People
I've mentioned before how friendly the people in Meppel were, and how they tried to help in my ancestor search. Another volunteer at Oud Meppel searched and searched ... and searched until she found a photograph of Lisa's relative's storefront in Meppel. Eventually, they found the digital copy too. A small army of volunteers is scanning all the archives so that they are available online.
Then, while standing outside Lisa's ancestors' church in Venlo awaiting its opening, we had another such encounter. Two ladies came up to us and learned why we were there looking lost (probably). One went away, but the other stuck to us like glue, trying to find someone at the church or the administrative offices next door to help Lisa in her discovering. She was about our age and lived nearby. She must have spent 1-2 hours with us. A delightful Dutch lady, grown children + grandchildren, very good English. We ended up giving her all our contact info and info about our ancestral searches. Before we left, Hannie (short for Johanna) sent us an e-mail offering to look more.
In addition to her kindness to us, we learned about Hannie's mother's good experiences with the U.S. liberators in WW2. Soon there will be few left who remember firsthand, but this lady's mother passed her good memories down to her daughter, and I'm sure Hannie has passed the same stories down to hers. It is good to know that current U.S. behavior is not entirely erasing the good done by generations past.
Coincidentally, we had 9 WW2 veterans on our flight to Amsterdam. There was a big fuss about them and their trip while we were waiting to board at Dulles.
Hotels
Our hotel, The Little Duke, in den Bosch was completely self-serve. The hotel in Meppel was self check-in (one day before arrival they text and e-mail a time-sensitive entry code for the hotel and your room), but there is a human there to set out/maintain breakfast and provide check-out.
At the Duke, they e-mail the entry code to the hotel, and then the guest uses the computer in the entryway to check-in and create a keycard for the hotel and the room. There is a telephone at the check-in/out desk, should the guest encounter an error.
I assume this is how they keep prices low, and we stayed in some comfortable hotels that were not particularly expensive. Hotels in Haarlem and Venlo were fully staffed. For Europe, these were generally 2-star establishments. They would rival and exceed the value of most 3-star U.S. hotels.
Every hotel (except the Duke) provided breakfast along with our room. (Yes, I know this is not unusual.) But the food was inevitably good and selections broad. Breakfast at the Duke was available literally next door, but at extra cost. And, of course, breakfast-included meant all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink for coffee/espresso/capuccino/hot chocolate/etc. The auto-machines in Meppel and Venlo were amazing and turned out high quality brews in a flash.
Dutch Food
I did not expect the food in the Netherlands to be so so so GOOD.
Even lettuce had a taste unlike that in the U.S. I attributed this all to FRESH, local, and probably fewer additives.
I believe someone told us that the Netherlands grows most of its own food.
We saw agriculture galore in the north and west. Fields and fields and fields of corn, oodles and oodles of corn (for all those cows?). Fields and fields of asparagus. Fields of cabbages not yet harvested. Greenhouses galore. Flowers (a whole field of cannas blooming in September). A plethora of agricultural products that we couldn't even identify from the car.
We didn't eat in particularly fancy places, but we had truly amazing food ...
- Roast chicken that tasted like ... chicken, totally succulent with not a dry or chewy bite anywhere.
- Tomatoes so sweet you had to wonder how they came to be.
- Carrots I could/would/did eat. (Normally, I avoid raw carrots, which I perceive to be cardboard-y and metallic tasting.)
- A "simple" lunch of avocado toast -- brown bread base, avocado spread piled with matchsticks of roasted veggies, all sprinkled with lettuces, drizzled with mayo, and crowned with a perfectly cooked, perfectly cylindrical (how?) poached egg.
- The best club sandwich in the world (Meppel!).
- Completely un-fishy fish, smoked and fresh.
- Calvesliver baked with onions and bacon, a full half-inch thick slab, meltingly tender. To die for!
I would go back just for the food.
We also had one dinner from the local supermarket in Meppel: very high quality and shockingly inexpensive. And spitting distance from our hotel. Just start by imagining a full baguette, pre-sliced for a picnic, € 0.98. Add a selection of cheeses, fruit, dessert, and drinks. Grand total € 17 dinner for three people, with leftovers enough for my dinner the next night. Oh, and that total included a knife. We had to buy a knife to slice and spread the cheeses!
Dessert
The Dutch are known for their desserts. I failed to satisfy my yen for a stroopwaffel. (Another reason to return!) I suspect that the pre-packaged ones served by United Airlines -- pretzels or stroopwaffel? has become United's refrain -- are subpar, albeit locally sourced.
I admit to trying the Bosch boll (a cultural icon of den Bosch, or so I'm told). The first came from the bakery near Lisa's cathedral, the only bakery that didn't have a queue, which was my requirement. Because there was no line, my Bosch boll also came with instructions: eat from the bottom or it makes a horrible mess.
So, what is it? A cream-filled, chocolate-covered pastry concoction, flaky at its absolute best. Size a tad larger than a baseball. Oh, my. How I wish I knew the name of the bakery!
