Holland

**I wrote this on Saturday about our trip to Holland. I hesitated to post it because it's not horse related at all. And it's quite long. But it was such an adventure for us, I decided to share it.**

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Holland gave us more than we asked for today!



I'm still shaking from it, and I am completely amazed and thankful to God that we actually made it home safely.




It was my first time driving into a foreign country (except Canada) and I was so excited. I was thrilled when the road signs got all funky and indecipherable. It all felt familiar, from Sonya's blog, everything was so new and shiny. It was not shiny at all on the way home, though.






Entering Holland

My man warned me that the police love to ticket foreign cars, so don't speed at all. This really irritated the Hollanders. At one point a car was so close on my tail, I could not see his headlights. I was in the passing lane, and I was passing at that moment, but they have this safety system on their highways that I find smart - you are not allowed to change lanes to the right where there is a highway entrance. So I had to annoy another driver for a moment, waiting for the lane markings to allow me to switch back. Boy was he in a hurry! I had several NL cars pass me on country roads too, but I did not dare speed, so, sorry! But they know when they see a German license plate that they're gonna run into "different" driving. That's the same the world over.

Since there is an enforced speed limit in Holland, they say you should just set your cruise control to 120 and sit back and relax. So that's what we did.

Our fuel economy was OK, but later would be much worse. (Taking pics in a moving car without using a flash gave us lots of blur today!)









BK

We found a Burger King and pulled off immediately. I had to experience this! I said to my man "UIT!" which means "OUT!" in Dutch, to tell him to jump out of the car.









Funny Burger King - the waiter went from speaking German to us to speaking English to us. There was a very fancy, *real* potted plant in the bathroom - you don't see that in the States.









Then they have a unique way to dispose of your drink, so as not to flood the garbage can.










Which people apparently don't use, see?




Most of the signs in that Burger King were unreadable. It was like going into a Burger King in southern California. What an odd feeling to see so many words strung together like jibberish. But do you know what that BK had?

Cheese balls filled with curry. No kidding! They were awesome! Very expensive though, they were tiny. People who live in Holland must be wealthy. I wish we'd had time to stop at a real restaurant and see what the food is really like, but the clouds had other plans for us.







Also, I just saw this menu item on Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the double meat specialty! That's a burger with a beef and chicken patty. That is when the chicken meets the cow. The Doublemeat Experience






My first Holland Geocache

We had to stop for a cache, of course. We found this really odd area with a huge series of greenhouses.










I mean, each greenhouse was about 200 meters long, and there were like 10 of them. I thought "This is where our tomatoes come from in Winter."









You just cannot imagine how big these greenhouses were, I couldn't even capture it in the photo. This building goes on like this in both directions - it's not long and skinny, it's long and long!


We had to enter a haunted wood. A wood with a frozen pond, where they used to hang criminals from a gallows until the bodies fell down. This is in the cache description. I stood there under twisted ocean trees (you know those tall trees you see on cliffs on the seaside, they look like Ponderosa but their trunks are all windtorn and curvy, and reddish - help - what kind of tree is that?).

I wondered about the people who haunt this wood.

Several trees were fallen, and how they fell was so artistic. And dangerous. I pushed on this one, to see if I could settle it. The cache was hidden under a fallen tree, that was the description, but there were so many!








Finally. I found it by the pond of death. I couldn't believe such a place exists, right next to those greenhouses that go on for days. I loved it!









Bicycle Country

It's true what they say about Holland, it's a biker's paradise. The bike lanes are so large you think they're a separate car lane. Notice how there is a red light for me, the car, and a red bicycle light for the guy on his bike, but under both lights are another whole set of red/green/yellow for...???? Anyone? Dogs?


And I had to slam on my brakes when crossing a bike path and two mopeds flew in front of me! So here I am trying to understand traffic signs, and trying to figure out the lanes and where to stop, and I have these bike paths everywhere with looming speeding two wheelers coming at us. It was a lot, but it was to get much worse.

The bike parking lots were impressive.










See, guy on moped, in a bike lane.










Eindhoven

We finally arrived in Eindhoven, which would be my first real Holland city. I've been to the NL before, but only out in the country, I have no idea to this day where, and I wasn't driving.



Eindhoven is quaint, modern, and clean.



Look, they have their own Flat Iron building (New York).










My car, surrounded by NL cars, feeling conspicuous. Some guy sold us a parking ticket for a discount, so we saved a few Euros. I don't have any idea how my man understood that guy, but he's much better at Dutch than I am.

Funny the feeling of being surrounded once more by a strange sounding language. A language I have no hope of understanding.

Dances With Wolves

I mean Avatar! That's why we were there, to see a movie in English and 3D. In Holland, they do not dub their films like the Germans do, so I have the opportunity to see a film in English, woo!

We walked into the theater and there is no person selling tickets, there is simply a row of machines. Oh dear. We tried, but we could not understand the machine. So we stood in the popcorn line and whew, they sell tickets there too. And, thank God, they speak perfect English. Incredibly perfect English. I felt so confident all of a sudden. I asked about the popcorn, whether it's sugared or salted. I hate that in Germany, all popcorn is sweet. Ugh. But get this, you can buy both at this theater! But she must know Americans, the lady, she said, "Well, there's no butter on it." I was like..

