Notes from the Sea

The first town we visited and stayed in was the quiet seaside town of Zadar.   The town of Zadar is old.  Really old.  In fact, Zadar has been occupied for at least the 4th millennium BC.  A point if you can guess the meaning of the name Zadar according to the ancient Byzantines, which illustrated how old this city really was, even back then.

Zadar is a quiet lovely town.  At its center is the St. Donatus church, built in the 9th century.

Inside St. Donatus church.

The church was built from older bricks.  Some still have inscriptions or carvings, and most of these used to be below the ground level of the church.  One of these used to be part of a temple to Juno.

Nearby the Pillar of Shame stands, where criminals were chained during the Middle Ages and taunted as a punishment.

Across the square is the Cathedral of Anastasia. 

Another ancient church, now in ruins, is shaped like a key.

But the nicest thing about Zadar is that it is surrounded by the ocean.

On the sea is the neatest "sculpture" I've ever seen.  Or heard.  The "Sea Organ" - it's made up of several pipes embedded in steps that lead down to the sea.  As the waves come in, they push water through the tubes, causing various musical notes.  It's totally awesome.

Nearby is the "Greeting to the Sun", another "sculpture".  During the day, photovoltaic cells take energy.   As the sun goes down, the Greeting to the Sun lights up in a show that is supposed to be simultaneous with the waves coming in.  It didn't work perfectly when we were there, but it was still pretty neat to see.

As we stepped away, we realized that the large circle was representative of the sun, while smaller circles denoted the planets!  Cool!

On the Edge, Men

Bram and I were lucky enough to enjoy a marvelous vacation to Croatia this summer.  Croatia is a stunningly beautiful country, with lots of opportunities to visit the bit of Europe that is still wild and untamed.  One of the National Parks we visited was Paklenica, known for its steep rock formations. 

Near the entrance to the park Paklenica

 Paklenica is a narrow gorge with amazingly steep cliffs on either side. 

This gorge is world-renowned in the climbing community, and thousands of climbers come to scale the cliffs.  

Readying the ropes

High above, many climbers could be spotted scaling the cliffs.  

The routes all have very clever names.

 

For a point, what was a route name that we saw?  

a. Mrs. Robinson 

b. Up, up, & up 

c. Break a leg 

d. Mojito in training

e. Too fast too furious

Some of the routes took climbers high above the canyon floor.

The canyon also is known for its series of beautiful waterfalls.  It makes the hike truly stunning.

Meeting the locals.

Traversing the water.

 

Croatia is also a very religious country.  You can even see evidence of this while hiking.

Beautiful panorama.

Beautiful closeup.

Gooooooaaaaaalllllll!

If you don't know what time of year it is, you either live under a rock or in the United States.  It's World Cup time, a time when the rest of the world* gathers in pubs around the world to cheer on their country as they make a goal against their favorite rival.   It can get quite passionate in a way that's difficult to comprehend unless you are experiencing it.  Luckily, we were able to experience it, in a local pub when the Netherlands played their old rival Spain.

Of course, it's only appropriate to wear the orange...

Along with most of the rest of the people in the pub...

The Netherlands and Spain were fairly even in the first half of the game... Spain scored once, the Netherlands scored once.... then the Netherlands scored again, and again.  When it was 4-1, the pub started chanting "Five!  Five!  Five!"  To everyone's amazement,  they actually did score again!  Then the pub started chanting "Zes!  Zes!"  The Netherlands didn't score six, but the final score, 5-1, was impressive!  The game included the incredible goal by van Persie, where he flew through the air, hit the ball with his forehead into the goal, and continued to face plant into the grass.  It's now being called one of the greatest goals ever. 

The pub breaks into celebration after one of the goals.  This video does not truly show how deafening the cheers were.

On the way home, I biked with my orange hair.  I almost crashed into a conga line of drunk college students celebrating, and then I high-fived two random drunk girls on the street as I biked past. 

Everyone was happy.

Now, it's your turn to participate in World Cup madness.  Make a guess on who will walk away with this year's world cup!   Here are the rules:
1. Your guess must be in before the second round of the world cup commences (June 27th).
2.  You can not guess a team that someone else has previously guessed.
3.  One guess per person.

Then, following the same rules above, you can also make a guess on the cumulative score of the final game (ie, if the game is 3-1, the cumulative score is 4).  

The winner will be determined at the end of the World cup (obviously).  A correct guess for the team will be worth 4 points, and a correct guess for the number of points will be worth 3!  This round of Beth's blog trivia will then come to an end, so make your guesses!  It could be anyone's game!   


* not the US

Listen to the Music...

I hope you enjoyed watching the Eurovision with me in my last post!  If you watched the videos, you may have noticed some very unique musical instrument in Switzerland's music video.  One in particular consists of a keyboard, but playing the keyboard alone won't make any music - you  have to do something else to this instrument.  Since I'm somewhat obsessed with unique musical instruments, it caught my eye.  A point if you can name it. 

