Bucket List

I don't think I had ever heard the term "bucket list" until the 2007 movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, but I suppose that for most of my teenage and adult life I've had some mental list of things I would like to either see or accomplish while I'm on this earth.  I've never bothered to write anything down, especially since I figured that most of my list was just a fantasy anyway.  But as travel happens to be a hobby of mine, most of my of imagined bucket list items pertain to the places on earth I'd love to see one day.

I seem to have a fascination with most everything there is to see or do in the mountains...a fascination I suppose that stems from the fact that I grew up in a place that was so flat and close to sea level that you couldn't dig in the ground without your hole filling up with water.  Maybe that's why I felt the need to see the Swiss Alps for myself.

So the third weekend in September, the family and I packed our bags and headed for Luzern (or Lucerne, depending on your language of choice), Switzerland.  As it turned out, the trip getting there was almost as much of an adventure as the time spent in Switzerland itself.  Our destination was too far away to drive and still have time to see the sights, and we've flown plenty of times, so Keith and I decided we should take an overnight train, just to say we'd done it.  Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, but I can say with confidence that  I don't think we will ever take the night train again.

This was our compartment.

The other side looked the same.  Little beds that have been slept on for many years by many different travelers, but at least they gave us clean sheets and pillow cases... we think.  Beyond gross bathrooms...Levi gagged the first time he had to go.  And then there were the paper-thin walls.  I didn't get much sleep that night with the guy on the other side of the wall sawing some serious logs, but I'm still glad we got the experience.   And oddly enough, we were in the same train car with a group of students from Baylor...small world!

Our trip improved greatly once we left the train station.  We had a rented car waiting, so we drove ourselves to our hotel to get checked in and settled.  This was the view from our hotel.

After thoroughly inspecting the hotel and its grounds (killing time while Keith had to work), we hopped on a bus and went back into the city.  This is a picture of Schwanenplatz (Swan Place, or more literally Swan Square). I just love the swans!

And this is the Chapel Bridge, the world's oldest covered wooden bridge, which also happens to be the most photographed spot in Switzerland.  It's easy to see why.

There are actually about 7 different places in and near Luzern to cross the River Reuss.  The shot of the bridge above is looking east toward Lake Luzern, while the one to the right is looking west back toward the river.

The shot below was taken farther upriver but looking back toward the lake.  One of my favorite buildings is the one on the left in the picture below.  It is the Jesuit Church, built in 1666.

On our second day we drove over to Mount Pilatus and rode the world's steepest cog railway to the top.

  

Once at the top, we were pretty free to roam around.  There were two restaurants, a hotel, and lots of different walking trails to get great shots of the view.  Below you can see our view while we ate lunch. Yes, that's the Swiss Alps in the background.

 

And below is probably my favorite shot from the top.  Absolutely breathtaking!!

 

After an unnerving experience trying to keep Levi from rolling down to the bottom of Mount Pilatus, we descended on an aerial tramway.  In the picture below, you can see our view from the tramway car.  That is one of the longest alpine slides I've ever seen or been on in my life. 

 Yes, we HAD to try it out.  That was so much fun!!

  

The pic above shows our view from the slide...cows!!  The Swiss are known for their cheese, after all.

Then on our third day, we did what I've been waiting for...we drove through the Swiss Alps.  

 

The pic below shows a view from Furka Pass, listed as one of the "World's Most Spectacular Roads" by dangerousroads.org.

 

I have a slight obsession with James Bond films, so I guess it's no surprise that we had to drive the very same road that was used in one of 007's typical car chase scenes from Goldfinger.  To see the clip try this .  The road looks pretty much the same as it did when the movie was filmed in the 1960s, including the buildings and the meager concrete blocks that are supposed to prevent a person from accidentally driving over the edge.

To the left is a view from the top of Furka Pass looking back down at the road. Quite a drive!

And finally, the perfect ending to an outstanding trip to Switzerland...dinner and a Swiss music show, complete with yodelers, alpenhorns, and traditional cheese fondue.

