Heaven - roel krabbendam
Bicycle trip through the Netherlands with extended family. No hills! Limited distances! Reduced butt fatigue! Not half the adventure of Africa perhaps, but at least four times the calories. ...

Reindeer?
Boston, United States
The three of us are exhausted, school and work and house renovations taking their toll. We race separately to the airport from different directions, the girls and I, and meet at the Icelandair desk just an hour before the flight to Reykjavik. A somewhat disapproving young woman assigns us the stinky seats next to the rear toilets, but we fall asleep immediately upon settling into the plane, completely beyond caring. We feel triumphant to have made it at all.
Beautiful stewardesses sternly serve dinner, efficient but unfortunately disapproving, their bustle waking us just in time to snag a meal of reindeer stew, crab salad and a chocolate chip brownie. The reindeer is slightly odd but would have passed as unidentifiable mystery meat were it not for another passenger, who felt it was…not the best reindeer she had ever had. Polly and Mia pass me their crab salad to finish (reindeer AND crab???), Mia drapes herself over us, and we all go back to sleep. We wake up again on the approach to Reykjavik, wondering if we missed breakfast.
Note to Icelandair: Hold the reindeer.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Boston, United States
from the travel blog: Heaven

Youth
Reykjavik, Iceland
The airport is just as we remember it from previous trips: modern and inspiring. We are surrounded by tall, beautiful people speaking unintelligibly, wander through tilting stone and glass terminals to customs and passport control, and enter the European Union.
Actually, it's not the European Union but the "Wengen" group of countries, who seem to have a customs agreement. The customs security personnel look impossibly young to have any responsibility, suggesting that I’ve become impossibly old. We buy bottled water on a credit card (still have no idea what Iceland uses for currency) and board a flight to Amsterdam.
Our seats are slighly further from the toilets. We fall asleep yet again.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Reykjavik, Iceland
from the travel blog: Heaven

Schiphol
Amsterdam, Netherlands
I remember or imagine feeling the plane taking off and later touching down, but in truth registered nothing until we emerged from the gate into the terminal at Schiphol. Tulip bulbs and Dutch accents and beautiful advertising graphics and endless moving sidewalks: just as I remembered it. Not like coming home, but certainly familiar. A thousand childhood memories swamp my addled head, and we head to baggage claim and the family here to pick us up.
The baggage handling is delayed, so we sit on our carry-ons and listen to mysterious languages from tanned girls in bikini tops and small children in yellow rubber boots and men in blue suits on cell phones, flights from all over the world landing simultaneously and sharing this same luggage belt.
For Mia at eleven years old, an indelible adventure…for Polly and I, a welcome break. We pass through what used to be customs, see family ahead, and know we have arrived. Outside finally, it rains.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands
from the travel blog: Heaven

Youth
Maarssen, Netherlands
Rested and ready, we drive over to show Mia the house I lived in as a child. My dad's sister lived in it for 40 years after we left Holland for America, and when she died three year ago, my mother sold the place. I remember a brown brick rowhouse, the corner unit with yard on two sides and a separate one car garage, the largest unit in the row...
The smell of freshly cut grass on handmower blades, the smell of algae on the surrounding canals, the terror of lying in bed upstairs as bats dive-bombed the windows, the peaceful majesty of sitting on the living room floor with my sister one Saturday morning as my parents slept, lighting matches because we liked the smell, the opulence of receiving not one, not two, not a few, but the entire set of Okkie learn-to-read books...all these memories sweep in.
I stare at the neighboring house, the house where my friend Wim lived, and wonder what happened to him. I had heard disapproving comments from my parents at one point years ago, Wim in trouble or drifting astray, but who knows so many years later. I am staring at the life I didn't lead. The confidence and optimism and fearlessness I had then...
Mia sees a duck on the street outside, naming him and photographing him within minutes, the duck finally choosing algae in the canal over a movie role. My dad and I once skated on that very canal, following it to a larger canal and then finally out on an adjoining lake...or did that adventure sneak into the panorama of actual memories from my imagination one day, imagination now indistinguishable from reality?
The house looks impossibly small. The new owners have transformed a meager lawn and garden into an opulent terrace paved in brick and surrounded by a wall of ivy. Inside, kitchen and living room are now one room, a wall removed. The garage is transformed into living space, home to an older child. There is no smell of cut grass. I have not lived here in a very, very long time.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Maarssen, Netherlands

