On The Road Again

On Sunday, I left my daddy at Schipol in an unexpectedly tender moment.  I suddenly didn't want to leave him all alone, standing in the check-in line, not sure of what to do..  (I was all alone, too, but I'm more used to it.)  Thanks, Daddy, for a great two weeks in the Netherlands!!!  We finally made it, and it was good :)  I love you.

As I walked away, I felt a familiar change as I put on my alone self (or shed my social self?).  It is the moment when I stop bouncing energy off of a companion and start cycling it inward.  I stand a little straighter, or at least I notice my posture more.  I start to generate positive feelings of independence and competence.  I also start to mutter to myself.  Things like "platform 4, platform 4" or "where do I go from here?" and sometimes "that was dumb, Alexandra; you are so weird."*

I've never been in the Schipol train station before, but I found my way just fine.  I used to dream of the day when I would feel comfortable in foreign places.  In my early traveling days I would get so nervous before a trip that I couldn't eat and my whole body would shiver in anticipation.  This Sunday morning, however, I felt fine.  I ate a ton of breakfast with Hans and Marloes.  I trusted the signs, I asked for directions in the right language, I got on a train, and it took me to Paris.  Voila.

As the train carried me towards francophone regions, I found myself muttering French words and phrases along with the normal way-finding stuff.  "Je ne suis pas d'ici" and "C'est le meme chose".  I think my brain was gearing up and dusting off my old favorite sentences--the ones that sounded fluent even when I wasn't.  Taking the Metro across Paris and trying to evesdrop reminded me that I am definitely NOT fluent (still and anymore), but I was greatly encouraged by the mental exercises my mind was making up.  I can always count on my subconscious for a healthy dose of "I can totally handle this" just before the going gets rough.

Tune in next time for: A Brave New World, in which I need to be brave as I discover what I've gotten myself into...



*anyone else do that?  or am I just...weird?

Voskamp Familie Unite!!

There were about 100 Voskamps (et al.) at the Voskamp Family Reunion.  Marco Voskamp (grandson of Dad's great uncle) was the man who spearheaded the project.  He wanted to do something different for his 50th birthday party.  I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into...

The party was at De Spaansche Vloot, an old inn that actually existed when Hermann Voskamp first came from Germany in the 1730s, probably looking for better economic opportunities.  He also happened to find a wife.  And the rest, as they say, is history...

Check out this pedigree chart!  and it all started with one
man three hundred years ago.

 We met the grandson and great-grandson of Dad's grandfather's brother.  We met a Voskamp who actually lives in Canada.  And get this:  His sister (also there), her daughter-in-law is a van den Berg!  The daughter of Arie van den Berg, my grandfather's brother, whom we visited yesterday!!  So strange that the two families connected again one generation later!!

The food was delicious, the conversation was invigorating, and there were even some handsome boys around my age at one table.  They aren't my first or second cousins, I can be sure of that, soooo.. free game, right?*

something exciting is going on..

hanging onto every word.  and also trying to translate...

Marloes was taking lots of sneaky pictures, apparently.

searching for familiar faces

Hans and Marco, at the scanning station. 

It was such a fun time.  I got information about Dirk and Alexander Voskamp's (my great-grandfather's brothers) side of the family.  AND we unexpectedly found wedding pictures of Mijs and Lein, my grandmother's sister and husband, in someone else's photo album.  (They have the best love story EVER, btw, despite being first cousins.  Ask me if you want to hear it sometime!)

All in all, it was an evening well spent, a lovely reason to be in the Netherlands for two weeks.  :)

*just kidding!!      ...except that I'm not.

Daddy Fell Off His Bike!! And Other Embarrassing Pics

We were biking to the cemetery when I heard a cry behind me and I turned to look and Dad had fallen over off his bike!!  Freaked me out.  He skinned his knee and ripped his new pants, but otherwise is fine.  He may be a bit embarrassed that this is going online, but what the heck.  I'm into sharing.

First, an image to reassure you that he
can still smile.

  

Good thing he always carries a handkerchief and a band-aid.

This is what we came for:

Dad with his grandparents

And, since I'm on the subject of embarrassing pictures...

The other day Dad helped Hans take out Stef's dishwasher, which I think he enjoyed very much.  In the meantime, I watched and took pictures.  Heeheehee.

