No real issues getting to the city. Had a rough time figuring out the ticketing for the city transportation but not too bad. Plan was to do laundry but that didn't happen after i found an open aerial class in town. Went to aerial Amsterdam aka circus arts Amsterdam aka the knots dance ... I think the space is shared by a few different companies. Anyways, it was great to be able to do actual silks again ... the 8-9 foot ceilings in Hanoi just don't cut it. Definitely lost a lot of arm and back strength since my hiatus from pole and silks. Also forgot how your hands feel after a class (climbing up/down from my bunkbed is painful). But it was really good, will definitely keep looking for drop in classes in other cities (already found Barcelona and Madrid). Day 1So i invested in an Amsterdam pass, they're not bad deals as long as you plan to do a lot of the things they cover anyways. Today's list was: - bike rental - our lord of the attic catholic church - pipe museum - Heineken experience There were a couple other things originally on the list but I had to keep coming back to my hostel to do laundry (it's highs of 70 here (aka Hanoi freezing) and I'm down to my last shirt, a tank top). Our Lord of the Attic Catholic Church ... so there was a time when Catholics were not allowed to have churches in the Netherlands but as long as the church wasn't able to be seen publicly, none of the officials really cared. Hence, quite a few house churches popped up. Basically people would buy houses and convert part of them into a secret church. The one I went into today had the actual family home, a home for the priest of the church and then the top 3 floors had been adapted to fit an entire catholic church complete with pipe organ. Pipe museum ... in case you're slow to catch on, I like odd museums. When I saw this one on the list, I was like huh, let's do it. Side note: also on the list of odd museums in Amsterdam are the sex museum, condomirie, hemp and marijuana museum, and microbe museum. There's not really a lot to say about the pipe museum, it was about as you'd expect ... full of pipes. Read the captions on the pics for more info. Heineken experience...I felt like 2 free beers was too good to pass up so I went. Conclusion, drinking 3 Heinekens is too many Heinekens. ...no, I was not drunk ... Heineken just isn't my favorite. Also, I realize the number changed from 2 to 3. There was a random extra beer thrown in as a tasting lesson then you had tabs on your wristband for the actual 2 free beers. There was also a museum/info tour but there were so many people, i didn't really get anything cool out of it. Started looking into where I'm going next as i had nothing planned after the 11th ... I'm now adding Rhodes, Greece to the trip because the flight was cheap, there's a beach, and why not. Day 2Gouda cheese farm... oh my god, heaven. It started with an explanation of how cheese is made. Takes 10L of milk to make 1kg of cheese (7.5 if it's a jersey cow... their milk has higher fat content). There's a thickening, pressing (2 hr), salt bath (24-48 hrs), sitting, wax wrap, aging (4 weeks to 2 years). We then walk through a cheese storage room and into the tasting room/ shop. I had samples of 23 different gouda cheeses out of a possible 28. I skipped the smoked ones and the one with rosemary. See pics of some of the more interesting flavors. I will be returning to Vietnam with aged goat gouda and cow's milk green pesto gouda. Volendam ... fishing village. On the way, we get a history of some of the dikes and water canal systems of the Netherlands. There are over 18000 km of dikes, 26% of the country is below sea level and 59% of the netherlands is susceptible to flooding. Anyways, Volendam is on one of the biggest (maybe the biggest) dike in the country. Our guide, Eva, tells is that the residents really like to keep the town clean and they are always washing their windows (in the <1hr there we saw at least 6 people cleaning their windows). We are on our own to stroll through the harbor section of the village. I get some pancakes with strawberries and nutella. Later a tea, because it's cold (18°C or 61°F) and head back to the bus. Edam ... a short drive to the village of edam where we take a scenic walk through town ending at the cheese market. Historically, before volendam closed their dam, edam was a shipping town. Cheese farmers would rock up in town with their cheeses and sell to the markets. The cheese market now only takes place for a few weeks in the summer. The men reenact the historical selling of cheese. Boats full of cheese rowed through the canal to a dock by the market. Here, men would load up cheeses on this carrying board and walk it into the market. After negotiating the price, the deal would be sealed by pulling on their handshake. Windmill village . . . by this point, I'm really losing steam. Eva talked some more on the way to the village but I was having trouble staying awake so ... less fun facts now. Sorry. At the village, we went to the wooden shoe museum. Wooden shoes are still worn in the Netherlands but they are a working shoe. Think rain boots but obviously not. They don't sink in the soft soil when you're farming or tending cows/sheep/goats. They're easy to clean when you do step in shit all day. They're good temperature regulators too apparently. We watched a guy demonstrate how to make the starting shoe (it then has to dry for 4 weeks ... maybe months ... don't remember now... it starts with freshly cut wood so it's still wet, hence needing to dry). Then walked around by the windmills. the town still has 8 operational windmills. I only saw the "herbs and spices" windmill as it didn't cost any additional money. Today it was grinding cinnamon, cloves, and white pepper. It smelled like I should buy some mulled cider ... but they didn't have any. Walked around the town a bit. It's the only village left in the Netherlands with