Modern industrial objects it seems, servants to repetition and abstraction, remember little and speak even less. They seem reflective, not absorptive. Even handmade objects produced in modern, industrialized cultures have the same problem, infected no doubt by that infatuation with abstraction. It is difficult to find a trustworthy repository for your memories.

The ride back is uneventful, though the kids are noticeably tiring and require a boost here and there. When I trade bikes with one of my younger nephews and race clown-like on the tiny bike to catch up with the faster crowd up front, the humor falls flat. They band together though, these seven kids, and I am heartened both by their fortitude and there easy affection for each other.

Say THAT 10 times fast.

written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Vollenhove, Netherlands
from the travel blog: Heaven
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Getting back on the road feels like time travel. At Zwartsluis our fearless guide leads us to Hotel Zwartewater for “koffie”. From the street it looks like a bowling alley, but we reserve judgement in expectation of, at least, a spectacular terrace or garden. Instead, we get an unimaginably banal hotel with elevator music and wall to wall carpeting. The place is deserted, but the coffee and pastry is luckily just fine, as is the view of the river. If there are Dutch mobsters shopping for an ideal conference locale however, this is the place.

written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Zwartsluis, Netherlands
from the travel blog: Heaven
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French fries in the Netherlands are frankly fabulous, almost as good as in Belgium where they were invented. They’re made from whole potatoes, not ground and reconstituted, and this gives them an authentic flavor and consistency. The potatoes are deep fried twice, crunchy on the outside and moist inside, a beautiful tan color, that crunch an elegant counterpoint to an eggy mayonnaise, which doesn’t dominate the experience as ketchup might. McDonalds makes a great French fry, but these are so much better.

Late in the afternoon we arrive in Kampen, another Hanseatic League city, but one of significantly more enduring stature than Vollenhove. There’s a boat on the river devoted to serving fish: paling (eel) and haring (herring) and even salmon, and this is our first stop. Smoked eel may not come to mind first…may not come to mind at all…when your taste buds get testy for something gourmet, but it is really something delicious. My father had a friend who caught, smoked and smuggled the stuff into the States inside hollow walking canes, it was worth that much trouble. Its just not something Americans eat, and I wonder if they even exist here.

Gunter Grass once wrote graphically about eels in the Tin Drum...something about yanking eels out of the severed head of a horse...imagery not likely to ingratiate the eel to anyone I suppose. I read this in high school and still haven't forgotten it. Herring on the other hand...who can resist? Straight from the vendor and down your gullet. Only in Holland...

Note to Ted Kennedy: come to the Netherlands, embrace the beauty, Nantucket Sound will be just fine. Wind energy is worth it.

Here's a pump station from earlier in the trip...in this case, no nearby turbine. The lack of a chimney suggests that the pumps run on electricity though.

We buy some books in English at the bookstore, the girls shop, I write a little: a lazy day. Just what we needed. For lunch, Anina makes us a wonderful cup of soup.