger on the end of it drops down from the sky. You hang up your coat, turn the key back, and the hanger flies up into the sea of coats over your head, safe from prying hands. Fun!

More generally, I liked how such details in Rotterdam's museums were thoughtfully (or at least playfully) designed, like this hidden door to the woman's bathroom at a museum cafe.

Waiting for the loo in the cafe of the Kunsthal.

7. The Sonneveld House

We didn't actually end up going in to the art museum with the cool coat check because the museumkaart did not get us in for free (it's a matter of principle). But then we found out that the Sonneveld House, associated with the Netherlands Architecture Institute, was free even without the museumkaart. I knew then that I would like this place.

The house was built in the 1930s for a local self-made businessman and his family and (I am told) exemplifies the "nieuwe bouwen" style of architecture.

Cutting-edge architecture from the 1930s.

The house is a living museum, decorated as it was when it was built, with the expectation that visitors (who must wear burlap sacks over their shoes) will sit on the couches, poke into cupboards, and touch all the fabrics. There's something lovely about the kinetic experience of actually being *in* a historic home, instead of just an observer of it.

Cooling my heels in the Sonnevelds' living room.

Plus it came with an awesome (and free) audio guide. Highly recommended for the curious and the incurably snoopy.

Getting my learn on with the free audioguide.

8. Field of Bunnies

Not all of Rotterdam's many public art installations relate to the war and its aftermath. My personal favorite is this field of pleasantly bulbous bunny rabbits.

In particular I liked the one facing west, waiting expectantly for the sunset.

(You can see the Euromast in this picture. They call that "foreshadowing".)

9. The Euromast at Sunset

Perhaps because the country is so flat, perhaps because it rains so much, whatever it is, the light and sky and clouds in the Netherlands are ethereal. This means the "golden hour" here is often magical.

Jeff basking in the Golden Hour.

We had a perfect golden hour during our walk from the bunnies (#8) to Delfshaven (#10), along the Maas, past the Olmstead-esque park that houses the Euromast.

Sunsets in Holland can make even industrial-looking hospitals seem beautiful.

The Euromast is like the Space Needle and is of the same era. It has the futuristic optimism of the 1960s, but is also a bit quirky in its rounded asymmetry.

We saved going *up* the Euromast, however, for a later trip. We are now accepting dibs from future guests.

10. Delftshaven

Delftshaven is not my favorite part of Rotterdam, but it was a soothing contrast at the end of the day: A historic port that was swallowed up by Rotterdam many years ago, Delftshaven consists primarily of one cute canal, which is anchored by the requisite windmill and is full of little cafes and shops. At dusk, it was quite pretty.

Note the windmill.

Of historical interest, the pilgrims (of Plymouth Rock fame) prayed at a church here before setting sail across the ocean.

The pilgrims' church, and a traditional Dutch drawbridge.

Perhaps the best part of Delftshaven? That at the end of the canal, you are immediately back into the rush of the real city, with broad avenues and bright lights and crowded side walks. That's the side of Rotterdam I like best.