Good job, boys!

And then they were both pooped and we ate cake.  Except Daddy, who had cookies.  

The End.

Flower Auction

This is the coolest thing.  In the Westland Museum Dad and I learned about how the farmers in this area first started auctioning off their products to buyers in order to eliminate monopolies and keep prices fair in an open market.  There was an old-school auction wheel thingy at the museum that still worked, with buzzers at each chair.  Buyers would sit with their thumbs on the buzzers as the products were brought out.  The auctioneer would say what the lowest price was going to be, and then the long hand would swing counterclockwise around the wheel, starting from a high price and moving to a low price.  The first buyer to buzz in would get the lot, and the trick was to push the button before anyone else did, but at the last possible second so you wouldn't pay more than you wanted to.

The long needle would swing counter-clockwise, which was
totally counter-intuitive to me, since auctions I think of start
with the lowest price and work up.  This system takes a lot
less time, since each batch is claimed with one push of a button

Dad and Hans.  Chatting like men do.

Since my number is 44 (see on the desk), if I
buzzed in first, number 44 of the green circles
in the middle of the wheel would light up.

This morning, we saw the modern version of this style of auction in the huge flower auction in Naaldwijk.  Things are digital now, but it works on the same principle.

Fascinating.

If You Feel Like Getting Seasick...

...watch this video.

Yay biking in Naaldwijk!!

Dad's Day, Narrated By Himself

Hans and I went to see the newest reclaimed from the sea area.  Maasvlakte 2.  It is having it's grand opening today.  It is the latest expansion of the Rotterdam Seaport.  

We went to the end and parked the car along side of the road and walked up to the top of the dyke and stood on top and look out over the North Sea.  Very windy but beautiful, I can understand Mother's love for the North Sea.

The size and scope of the work is very impressive.  We spent the whole day driving around looking at the huge vessels and cranes for unloading container ships; we saw the largest crane vessel that I have ever seen, it was like a mountain floating on the water.  

This is the world's busiest seaport, and extends from the center of Rotterdam out to the sea along the river; there have been many expansions over the years and there are still more to come.  We stopped at the FutureLand exhibit where we saw the process and the equipment used to do the work of taking sand from the North Sea and pumping it into islands and then making dykes and developing the new land, very interesting. Make the sand islands then dig out for the new harbor walls then take out the sand and make the channels.

Westlander Roots

Paul, Stefanie, Hans...                                     ...Hans, Marloes, me!

Yay Naaldwijk!  The more I visit my dad's cousin's home, the more at home I feel.

We ate delicious Dutch Chinese food for dinner* and then the photos came out and we started comparing and naming and trading...  Dad and I brought scans of a bunch of photos from Mamacita's old albums, some images Hans had never seen, and he is a sort of unofficial family historian on this side of the Atlantic.  We showed him a picture of his mother in her baby baptismal gown and he showed us a picture of his daughter in the same dress:

 1915                                          1986

I love it!

The next day we were sorting through pictures when the men started telling stories.  I pulled up the recorder on my computer and recorded for an hour without them knowing.  Stories about Dad as a boy on Talisman Farm, stories about Opa Voskamp's short fuse...  Apparently he once beat a horse who bit Hans--just backed the beast into a corner and let loose.  Another time, when his son-in-law finally bought a truck, Opa Voskamp parked his horse-drawn carriage in the front yard and burned it to the ground because he was so insulted.  I think he might have sent his horse to the butcher, too.  No wonder Mamacita was...the way she was.

We also went to visit a museum about the history of this area, called Westland.  This place has been hard-won from the sea, ever since pre-historic times.  Over and over the water would rise or the economy would fall.  Towns would flood or manor houses would crumble from neglect.  It hurt my historian's heart to think of so many ages passing away with barely a trace, but the wheel turns as the wheel wills, I suppose.

My favorite part of the museum was the replica greenhouses and working gardens outside, tracing the development of greenhouse cultivation in Westland.  Dad got all enthusiastic about building himself a greenhouse at home, and there is even a warehouse, here in the neighborhood, that sells second-hand greenhouse parts.  I want one, too, actually.  I also want a brick wall around my garden, to make it a bit secret.  I'm already daydreaming about collecting old bricks and learning basic masonry...  