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| Bosch Boll Extraordinaire |
My first experience was so good, I decided to try another on our last night in den Bosch. After all, the Jan de Groot bakery, known for its Bosch bollen, called to me -- it was directly across the street from our hotel. Well, if the first was a 10, JdG was no more than a 7. Different cream, different chocolate, pastry much less flaky. Sigh. I'll always remember my first time.
Then there was the pie/tart/whatever from the supermarket. None of us was completely sure what it was, 4 little pastries in pie shells to the package. Well, it turned out to be the Dutch version of a butter tart (a Canadian thing) with a nutty paste-like filling. Great way to end a picnic, and very neat to eat without a napkin in sight.
The only other dessert I had was, of all things, a waffle (waffel). A dessert waffle. It looked kind of odd, almost burnt, with a goodly dusting of confectioners sugar, dollop of whipped cream, and warm cherry compote pouring over one side. "Burnt" turned out to be caramelized; the cherries, which are often too tart for me, were sweet and wonderful. In all, a tremendous success, not too sweet, not too much, but a luxurious dessert.
Infrastructure
I've mentioned the glories of Dutch public transit. Dependable, quiet, efficient. More on that later.
Roads were smooth and we didn't run into road construction that I can recall. (Oh, yeah, the little bit of construction in Meppel demanded a round about entry to our hotel, but that hardly counts.) I don't know when they fix the roads but, in fact, we didn't see roads that needed fixing.
I wonder if there is a Dutch word for pothole? Perhaps they don't need it.
EU
Driving from the Netherlands into Germany is as simple as driving from West Virginia into Pennsylvania. No border. Only a modest sign (circular, blue with a border of stars -- the symbol of the EU, and the country name in the center). Easy peasy.
Our time in the Netherlands also gave me some insight -- my own personal theory -- on Brexit. I believe Brexit is happening because the UK never really bought into the EU. Oh, sure, they thought the "common market" was fine. But they chafed against the EU government and the "leave" faction failed to recognize (or ignored) the benefits of EU membership. They never adopted the common currency, the Euro. Preserving the pound is probably the greatest evidence of kinda in, not so much. And because the Channel separates the UK from the continent, the freedom of movement that exists on the continent is different for the UK. Bottom line: they never fully bought in! So, now they want to leave.
I believe they will be sorry. The divorce, once done, will be a disaster for the UK, and the UK itself is apt to fragment -- re-establishing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland could well be a disaster, Scotland will break away, Wales may also. Sad.
Climate
The agricultural areas sported many massive barns with roofs covered with solar panels.
And that brings me to the completely different attitude toward climate change that I observed.
Virtually everywhere I saw warnings about the need to conserve paper, as in paper towels, etc., because paper kills trees. Many places did not provide paper napkins for snacks/coffee. They were available, but only if requested. Some drinks came with straws, most did not. When I ordered sparkling water in restaurants, it came with a glass (usually no ice) and in a glass bottle.
Hotel staff were more responsible (than I have experienced in the U.S.) about leaving towels that had been used and hung up for another use. Beds were made but not changed every day. Two of our three hotels had refillable bath gel and shampoo products. The hotel rooms weren't littered with little printed notes about what to do/not do. I don't think any of the hotels were air conditioned, but all had windows that opened.
I have already commented on the adorable little cars. But bicycles and motor scooters are ubiquitous. Most of the town centers we saw were walking/biking ways, no car traffic allowed. As a result, traffic was less a problem than I would have expected. There was a well-used plug-in for electric cars (5-hour limit) at the curb in front of our Venlo hotel.
Bike lanes sometimes were separated from the roadway completely. Where I could observe them, bike lanes were consistently paved in red. Only rarely did I see bicycles having to share the road with cars.
Traffic is calmed with narrow streets in towns and with innumerable roundabouts everywhere. I learned that I do not understand European traffic sign symbols. Fortunately, I was not driving anywhere.
Wind turbines dot the landscape EVERYWHERE. I adore windmills and never tired of watching them. I saw few, if any, houses with solar panels. I concluded the windmills do the job that we are trying to do one house at a time. Alternatively, the Dutch have realized that transportation is the disproportionate energy consumer and have concentrated their efforts there.
City buses are 100% electric, with concomitant noise and pollutant reductions. Intercity trains are zero emission, powered by wind-generated electricity. And, yes, the trains go when the wind doesn't blow. The trains are also shockingly quiet, compared with what we call trains.
In fact, public transit is a marvel to American eyes. We missed our train in Amsterdam going to Zwolle, so we had to wait, oh, 15-20 minutes for the next one. The only reason we "needed" a car was to go off the beaten path. Lisa wanted to go visit her ancestral spots in nearby Germany, and we visited the Hunebedden and a national park. Our city pairs were all connected by train, and the trains all ran frequently. The direct train from den Bosch to the Amsterdam airport took one hour and dropped us off under the airport (literally).
I believe the lesson is: people will use public transit if it is available and convenient. Make it unavailable or inconvenient and ... not so much. Listen up, America.
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