A Sporting Culture

With encouragement from a new friend, I recently joined a Dutch field hockey club in Rotterdam.  It's the biggest club in the Netherlands with over 2,000 members.  Men, women, teenagers, and children all play for HCR (Hockey Club Rotterdam) in green shorts or kilts, green socks, and white shirts.  The team I play for, Dames 12, is made up of roughly 15 women of about my age, give or take about five years.  I've been fascinated by the hockey culture.  We practice once a week and play games every Sunday from September to December and March to May.  There is a clubhouse with a bar, eight fields, and a stadium where the top teams play.  We play teams from around the Netherlands, while the top teams play international clubs as well.  Some of the women that I play with have been playing for 20 years!  I played in middle and high school and loved the sport, and it's coming back to me.  I'm not a star player, but I can hold my own these days.  It's interesting to be part of the club, especially since most people I know don't play sports competitively past high school or college.  Though kickball leagues have become pretty popular in Portland recently, adult sporting in Maine seemed a bit more limited.  Here in the Netherlands, there is an active adult sporting culture.  From soccer to horseback riding, many people belong to a sporting club and continue to play for their whole lives.  It's great to see people my parent's age still playing!

København and Malmö

Another late chronicle of an awesome trip we took in April.

Bob and I took an overnight train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen over my April break.  The sleeper car was kind of hilarious... six bunks in the tiniest compartment ever!  We lucked out and we were on our own for the first 4 or 5 hours of the trip.  Everyone else got on once we were already in our beds on the top bunks, and after a rather restless night we awoke in Denmark.  After checking into our hotel and washing away all the travel dirt, my cousin, Dustin, and his lovely fiance, Vicky, came and met us for an afternoon stroll around the city.  Vicky lives in Malmo, Sweden, which is a short train ride over a long bridge from Copenhagen.  My cousin lives in Connecticut, but happened to be visiting, so we were able to meet up after having been out of touch for a few years.  We walked around the city, had a few drinks, and caught up.

Later on in the trip we were able to go over to Sweden and spend an evening with Vicky, Dustin, and their friends.  We didn't see much of the city, but had a great time hanging out with some really interesting people.  We had a great dinner and then went for drinks at a nice bar, and then ventured to a club where we quickly realized we were the oldest people in the joint (we're between 24 and 28...)  but it was an experience!

Bob and I explored Copenhagen by bike, took a great boat tour, and then spent a day outside the city visiting Kronborg Castle, the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet (Elsinore).  The castle and the surrounding sea was beautiful, and we were able to tour the castle casements, where the Danish soldiers would retreat during a siege or war.  At one point many soldiers lived there without leaving for years... it was amazing and creepy all at the same time.  The castle was really remarkable and we were glad we went.

Overall, we truly enjoyed our first trip to Scandinavia.  It was gorgeous, the people were great, and I can't wait to go back.

Back in time.... to Prague!

I'm a bit behind in updating this blog with my travel adventures, so I'm going to backtrack a little and write about a trip we took a two months ago.  In February, Bob and I spent five days in Prague.  We flew from Amsterdam and then took a bus into the center of the city.  Bob scored a great hotel and flight deal and we ended up staying right off of Wenceslas Square in the center of the city.  We had a great dinner our first night and then wandered around for an hour or two.

While we were in Prague we wandered around the old part of the city, also crossing over the Charles Bridge and walking up to Prague Castle.  We checked out the Astronomical Clock.  We marveled at the interesting architecture, a mix from many years.  We paid a fascinating visit to the Czech Museum of Music where we were able to see some amazing musical instruments.  I think my favorite was the quarter-tone piano.  I'd never even heard of such a thing!  Fascinating.  

When I was in Scotland a few years ago while studying abroad, I went on a ghost tour and it was a fascinating, though touristy, way to learn a bit about the history of the city.  Being a bit of a nerd, we took a ghost tour in Prague.  It was a bit silly, but we took the 9 pm tour and it was just Bob and I.  We had a fun time and the tour guide was really neat.  We learned about a few of the bloody events in Prague's history and got a neat little tour of the oldest area of the city.  We also learned that the majority of the towers and spires in Prague actually come in pairs, and one is slightly larger than the other, symbolizing the balance of male and female.  Not sure if it's true, but certainly interesting.  Also slightly gruesome, but the man who designed the Astronomical Clock in the 1400s had his eyes gouged out  by the city of Prague so he couldn't build a similar clock for any other city.  