We begin our bike trip
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The horizon is a straight line, the land a mere smudge, and the sky immense. You grow self assured here, I imagine, or feel very inconsequential under a sky this large, a clue perhaps to the Dutch character. It keeps dumping rain on us, then plays gray, then teases us with blue sky. In the afternoons it clears and the wind dies and the sun and stillness last until 10:30pm. We go to bed feeling like we really accomplished something just to have experienced a day like this.
We take the boat out of Amsterdam up to Hoorn, loosely following the coast north. The Ijsselmeer is flecked with sailboats of every vintage fluttering about like moths under a dark sky. Wind turbines stand in the water in vast arrays, dutiful and beautiful. The objections to a wind farm of the coast of Massachusetts are proven ridiculous.
We are aboard the Stijlebank, a cement freighter converted to passenger use, and it will be our home base for a week as we ride a big circle around the Ijsselmeer on our bikes. The basic form of the boat is quite fluid and beautiful, though it is somewhat cluttered by the passenger use: I imagine it was exceedingly handsome as a freighter.
The boat is captained by Albert, and his wife Anina will cook for us. A young Danish guy named Soren is studying to be a sea captain for Maersk in Copenhagen, and is spending the week helping Albert. Bram is our bicycle tour guide. There are 16 of us: all one Dutch and American family.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

Clouds
Hoorn, Netherlands
We arrive in Hoorn in late afternoon, eat dinner on the boat, and then take our bikes out for a 15 km. trial run.
The sky clears a bit, and becomes a spectacle, and we stop just to bear witness as if this were some religious event.
Possibly it is.
The bikes and the kids perform wonderfully.
It is the 650 year anniversary of the town of Hoorn, and we take a walk into town to listen to some music when we get back. The town is dense and historic and quaint, a real tourist draw. A five piece band sings and plays in the town center, and the cafes are open, and a crowd is drinking beer on the street. We all fall asleep before midnight.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Hoorn, Netherlands

Ouch
Hoorn, Netherlands
It is raining when we wake up, it rains through breakfast, and it is raining as we finally start out on our bicycles. We wind out of town behind Bram, most of us on 7 speed upright bicycles of a rather classical Dutch style, the kids on 3 speed models, and the youngest on a 1 speeder. Bram has his own racing bike, a model doubtlessly bursting with gear options, but in truth it is not necessary: we are in flat country with the wind at our backs.
The Ijsselmeer is gray and flecked with whitecaps, the sky is grey and flecked with white clouds, and the land is an intense green: we follow the coast north.
Modern wind turbines stake both the land and the water here and there. We travel in a loose line, the teenagers eager to stay in the lead, the youngsters happy to chat and putter along, the adults chatting among themselves or with the kids or enjoying some solitude. It rains, it stops, it rains again.
The wind helps us when we turn due north, and challenges us otherwise. We are pilgrims under a capricious sky.
In early afternoon Polly finds a house she wants me to photograph, chases after me at full speed, and flips here bike on the edge of the pavement. She lands hard on her head, scraping ankle, thigh, elbow, shoulder and face as well. We are aghast at the damage, and loathe to show it. Nic goes for ice from a nearby farmhouse and Wil pulls out antibiotics and bandages, keeping Polly warm and low against shock. She does not lose consciousness. A tremendous lump grows beneath the wound on her head, incredibly half as large as a baseball within minutes, but the ice from the farmhouse begins to reduce the swelling.
We are less than 10 km. out of Enkhuizen. There is no traffic or ready transport, so when Polly says after some time that she wants to continue we are inclined to let her. She keeps up a steady pace, she and I continuing ahead when the rest of the group is stalled by other bicycle problems. The boat should be waiting for us: we focus on that.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Hoorn, Netherlands