Participation from the audience was even encouraged, so Levi joined in on the fun!

There were some adults who couldn't make sound come out of this alpenhorn, but Levi did on his first try!  As the only child to volunteer, he received a hearty round of applause. 

So for an imaginary bucket list, I'd say we did pretty good for ourselves.  Now that I've seen the Swiss Alps, though, any other trips we take just won't be quite the same...or maybe they will.  We always have Paris!

Return of the Gypsies

After a two-month long bout of writer's block, we gypsies are finally back online.  I'm not sure why I've had such trouble deciding what to say...I mean, it's not like we haven't been busy.  But for some reason, nothing I've tried to write seemed very interesting.  And frankly, if it's not interesting, then no one really wants to read it, and I don't blame them.  I don't like reading boring stuff either, but ergo, the writer's block...and my apologies to anyone who's been wondering what we're up to.

Anyway, so much has happened in these last two months that I'm going to jump way back into July to catch you all up to speed.  We spent a weekend in early July in Amsterdam (details found in my previous post), and then followed that with a day-trip the next weekend to the Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam.  The zoo is listed as one of Europe's most beautiful.  I don't disagree, but it was pretty much like any other zoo I've ever been in, with one major exception.  I have never been so close to the animals on exhibit as we were in this zoo.  There were times we could've literally touched the animals so long as we were quick enough.

  

Yes, that's a guinea pig Sara is looking at.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a guinea pig exhibit at a zoo before, but this shows just how close we could get to some of the animals.  There was no one around to stop us from climbing in and trying to catch this little guy either...

And yep, that's raccoons in the picture above.  I just had to take this picture because I thought it was so funny that a zoo would not only have a raccoon exhibit but place it at the front of the zoo as if they were some sort of special feature.  Cute as they may be, I've experienced first-hand how much of a nuisance they can be, so I found it odd that the zoo would want to show them off.  What was even more interesting was the number of other zoo patrons oohing and aahing over them and taking their pictures.  Then I saw a sign for the exhibit and realized...North America is the only place on earth that has these little critters.  For most of the other people at the zoo that day, it was likely the first time they'd ever laid eyes on one.  I'm sure there are plenty of folks back in Louisiana who would gladly ship some more over for them...but for a nominal fee, of course.

I have lots of other pics from this trip that I'll post separately on Facebook for anyone who's curious, but I gotta move on.

The weekend after our zoo trip, we took our first trip out of the Netherlands since moving in late May.  We had several potential places to visit, but we finally decided on Luxembourg.  Of the countries bordering or in close proximity to the Netherlands, this one seemed to be small enough that it could actually be covered more or less in a weekend, so that's what we did.  We drove ourselves Friday evening as it was only a 3 or so hour drive, or at least it should've been had it not been for the traffic jam in and around Antwerp, Belgium.  But we crawled along and eventually made it to Luxembourg city sometime Friday evening.

One of the things I decided I like best about Luxembourg is how much it closely resembles the images I have in my mind of what old world Europe probably looked like.  Saturday morning, we drove into Luxembourg City, the country's capital, and came up out of an underground parking garage to this.

Street vendors selling everything from fresh cheese and sausages to the flowers you see in the picture.

Markets modernized by food trucks, but they are still in the city square as they've been for hundreds of years.  I didn't realize it at the time, but since this trip I've noticed that most European cities have these types of markets on Saturdays.  Very cool!

After a day in the city on Saturday, we took a drive into the countryside on Sunday.  We visited Beaufort Chateau

and the city of Echternach on the border with Germany.   We ate pizza al fresco at one of the cafes near the ones you see pictured below.  Pizza made by REAL Italians, yummm!! 

We really enjoyed our time here, and the only negative aspect of the entire trip led me to my own personal epiphany.  This trip was hot! Obviously, we were traveling in July, so it was bound to be quite  warm outside.  What we didn't realize was that there would be no air conditioning in ANY of the buildings.  My personal revelation was that this must be why Europeans are known for being outdoors so often, especially when they eat...because it's too hot to go inside!  Some of you may have already known this, but until I had actually experienced suffocating heat indoors, the thought had never clicked for me.  What I don't understand is why they don't just install some A/C and join the rest of us in the 21st century, but I suppose that's a topic for another blog.