"NO BUTTER!!!!!!!!!????"

just like that.

I said, "Can I try a sample?" "Sure." Woo, I got a sample! It was fine. I think the people in line behind us were incredulous.

Me in 3D, with popcorn!

Just like in German churches, in Netherland theaters, kids are allowed to run wild the entire time. I cannot believe it.

I liked it, of course, this is my kind of film, but I found it heavy handed. Oh, one scene could have been way better, with one tiny change...

(spoiler next, don't read if you haven't seen it yet!)


If hair allows telepathy, and both boys and girls have hair, why not, for intimacy, have telepathy enhance the moment?

(/spoiler)

On the way home, I asked my man to take some photos of cool stuff.

The coolest was this blue-lit-up traffic circle. OMGosh we need these in Germany! Little blue lights going around and around the lanes, beautiful!







This is the welcome to Germany sign, in the dutch language (what, you can't tell?). It was so cute, I wish I could remember how they spell it.

Then Holland decided to kick us out, with an outpouring from the clouds.

I remember apologizing to my man for only going 100 kph due to the horrible sleet coming down. It was coming down so hard, I was purposefully driving slightly to the left in my lane, to avoid the "water lanes" - the two indentations dug into the lane by semis. These were full of water. These were deep! I couldn't see very well due to it being night, and the downpour, but I was OK as long as it didn't turn to snow. Hehe, right.

It turned to snow. And that snow was heading East, the same speed and direction we were. *sigh*

Germans are smart about snow, they all slow down. We went from all going a respectable 90, to 60, to 47, and finally in the 30s (kph). The snow was accumulating on the autobahn, and the lanes disappeared entirely. The wheels became eerily silent, our gas mileage went crazy. Even going this slow, the car was working hard getting thru the stuff, and the wind was blowing the snow sideways, and pushing my car around. My hands were getting sore from gripping the wheel.

My heart was racing. I'm from Seattle, you know. 22 years of driving and snow driving is not in my repertoire.

We saw hazard lights ahead, and then drove by - slowly - a car was stuck in the ditch, at a horrible angle. The person was OK, but I freaked out. I started shaking and my man told me to try to get out of the "slow lane" which was just a stripe in the snow. I tried to change lanes and felt the car slip. I did not do anything stupid but I very cautiously moved back into that slow lane and just started praying.

Slower and slower, mile by mile, I kept asking, "How much further on the autobahn?" I remember when he said 7, thinking, "We can walk that."

Right, leave my car in the ditch? Finally my man said, "That car in the ditch probably had summer tires on." We had winter tires. Those make all the difference in the world. They are not studded, they are just a different rubber or something. They are the key, really.

I thought I might actually pass out while driving, I was so scared. I tried to keep it together, but finally started just being honest. "I'm scared."

Hill after hill, up, down, why do we live in such a hilly place?

My man gave me a neck massage as I drove, OK, several, that helped a lot. He kept offering to drive, but I knew I'd be more scared in the passenger seat. I have been in 2 accidents, both due to weather, and both times I was in that passenger seat.

When we saw our exit, I saw something I did not want to see - more hazard lights flashing in the dark. That meant someone was stuck on our exit? Would we be stuck on this autobahn forever?

It was a semi, he'd given up the ghost. He felt safe enough to just plow through the snow into the shoulder and sit there, blinking. My gosh, I couldn't take it anymore, and I certainly could not just leave my car.

We went up that ramp and stopped at the red light and the car went silent. Dead silent with white snow furiously coming down on my windshield. Oh yah, the car was "resting" - the engine is supposed to go off. But that silence was so much to me.

I creeped forward on green and the car stayed electric, the wheels making no sound at all in the snow. And I was so incredibly relieved to be off that autobahn I started laughing. In fact, I was going 47 kph down Bundesstrasse 51 and my heart was so light. The few cars that were out there were going much slower; I noticed they were covered in snow - they had not just come from the autobahn, and they were cautious on the street I was rejoicing to be driving on! Getting stuck on 51 would be no issue at all, our car would be much safer, and we could knock on someone's door and call a cab.

My legs felt like I'd run a race. My legs were exhausted for some reason and this car is automatic.

In an effort to avoid "24 curve road", I drove in a huge circle around our neighboring towns, and almost got stuck on a steep windy hill. My man and I felt our little car slide sideways into the oncoming lane in the deep snow, and I didn't know how we'd make it to the top. The angels just gave us enough push. Then we basically coasted home, all downhill from there, going a very conservative 30 kph (that's like 17 mph!).

I saw our neighbors jump off the couch and come to the window to see what idiot was out driving.

As I pulled into our driveway, I wanted to kiss the ground, but it was covered in snow. Baasha was staring at us as we jumped out of the car, euphoric.

Baasha had all but given up hope on his dinner. I had too.

Just as I was typing this, the snowplow rumbled by. I jumped up and waved THANKS at him, and noticed the mountain of snow he was hustling along in front of his blade. A few minutes later, he came by again. There you are again, Mr. Plow. We love you!

But I sure don't want to go anywhere tomorrow.