Hospital
Enkhuizen, Netherlands
By the time we get to Enkhuizen, Polly is feeling nauseous and we need another plan. I'm kicking myself that I let her continue biking, plant her in a café and go looking for the boat without success. It is about 45 minutes since the accident, raining now. I ask for a doctor, but find there is none. There is only a medical post in the town we left this morning. I ask for a taxi, but there is only one and timing is uncertain. We abandon our bikes at the café and I walk Polly across the street to the train station. I fumble with change at the automatic ticket machine, a train employee warning me the train is about to leave. Seeing Polly and recognizing the urgency, she kindly gives me the 10 cents I’m short, then helps me get Polly on the train with moments to spare. It is only 25 minutes to Hoorn, an excruciating 25 minutes. The hospital is just over a pedestrian bridge from the station.
Polly sits down on the platform, unable to continue.
I leave her sitting on the train platform and sprint for a wheelchair, finding one in the hospital and hauling it up and down the pedestrian bridge stairs to pick her up. There are no elevators, and Polly barely manages to pull herself up and down the stairs. We careen across brick plazas, every bump telegraphed to Polly’s head, her moans mortifying. Arriving at the hospital, we are directed to the medical post in an adjacent building. More bricks, more moaning. We are asked to pay 101.50 euro and then directed to a waiting room. There are 9 people waiting. I return to the desk and explain that Polly can’t wait. We are directed into an examination room where she can lie down. I turn off the lights and hold her hand. She says nothing.
A young doctor arrives within 5 or 10 minutes. He is young and relaxed and direct, jeans, sneakers, polo shirt, asking Polly questions in English about the accident, and about the contusions. A nurse begins to wrap the scrapes. He feels around the lump on her head and decides there are no fractures, Polly having hit one of the thicker parts of her skull. She did not lose consciousness, nor is she at all disoriented. He discounts a concussion. The nausea results from blood pressure fluctuations and shock, and it ultimately comes down to a prescription for pain and a prescription for nausea.
I pick up the drugs at the hospital pharmacy, and after 90 minutes of rest we are somewhat abruptly kicked out of the clinic: the room may be required if someone has a heart attack for example. “Maybe” trumps misery it appears, and we are slightly miffed as we head back to the train. Bricks again…and pedestrian bridge stairs, and finding the right track and waiting for the train. I call ahead to finally advise the group on events, the 650 year anniversary celebrations around us loud and irritating, almost drowning out the call.
Enough was understood that Nic is waiting for us when we get back to Enkhuizen, and a taxi is arranged to take us to the boat. Finally, 5 hours after the accident, Polly is able to sleep. The café owner where we had abandoned our bicycles that morning had communicated with the group, they had reclaimed our bikes, and everything is already loaded on the boat. Albert, the captain, is concerned about crossing the Ijsselmeer and decides to leave immediately for our next port. Mercifully, the crossing is uneventful, and we finally finish our day on the northern shore of the Ijsselmeer, in the port of Lemmer.
Headache
Polly will be OK...she's always been slightly unusual, in a good way.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Enkhuizen, Netherlands

Junket for Junkies
Lemmer, Netherlands
We were directed to wake Polly every 2 hours during the night, the possibility of bleeding inside her skull of some concern to the doctor. After 2 uneventful wakings however, I set the alarm on my cell phone incorrectly and we both sleep through the rest of the night. I wake up swearing at myself, but Polly is fine. The lump is diminished, the purple is migrating southward, and she shrugs off our suggestions that she remain on the boat today. We leave Lemmer under cloudy skies, Polly among us, 16 ducklings behind Bram the Guide.
It is Monday, and we pass through miles of open countryside, farms, small villages all closed and quiet. Those of us tuned to Monday morning industrialized country frenzy find it a little eerie. Echten, Echtenerberg, Munnekeburen, Scherpenzeel, Spanga: all closed. By 10am, concern mounts, and by 11am we have a serious, serious problem: where are we going to stop for coffee and pastry?
Ritual caffeination is deeply engrained in this culture, and 1030am is time for “koffie”. I always assumed “koffie” happened whenever you dropped in on someone, “I’ll be there for koffie” a frequent refrain, but when I once showed up at an aunt’s house at 1130am after suggesting I’d come for some coffee, I discovered punctuality was expected. These people need their fix ON TIME, or things get irritable.
Luckily, just before noon, at Ossenzijl right next to the bridge in the center of town, 4 hours after breakfast and 26 hours since the last coffee break, we finally find an open café. Koffie, Cappuccino, Koffie Verkeerd (Latte): all hastily ordered; appel taart met slagroom (apple pie with whipped cream) smoothes ruffled feathers. Mutiny averted, though some are already writing complaint letters to the trip organizers in their heads…they could have…they should have…
We leave the streets and enter National Park “de Weerribben”, a beautiful sanctuary of waterways and bike paths. Lunch is a picnic beside a canal, the kids focused on feeding the ducks. It rains occasionally. We meander through the park, enjoying the quiet, the birds, the solitude…OK, there’s 16 of us…maybe not the solitude. Occasionally one child or another lags, and we become practiced at pedaling while holding hands, the stronger pulling the weaker, so that we all generally move along as a group…Kalenberg, Wetering, Baarlo…from our vantage point these towns appear to have no cars. There are signs for a town called “Mosquito Bite” (Muggenbeet), but we pass to the west.
In Blokzijl we get back on the roads, but the 4 hours far from civilization have seriously taken their toll: shopping spasms hit some of the women. Those of us unaffected try to stay calm and patient, but our nerves fray as we consider the possible cost. Some of the group continues on and we lose group cohesion, but the condition luckily passes quickly. We don’t ask how much. We move on. In late afternoon we reach Vollenhove, and the boat.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Lemmer, Netherlands

