Christmas Market - On a Boat!

Again this Christmas season, we were able to visit our own Christmas market, located up and down the canals in Groningen.  As part of the Christmas market, you could go on the boats lined up in the canal, and some offered hot chocolate, spiced hot wine, music, even free books! 

Of course, any good boat needs a bike.

The boat, with the bridge lined with Christmas lights.

Traditional food abounded.  Here, some smoked eel like fish was being sold. 

He skewered each of the eel like fishes, hung them from a rack, and then he inserted the rack into the smoker. 

Oysters being de-shelled.

This woman sold all sorts of roots and mushrooms, along with fresh mistletoe. 

Over a giant fire, this man, straight from the middle ages, roasts all sorts of meats.

Little known fact - hoodies were common in the middle ages.

Time for some entertainment!  A boat slowly maneuvers down the canal.  This was interesting, because, with boats parked on either side of the canal, there was barely enough room for the boat hands to direct this boat in the narrow opening. 

So how did they do it?  This video shows how - drive very slowly, and then as the boat approaches the parked boats, both the moving boat and the parked boats have people that come by with large plastic "cushions" that they line up where the two boats could potentially crash into one another.  These cushions take the majority of the force, and keep the boats from getting scratched up.

Finally, the sun goes down and the lights go on!

Happy 2014 to you all, from the (non-) sunny Netherlands!

The Christmas Tree and the Bike

Christmas is once again approaching, and for us in the Netherlands, this means one thing:

How am I going to get that Christmas tree home?

There are plenty of lovely Christmas trees that are being sold this time of year.  In the market, in the grocery stores.  In stalls set up on the streets, fresh from local gardeners.  Some are in pots, others are freshly cut.  There are trees made of various forms of shruberry, pruned to cone shapes.  Some are even herbs, such as rosemary, with lights and ornaments hung from their delicate leaves, that can be recycled into food later.

Transporting these varieties home is always an adventure.  I, and many others who live here, don't just have a pick up truck to throw the tree in the back of.  Like everything else we do here, there is one two options for transportation - by bike, or by foot.

My first stop was to a local garden center.  They had lovely trees, all 5-6 feet high or larger.  The Dutch sellsman tried to convince me to buy one.  "I would love one," I said, "but I came here by bike and don't have a car."

"Not a problem," he said, and he began to explain to me how to balance the top of the tree over the handlebars while carrying the base of the tree one handed as I biked home.

I don't know about him - but I'm certainly not that coordinated.

Then there are the potted variety.  Last year, I bought a small potted tree (about 2 feet tall).  It survived until about April, when it decided to spontaneously die and loose all of its needles.  I decided then it was time for it to go in the trash, but there is something particular about the trash bins here.  There aren't communal dumpsters, rather, there are giant underground trash bins which you must access with a pass-card.  At the end of the year, how much your pass-card was used will determine how much you pay for trash that year.  The pass-card opens a small area which is big enough for one normal-ish trash bag.   

It's not big enough for a two foot dead Christmas tree, with pot, it turns out.

I don't have a saw so I couldn't cut the tree apart, so I decided to just shove the entire tree into this small opening.  A half hour later, I finally managed to get the tree into the container, while the container itself had thousands of dried up pine needles, a few dozen small branches, and some of my blood scattered around it.

Not a good idea.

So perhaps a better solution was to get a plant that I would know would survive longer than a couple of months, and wouldn't look weird in my apartment year-round.   One of those shaped ornamental shruberies seemed like a good idea.  I found a very nice one, and decided to just walk it home.  But then I picked it up, and realized that there was no way I could walk home (about a 30 minute walk) holding this massive pot with a tiny little shrubbery coming off the top.

I also played with the idea of getting a cut tree and somehow bungee-cording it to my bike.  The success of this method depended on a critical balance of coordination and skill, something I was sure I didn't have either of.

So finally, I came up with a solution.  I could make my own tree!  I bought several packs of tree-like garland.   These are much easier to carry than a whole tree!

Even still, the garland was quite large, and bungeeing it to my bike caused it to hang off considerably in both directions.  But I made it home without leaving a trail of garland behind me.

Garland - hanging on with bungee-cords, a bike lock, and sheer will!

Turning it into a tree was then quite a project, but an hour later, an old shoebox filled with a can of paint and old appliance manuals (for balance) came together with a mop handle and, of course, the garland itself, to make a lovely tree!

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Venice of the North

There's a lot of water in this country.  Sometimes, there are more canals than there are roads.  Statistically speaking, this sometimes leads to the case when there are no roads at all - just canals.  Welcome to Giethoorn - a town with no roads - also called the Venice of the North.

All of the transportation in Giethoorn is either done by bike, by foot, or by boat on the numerous canals.

A "garage" for boats.

The picturesque bridges of Giethoorn.