Then we took some after pics, to match the before's we already had:

before

after

From a museum person's perspective, this place is a conservator's nightmare.  All kinds of objects and equipment sitting out in the open air.  Piles of wooden shovels and wooden shoes...  Metal machines rusting in the humidity and rain... Terrible!  I bet they have no money.  And I bet they have a million of each item anyway.  But still.  Not good practice.

Look!  My dad's initials carved on a wall!

Funny Story

As we were walking out of the Rijksmuseum, my dad turned to me, put his arm around my shoulders and asked, "So, did you have a good time?"  

Unfortunately for him, it wasn't me.  "Whoops, wrong person," he said.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

It was an Asian girl with hair the same shade as mine.  She laughed along with the rest of us.  And yes, she had had a good time.

THIS is the right girl, Dad.  Got it right this time!

I AMsterdam

Thank you so much, Guus and Joan.  Until the next time!

On Monday we left Vaassen.  What a week.  Good and bad, up and down.  Bittersweet.  I'm getting up there in years.  Eventually I'm not gonna be able to flit around the world like this anymore.  Hopefully(?) I'll actually get a life.  Or something.  I don't know when I'll be back, and I'm not sure what parts of me I'm leaving behind.  But hey, that's a thoughtful post for another time...  Now I'll tell you about our day in Amsterdam.

 Monday was the second day of Pentacost.  The Dutch celebrate most of the religious holidays twice; two days of Christmas, two days of Easter, two days of Pentacost...  In America I don't think I've ever noticed Pentacost being celebrated at all, by anyone.  Here, everyone gets Monday, the second day of Pentacost, off of work!  Woohoo!  That was probably why there were two HUGE lines outside of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  Also, the museum has been closed for renovations for ten years and just reopened in April.  That might have something to do with it.

this has to be my favorite way-finding map
EVER!  just one long piece of paper, folded
accordion-style with tabs for each floor.
simple and effective.  perfect, i say!

Usually, I hear "renovations" and I groan inside.  I tend to mourn the old and tolerate the new, but the Rijksmuseum's "renovation" didn't mean gutting the old building and putting up a lot of glass and steel and white walls.  They reorganized the artwork chronologically, but otherwise the place looks like itself, only spruced up!   Clean and fresh but just as history-steeped as ever.  I am very glad.  

I first dragged everyone to see the Nachtwacht:

It holds a prominent place at the head of the central "nave" of the second floor.  This very spot was the site of an epiphany I had at age 16.  I was a young and impressionable exchange student, visiting Amsterdam with not a clue about history or art or fashion, but when I saw this painting I was transfixed.  This was the moment when I understood how reality could trump digital; I understood why we care about ORIGINALS at all.  Nothing I had seen before had prepared me for the way the oils glowed and the colors shone and the mystery of the shadows beckoned...

I think I stood and stared at the painting from different angles for a good thirty minutes.  I can even remember tears coming to my eyes when I thought of the artist laboring to create a masterpiece I could enjoy centuries later.  It was like a bridge through time!!  

I swear I'm not exaggerating.  

And I'll have you know, no such thing happened when I saw the David or the Mona Lisa.

That's why I visited the place first, like a pilgrim to a shrine.  This painting was part of the making of me. 

***moment of silence***

Then I visited the museum like I usually visit museums.  I hustled along, eyes scanning the walls and flitting from object to object, until I found depictions of people in clothes.  I also looked for still lives, since I LOVE Dutch still lives; but we only had two hours and I wanted to get some dress history research in.  Joan trailed me, I think a bit bewildered by my unorthodox museum-visiting methods, and the boys went off to experience the museum in their own way, which included a lot of sitting on benches.  

I did find some interesting clothing stuff, including an assortment of ruffs, a clear detail of a Netherlandish kitchen wench's gown I've studied before (which actually appears to be a great deal of fantasy), the back of a directoire-era hairdo, and a medieval gown with clear shot of side-lacing.  Someday those images will come in handy.  (I just need to know where to put them in the meantime.)