The next day we took a hike up to the former site of a giant Stalin monument.  It was demolished in the 1960's, and the world's largest metronome was erected there in the 1990's.  It really was HUGE, up on top a hill that overlooked the city.  It was a beautiful and warm day, perfect for a nice walk.  As we approached the top, there were two teenage kids sitting next to the monument smoking right out in the open out of a big bong.  I'm certainly not uptight about this sort of thing, as I live in the Netherlands, but it was pretty funny to see them right out in daylight with a bong.  Drugs are technically illegal, but they seem to be tolerated in the Czech Republic in small amounts.

We also visited the Museum of Communism, which was a really interesting small museum that was assembled to examine communism in the Czech Republic.  The Museum of Communism, next to McDonald's and above a casino, I might add, covered the years when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia began to take over the country in the late 1940's and the subsequent 50 years of history and government.  We also got to watch a really cool short film about the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a nonviolent revolution where Czechoslovakia overthrew their authoritarian government.  It was amazing to think that all happened within my conscious lifetime, and just down the street from where we were staying.

Overall, I liked Prague very much.  Cool architecture, interesting language, cheap beer, and fascinating history.  Prague is much different from any place I've been to.  Amazing, after living in Rotterdam for nearly 9 months now, to spend time in a city spared by Hitler in WW2 because he liked it.  We definitely hope to go back some day.

Driver's License

We are about to embark on a new adventure.  Driving in a foreign country.  This week, after a few different trips to the Deelgemeente Hillegersberg-Schiebroek, Bob and I traded our Maine licenses for a Dutch "rijbewijs."  Ok, step one completed.  Step two.... learn how to drive here.  Between the "shark's teeth" that signal right of way, and yielding to cars from the right, I believe we have our work cut out for us.  It will also be important that we don't hit any bikers or get creamed by any trams, since cars, bikes, and trams all use the same roads.  Bob and I were both pretty good drivers in the USA, but this seems like a bit of a different story.

We've decided we're going to get a car.  I know I was pretty excited not to have one, but for Bob to be able to really make some connections and hopefully play some gigs here, a car would make a HUGE difference.  Right now he either has to ride his bike with his telecaster in my bass gig bag, or he can take his other electric guitar on the tram.  The problem with our tram is that it only runs until midnight, and then you're stuck.  There was a night bus running on week nights for a while, but they've stopped that for now and it's only on the weekends.  We're going to look for a relatively cheap smaller car with low-ish mileage that we can also use to travel around Europe.  Road trips, here we come!

Have you ever been to Iceland? (Or Jet-Lagged Musings)

Technically, yes. Practically, no. I took Iceland Air to get back to Rotterdam at the end of this lovely break in Maine. It was quite interesting actually, because instead of flying through Zurich or Frankfurt as I have before, I was able to book a flight through Iceland that saved me some time. When we flew home in December, it took 1 hour to get to Zurich from Amsterdam and then 7 hours and 45 minutes to get from Zurich to Boston. This time I flew from Boston to Reykjavik... 4.5 hours, and then from Reykjavik to Amsterdam in 3 hours. Pretty sweet!

Two complaints. For the longer leg we were on a 737, which is one of the smaller planes with three seats on each side of a single aisle. I am used to flying on much larger aircrafts for the longer part of the trip, so it was rather claustrophobic for me. I am not usually afraid to fly, but I was pretty nervous before we took off. Once I settled in, though, it was fine. Second complaint- you have to pay for everything- food, headphones, booze. Swiss Air provided us with meals, snacks, and free drinks... not so much on Iceland Air. I didn't have any headphones so I bought some but skipped the food. I couldn't imagine paying extra for airplane food. For the price of my flight, though, I really can't complain about much. The flights were smooth and on time and I felt pretty safe flying into Iceland at 6:30 on a Saturday morning.

It's good to be back! One more day to relax and rest up before work on Monday. Next time I take Iceland Air I'm definitely going to take advantage of their stop-overs. You can book a stop over for a day or two there for no extra cost on your ticket, so I would really like to visit Iceland! Maybe in the summer when the weather is a bit nicer and there is more light. The name is deceptive, though. Iceland is really quite temperate and rather green. There was no snow there, and there was snow here in the Netherlands when we landed. Go figure.

Where is the music?

One of the best things about being home has been playing music. I left my upright bass with my parents, so I've been able to take it out and jam with a bunch of fine Portland musicians. It has been great! So, my question is, where is the music in the Netherlands? I find it very difficult to believe that no one plays. Just because there isn't a bar-music culture does not mean that there are no musicians. How can I get hooked up? I want to play!!!

We've been to a few clubs in Rotterdam, including Dizzy's and the Doelen Cafe to hear some music and for Bob to play in some jazz sessions, but I still feel like there is more going on than we know about. Ah, to network in a foreign country. Any ideas? I would love to figure it out. It's my New Year's resolution! Oh, that and join a choir. Working on that as well.