HAARLEM, NETHERLANDS

This is Haarlem, our home away from home for the next three weeks. It's old, it's quaint, it's picturesque and it's very Dutch. We are renting a three bedroom house in a residential district, about a five minute walk from the center of town. The house is lovely with a rooftop terrace and a garden out back -- today it was warm and sunny and we had lunch out there.


Today (Saturday) was market day so I did food shopping for the next week. They have supermarkets as well but it's much nicer to buy food in the open air market in the main square than in a "big box store." I was expecting outrageous prices but overall, it wasn't that bad. Not much more than what we pay in the US for a lot of things. If the exchange rate were better, it would actually be cheaper than at home.

Today we also bought bikes. Biking is a way of life here in The Netherlands. No, that is not a picture of a bike shop you see but a side walk. In fact, that is what many sidewalks look like around here. Biking is not a sport but instead the major mode of transportation. We have seen as many as three people on one bike and if you have a "cart" in front, it's like having a mini van. We have seen a mother with her three children and groceries in one of those models. You definitely take your life in your hands when you go down the street be it on foot or on bike. The multitude of bikers and pedestrians combined with the few cars creates chaos. What's amazing is that so far, we have yet to see any accidents or crashes!


Written by lisa

No crashing is amazing but to top that, no one wears helmets! It is hard to dodge cars and pedestrians, but every one is careful. We tried renting bikes but no one had children's bikes to rent! We had to go to a thousand bike shops to see if they rented children's bikes. No luck. Then once Avocet and Daddy found some children's bikes. We thought we were going to rent them but the man in BIKE PLANET said there was a place where we could buy bikes and then just sell them back when we were done with them. It took a loooooooooooooooooong time to get to the place, FIETSCO (www.fietsco.nl). We did buy bikes there, and now we can feel like normal people who live in Holland!!


Written by Siena

The bikes here are different from American bikes. I mean they have 2 handles, 2 wheels and Etc. Etc. Etc. but they're built differently. It's like these bikes are made for comfort and American bikes are all vroom vroom vroom for racing!!! So they are nice to ride but after a while, they give your rear end a hard time! Today we rode bikes around town after we got them and to get Gelato as an after dinner treat and oh my, your butt hurts!! Not THAT much but after a couple of days, its got to be awfull!! Maybe we should just buy those bike seats with 2 pads on the back for comfort, mostly mom needs those. (But don't tell her I said that!!!)

Written by Avocet

We arrived here not knowing how our first stop would turn out. This one is important. If it was lousy or uncomfortable, our sense of space would be shattered. We needed a "good( not perfect )place" here in Haarlem to get out of the blocks well. IT DIDN'T DISAPPOINT US!!!!

Our place is like lisa described above and very homey. The girls have their nook to decorate. I have a place at 3:30 AM to go to and read when I can't sleep. The beds are comfortable. We have had nice meals in our kitchen and have bought the ingredients in interesting places. You know, not being able to read Dutch causes you to buy pudding instead of yogurt. If the person who is waiting on you at the market doesn't know at least some English, you're not 100% sure what you are going to bring home. It really makes the standard things we take for granted back home much more special. At the market this afternnon, lisa bought some fish and had no idea what it was but add some olive oil and garlic as you prepare it and it can't turn out bad.

As for the bikes, mine must be forty years old but runs like a champ. If you are ever in Haarlem, look up Fietsco and buy some used bikes. It saves a bunch of euros (I calculate about $500 US) by buying and selling back vs. renting from one of the rental places. We also had the "adventure" of discovering how to do it vs. taking the easy (and expensive) way. It wouldn't work for everyone, but it works for me.

Written by Marty

OUR HOME KNOWS WE'RE LEAVING

They say that inanimate objects don't have a soul. I beg to differ. Our home knows we are leaving.

Case in point. We have had no problems for awhile with our 118 year old home in terms of breakdowns or needed repairs. Great, the place is ready for the "house watcher" (Javier) and the renters starting September 1. Oops, I believe she heard we were "abandoning" her for a year. In the past seven days, the lawnmower broke (fixed with a stair tread and self locking nuts from Camp Washington Hardware...thanks Kevin) and another usual incident occurred.

If there are any illusions of control, such as that we will be able to control the trains in India or the ability to see the Southern Lights in Hobart, this will prove me WRONG!

The person helping us clean the house yelled HELP!!! when I was upstairs on the computer. I came down to find her standing on top of the dining room table. She was dusting the light and in the process it fell from the ceiling and hit her on the head. I held the light as she crawled down and rubbed her head. No blood, no foul. I was able to rig up a ladder with an inverted basement chair to hold the light high enough to take the pressure off the electric cord. The light still worked. YAY!!!

NOT TO WORRY. A handyman was coming over at 4:00 to fix two windows with broken cords. He has done electric work for years so after we got the cords replaced, he tackled the reestablishment of the art lamp pendant on the ceiling. After some scraping of wires we were ready. I turned on the light only to see sparks come out of the switch. Oops, I guess that was the wrong wire. OK, no deaths, so we are alright.

NOT TO WORRY. We had arranged for an electrician to be over the next morning to fix some other issues. While "we" (Dan, the qualified and me, the unqualified) worked on the light, everything was great. He needed more slack so I replaced the inverted chair with a flexible vinyl bucket. The top of the bucket was now about eight foot off the ground. Dan went to the basement and I held the bucket which held the light. I started to fall backwards, grabbed for the light, and watched it as the one day project finally died. The light broke into at least twenty pieces.

