Part I: Amsterdam & The Hague

So, two weeks ago my mom and dad arrived in the lovely Amsterdam after the never-ending journey Ross already mentioned. They stayed in Amsterdam for three nights, and Ross & I stayed with them for one.

With them we did the typical Amsterdam stuff: Anne Frankhuis, The Van Gogh museum, beer and bitterballen in a brown café, and just strolling around the charming streets of this beautiful city.

This was the view from their hotel room:


It didn't take my dad long to realise how amazing Belgian beer is:


The weather was hot one day, and rained the next. I don't think we saw back-to-back clear days the whole time they were here.



This is how you move furniture in Amsterdam:



Ross & I left my parents in Amsterdam to come back to work and school. They stayed a couple extra days before coming to The Hague for the second leg of their holiday.


The weather here was terrible, and we ill-advised my parents to rent bikes while they were here. We thought it would be fun to ride to the Noordzee on bicycles. Yah, it's real fun to be on a bicycle while tiny pieces of razor-sharp hail are firing into your face.

But they found inside ways to keep them self busy, including the amazing Panorama Mesdag, the M.C. Escher museum, and a demonstration on how to make Delftware among other activities.

One night we went for rijstafel. Indonesian food is the best part of Dutch cuisine, so it's a definite must when visiting. Rijstafel is a feast of about 20 small sample dishes of spicy, sweet, and savory Indonesian delights that all come out at once. It's quite the meal (although maybe too spicy for our guests.)


After The Hague we boarded an early train to Bruges. One thing is certain: the Partridge family does not travel light!

Part II: Bruges

As Ross already mentioned, Bruges is gorgeous. It is like a fairytale European city. Almost all of the center has remained intact from it's medieval history. When walking through the maze-like city, it's almost impossible not to stop and pull out your camera every 20 steps.


The weather was terrible, though. It was windy, cold, and we even had snow!


But the weather doesn't stop the healthy tourism industry of Bruges:


We found enjoyable ways to keep out of the cold:


Other fun activities included playing in wooden toy stores; sampling delicious treats in chocolate and candy shoppes (which are every other store), and eating waffles. To work all this off, we climbed the 300 and something incredibly steep, narrow and dangerous stairs to the top of the bell tower in the Grote Markt. After that workout, we treated ourselves with some fries.

Here's some photos of the beautiful Bruges:










Enjoy the time? Yes, we did.

Part III: Lille & Flanders

We left Bruges on Easter Monday for Lille, France. Almost everything was closed that day, but luckily this wonderful creperie was open. And no, we probably didn't need wine with lunch, but it seems like such a shame to have a meal without wine when you're in France.

English is spoken a lot less here than it is in Holland, as my mom discovered. When she ordered a decaffeinated tea, she received a café au lait. A very good café au lait.


Ross already mentioned we went to Vimy Ridge to see the Memorial, but here are a few more shots:


Almost 12,000 names are carved into the monument, and these are the names of the Canadian soldiers in France with no known grave.


We were fortunate enough to get a guided tour through the tunnels constructed by the soldiers in 1916/17. It truly was a moving experience.


The memorial is also worth seeing at night, when it is dramatically lit. All around it was an incredible day.


The next day we drove to Ypres, Belgium, a city flattened by four years of battle from 1914-1918. The city was completely restored to it's medieval architecture after the war, and it is impossible to believe the entire city is less than one hundred years old.


It was in this part of Belgium (Flanders) that John McCrae wrote In Flanders' Fields, and there are endless amounts of cemeteries and monuments commemorating those who died in battle. We visited a few cemeteries including Tyne-Cot, the largest of all the Commonwealth cemeteries. At Tyne Cot, 12,000 graves stand, enclosed by a wall bearing 35,000 names of Commonwealth soldiers with no known graves. This was about one-third of the cemetary:




We also visited the Brooding Soldier monument at Passendale, dedicated to the 2000 Canadians who lost their lives in the first gas attacks.