Anyway, in the 6 weeks that followed this trip, we celebrated Keith's birthday with a big Rowan bash and then took a trip home for a month to attend a family wedding and visit friends and family. We were so busy and did so much, that there's just not space enough to cover it all, but I just had to share this pic (courtesy of one of Elizabeth's friends) from the wedding.  Very sweet photo of an awesome newly married couple...even better is my daughter's reaction.  ;)

Upon our return to the Netherlands in late August, we all settled in and tried to get back to some sort of routine.  Both kids started school this fall (I can't believe Levi's in kindergarten!), so most of our days are spent buried in the many textbooks and projects they work on every day.  Keith's job is as overly frustrating as always, but thankfully most of our weekends are still free. We are trying to make the most of our time and enjoy these last beautiful weekends before it turns frigid over here.


And alas, as this only brings us to the end of August, there is still so much more to be told, but I think this post is long enough.  Hopefully my bout with writer's block is over so the rest of our traveling tales can be told.   So as the Dutch would say, "Tot ziens!"

Survival of the Fittest

8 weeks into Dutch living and I'm finally starting to feel normal again.  We, or maybe just me (ok, probably just me), had a tough time transitioning and learning to feel comfortable with the inability to comprehend anything written or spoken around us.  I've since resigned myself to being the "dumb" American, and now I just own up to my inadequacies.  I will point blank tell people that I don't understand what they're saying, and I ask for help whenever and wherever I need it, which goes against everything I am, thus the difficult transition.  Our most interesting experiences with my new communication strategy have been in Asian restaurants.  The employees understand their native language and Dutch, and we don't understand either one.  Menu selections have been made by pointing at pictures and nodding...but it just goes to show that we can still communicate, even if it's not with words.

We are also getting out and exploring a little more, which helps cure boredom.  A couple of weekends ago we went to Amsterdam.  The trip was not so much a sight-seeing excursion but more of an experiment to see whether or not we could figure out the public transportation system.  So 3 hours into what should have been a 1 hour trip, we finally made it.  But, hey, we now know how to travel via the Metro AND the trains (2 completely separate entities), should the need arise.  Score not 1, but 2 for the Crane family...woohoo!  And on top of that, there were some cool places to look at that were still open once we made it to the city. 

There is so much to see and do in Amsterdam that there was no way we could cover everything in one afternoon, but we should have no problem going back once we have another free weekend.  Here are just a few photos from that day...

This "bike parking lot" shown above was the first thing we saw as we exited Amsterdam Centraal, the train station located in the center of the city.  Three full floors of nothing but bicycles...

It was impossible to get a clear shot of this iconic symbol because people climb on it and in it and just sit so they can people-watch or take pictures of their own.  But we took a picture anyway because a trip to Amsterdam would be incomplete without it.

As the city is surrounded by canals, people seem to spend a lot of time in boats.  I was hoping to capture the picnic table and small grill in the boat below, but I was a bit too slow.  Natives sure know how to get the most out of small spaces. 

One of the cool places we visited was the Rijksmuseum (Rijks rhymes with "likes").  It is a museum that is dedicated to the history and art of the Netherlands.  We actually saw REAL Rembrandt paintings! The picture below is a little crooked because I had to shove my way through 50 people to get to it, and then I knelt down and took the photo between the knees of two folks who wouldn't budge.  But I got it!  (Sorry Michelle, we didn't make it to the Van Gogh museum before it closed, but there's always next time.)

As a former science teacher, I once covered the topics of natural selection and, by close association, the term "survival of the fittest".   The basic concept is that organisms that are best adapted to their environment are the ones that will prevail. It doesn't inherently mean that an organism must be in the best physical shape, only that the ability to adapt is available and used to combat adversity.  I suppose it's a good thing I wasn't in a life or death survival situation as I probably would've been eaten by some large reptilian predator by now, but I think I've finally got this.  Here's to more adaptation ahead! Cheers!!