wooden buildings/houses. After returning to the bus, we drove back to Amsterdam to conclude our tour. Back in Amsterdam . . . original thought was to do canal cruise, visit the Beurs Van Berlage for the microart exhibit and Tony's Chocolonely Super Store, then return to where I left my bike this morning, maybe go to the Van Gogh Museum if time permitted, then back to the hostel. What actually happened was the microart exhibit, the chocolate store, back to my bike, take away dinner and back to the hostel. I was done with the crowds and just called it a day. MicroArt Exhibit . . . this was a really neat exhibit of art from two different artists, Mykola Syadristy (Ukranian) and Hasan Kale (Turkish). I think the largest object was the size of a zippo lighter while the smallest was maybe literally a human hair. Hasan Kale does miniature art (compared to the micro art of Mykola ... you'll see what I mean). Apparently he once discovered he could draw 25 lines within 1 millimeter, none of them touching, and sort of ran with it from there. While you could see a lot of detail by getting real close and squinting, a magnifying glass was provided for your viewing pleasure. Mykola Syadristy does micro art . . . a magnifying glass wouldn't help . . . each piece had a microscope lens pointed at it as well as a mini spotlight. He holds the Guinness World Record for smallest functional engine and smallest signature. One of his pieces, the windmill shown in the pictures, took 1 year to make working 10 hour days. He has been doing this micro art since the late 1960's (still alive, age 82 I believe). When he started, he had to develop the techniques for micro art because it had to all be done by hand, no computerized machines like you could use today. Tony's Chocolonely Super Store . . . not that exciting to write about. It's a chocolate store. You can try some chocolate before you buy. You can create your own chocolate bar if you want (I did not as it costs 7.50 Euro). I really just went because I could get a free chocolate bar with my Amsterdam pass.
Then nothing exciting. Took the tram back to my bicycle. Got some pesto gnocchi for dinner and back to the hostel. Going to have a low key night.
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Getting to Vienna: Long story short, the bus to Munich was supposed to take 3 hours 45 minutes (give or take) so I could have an hour and a half to figure out where to go, grab some lunch, pee, etc. The bus instead arrived at 1:13pm. My train was supposed to leave at 1:30pm. The bus station and the train station are not in the same place. I made it to the train at 1:29pm. The train left at 1:30pm. My legs were on fire. For some reason, the train ended up losing time so we arrived in Vienna about 30 minutes late. After some pad thai, I figured out how to get to my Airbnb using public transport where my host, Linda, met me, showed me around, and made me a cup of tea. I promptly fell asleep at like 8:30pm … it was still light outside. Day 1The next morning: 4:30am, it’s light enough that my body thinks it should be awake. Fun. So I decide to go for a run by the river (not even a block away). I haven’t run in awhile . . . that’s all I’ll say about that . . . First stop (after 45 minutes on public transport) is the Schonbrunn Palace. Using my 2 day Vienna Pass (was a good purchase, highly recommend), I get my ticket for free and head in for the “grand tour” of the apartments. Unfortunately for you, there is no photography allowed so I have no pictures for you. Audio guides were provided for free which was cool, didn’t have to read anything. Basically it walked you through 40 something rooms on the second floor of the palace where the royals (Habsburg family mostly) resided. Now the really cool part of the palace was the gardens. That was HUGE … I’m talking like acres upon acres upon acres of land. I had plans to walk around all of them . . . that did not happen. Quick overview of all the cool stuff that’s in them:
The gardens are free to walk through though some of the listed things above cost money. There were lots of locals (I assume) running through the park. It would be a gorgeous place to run and you could just pick a random direction running through wherever you felt like and get in a good distance without seeing the same thing twice. Wow that was a really long, probably run on sentence. The other thing I did at Schonbrunn was the apple strudel show. Not gonna lie, this was the #1 reason I went out there in the first place. Hit up the Globe and Esperanto Museums … mostly because it was on the free list and seemed just weird enough to go check out. Lots of globes: big and small, terrestrial and celestial, accurate and horribly inaccurate, English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian . . . it was A LOT of globes. As for the Esperanto section, if you don't know what Esperanto is, it's a "universal" language created by Dr. Esperanto (real name: Ludwig Zamenhof; a Polish Jew). It's meant to combine aspects of many European languages into an easy to understand language. It has some 1 million or so speakers today though it is not the official language of anywhere. Most of these speakers live throughout Europe and they have conferences periodically held only in Esperanto. Apparently, there are no communication problems. After that I went to Schlumberger cellars, makers of sparkling wine (aka champagne). Got to go through the cellars with an audio guide detailing how champagne is made. The cellars are kept at 13-15 degrees C . . . so I was quite chilly when I finished the tour and got my free glass of champagne. Had a plan to get on the Vienna Ring Tram which goes around the city center to view sights. It wasn’t running for some reason so I got on the Hop on hop off bus and took a lap. The audio guide was far less thorough on the bus . . . I guess I should have hopped off at some point. Tomorrow perhaps.
