photo gallery

All together, there are 1168 images in my Lightroom database. I took just under 250 of these and put them in a public gallery. I shot all photos with a just-released, 10MP touch-screen Panasonic DMC-FX500 which proved to be capable and reasonably responsive for a compact point & shoot. It was easy to be discrete because of its size and color, and the image stabilization in combination with the high ISO allowed me to shoot sans electronic flash for all 1168 images. Fun, fun... Enjoy the photos.

jetlag

Everyone is back at home now with various levels of jetlag which is a strange fog of adjustment... We made our pickup and were luckily hurried so nobody had the chance to get all sappy about leaving our postcard house, window perches, soup enzo, dirty bars, clean parks, steep stairs, and the impossibility of buying anything but a great bottle of wine in the city. More important than visual treats, we've truly enjoyed each other's company in terms of companionship and camaraderie. Everyone had a good sense of adventure, stuck together, was reasonably patient, and tastefully dressed! Everyone raise a glass to my parents who made the trip possible, and especially my dad who was our Dutch hook-up (well, besides the gypsy in the Waterhole Bar.) With no doubt, my most treasured time of the trip was the drizzly trip to De Lier. Family ties are powerful and the hospitality was generous and sincere. Dank u wel, Nederland; we'll be back.

day 10 - final day

Sunday we felt no need to pack the day in tightly. Plus I've noticed that Amsterdam is about as excited as waking up early as I am. With the exception of the mesmerizing bike & pedestrian choreography in the intersection (because the tourists don't have to be at work at 8AM), the city seems comfortably sleepy. I noticed that even market vendors weren't even fully setup until 11AM. Nice. It was rainy, so we all started the mission of eating up all the rest of the food in the house and headed out on trips: Robyn, Kora and I headed to the flower market and shopping along Leidestraat, and others to check out the Church of St. Nicholas where the three of us had been a few days before - right next to Central Station. I even made my only other phone-call on the trip: a call to George to arrange a 7AM pickup. In-between was some packing, organizing, vacuuming, dusting, dishes, misc. clean-up, etc. The kids and the parents tag-teamed an hour or so out in our neighborhood. The former to a nice brown cafe down the road, and the latter on a dusk bridge tour on the canals.

We stayed up a bit, but headed to bed to get some rest for our early pickup. It actually was nice to stay in and relax; just knowing that the whole city was available to entertain us on our whim was pretty fun.

day 9 – amsterdam

Saturday we decided again to have an easy day and work in smaller groups. The weather the last couple days has been great, and Saturday was no exception. 70+ and full sun. Alicia headed off for strolling and market browsing through the Jordan district. Robyn, Kora and I stayed home and were bums for a bit, and everyone else headed out as well for shopping and eating. The three of us headed to a market we had been through a few days before and Kora picked out some ‘sparkle shoes’ and a dress.

From here we stumbled on a local park / playground that had a myriad of play structures, a water hand-pump in the middle of a sandbox, bicycles and scooters for everyone, and an in-ground trampoline. It was nice to let Kora run around with other little kids after days of dragging her around the Netherlands, and we were able to sit down for a bit. The place was very cool; like many things here, I’ve never really seen anything like this in our country – let alone Houghton! We headed back North and ate some Falafel and checked out stores along the shopping corridor; Lush was notably appealing for Robyn of course - think eco-chic body and bath. Without a key, we found the note in the mailbox to meet across the road in a bit so we killed an hour drinking Heineken (if you ask for a ‘beer’ this is usually the default) and were well entertained on a Saturday afternoon: spotted someone drinking beer from a wooden shoe whilst his friend wore the other one, a mobile bar (with a half-dozen patrons) being pulled by bike, alley cats everywhere, and continual near collisions involving bikes, trains, cars, birds, cats, and pedestrians. Still struggling with internet connectivity (there are 20+ SSIDs visible, but only one is unsecure, and it is SO flakey) I decided to move my operation downstairs to the street where I sat with an overfull glass of wine, cheese, laptop, matchbox cars, and a doll. Kora played street waif while I caught up on email and blog updates.