NOT TO WORRY. lisa (yes, she spells it with a lower case L) and I went to Lowes, bought three pendant lamps and had Dan install them the next day.

Moral: 1) You can't control when poopies happen, 2) This is not the way to redecorate, 3) Never clean your dining room light and 4) I NEVER DID LIKE THE ORIGINAL LIGHT!!!

JUST ARRIVED!

Hello everyone back in Cincinnati! Right now we are enjoying the luxuries of The Quality Inn, in Dallas/Fort Worth. We are lucky that the plane ride went smoothly and no luggage was lost. Although tired, we arrived at the hotel with both arms and legs. We miss all who are reading this entry very much. Luckily and unluckily we will be flying to The Netherlands tomorrow. Luckily, because we will be able to escape from a normal life, and unluckily because we will be farther from home. We hope to be seeing you very soon! Well, not that soon.

The Peanut Butter Incident

Peanut Butter is very important to me. You see, I am a very picky eater and Peanut Butter is my main source of protein. One of the things I was worried about on the trip was food. I don't try new foods very easily and usually, I don't like the foods I do try. So I was bringing a jar of Trader Joes Creamy Peanut Butter. We were going to see how far I could go without opening the Peanut Butter. I thought I would start using it in Tanzania. When we went through security at the airport to get to our plane to Dallas Fort Worth, the evil security man didn't give me back my backpack right away even though I told him it was mine. When my mom came over, he asked if the backpack was mine. I said it was. Then he said something about having liquids in there. He started digging around in my backpack and soon discovered the jar of Peanut Butter. He said I couldn't take it and I could only take it if it was in my suitcase which for your information, was already checked in. So he took away the jar and put it behind the counter. I was sad the whole plane ride. When we got to Dallas Fort Worth, we ate lunch at Denny's and then stopped in at the Shell gas station convenience store and picked up a jar of Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter. It wasn't quite the same but then again, I have Peanut Butter again!!! (And this time, it goes in my suitcase!!!)

A FOND FAREWELL

A small Farewell Soiree was thrown by several friends giving the Shusterman/Greenwell family an opportunity to say good-bye to some of our friends. It was a lovely event with the most befitting cake. Thank you Irene, Sarah and Valerie for all your work. While we said good-bye to many people that night, it still had not quite felt real -- that was over a week ago. Now this weekend, with only two days before departure, as we say good-bye to friends who were not at the party, it all seems too real. Tears well up in our eyes with each farewell as we know that we will miss our friends greatly. We love you all. Know that we will be back, as we already have the tickets, and we will pick up just where we left off.

I figured we should publish this nice "before" picture from the party. It will be good for looking back after a year of traveling to see how we have physically changed. I imagine that Marty will have a little less hair (or no hair at all if he lets the monks shave it all off in India). I will be grayer but sporting my chic haircut from Buenos Aires. Both Avocet and Siena will be taller and wearing the new clothes and shoes that we had to buy them after they grew out of what we had brought for them. (Please let that occur in a country where the dollar is stronger!). And all of us will be looking a little more worldly.

Are You Ready?

With only 24 days left before we take off, the question that everyone asks when I see them is, "Are you ready?" And each time I pause wondering exactly what that question means. Does it mean, do we have our passports, visas, and airline tickets? Yes! Does it mean, do we have our bags packed? Yes! Does it mean are we ready for the sticker shock that will occur when we arrive in The Netherlands and see how little our US Dollar will buy? Probably not! Or does it mean, are we ready to live our life on the road for a year; have our worldview permanently changed; or to begin an odyssey that will most likely change who we are for the rest of our lives? Yes and No! How can you possibly ever be ready for that and yet, if we weren't prepared for that to happen, would we have ever planned this trip in the first place?

Practice Makes Perfect?

Over Spring Break we decided to take a trip to Chicago using public transportation. First of all, it's the "green" way to travel and second of all, we figured it would be good practice since most of our travel over the next year would be using public transportation. We boarded the double decker Megabus at 8:45 AM with smiles on our faces. About 6 1/2 hours later we arrived in Chicago, during a snow storm ,not as enchanted with Megabus as when we started out.

Riding on the top deck proved not to be a good move as 3 out of 4 of us felt motion sick. The family movies that were suppose to be showing the "whole" ride made no appearance at all, and we discovered just how rude people can be with their cell phones in close quarters. Lessons: Prepare for the worst case scenario; you don't always get what you are promissed (even in the US); ear plugs are good to have in your backpack just in case!

On the way home, we had a departure time of 10:00 PM. Megabus has no terminal so you just have to stand on the streets (cold/wet streets) until the bus gets there. There is no signage to indicate which buses go where so hoards of people run for an arriving bus only to discover that it's not the bus they want. Only the kids were able to sleep on the bus so I decided that I would be productive and read only to discover that my overhead light did not work. We arrived in Cincinnati at 4:00 AM and had to walk over to our car parked in the garage to drive home and crawl into bed. More lessons: We will have lots of inconvenient departure and arrival times so buck up and get use to it; only those made of rubber i.e. kids can sleep on public transportation so plan for a down day after an overnight trip; ear plugs would come in handy once again; and our kids are real troopers!


We had a fun time in Chicago -- American Girl Place, Field Museum, John Hancock Tower etc. All in all, this was the easiest trip that we will be taking over the next year so hopefully the lessons learned here will transfer and that they will continue to accumulate over the next year. This time next year we'll be pros!