Old School

We have been in Holland 5 weeks now, and our life has been very different from what I expected.  Before we left the States, I pictured us on excursions to exotic locations and day trips to France, Belgium, and Germany.  Silly me to expect anything other than the mundane chores that come with setting up a home.  Dishes have to be washed, dinner has be cooked, mounds of laundry must be washed, dried, and folded... And then Sara is still working to finish up her second grade schoolwork.  She got a late start on the material from the very beginning, and moving around slowed us down even more.  So for the most part, we have just been trying to get into a routine and have some semblance of normalcy in our lives.

Of course, with the settling in comes obstacles.  Most days I feel like we have not only moved across the planet but that we have time warped back at least 25 years, maybe more.  For instance, I've been kickin' it old school on my snazzy new Dutch bike.  The Dutch ride bikes that look like this one everywhere...I guess when you're country is roughly the size of Maryland in land area but nearly 3 times the population, parking can be a problem. 

And whoever said you never forget how to ride a bike obviously never had to learn to ride a Dutch one 15 years after his most recent biking experience.  I never actually fell off, but let's just say that relearning wasn't pretty.
And then I'm making ice in ice trays again...something I haven't done in probably 10 years.  Oh and let me not forget that gone are the days of other modern conveniences.  I can actually say that I miss Walmart and its 24 hour availability.  I never thought I would say those words, but it's true.  Stores here are open from about 9 or 10 am until 5 pm.  If you're lucky, they're open later on Thursday and Friday evenings, but you can forget about them being open on Sundays at all.  What is this...the 1970's?  It's bad enough that I'm having to learn to enjoy a big juicy hamburger without French's mustard or dill pickle slices, but what happens if I have a true emergency...like a craving for peanut butter and chocolate ice cream at 10 pm?

As usual, I feel I must counter these trials with some bright points from our travels.  One in particular was our trip to Zaandam, which is a quaint little touristy town northwest of Amsterdam.

We climbed through an operational windmill that was constructed in the 1700s.  We watched it make dye for paint.

We also visited a cheese farm, and of course, sampled cheese...

And we watched a man who made the iconic wooden clogs.  A process that used to take hours has been modernized with a machine that can make a pair in 5 minutes.

 Sara and Levi tried on a pair...

It seems that I always end with some form of an apology so that I don't sound like some grumpy, ungrateful expat's wife.  My goal is to give you all a glimpse into what it's really like living here.  Life is never easy, and living the expat life is no exception.  The idea of living abroad can seem a bit glamorous, and frankly, I was so excited about the prospect of a year-long adventure that I didn't stop to consider the inconveniences we would encounter.  We are adjusting and we will be fine, but just remember all of this so when I post pictures of our trips to France, Belgium, and Germany, you'll know I earned it.  ;)

Just the Basics

So much has happened in the last 3 weeks that we have been living in Holland that I don't even know where to begin... but I suppose I'll start with the basics.  We arrived in the country on May 27 and moved into the house we are renting on the 29th.  Here are a few pics of the house:

This pic below is part of our "garden", which is really cool because it wraps all the way around the house.  Lots of places for seating when we finally start having guests. I'll put the rest of the pics of Facebook for anyone who is curious.

Once we settled in, we had to go out in search of groceries.  This was an interesting experience, to say the least, because I never really considered that I wouldn't be able to read the labels on the packages.  Thank goodness most of them had pictures or who knows what we would've come home with!  As it was there were still a few surprises, but we did fairly well considering.

We also did some exploring in our new little village.  Hellevoetsluis is situated on an inlet from the North Sea, so we have some beautiful views of the water just minutes from our house.

The town, among others in our area, was used in World War II, and there are signs of that scattered around the town...like the cannons pictured below.