Most of the battlefields have returned to farmland, but for areas that have remained untouched, the scarred terrain still tells stories exploded grenades and brutal trench warfare.

Lest we forget.

Part IV: London

From Lille, we boarded the Eurostar to London. What a ride! My dad timed how long it took to go under the English Channel, and it was only 20 minutes.


Again, London's weather was hit and miss, but we were used to it by this point. We were only there for a few days, but I'm proud to say we got quite a bit done!

It was such a treat for me to be in an English-speaking city again after seven months! I was reading everything I could see, and thought everything was so funny.


On the first day, we strolled along the South Bank of the mighty River Thames, climbed to the top of St. Paul's cathedral, and came down just in time for our tickets to Mamma Mia! at the beautiful art deco Prince of Wales theatre. The show was very fun, the perfect end our first day in London.


At the beginning of day two we stood in the rain for two hours to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. I'm glad we saw it, but I couldn't but think the whole hour-long event was a tad over the top. Afterwards we went to the British Guards museum, and later ended up at the British Museum, which contains very little of Britian's history.


It's collection includes the Rosetta Stone, friezes from the Pantheon, ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, and huge quantities of ancient Egyptian artifacts. It's fascinating, huge, and strange to think all these items ended up under the same roof.

Here's my brother Colin admiring a sarcophagus. (Colin's the one on the left.)


The third day we boarded a big red tour bus with my Grandma Partridge's cousin June, and her daughter Gill. Even they learned a thing or two about their own city on the tour. We stopped at Westminster Abbey, and the tower of London, and took a River Cruise up the Thames. Here's everyone enjoying themselves:


Last but not least, no London experience would be complete without taking the Underground


and these:


(See, I told you we did a lot.)

a note for our readers

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Some familiar faces.

Last week, Grace's parents made the long trek to visit us in the Netherlands. It's normally a long flight, though the extent of their travels redefines what it means to have a long and exhausting day of travel. As they live in Fruitvale, BC, they had to drive 3 hours to Kelowna, fly to Vancouver, wait for their flight, and then fly the 10 hours to Amsterdam. All-in-all, the whole thing probably took about 16 hours by the time we reached the hotel in Amsterdam.

For the last week and a half we toured them through Amsterdam, the Hague, Delft, and then took the train down to Brugge, Belgium and Lille, France, where we spent the last few days. Grace and I had never been to Brugge, though we were determined to get there before we head back to Canada. If European cities could receive awards it would get the prize for most picturesque city in Northern Europe.

Here's the family in Brugge:


And here's some proof of how lovely Brugge is:


After a few days in Brugge, we took the train to Lille, France which was to act as our home base for two days of road trips to some historic World War I sites in France and Belgium. This provided the opportunity to cross yet another 'to-do-before-we-go' off our list.

For all Canadian readers, you should recognize this monument:


In case you don't recognize it, the incredibly large monument featured in the photo is the Vimy war memorial, located just outside Vimy, France, commemorating all those who fought and died in the battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 and the rest of World War I. For a country that is not known for monuments of any sort – let alone monuments of this scale – this is truly special. In fact, it is so massive, and so well thought out, that I am confident in saying it stands among the great monuments erected by Louis 14th and Napolean.

It was a real priveledge to be there so close to the anniversary of the battle on April 9, 1917, as the recent snow-fall and general environment around the site were likely as close as we could get to understanding the atmosphere leading up to the battle. The precise time we were there (mid afternoon) combined with the time of year meant that the sun was in the perfect position to shine through the monuments two towers, creating a spotlight on the center-piece of Canada mourning her lost:


I am certain this is no coincidence. Rather, this is design at its best and most essential. The architect, Walter Seymour Allward, knew where the sun would be late afternoon during the weeks around April 9th and built the monument accordingly. Moreover, beyond being immense for immense sake, the size and position of the towers play a role in establishing the effect shown above, and this would have all been taken into account when designing the monument.