That was basically the end of my day. I took the underground/tram back to my Airbnb, wrote this blog, had some tea and a shower. Gonna go read a book and crash. The first thing I noticed on my journey from Hanoi to Zurich is that apparently I look like I speak Russian. I flew Aeroflot airlines from Hanoi to Moscow to Zurich. At least 7 flight attendants/cashiers spoke first in Russian to me. There's nothing like international travel to remind you how big the world is and exactly how little you know about it. Next lesson: If you have an afternoon layover in Moscow, make sure it's 2+ hours. When changing terminals, you have to go through passport control and security again and it was a jammed packed free for all. I got in the passport line at 4:25. My flight was to board at 5:45. I exited security at 5:25 and see the sign that says my terminal is a 23 minute walk from here . . . FML. There is no shuttle or train between terminals . . . cue power walk. I make it to the gate at 5:42 and get to go to the bathroom before boarding starts. Sorry guy next to me on the plane, I know I was sweaty and probably a bit smelly. The plane arrives in Zurich at 8:55pm. My body thinks it's 1am. After passport control and customs, I sit to regroup and figure out how to get from the airport to my airbnb. Uber wants to message a code to my American phone number . . . haven't used that since Christmas and don't have it now. I can't figure out what other ride shares there are and I don't have any Swiss francs yet. After a trip to the atm to withdraw a random amount of money, I get a taxi where, again, it's assumed that I now speak German. I get it, I'm white and blonde, I'm going to get a lot of that travelling through Europe. I'd probably do the same thing to me too. By the time I get to the airbnb it's 10pm . . . 3am for my body. My host, Pieter, shows me around the apartment and my room. I drink the smoothie he has made for me, shower, and promptly go to sleep. Cue local 3am ... my body thinks it's 8am ... shut up body, we're going back to sleep. By 6am I'm awake and start researching what to do in town and where to find breakfast. I didn't exactly do much prep before leaving Hanoi other than finding places to sleep and getting from one city to the next. An 8 minute walk later and I'm at the streetcar station buying a 24h Zurich card. 23 minutes later, I'm in the city at Babu's cafe getting a chai latte and avocado bagel. Finish my book, finish the cave blog, take a walk in the park. Most things here are in german, only german. Ive decided today will be relaxing. As of now, 10am, the plan is national swiss museum, lunch, trip out to Uetliberg, hike there at the planetary trail, back to city and walk around town until dinner. The museum starts out pretty cool. There are interactive books, phones and tablets with the exhibits. In the archaeology section, there's really cool info screens. You move them to where the object in the case is and click on it to get info. Leaves the displays less cluttered with writing. The museum is undergoing lots of renovations so there's a lot of walking between permanent exhibits. Not sure if the museum got less interesting as it went on or if i just got really tired. I'm waiting for my lunch now (1:15pm) and debating nap at airbnb or power thru to the hike at Uetliberg. *not fun fact: women's suffrage 1971 in Switzerland Went to Uetliberg, just hiked from the tram station to the outlook. Saw how far the solar system walk would be (like 5 miles at least) and was like nah. Back to the city and went to the walking streets by the river. (List the buildings i saw with pics) stopped by a coffee shop for a pre dinner tea then fondue for dinner. So. Much. Cheese. Back to airbnb. Packed some because need to leave around 7am. Shower and sleep by 9. Exhausted. |
ShannonMath Teacher living and working in Hanoi, Vietnam Archives
February 2022
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