As a family, we all went out for dinner and sangria (Kora and Alicia made money by dancing in the middle of street) before the 4 of us kids went out for the night. Aaron and I took Alicia & Robyn to our favorite night spots and we found a few more which included a goth rock club and a very old and apparently Dutch-only bar in the Red Light District that unlocked the door for us. We have them fooled by appearance, or I’ve just learned how to roll my R’s and hack out my acht’s with confidence. We returned safely with french fries and mayonnaise; perfect!

day 8 - alkmaar, zaanse schans & red light

Today was a busy, busy day. By the time I fell asleep, my right thigh and left calf were both pretty shot... Sitting in the window sill watching evening foot & bike traffic with a glass of wine, I feel much better.
We started out by racing up North to catch a train out to Alkmaar to watch the traditional cheese market bartering / dance / ritual / parade... This is a pretty traditional event, and the town is very accommodating every Friday at 10AM to locals and tourists making their way to watch this thing. Kora found a little English friend to jump over the gate with and watch the crazyness.

We played tourists here, then did the same as we made our way to Zaanse Schans to see windmill country. We were pretty clumsy about trains and ended up on an inter-city train instead of a sprinter and we ended up far past our hook-up point. Big oops... We figured it out quickly and hiked from the train stop, to a ferry, then into windmill land. These things are fascinating by the way. Total custom machines, articulated, grease lubrication on wooden bearings and cloth sails to do no less than 4 independent operations inside each mill.

The place was again, ridiculously photogenic, and amazingly windy... (how appropriate). We had a great lunch in the town (similar to the day before), fed ducks & goats, then jumped back on the train. All the girls headed to an orchestra performance and dinner downtown while the guys took Kora out for Mexican food and ice cream just around the corner.






Aaron and I headed North for a while then walked back home. While weekdays are pretty busy in the hotspots, I can tell you first-hand that weekends are insane... Interesting also how one neighborhood is packed edge to edge, and around the next corner; just drifters. Sharp contrasts; you just need to know where you are going. Fun, fun.

day 7 - muiden

In the morning, all of us kids pounded some breakfast & coffee, then walked North to Central Station to grab a train to Muiden. Well, we made it most of the way there, then we tried to get a bus, but no luck with a bus strike going on; a bike, but no luck with the bike place closed; so we saddled Kora up on my back and walked 3+K into Muiden to check out the castle there. The town itself is extremely non-touristy; nothing in English, and few accommodations for Americans; appropriately, we loved it.

The castle was great - compact, clean, interesting, insanely photogenic, and even good for dragging K to.


We debated hitching a boat ride back to Amsterdam or a bike ride at least back to the train station, but we sucked it up and hit the road by foot again. We all got back together in the evening, had some dinner, and then Aaron and I hit the town again for a bit - this time sitting outside in a square South West of here, drinking Duvel and watching everyone walk past.

I did a quick photo project and stealth-ily shot a slow shutter speed shot of every group or individual that walked past. Fashion girl Heidi will love the results. When we're in our neighborhood here, we're pretty much not feeling like tourists. We know our neighbors, we're polite, we've figured our the hierarchy for traffic (trains - cars - bikes - then people on the bottom). From our window perches with wine, we make fun of the red and yellow rental bikes that get nailed by their Dutch counterparts - trying to teach them a lesson about proper traffic etiquette, cringe at the loud, English rugby athletes (and occasionally throw ice cubes at them) and some of us really enjoy the endless stream of short-skirted, blond, Dutch bicyclists... We've found the local parks, bars, coffee shops, pancake houses, falafel places, and grocery stores. If we had a solid internet connection, I just might not come home...

day 6 - do your own thing

Wednesday everyone had their own agendas and split up for a day to 'do your own thing.' So after a number of days with us all together, some of us slept in, and some of us headed out for our own adventure. Kora, Robyn and I all headed first to the flower market just North West of here.

We browsed the bulbs, flowers, and gifts for a while before we found - a chocolate bar! Oh yes, a bar that serves coffee & chocolate exclusively. Not the most inexpensive random date, but hey this is Amsterdam. We got sufficiently buzzed on sugar and caffeine, then browsed a massive, local market. We found some potential things, but left empty-handed towards the West side of the Red Light District for some church browsing. Amazing how old, preserved, and functional they are; and we're not talking 100 years here; this is 500 years of structural stability and function.