Peak Beard

It's that time of year again!  The Eurovision - the European wide song contest, always produces memorable songs, whether it be because they are simply good, quality songs, or because they will give you disturbing dreams for weeks to come.  Last year, I thoroughly enjoyed my first Eurovision, so I was sure to watch it again this year.

This time, there did seem to be several reoccurring themes.  There were several videos, such as those from from Switzerland (complete with flying spaghetti and a lot of whistling), that combined a catchy song with a fun music video.  Then there were entries like Poland or Italy which tried to cram as much sex into three minutes as possible.  Then there were entries like Belarus, which was a little bit of both.

There were also a surprising amount of videos that entailed dancing, singing, or kissing in the rain or a partially flooded building, such as Armenia, Spain, and Romania.

Then you had the videos with positive messages such as Iceland or Russia, or super-depressing songs like the entry from Hungary.  Then there was the entry from Malta, which was a bit of both.

But perhaps the most prevalent theme of this year's Eurovision was that of facial hair.  France's whole entry was devoted to it - a throwback to the 70s, a tribute to one of the most transitory facial hair configurations of all time.  This catchy song soon had me singing along, but alas, the viewers did not like France's entry.  It came in last with only two votes.

Which brings us to the most prevalent facial hair type of this year's Eurovision -  an overwhelming number of singers this year had beards, including those from Greece, Norway, Belarus, Iceland, Romania, Switzerland, Malta, and Austria.  In fact, coming in first was Austria's entry - conclusive proof that we have in fact reached peak beard.

Dutch Food - Let's End on a Positive Note

But let's not end our tour of Dutch food there.  Honestly, there's a lot of food I've come to love here, so instead of ending with "the weird", let's go back and discover some more good things.*

Fresh, hot stroopwaffle

Stroopwafel - nothing says gooey goodness more than the Dutch specialty of two super thin waffles with a layer of melted caramel in between them.  The best way to eat these is to get them fresh and hot in the Grote Markt!

Indonesian food - Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony - therefore, there is a lot of great Indonesian food here in the Netherlands.

Hagelslag - food doesn't get much more fun than this!  Hagelslag are chocolate sprinkles normally put on toast and eaten for breakfast, but you can also sprinkle them on ice cream, make a sandwich out of them, or put them in a crepe**!

Pea soup - it may not sound good, but pea soup with some smoked sausage can be an amazing winter meal.

Speculoos - a crispy cookie with a lot of spices.  Often they are shaped like a windmill or something equally Dutch looking.  Great with cocoa or tea, and there is also a spread version you can use on toast. You can find a recipe to make your own speculoos spread here.*** 

Poffertjes - little poofy mini pancakes.  They are so good.  Imagine a pancake, but smaller, much thicker, and grilled in a ton of oil.  Then you can sprinkle you favorite toppings on top, including powdered sugar.  You can learn how to make them here.

As the Dutch say... eet smakelijk!

* Mostly because I forgot these items when I wrote my blog post Dutch Food - the Good and felt guilty about it.
** This last one is not a traditional Dutch way of eating these...
*** I don't actually expect anyone to do this, but I will give a point to anyone who makes this for me.  :-)

Dutch food: The Ugly (and the Weird)

And then there is the stuff that's just plain weird.

Including Dutch sandwiches.

It doesn't sound weird on the outset, but it is common to see a plate of sandwiches at any (and every) Dutch function. These are not your typical American sandwiches, piled high with meat, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, bacon, olives, peppers, mayonnaise and mustard....  There is something very specific about these sandwiches.  They can have one slice of meat, or one slice of cheese.  Never both.  Sometimes you can get a sandwich with both meat and cheese, but it is carefully made so that the meat does not overlap any of the cheese.  I often wondered what would happen if a slice of meat and a slice of cheese did touch on a sandwich.  Would it signal the end of the world?  When I made a comment about this, a Dutch friend said to me, "Meat and cheese on a sandwich?  What do you want, anarchy? What would come next, people dancing naked in the streets?"

Equally strange is that it is very typical to serve cartons of milk along with these sandwiches, even at professional conferences and meetings.  Do you know how weird it is to see a businessman in a suit eating a cheese sandwich and drinking milk from a carton?

But if milk is too tame, there's also karnemelk - or buttermilk.  This is also drank straight from the carton.  Yummy.  *Cough cough*

Then there are bitterballen.

Bitterballen with spicy mustard.  So. Freaking. Good.

What are bitterballen, you ask?  No one really knows.  All we know is that it is some sort of creamed meat, coated in breadcrumbs, fried, and served with beer. The general consensus is that bitterballen are made of either horse or muskrat.  That being said, bitterballen are freaking delicious.

Pancakes are also popular, or pannenkoken.  But how about having two slices of bacon cooked into your pancake?  I love bacon just as much as the next person, but I for one think this is going too far.

Then there's the Dutch sushi.  Pickled herring.  It looks delightfully raw.  The typical method to eat this delicacy is to coat the fish in some raw onions, pick the fish up by the tail, and then gulp it down in one fell swoop.  You can buy these on the street corners - I have yet to work up the courage to try one.