England 1 - drunken Wookies off the starboard bow

England Vacation Day 1:

Launch X-Wing fighters, drunken Wookies off the starboard bow

After just a week in Holland, I'm off for a week long vacation to England.

Per the title, I felt like I took the Starship Gallactica to get to England, or maybe Space Mountain ride at Disney Land. The first experience was a trip on the Chunnel - the Brits and French dug a tunnel under the English channel, and you can take a train now instead of a ferry. You drive through a very twisty parking lot with many lanes and red cones and cars wizzing around, a bit like I imagine the warm up for the Indie 500 looks like. You get in a long line of cars, and load one at a time into a long narrow train car. The walls are all silver, with little ports, and there are all sorts or gadgets hanging off the walls. Each 4 car lengths is another car 'Air Lock' with a gate. They put about 3-5 cars per section, then close off the gates, like a Star Trek air lock. You stay with your car for the trip, which is only 35 minutes, and it really feels like you are about to lauch on a Sci Fi movie set. Much cooler than the boring old ferry crossing.

After arriving at a dissapointingly routine parking lot (no rowdy Kligons greeting us at Folkstone, UK. The first stop for us was Dover. First stop was the 'Roman Painted House', purported to be the larges roman mural in all the UK. They unearthed a First century roman house during an archeological dig about 20 feet below ground, and built a museum around it. The mural was on 4 walls of an inn, but most of what remained is the bottom green border. The book raved about the 4 dimentional columns and godesses and gods you could see, but all I saw was a large green band, a bit of white, then some blocks I suppose were the base of columns and maybe someones toe. They listed being able to dress up in Roman costume. When I excitely asked the bored ticket taker, he looked at me like I was a bit of a daft American, and said 'We only use those for children's school trips'.

Next was a visit to see the oldest boat anywhere in the world found yet, from about 4000 years ago. There was a cool little museum with some displays on Stone Age and Bronze Age England, and a 20 minute video stressing how important this find was and how difficult it was to raise if from the water and preserve it. Then we saw the boat, which looked a little like a recked barge laying in the salvage lot, but hey, it was history so that makes it cool.

Next was a trip to the harbour, to see all the commercial shipping come in and out. Then a quick jaunt to the White Cliffs of Dover. To me, they looked pretty much like a green hill with lots of cows and some sheep, but Rob pointed out the white-ish rocks along the walls of the cloffs, so now I can say I have seen it. I was originally so exctied to be in an English speaking country, but some cosmic force must be telling me to study dutch. We are using a dutch car with dutch licence plates. At the Cliffs of Dover entrance, the park lady saw the plates and handed us a brochure in dutch! So even in the UK, park attendants remind me to learn my dutch.

After Dover, we drove to Rye, which was like stepping into the set of 'Shakespeare in Love'. My Ren Faire friends will be green with envy, as this is what they try and make the dusty so-cal Ren Faire look like. All the narrow winding streets are of cobbled pave stones. The houses look like 'Elizabeth' or 'Shakespeare In Love', true Tudor style. They are of white plaster, with brown oak windows and trimming, vertical black lines painted lines, and bow window boxes with the diamond pained windows. A misty rain started, which became a drizzle. Normally this California girl would have run for the nearest bookstore until it dried out, but here it all seemed to fit. I expected Queen Elizateth (or maybe the lady who plays her at Ren Faire) to parade thorugh street with a costumed parade behind her.

Of course, we also had to visit Rye harbor after I got my Renfaire-fix. The harbor is actually a river that was a busy port 300 years ago. In the last few hundred years, enough mud and silt has filled up that the river only fills with water a few times a month. What we saw were a bunch of boats sunk into the mud, and some cute ducks sleeping on a muddy basket in the middle of the muck. This was Rob's moment of happiness, running around taking pictures of all the boats and exclaiming on the pros and cons of each one.

After Rye, we checked into our hotel, which is a quaint Bed and Breafast in a small town near Rye. We had dinner at a local pub, very British. I had a pie of beef and mushrooms, and Rob and minted lamb. We sat next to one of the local reprobates from town. He bought an abandoned boat for 1 pound from the harbor master, and lives on it now, and has 2 outher junkers he is 'fixing up'. His boat is in the mucky 'harbor' He moved here with his trusty dog from South Africa 8 years ago. He spent his entire life as a ship's carpenter, and shared sea-faring stories with Rob.

After dinner, we went for a walk along a beautiful tree-lined lane our Bed and Breakfast resides on. We passed idyllic green pastures filled with slumbering sheep and peaceful cows. It was great fun to stroll along, but I would not want to live there. Cant see telling my friends directins to my house is 'Turn left at the second meadow, go down 5 sheep, and there is my house with the brown cow chewing cud in front of it'. While walking, we met a lady with a pet ferret on a leash. She introduced us to 'Charlie' the Ferret, and we talked about cool places to se efo rth enext day.

Well, thats about it for Day 1. I'll post some pics when I get back to Holland. Next internet stop is the next few days.

Land of the Vacationing Giants

Well, I have been here for just under a week, and am just starting to get used to my new neighborhood here. Every day life is a very different experience from travelling as a tourist!

First off, the entire country goes on vacation in July and August. As a tourist, you dont notice this as much, since the tourist activites are about the only places fully staffed. We often hear "normally this takes 1 week, but with the vacation season, it will take about 3 weeks". My postings are infrequent now as we are into week 2 of a 4 week wait for phone and internet connection in the house.

I've been busy in other areas, adapting to the neighboorhood and our new house. For dutch living experiences, thats a pretty good place to start. Rob rented us a beautiful little duplex house in a suberb of Dordrecht (about 30 minutes away from Rotterdam and 1.5 hours away from Amsterdam). It is in the typical dutch style, very tall and narrow. The stairs are more similar to a ladder, much steeper than American stairs. Dont go down these after too much dutch beer!

The house has a pretty little back garden, and a 3 story house. The ground floor has a kitchen and livingroom. It came with a pretty oak dining table, side board and coffee table, and 2 brown pillow sofas. One the first things I notices is that the cabinets are very high, and the fridge very small. Our fridge is the size of a mini-fridge, and the freezer is on the 3rd floor in the attic. For the first time in my life, I am seeing the inside of a market more than once a week. I shop at the grocry around the corner each day now, both for freshness and lack of space.

Another difference is there are no closets in the house! The dutch prefer to by free-standing cabinets and wardrobes, saying "Ï want to select where I put my storage". Dutch houses have sepreate showers and bathtubs, never having the combined one we see in the states. The shower is tall and thin, with the faucet at about 6 feet tall. Finally, comfortable for Rob to take a shower without stooping.

One great feature is ä "No junk mail please" sticker you can put on your front door. Wish they had that one in the US!

Well, next exciting episode to be posted later this week...adventures in shopping in Holland

7 days until the move

The first official Blog entry:
Just a week left until I become an official resident of the Netherlands. I'm excited, curious and nervous all at once. What ever else, it will definatly be an adventure. I'm looking forward to sharing my expriences of all aspects of Dutch life. I hope you enjoy reading along with my adventures!