From here we looped back around and ate an Indian lunch in Dam Square then raced like crazy up to Central Station to catch the tram back to our place, pack up, get some wine, and head South Vondel Park where we walked around, played, and breathed easy for a bit. Aaron and I headed out later that night, met a Gypsy, some Americans, Dutch, French, and Australian friends, grabbed some falafel for a 2am snack and fell asleep.

day 5 - market & canal boats

The weather has warmed up quite a bit; though it is breezy and cool in the shade. A perfect day for heading to a huge open market where we browsed the clothes, food, and a myriad of local products & more food! From here we headed up to Central Station to check out the 'cat boat' which is a canal boat which serves as a homeless shelter for cats. Weird...

Along the way, we saw a couple houses whose claim to fame is the fact that they are exactly 1.0 and 1.5 meters wide.

The latter is actually a restaurant. Also weird, but fun. From here we grabbed some lunch at competing falafel shops, grabbed a dozen Heinekens and jumped on a canal boat tour; fun fun!

We split up after this; Robyn and Kora heading back towards the apartment, and the rest of us finding a quick cafe' and a tour of the Torture Museum.

The parents had a canal walking date at night while us kids jumped out of Alicia's bedroom window and hung out on the roof of our house, watching the night fall on our village-like neighborhood. Wednesday will be a break from the back-to-back schedule before we're back at it again on Thursday. Photos coming as they offload and process... Back to sunshine and coffee!

day 4 - museums, anne frank, dam square

Kora and I slept in while everyone else headed to a pancake house and an open market. I caught up on some email and enjoyed the view from the balcony until K-bomb woke up. We quickly ate and headed to meet everyone at the Anne Frank house a half dozen blocks North West of here. Details to follow, but in short: sobering and very well done. I know this was one of my mom's highlights, and we all gave each other space to let the impact of the house soak in. We headed after this to the Van Gogh museum and spent almost two hours learning of his life and progression of artwork. Very beautiful... We played in the park and then us kids all headed to Dam Square for dinner and wandering while the parents went East for a dinner date.

day 3 - den haag

Yay; spent the day waking up probably too late from the night before, but promptly picking up the car again at Central Station and headed South to Den Haag. We stopped first at the Maeslant Storm Surge Barrier just south of Den Haag. This crazy place is designed to react to a storm surge and push out massive, massive arms into the canal - blocking the incoming surge and protecting the country from flooding. Rotating arms and barriers spread out, fill with water, sink, and block the surge. When it recedes, the arms float and swing back in. An engineering marvel.

From there we drove (got lost numerous times) and finally made it to Den Haag and spent a couple hours at Madurodam. This is a crazy park that has the main features of the Netherlands represented in 1/25 scale to a detail that is both mesmerizing and disturbing... We spent quite a while here, learning about the country, taking notes of new places to visit, and admiring the places we were already familiar with.

After this crazy-ness, we went to the bunkers in Scheveningen. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, imagine WWII German bunkers on the beach, now imagine them abandoned, now imagine them abandoned, with a couple desolate, eclectic bars at the base of them on the sands of the ocean. Aaron and I loved it of course, and jumped the barbed wire fences to hide in the grass and gradually make our way to one of the underground trenches which interconnects to the maze of command posts and gun bunkers.

We left there hungry and tired after walking through the sands, and I sped home at least 20km over the speed limit back to Central Station where we ditched the car and came home for pasta and cracked the mini-barrel of Heineken before passing out - listening to the German, Dutch, Italian, and Russian laughing and talking on their way to and from hotels and hostels in our neighborhood. We are feeling less and less like tourists...

day 2 - de lier

Saturday we picked up a small van and headed south to De Lier, the birthplace of my father of course, Abraham Poot. The drive was good albeit quite rainy. De Lier is a very nice place, known primarily for greenhouses and farms. The center of town seems very progressive, modern, and friendly. We were lucky to have been there when a firefighter recruiting demo / party was going on, which made it very busy and fun in the rain.