Dancing with the departed
Vollenhove, Netherlands
That evening we are treated to a walking tour of the city by author Wim Willemse. He explains that Vollenhove was once a port on the Zuider Zee, a prosperous Hanseatic League city with an important fish industry, and later a peat industry. 600 years later, fleeting fortune, the sea is turned to polder, these industries have died and Vollenhove is a pleasant but very small town on a canal. They build very expensive yachts here. What used to be shore looks out over farmland.
The Bishop of Utrecht once kept a summer residence here, attracting other noblemen who built elaborate houses. We walk through the formal grounds of one noble residence, the gardens in some disrepair and half of it dead. A small monument honors WWII dead. We walk quietly and whisper in deference not to the departed but to a theater company rehearsing an upcoming production. Nearby, in the forest, a castle lies in ruins on a small island and a large wooden stage stands in the water in front. This was the home of a nobleman who died suddenly, his home left to ruin. The theater company will perform here, past and present dramas juxtaposed, a dance with the departed.
Later, in the boat, the conversation drifts to an acquaintance who lost a foot to parrot disease, to the surprising challenges of navigating the Ijsselmeer, and to a German who sank and drowned by underestimating the conditions on the lake. A cousin I greatly admire and appreciate has disappeared with some inheritance money, and we discuss the abyss he seems to have entered and our inability to coax him back into the family. I tried to enlist him as a cameraman for my Sahara trip, but he didn't respond to my emails, and now we discover, except for flowers his mother received on her birthday, that his immediate family hasn't heard from him in a very long time. How can this end well? I fear for him, I miss his humor, I wish he would call. It seems slightly morbid, the present tide of our thoughts, and I can’t help thinking it is the town that has affected us so. The sun sets.
My sister and I sit down and play chess until late into the night.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Vollenhove, Netherlands

Things
Vollenhove, Netherlands
Polly’s purple lump is moving south, descending towards her left eye, and I harbor ignorant concerns about what happens when they collide. We head north to Giethoorn, tourist mecca. The day is hot and sunny, and I will end the day with the sunburn I never got in the Sahara.
At Jonen we run into two American couples on matching foldable tandems, hop a tiny ferry, and discover a fabulous little café out here in what feels like nowhere. The inhabitants would no doubt disagree.
Coffee, pastries, ice cream, hot chocolate with whipped cream: we treat the kids and ourselves to a moment of gluttony, and with cholesterol levels satisfyingly elevated, wave goodbye to the storks and continue our travels.
Giethoorn, the touristy part in any case, lies amid a network of canals and a lake.
We rent two little electric motor boats and skim through the canals and onto the lake, my younger brother steering competently from the start while I ram banks and other boats until I get the hang of things…emblematic, emblematic…
Some purchases are next, trip remembrance beckoning at the pottery place or the stone place next door. The ceramic that catches my eye is not for sale however, and as we ponder the issues of carting some fragile piece back home, we uncharacteristically dissuade ourselves from a purchase. Its easier somehow in Ayacucho or Oaxaca or Cotonou, where artifacts speak in stranger tongues, to find something indelibly intertwined with your experience…something to hold and protect and give back to you in future years that experience.
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.
Dinner at the boat is wonderful, as always, and so is chess with my sister. We take back our stupid moves and debate our strategies, fighting fatigue to finish the game finally at 1:15am.
Say THAT 10 times fast.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Vollenhove, Netherlands

