Fishing Towns Tour

Trip Start Nov 02, 2006
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Trip End Dec 19, 2007


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Monday, September 10, 2007

Liz and I spent the weekend in Amsterdam, visiting a friend who had just moved back to Amsterdam from SF. Since we've all done the touristy things, on Sunday Merel took us to the countryside outside of Amsterdam. What's amazing in some of the European cities is that you go outside of the city, just 5 minutes, and you are totally outside of the city. Its not like the US where outside of the city are suburbs.
So after driving about 10-15 minutes, we entered an old fishing town that is now a big tourist attraction. The houses are more like US townhouses, where they are all stuck together and look identical. Most were green or black with white trim. The roads were not big enough for a Hummer. It seemed like the town only had a few thousand residents and Merel said people rarely move in or out of the town. At the center was the port, where old men sat on their docked boats, drinking beer and people sat on benches looking out over the water.
We then went to another fishing town of about 50K people. The housing was the same, but in this case, there were no front yards. So as you walk along the streets, you can see right into people's houses - the way they decorate, people eating, etc. It seemed so strange - definitely can't walk around in your underwear in these houses!
This town was having its annual festival and all the rides & game & food booths were set up along the streets. But with streets not wide enough for a hummer and no front yards, this meant that some people would step out of their front door and walk about 5 steps into a carousel. Really, really strange to me.
But it was great to be able to see this town during the festival because it was so alive! Along the port, we tried to stop for coffee/tea, but it was noon so they were only serving beer. The bars were packed with locals laughing and talking. A DJ was playing music that could be heard all over town. And kids were playing all the games and riding all the rides that could be found at a midway/carnival in the US. It was sort of comforting to see the similarities between a carnival in the US and one in the Netherlands - cotton candy, bad stuffed animal prizes, carousels, picture booths, etc.
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