The following is a brief tour of where my eye landed during two hours at the Rijksmuseum:

i feel like this little caterpillar, come to the edge of an
unknowable chasm, looking around and wondering
what comes next.

this medieval lady looks a bit like an alien,
with her bulbous hair, high plucked forehead
and exciting sleeve cuffs...

i love how ugly 17th century fashion was.
this man might be attractive, but only under
other sartorial circumstances.  what were
they thinking???  i blame the dutch.  the 17th
century was, after all, THEIR Golden Era.

yes.  this is exactly how i feel.

weird!  she's wearing her tucker OUTSIDE of
her gown!  how edgy!  how cool!  i'm gonna
have to try that!

Mamacita, my grandmother, once told me that she spent three DAYS exploring the art in the Rijksmuseum.  I don't know if I would be able to take that long, but two hours certainly wasn't enough.  I'd like the leisure time to explore it more.  Someday.  Someday.

Men With Motorcycles, Please Apply

*I will wrap my arms around you if you take me for a ride*

On Sunday afternoon I was perched on the back of a Honda motorcycle, flying along the Ijsseldijk near Vaassen.  We leaned into curves so tight that I could have reached out and touched the pavement.  It literally took my breath away over and over again, and then I would giggle to myself like a maniac with the rush.  I cursed the Sunday drivers ahead of us, sighed at all the cyclists; didn't they know I needed the adrenaline??  And when a way opened, we'd zoom ahead and pass everyone, me clinging to Dennis (my motorcycling host) so I wouldn't slide off the back.

Strangely, I think the ride wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable if I were the one driving.  As the passenger I could close my eyes for a minute or try to relax while leaning into Dennis' back.  Of course, this isn't a bike you can really relax on; when I got off, the muscles in my butt, legs, and between my shoulder blades were cursing at me.  But part of "relaxing" was more about trusting him to not crash and leave pieces of me smeared on the pavement.  It was about moving in concert so as to not unbalance the machine and die.
It was exhilarating.

I thanked Dennis profusely.  "What?  You are thinking I did this for you?" he replied.  ^-^ 

don't judge.  i know i look weird.  you're just jealous.

*Seriously.    I mean it.    Non-euphemistically, of course.    Though you never know what will come of it... :P

Guest Post by Daddy

Well we went today to see a real castle, Castle Cannenburch, It was a very old castle, the original building on the site was built in 1365, the present day castle was built upon the ruins of the first. When we got there we walked down a set of stairs and  found a small nook with two iron chairs and the water from the moat was so high that it was flooding the floor under the chairs, the lady in black took a seat to view her domain!! 

We stated to tour of the castle in what was once the stable, saw a video of the various people who lived in the castle, unfortunately for me it was in dutch! Then we went to the castle proper, crossed a bridge over the moat down a steep stairs to the basement where we tarted going through the castle; they had these really cool devices on lanyards that were programmed, thankfully in English, and as you went into each area it was synced to that room and you could hear a narrative of what the room was used for and some of the history of the furnishings and portraits that were hanging there. The circular stairs throughout the castle were steep and wide, but only the outside curve was really usable since the rest was too narrow; children must have loved them though! Each room was huge, with ceilings that were maybe ten to twelve feet high. They were heated by one or two shallow high fireplaces; knowing what I know of how fireplaces work, those rooms must have been really cold except right in front; so you either baked or froze. Never mind that someone had to haul the wood up those narrow stairs. The furniture looked uncomfortable, high back stiff looking chairs and hard looking benches. The basements had the butchers room where all the game was slaughtered and hung up to dry and cure. There was the kitchen with its pantry and cold storage root cellar. There was the room of the overseer, who looked after the operations of the castle business. Interesting to find out that it was the lady of the castle who was the CEO of the place and it was her job to bring in income and resources for the castle while her husband was out usually in the military. There was the kitchen servants, the maids, the gardener, the miller, the livestock handler, etc., etc., each with his or her own areas of responsibility with underlings under them as well. There was a chapel built late as part of the castle, the residents of the castle held onto their Catholic faith when most of the country turned to other religions. We ended up in the attic, a huge space dark and cold, where they stored trunks and hung wash in winter. Up in the attic the museum had a small hologram of a man and women, something about a meeting and then he left and she was left alone, only part of the hologram was working which was too bad, it would have been interesting to see the whole thing. We finished with the castle and then wanted to see the gardens, but there was not much too them, at least at this time. So we started on our way home to the castle of Kabel!

My first fresh herring since I was here last as a lad of 14; I won't eat them everyday, but they were good!