Rock Mobster
Zwartsluis, Netherlands
The kids are tired, Polly's purple lump has swallowed her eye (oh my!) and today the Tucson clan stays on the boat. The clouds are back to help us with that sunburn, and we set out this morning for Sint Jansklooster (Saint John’s Parish), Zwartsluis (Black Locks, for the locks on the Black River), Genemuiden (I have no idea: my Dutch has its limits) and finally, Kampen (Camps). As always, Bram takes the lead, whoever is directly behind him stops and directs everyone else whenever we change direction at a corner, and someone serves as “sweep” to mark the end of the line. Evil nephew Tommy takes glee in directing stragglers in the wrong direction when he gets the corner job...R...E...T...A...he knows what I'm talking about...
The old windmill at Sint Jansklooster is unfortunately closed, and we are left to view this little bit of history simply as an artifact, from the outside. A few kilometers down the road I notice a small marker, however, and pull into a clearing to find odd solitary rocks and glacial detritus. I am alone here for a few minutes, the rest of the family not at all tempted by this peculiar place, and it feels as if I have stepped out of the ordered, measured, functional world into the past. It is slightly creepy.
I am staring at a rock transported thousands of kilometers from its origin, left here alone, alien to this place, weathered, graying... Seduced by its peculiar gravity, I'm lured into anthropomorphic thinking. Sometimes I feel like that rock.
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

Potatoes and Smoked Eel
Genemuiden, Netherlands
We take a ferry to Genemuiden, a small, conservative town with a few canal side eating establishments. Rudely occupying their outside tables to eat our box lunches, we at least order a round of beer, with sips going to the more curious kids. We can’t resist some patat frite with mayonnaise as well, and this deserves a few words.
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...
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Genemuiden, Netherlands

Kiss
Kampen, Netherlands
We found my brother’s family in some souvenir shop, (matte, very wide landscape postcards: irresistible), followed the three glasses of wine of just an hour ago with a couple of beers on the main square, and after dinner on the boat got a walking tour of the city from Bram.
I couldn’t get anyone else interested in buildings under construction, but I think they’re pretty cool.
There is a very nice shopping street here, with some interesting art nouveau details here and there and a wonderful scale to it all, plus interesting city gates and walls...
City Gate
...and some nice gardens.
The romance of those gardens swept Sophia off her feet it seems: we were privledged to be there for her first kiss at age 10.
It will get better, Sophia, believe me.
Bridge
The main bridge is mechanically unique, lifting the entire roadbed up instead of hinging it, and it is lit rather dramatically after dark.
Later that night: more chess. Junket for junkies.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Kampen, Netherlands

Soup
Zeewolde, Netherlands
Today, Polly and Mia and I stay on the boat. The girls are exhausted, Polly is more resolute than unaffected by her accident, and I am loathe to leave them. The others set out and we sail forth, toward the new town of Zeewolde through a light soup of mist, past bevies of swans and columns of turbines, the diesel steady with a low one-two beat.
Zeewolde was built in the 70s and 80s and is too well organized to be truly interesting. Two shopping streets establish an organizing cruciform, residential streets march into the countryside, it is all polder exposed by pumping the Ijsselmeer. As I understand it, that pumping is continuous, sea level and rainwater pressing constantly to inundate the low lying land. It explains all these beautiful wind turbines.
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.
Zeewolde does have one noteworthy bit of architecture: an abandoned library. I didn’t get what all the fuss was about, but there’s a model of it at Madurodam, and that appears to be one of the impediments to its demolition. Madurodam is the entire country of the Netherlands modeled in miniature on a few acres in Den Haag, a place I remember my grandfather taking my sister and I as kids…though I probably remember it more for the extravagant ice cream sundae he bought us (colorful umbrella AND monkey on a straw)than for the miniatures…This is the same grandfather that once parked his car on a hill, put on the parking brake, told his grandson under NO CIRCUMSTANCES to touch the brake, then had to run and dive to save his car when curiosity took the better of me: my first driving lesson.
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.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Zeewolde, Netherlands