Here's some more photos of the site, including one showing some of the remaining trenches around the area:



The next day, I took the train back to the Hague while Grace and her parents carried on to the second site on their trip, the memorials at Ypres, Belgium – the heart of the Flanders region. Today, they took the train to London where their trip will conclude. That means Grace will be back on Sunday, and you can expect a further update (and more photos) upon her return.

Oh, and in case you didn't get the hint: if you ever find yourself in the area around Vimy, don't hesitate; go.

R.I.P.

These past few weeks have been busy! Mostly Ross & I have just been getting ready for the arrival of my parents, so we've been working every spare moment to clear our schedules. In the midst of it all, his bike was ruined.

We went to a theatre for a lecture by a designer a couple weeks ago, and when we came out, his front tire was bent, and the spokes were broken. He had to get the bike home by balancing it on the back tire and walking it the whole way. We took it to a repair shop to get fixed, and – not so suprisingly – it's a special tire because of it's braking system. The quote to fix it was €250 – €300, when we paid €75 for the bike to begin with. It was a sad time. Ross really did have a beautiful bicycle.

So, what do you do when you need a fiets in The Hague? Well, Ross called our old friend Terry, the eccentric man who lives in an antique store, who sold us the bikes in the first place. Ross went for tea, was serenaded by piano and traded his old frame for a new old set of wheels.

It's a lovely, brown ladies Dutch cruiser that I think is actually smaller than my bicycle, but it will work for the next couple months.

And we found out what happened to his bike in the first place: apparently there's a mechanical gate in front of the theatre, and it just happened to be activated at some point during the night, and Ross' bike just happened to be in the way (we just parked our bikes in a crowd of 3o or so, and neither one of us noticed a sign.) The force of this gate destroyed a few bicycles that night. Sadness.

Two birds, or something like that.

Tonight I was able to cross two things off of my semi-existent, ever-growing, list of things I'd like to do (in general as well as before we head back to Canada).

Tonight I was able to see a show by the Icelandic band Múm at the world famous Paradiso in Amsterdam. I missed Múm when they performed at the Icelandic music festival in the fall, as we opted for Patty Smith at the Crossing Borders festival with my brother. After seeing both, the decision was a good one, but that shouldn't undermine the incredible experience of seeing Múm live.

And to top that off, it all went down at the Paradiso, an old church that was transformed into Amsterdam's version of the Commodore Ballroom. Every aspect of the sound was perfectly balanced. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera so this post will have to remain a bit anti-climactic for the majority of you. However, it was so good that I think I'll be taking a couple of hour long train rides to see a few more shows before we go. I'll be sure to remember my camera and document the stained glass next time.

As seen in The Hague

Houseboats!

There are plenty of these in Amsterdam, but I hadn't seen any in The Hague until last week. These one are just a couple streets from mine & Ross' apartment.

This kind of looks like a flooded trailer part, but it's highly coveted living.

Smurfen!

I have no idea if this is news at home, but 2008 is the year of the Smurfs' 50th birthday. They are from Belgium, so it's kind of a big deal around here. For example, at the start of the year, Brussels had a huge public celebration with a gigantic Smurfberry cake. The photo above was taken in the Comic Strip Museum in Brussels.

Albert Heijn (the Safeway of Holland) has a Smurf promotion. For every €15 you spend in the store, you get a little plastic toy Smurf. They come in sealed yellow plastic, so you can't pick and choose, you just get what you get. I wasn't really paying too much attention to it until Ross brought this home the other day:


And now I'm obsessed. This marketing scheme is shamelessly working on me. We've since added this guy to the collection:


And here they are together:


Here's all of the 15 collectibles:


And the one I most want is (obviously) Smurfette, or as she's known around here, Smurfin. I'd also like a Papa Smurf (Grote Smurf), and a Brainy Smurf (Brilsmurf). I'll keep you posted as the collection grows, cause I know you're all as excited about this as I am.