Kinderdijk

This was our boat, docked at Kinderdijk.  They had announcements in English, German, and Dutch about historical and cultural items of interest as we sailed up the Maas.  It was about an hour each way, with an hour at Kinderdijk.

After Jael had arrived, I got a Groupon offer to go to Kinderdijk (where I had gone previously) and we decided to do that.  This wasn't a Pancake Boat trip (that would have been way more expensive) but we did get a free coffee or tea with our ticket and one of the best things about Dutch coffee is that you always, always get a little cookie with your coffee.  Even if you order a piece of apple cake with your coffee (which Jael and I did on our way back, to get a "true" Dutch experience) you still get a little cookie.

This cookie with coffee or tea tradition is actually a really integral part of Dutch culture.  One of my colleagues at school said that she had taken a practice Dutch nationalization quiz (the kind of test you take if you want to become a Dutch citizen; she is Dutch but she just wanted to see what the tests were like) and one of the questions was about how many cookies you should serve with tea.  (The answer was two cookies.  I have always only gotten one cookie but maybe it is different with coffee.)

There's just something about windmills . . .

We had a pleasant day, walking around and chatting.  We didn't go in the working windmill because it was kind of expensive and it seemed like more fun just to stroll.



There were birds and ducks and things all over the place.  On the right is the ubiquitous coot.  On the left is some weird bird with a red head and pointy horns.  I don't know what it is but recently I saw one with babies and one of the babies was riding on its parent's back, like a loon.

Kinderdijk had a really good gift shop, plus a couple of others.  I think that we for sure decided to try the apple cake on the boat when we were in the shop because they had apple cake slices on display and they looked delicious.

Jael was so much fun to have along.
I did all of the touristy, fun things vicariously through her, got funny pictures, and didn't have to do anything but hold a camera.
Win-Win-Win.  (The other win is for you guys, since you get to see the pictures as well. 

Kinderdijk Molens

A little while ago I posted about the University sponsored trip on the Pancake Boat to Kinderdijk.  Well, after a longish lull, this is the Kinderdijk section of that trip.  Kinderdijk is an area where there are still loads of windmills.  People still live inside them and they still sometimes use them to help regulate the water levels.

The name apparently comes from a story about how, after a big storm or after some flooding, or something like that, some folks came along and saw a cat sitting in a cradle that had wedged up on the dike.  Assuming that they would find something sad, they went and got the cradle and found a live little baby inside and figured that the cat had kept the cradle from capsizing and had kept the baby safe (although I am going to go out on a limb here  and say that that was from purely self-interest and not out of humanitarian motivations).

There was a storm coming in while we were there (fortunately, it didn't hit until about three seconds before I got to the metro station, so the whole trip was super windy, with really interesting clouds coming in, but still quite dry).

This was the first place that I actually saw any wooden shoes.   This is apparently a highly tourist-oriented area.

These are the large screws that regulate the water levels in the polder.  It is mostly run by electricity nowadays.

















I do not know why there is a little cut-out goat on top of this hay bale, but I thought it was pretty cute.

Do you notice the Holstein cow grazing in the field by the canal below?

We were supposed to get to go into one of the windmills to look around and see what it was like inside but the mill-owner wasn't there, so we just went wandering around, looking at the mills and checking out the canals.

While we were out walking around, I talked to a couple of girls who are on an exchange program from a university in Austria.  One was Austrian and the other was from Munich.  They were a lot of fun to talk to and both seemed very German.  Somehow, and I am sure that it will thrill some of you to hear this, we got onto the subject of German beverages.

I mentioned "Rrrradler."
The girl from Munich said "What?"
I said "Rrrrrrrrrradler!"
The girl from Munich looked very uncertain.
The girl from Austria said "She's saying "Rraddddlllerr.  I know, because I knew another American who said it that exact same way."
"Oh," said the girl from Munich, "yeah, rraddddlllerr."