Steile Bank
Spakenburg, Netherlands
This is the Steile Bank, the boat and crew that has supported us on our bicycle trip. "Steile" means "steep" and "Bank" has all the meanings in Dutch that it has in English. The boat is owned by Albert and Anina Koers, a couple that has been sailing together for most of their long marriage. They took a break when the kids were young.
Albert
Albert is a man past 60, a grandfather, and an Elvis Presley nut. He played for us an incredible CD of relatively unknown Elvis tunes: gospel and blues from his younger years I had never heard him sing. Even the kids were dancing. Albert expressed pride in a small plot of land he and Anina have, originally a camp of sorts, that recently got an occupancy permit as a permanent structure. He spoke a bit about banks, the power banks have, and the way they distort lives with their rules and their inevitability. He is getting ready to head down to France with Anina: he likes the life down there.
Anina does the cooking, and lays down the rules. It is not permitted, for example, to store water bottles purchased elsewhere in the boat refrigerator...She is gracious about it though. Anina made expansive breakfasts and dinners. When my sister Nic expressed a desire for certain peculiarly Dutch vegetables, Anina found them and made them in the traditional style. Recognizing that we had lived in America for a long time, and that some of us had never eaten real Dutch food, she cooked an entire meal of traditional Dutch foods. Anina does the books for the couple, and it's obvious she keeps her eye on that ball. She also told us about her son and daughter, both of whom work on the water, and her son actually came on board to visit when we arrived at the same port one night.
Anina
Soren
Soren is a Danish student, friend of the Koers', studying to be a ship captain at the Maersk school in Copenhagen. He will eventually be given command of the biggest container ships on earth. In the meantime, he reads a lot and goes out to bars when he is in port, and states that he will frankly be lucky to find a wife as a sailor. He expects to be at sea for 3 months at a time, the disruption to family life obviously significant. Soren says that when Maersk experimented with shorter stints however, family disruption was worse. Couples and families didn't have a chance to re-acclimate to each other before the man left again, and so there was constant turmoil. On the Steile Bank, Soren takes shifts sailing the boat, and helps both Albert and Anina with errands and chores.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Spakenburg, Netherlands

Dissolution
Almere-Haven, Netherlands
It is our last day on bicycles.
The boat drops us off on a small dock near Almere-Haven, we wade through a throng of kids playing voetbal, and soon find ourselves cycling through exurbations of slowly increasing density.
The bike paths are pleasantly bordered by mature treerows, we play hide and seek with the Ijsselmeer, we intersect with the first highway of the trip, the buildings and freighters along and in the canals increase in size…we feel the dissolution of our tranquility.
We take a break in the town of Muiden.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Almere-Haven, Netherlands

Medieval Interlude
Muiden, Netherlands
Stalling for time I suspect, and also eager to escape an impending downpour, we visit the castle at Muiden.
Former home of another treacherously assassinated nobleman, it is now filled with displays (this is how they poured hot burning oil on the heads of invaders…) and medieval video games (virtual jousting, anyone?) and medieval dress-up…
Outside it does pour for a short time, but the sun follows and after some hanging and milling around...
...we exit for lunch and for a demonstration involving falcons and owls
…the kids immensely pleased to handle these beautiful raptors.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Muiden, Netherlands

Graffiti
Amsterdam, Netherlands
We enter the city.
Beautiful graffiti, skateboard parks, large housing complexes, modern architecture…traffic.
We reach the docks where we first met the boat and our bike trip is done.
We sleep on the boat one last night after a walk along the canals and through the red-light district, after a delicious dinner of archetypal Dutch food, and after multiple toasts to Anina the cook, Albert the captain, Soren his assistant, Bram the bike trip guide, and finally to my mother, who promised this trip to her grandkids years ago, who imagined this trip in all of its detail, and who finally made it possible.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

Moment of Reflection
We wake up early for our good-byes, send our stuff to Doorn with the contingent headed there by car, and then walk through the rain to a diamond dealer for my sister, who we count on to make all our jewelry, and to the Anne Frank house for the kids, by way of some souvenir store. I head to a coffeehouse for a few moments alone with my thoughts (translation: I was feeling grumpy…I will spare you my tirade about overpriced souvenirs we still can’t seem to resist) and then stroll through the north market looking at vintage books and records. A small embossed silver box catches my eye, and presto, I’ve bought Polly a souvenir too.
We all get together at a café for lunch, watch ourselves eating in the mirrors and then head to the Centraal Station for the train to Doorn. The last time on a train was to and from the hospital for Polly, and I am chastened by how easily things can go wrong in even the easiest and most comfortable of circumstances. Our bicycle trip is over, but there’s another week to our journey and we adjust our sights to that.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