When we visited, there was plenty of opportunities to get to know the locals.

...including the black sheep of the family.

And the newborn lambs (ok, yes, I am a bit behind in my posting this year. :)

 

 

The ducks took the opportunity to get to know my dad better, mainly in the fashion of chasing him around the tree, asking for bread.

  

Finally, mom lures them away.  They think she will give them food, but she's actually just trying to get a good picture of them.

 

Take a boat to church, taking the convenient canal to church stairs.

Beautiful thatched roofs on houses along the canals.

You may wonder - why all the canals?  Well, Giethoorn had it's origins almost 800 years ago.  For a point - what one product was produced in Giethoorn, essentially giving the town its modern day characteristic of plentiful canals?

Of course, it is the Netherlands, so bikes are still used.  Here's a nice bike ramp on one of the many bridges over the canals.

Out for a spin.

The canals drain into a large nearby lake.

Mom posing with rose quartz.

Dad on a bridge.

The Rolls-Royce of boats.

And the parking lot!

Taking the Zwarte out of Zwarte Piet

It's that time of year again!

Time to start the Zwarte Piet controversy anew!

It seems that you either love it or hate it.  I'm talking about the yearly arrival of Sinterklaas.  But it's not Sinterklaas that has everyone talking.  It's his friends/helpers/slaves - the hoards of Zwarte Piets.

Zwarte Piet - Friend or slave?

If you haven't met Zwarte Piet (Black Peter), you can check out my much less controversial post from last year.  Instead of elves, the Dutch Sinterklaas is accompanied by hundreds of "helpers" that paint their faces black, wear colorful clothes, and act goofy as they pass out candy and presents to the kids.  Some of those who grew up with him love him.  Others, especially those who aren't Dutch, are shocked by such a racist caricature.  This year, the controversy has reached new heights.  For me, it started when a co-worker brought Zwarte Piet chocolates to share at lunch... with resulted in a heated argument that lasted no less than 45 minutes.

Sinterklaas and his Racist Candy?

Those who love Zwarte Piet insist he is a well loved children's tradition.  Some say he's not black because of his skin, but because he zips up and down chimneys while delivering presents, and slowly accumulates soot.  Others say that the historical Saint Nicholas was accompanied by a Moor - hence the black skin.  In either case, Piet is a helper of Sinterklaas.  And the kids love him.  

Zwarte Piets perform for the crowds.

Others who hate Zwarte Piet see him as a racist stereotype, something that goes far beyond just his black skin to his large red lips, his frizzy black hair, and his similarity to the politically-incorrect gollywog dolls, now taboo.  His clumsy, bumbling nature doesn't help either.  They claim that Piet is a slave, an especially serious claim, since the historical Saint Nicholas helped to free slaves.  Some even claim it stems from an underlying fear of immigrants.

Goofy antics.

It seems that this year, the controversy reached new heights.  A protester, wearing a shirt with the words "Zwarte Piet is racism" to the annual arrival of Sinterklaas, was arrested by police.  Even a UN task force is investigating Zwarte Piet.  Meanwhile, those who want to keep Zwarte Piet are participating in the pro-Piet petition facebook page, which received over 2 million likes (which, considering the Netherlands has only 17 million people, is especially impressive).

A few years ago, Piet received a makeover, and instead of just Zwarte, Piets showed up in a rainbow of colors.  Outrage resulted.  This year, there was a smaller change of removing Piet's golden earrings, with some Piets wearing different color wigs as well.

Whatever your viewpoint, perhaps the controversy surrounding Zwarte Piet indicates that what one sees as a lovable character others see as an insult - and perhaps we don't understand each other as much as we think we do.    

The Stuff Pancakes are Made Of

New York state has a lot of water.  Growing up in the desert, this still fascinates me.  I would call any trickle of water down a rock face a waterfall.  New York state has a good share of "real" waterfalls.  Bram and I went to Buttermilk falls, a network of several falls down a beautiful stream*.

Walking up the waterfalls, many people take a break to walk in the pond at the base of the waterfall.

My husband frolics at the base of the waterfall.

Getting closer...

Then he decides he wants to try to climb it.

After his wife earns a few more gray hairs, he makes it to the top.

We decide to do a good portion of our hike through the stream itself.  Here I am at the top of my own scaled waterfall.

Some college students had too much time on their hands.

Fording the river.

The mini waterfalls, cutting away the soft rock.

Ever the great outdoors-man.

At this section of the river, the fast moving stream made a particularly deep hole in the soft rock.

These piles of rock are typically used by hikers in modern days to find their ways while hiking.  They have been found all over the world and some date back thousands of years.  These date back to last Friday night, when drunk college students made several of them.  A point if you know the name of these odd rock piles (no google).

* What we desert folk call a rushing river.