I did, specifically, ask how "Radler" ought to be pronounced and what I was doing wrong.  They both said that it wasn't, in fact, an issue of how the "r" is rolled.  Rather, it is a question of how the "d" and the "l" get rolled together.  SO, even if I still can't order a Radler by myself, and even if other people can, it still isn't an issue of how well one rolls one's "r"s.

We had a fun time, though, talking about the superiority of German food over Dutch food and, especially, the terrible, relative, horribleness of Dutch bread and "bratwursts".

Pannenkoekenboot

On Monday evening, as part of the opening festivities for the school year, the International Exchange Student Office sponsored a trip on the Pannenkoekenboot (the Pancake Boat!).  Now, apparently, this was new to many students that have just arrived in the Netherlands but about 6 months before I went to the Netherlands I was looking through an old travel book and saw a little article about the Pannenkoekenboot.  Since then it has been pretty near the top of my "Things I Really Have to Do While I'm in the Netherlands" list.  So, you can imagine that I was tickled when I found out about this trip.  To make it even better, since this was a school-sponsored activity, it was free!  And, since the individual rate is for a trip is about 20 euro, or $32, you can imagine that I was mightily pleased.

We rode the boat out to Kinderdijk which is a historical place full of windmills and wooden shoes.  We walked around for an hour or so and then, on the 1 1/2 hour trip back to Rotterdam, we got to enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet of pancakes with all kinds of different toppings.

While we were sailing along, though, I saw this boat.  It certainly the prettiest boat on the river that day.  =-)

This was a very Dutch thing, though (even if it is also a very touristy thing to do).  Because I don't think that there is anything more Dutch than pancakes and windmills.  So, here, just for the flavor of it, is a little more Dutch:

Here are some questions which the savvy traveler might ask before embarking on a Pancake Cruise:

Does hiking around a bunch of windmills on a chilly-ish, blustery day, with storms flying in from the Atlantic make pancakes taste really, really good?
Why, yes, yes it does.

Does crispy bacon, cooked into a thin pancake taste delicious when topped with ham and chunks of brie?
Yes.  It tastes very, very delicious.  Especially the first bit.  Unfortunately, if you don't eat it fast enough, the bacon can get a little slimy (also, there may have been two kinds of bacon and some of it was fattier and not so crispy, which made the second half not quite so delicious as the first half.)

Do thin slices of apple make nice additions when cooked into thin, crispy pancakes?
Yes.  Also, they are quite pretty.  Also, it makes the pancake healthy, even if you put miniature colored marshmallows on it.

Does candied ginger make a good pancake topper?
Well, it makes a strongly-flavored pancake topping.  It might be something you need to get used to.  On the other hand, candied ginger juice makes an excellent dip for miniature colored marshmallows.

Can there be too many different kinds of chocolate sprinkles, chunks, sauces, shavings, etc., available to put on pancakes?
What a silly question.

How many dinner plate-sized pancakes is it possible to eat, on an all-you-can-eat pancake cruise?
Well, if you are me, then about 1 and a half (I can feel Grandpa's disapprobation, so I am going to claim the fact that the cabin was kind of stuffy and the river was pretty choppy and I didn't really want to push my luck).  If you were the other girls at my table, then about 2.  If you were the people at the table next to us, who were having a pancake-eating contest, then about 8.

Does being very full of delicious pancakes inure one to the dangers of having the waiters twirl sparklers and carry them in their mouths while dancing around the highly-varnished, wooden boat, in the middle of the river, as a part of their entertainment routine?
Almost.


Now, if you want to ask why I, a Master's course student, was invited on a trip sponsored by the Exchange student department, that would also be a good question.  For some reason, despite the fact that this has been the plan for the last seven months or so, the EUR registrar's office still hasn't gotten the message.  However, a lovely trip to the windmills and a gigantic meal of pancakes is more than enough to make me forget the fact that, despite the fact that classes start next week I am still not registered for the correct classes.

Okay, almost enough, or at least a pretty good start in the right direction.