Reunion
Doorn, Netherlands
It is the morning of our family reunion, a big barbeque out on the lawns of a formal mansion that my cousin Peter operates as a conference center and event locale. He is both exceedingly professional and impressively low-key, my cousin, and he has flawlessly arranged both our stay here in Holland as well as this party.
The kids have started building a primitive hut, and architectural services are called for. That’s my excuse anyway to go play with them. They need no help whatsoever of course, and I let them boss me around as we gather sticks and leaves, the hut taking shape rapidly.
The family arrives in threes, fours, and fives, aunts uncles cousins, in-laws and new wives and new kids and old kids and many married people with children who I only remember as kids: we are all recalibrating and taking stock, even of ourselves. I have never felt older. We have had these reunions whenever my family came back from “The States”, more than 40 years worth of visits, and as a child I assumed these parties were typical. The family to my mind was monolithic, my father’s side bound to my mother’s side doubly by the marriage of my mother’s sister and my father’s brother. Only slowly have I come to understand and appreciate some of the fissures and alliances that define this family, the details that make this family so interesting and also so important to me. Those 40 years of reunions I now know only happened when we came to visit, but I also know for certain that they were not just for us.
It is all over too quickly. My sister’s family needs to pack and in the morning is gone, evil Tommy of wrong directions fame headed to China for a month. A day later I drive my brother’s family to Brussels to catch their flight back to Tucson, and then we say our good-byes to an aunt seen rarely since her divorce from my uncle, headed for a hospice for the last weeks of her life. We will not see her again. Once it was weddings that precipitated our visits, but funerals are frankly more common of late.
I spend a day with Peter, walking through the estate he operates and discussing his expansion plans. We visit similar estates in the area, all of whom sadly built expansions quite badly, new construction destroying any of the original elegance. He will not make the same mistakes. Peter drives us to the airport, and we are off to Iceland.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Doorn, Netherlands

sick...walk...sleep
Mia is sick, and from the States we hear that they all caught something here as well. My cousin Peter and my aunt Nell drive us to the airport, we get through the formalities, we walk 37.85 kilometers to the gate (thank god for those moving walkways), and finally board the plane. Mia is asleep instantly.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

Restlessness
Reykjavik, Iceland
We zoom down over lava and lichen to Keflavik airport, pass through security (they’re still as young as before), change money (kroner, not euros), arrange a hotel and catch a bus for the 50 kilometer ride into Reykjavik. Stacks of rock beckon human-like as we pass, everywhere is lava rubble, and we see not a single tree until we approach the city. Hotel Snorri is ridiculously expensive and proves little more than a hostel, but it is clean and convenient, and Mia needs to lie down. We settle in, I get food at the 11/11 store, I put the girls to bed after dinner, and then restlessness sends me out the door to explore.
It is 9pm and feels like 5pm, the sun is still that high.
I walk down Snorrabraut and take a left down Laugavegur, the main shopping street in the city.
The street is crowded with young people, some couples arm in arm, some formally dressed groups. Laugavegur becomes Bankastraeti becomes Austurstraeti, and then I am in a more residential area before hitting the water.
I turn right to the harbor, following the sea wall finally to a series of huge storage tanks overlooking the sea.
It is past 11pm now, and the sun still shines brightly at the horizon.
A couple of guys are spraying graffiti on a wall, great loops of orange and green and black, but otherwise it is completely quiet. From far off downtown I hear traces of traffic, then some gulls fly by, then I hear the waves.
Light glints off the cathedral dominating Reykjavic, far off in the distance. I feel alive and tired both, glad to experience this unusual moment: the sun bouncing off the horizon at midnight. The quality of the light is unforgettable.
Downtown, restless teenagers squeal their tires, many cruise down the main street in an orderly procession, and there is plenty of life left to the evening. There is not a trace of litter anywhere however. I walk back to the hotel for a few hours rest.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Reykjavik, Iceland

Home
Boston, United States
Iceland
Greenland
Sigh.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Boston, United States