Before the center of town though, we walked around the house where my dad was born, and grew up. This is right down a short road to the church that was home to his family, and the now gone shoe shop that his father worked at and then moved to Kalamazoo, MI. There is no real way to describe how wonderful and weird it is to see the brick road that my dad walked back and forth on, alleys that he played in, the numbers on his door that he saw every day, etc. I can only imagine how out-of-body this felt for him.

We spent a while walking around downtown and found a hidden coffee house / restaurant that had the best coffee; wow... We relaxed here for a while, then went to a museum where we found that the owners knew our family well. Within 15 minutes, we were met by family and led to my father's cousin's house a short (and fast...) drive away.

We spent the afternoon talking, touring their gardens, drinking coffee, looking through pictures, then cemetery exploring. I saw the grave of my great-grandfather and we marked and photographed the sites of a number of other family members.

The highlight though was being able to walk into the church where my dad's uncle played organ for 60 years. My dad walked in and knew immediately where to sit as if he was still 9 years old. There is simply no way to describe the power of these things. I have tears running down my cheeks as I type. Kora of course lightened us with playing twinkle-twinkle-little-star on an organ that has been there 10X longer than she's been alive...

We grabbed tons of groceries (holy expensive if you try to shop in Amsterdam!) and headed home. We made a huge dinner with wine & candles, settled down, and relaxed. All of us 'kids' packed up and headed to Rembrandt Square for debauchery. Crazy people and bars just up the road. Very New-Years-Eve'ish. We walked back with french fries & mayonnaise and crashed...

day 1.5 - photoblog

Some photos from yesterday after a nice day today...

We climbed on the Saab turboprop out of Houghton and put the earplugs in. Ugh... Though I have the photo, out of respect I won't show the shot of Kora, crouched in the corner of the seat, pale, with an airsick bag in her hand. She did not do so well with the turbulence into Minneapolis. Sad little girl...



Then we waited around for everyone to get there...

Busy place, but good coffee, and tons of people watching to do. The airport is an international hub for Northwest Airlines, so there is no shortage of colorful clothing and language

We waited for 'George' to come and pick us up; which he did, eventually...



No rush though. We were rewarded with arriving to a beautiful apartment which I can see as I type this; they look like every postcard you've seen of Amsterdam. Colorful, reflective, row houses and boats tied up on the canal edges.

We settled in and took a nice stroll South of our place; got some coffee and groceries, returned, and headed out again with all 7 of us to the same area we had just scoped out.

A fun shot of Kora greeting us from the master bedroom on our grocery walk back, and a shot of Friday afternoon in South Amsterdam. And below, my lovely parents who seem to be enjoying the adventure as much as the rest of us are! Yay! More updates soon.

day 1

Exhausted and stealing a slow & unstable internet connection as the vodafone modem is painfully slow at least, but we all made it. We all slept a few fitful hours on the flights and all arrived between 10:30 and noon, then all met, had some coffee and waited for our driver to show up. Quickly, before I pass out from exhaustion: walking around Amsterdam is like walking in a postcard. It is ridiculously photogenic, multi-cultural, with an endless selection of food, beer & coffee. Our apartment (also amazing) is right downtown, on a relatively busy intersection. We have groceries already from our wandering, and have eaten and drank at some amazing hole-in-the-wall spots. We pickup a van in the morning and head South for the day. More in the morning; off to bed...

leaving on a jet plane

We are soon to be off. Cats are headed to the kennel, voicemail greetings are being changed, and I'm debating how many pairs of shoes I should bring. Two? Just one? What about boots? Would sandals be too cold...? Perhaps I should have thought about this weeks ago when everyone else was obsessing... Oh well, too late now! Amazingly, we are all scheduled to arrive at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol within 30 minutes of each other. Back to some last minute office work...

preparing for amsterdam

Yes, yes; here we go. The canal house is set, and the schedules have been coordinated. Now the clothes need packing and the final errands need running. Here is a shot of the house we will be staying in for the rest of the month essentially.