The beach has become one of our favorite places to hang out.  The weather is finally starting to warm up enough so we can actually enjoy it, with temperatures right now in the high 60s to low 70s-- a little chilly for me to be on the beach, but the locals love it.  The homes and many public buildings don't have air conditioning because they seldom need it.  When the temps hit the high 70s to low 80s a few days ago, they actually cancelled school because it was too hot for the children.  My thought was that they don't have a clue what HOT is!

The pic below was taken on the walk between our house and the beach.  If I didn't know better, I'd almost think I was back in Concordia Parish...

Well, this is just a taste of what is to come.  Now that we are settled, I will be blogging more often so you can all experience Dutch living vicariously...which is much less complicated, trust me.

The Farewell Tour

On May 27, we said "goodbye" to bonnie Scotland and "hello" to Holland.  It was bittersweet for me, but I suppose the "sweet" outweighs the "bitter", and I am ready to call pretty much anywhere home, even if it's just for a year. 

Before we left Scotland, we spent the weekends sight-seeing.  Those were the only times Keith was free to go with us, and since everything closes at 6 pm, with the exception of restaurants and ASDA (their version of Walmart), we couldn't even venture out to tour things at night.  This I thought was especially odd since they have daylight in Scotland until around 10:30 pm in the spring...but I digress...

Anyway, Mother's Day weekend, though not celebrated on the same day in the UK, we stayed around Aberdeen to take in some of the local sights.  That Saturday we found a place called the Satrosphere, which is like a children's museum that focuses on science.  The kids had a great time!

Sara learned how an electrical circuit works...

Keith and Sara played a few tunes together, and Levi got to watch his bones in action!

Sunday morning the family let me sleep in, and then we strolled through the downtown area.  We ate a Mother's Day dinner at Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant.  The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I expected from an internationally acclaimed chef.  Still a cool experience though...

The following weekend we went back to Dunnotar Castle.  We tried to go shortly after we arrived in Scotland, but the castle was closed.  I suppose that was a good thing, though, because the weather had a chance to warm up some.  As the castle is situated on the coast, it is always very windy, so any increase in temperature is welcome!

The castle is nothing but ruins now, but there's something beautiful about it.  It's also not that easy to get to.  I can imagine it was a bit intimidating in its day.  In the first of the castle pictures above, you can see all the steps we had to take...all the way down level with the beach, then all the way up to the castle...quite a trek, but worth it.

The picture of Keith and Sara has the view from below the castle with the northwestern shore behind us.  The pic on the right shows the conditions of the castle now.  It's kind of sad that it has been let go, but I can imagine the harsh weather conditions make it difficult to keep up.

Finally, our last weekend in Scotland we went to a Scottish opera on Saturday and Loch Ness on Sunday.  We saw "The Pirates of Penzance" at the His Majesty's Theater in Aberdeen, which was more like a Broadway play than what I expected of an opera...except it wasn't shown on Broadway, I guess (maybe that's the same as off-Broadway?? I don't know).  If you think it's difficult to understand what people are "saying" when they're singing, trying figuring it out when they are singing with a Scottish brogue.  It was still very entertaining and we had a great time.


As for Loch Ness, Keith tried to tell me that there wasn't much to see, but my argument was that I had come too far NOT to visit Loch Ness...so we were going.  It's not like I expected to actually see the Loch Ness monster, but it's one of the few places I associate with Scotland, so I had to see it.  Below are pics of our stop in Inverness, which is at the northern end of the loch.

 I wasn't sure what that castle-looking place was, but it was cool-looking, so it made it into the blog. :)

And here is the exhibition center.  It was too dark inside to take pictures, but it was very informational.  There were about 5 rooms we weaved through, and each showed a short video on all the research done to look for Nessie and to prove--or disprove--whether he or she could exist in the first place.

Below shows Urquhart Castle in the background.  It is situated along the western edge of Loch Ness, almost halfway between the northern and southern ends.

Urquhart Castle above, and below a view of the loch from the castle. I think what impressed me the most was the size of the loch.  It's huge!! I expected a small lake, but it's actually over 22 miles long and a little more than 1.5 miles at its widest.

And look, we found Nessie after all!!

 Sorry... I couldn't resist.