Goodbye Europe!

It's hard to believe that this is our last evening in Europe! It's not quite hit that we're getting on an airplane tomorrow, but that's what's going to happen. Our flight out of Frankfurt is at 9:15am, so we'll probably start our journey from Mainz around 6:30am. It's just a quite flight over to Geneva where we'll board our plane bound for JFK around noon. We'll be in the States by 3pm, thanks to the direction of travel. If all goes well, my uncle and cousin will be there to pick us up. Thanks, guys!

I still have a few more pictures to post, so stay tuned for another post or two before we officially say goodbye to the blog!

Westvleteren 12

Our host let me sit in front of the telephone for over an hour today hitting the redial button trying to get in contact with the Westvleteren brewery...Beep Beep Beep Beep...It was a pretty crappy time, but eventually I got to have this conversation:

Monk: [Greeting in Dutch]

Me: Hi, do you speak English?

Monk: Yes.

Me: Cool. I'd like to reserve some beer.

Was the dude on the other end of the line actually a monk? I have no idea, but it's a better story. Pick up time is between 15:00 and 16:00 on Saturday. Josh and I have to catch a train to Poperinge and then either hoof it to Westvleteren or see about calling a bus to take us. How exactly we are going to carry 24 bottles of beer from West to East Flanders remains to be seen. Where there's a will, there's a way, I say.

Also, because I'm thinking about it:

Mich (our host): There's going to be a temptation today.

Colleen (fellow wwoofer): What?

Mich: Was that the wrong word?

Colleen: I don't know. What are you trying to say?

Mich: There will be thunder and lightening.

Colleen: We usually call that a storm.

I have pics from our trips to Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges, which I will post and annotate sometime soon. All I will say for now is, we ate the best waffles of our lives last Friday made for us by the great great grandson of the man who invented the waffle iron. It cost us 8 euro each for the privilege, but it's a waffle I will never forget.

Belgium: Land of Beer

Hello folks! We are in Belgium and are having a good time. We are at Uilenbos with a very nice family. Uilenbos means "owl forest," but in Dutch, you can also use "forest" to mean "patch of carrots" which is why the owl in the logo is sitting on a carrot. C'mon, it's cute! The farm is about 15 acres (if I've done my hectare to acre conversion correctly) and supplies fresh veggies and fruit to about 150 families in the area. It's one of the bigger farms we've been on--though not the largest by a fair number of acres--and I'm quite glad that we are here in the winter and not the high summer season. Mostly we do a lot of weeding and preparing the fields for the coming crops. The weather has been quite pleasant, with temps in the high 50s. I think it's perfect for outdoor manual labor.

Tomorrow we will be putting together the vegetable boxes for delivery on Friday. Since this is basically a one family operation, our host spends Fridays delivering the boxes. This means that we will have three day weekends to run around guzzling delicious Belgium beers. Plans so far include making a 2 hour train trip out to Westvleteren to drink what is quite possibly the best beer in the world, Westvleteren 12. According to our inside source (*cough* Matt Chimielewski *cough*), there is also a neat bar in Antwerp called Kulminator which has been cellaring beer since the 70s. Besides this, it is hard to throw a stone in this country and not hit either a brewery or a bar showcasing local specialties. Our host runs a small store attached to the house and even he sells a number of delicious beers. This is truly my kind of place and I promise to make the most of our precious time here! Updates will surely follow...

Groningen

My dear cousin Zara is currently living in a Dutch city called Groningen, which is about as far away from Amsterdam as is possible while still being in the Netherlands. The city is nice, but there is clear evidence that it is a college town, with a plethora of bars, coffee shops and coffee bars (the kind you smoke at).

In this picture you can see the famous Martini Toren, which has been standing longer than the US has been a country. The Dutch pride themselves on building towers which can stand up even when they lean over at an angle steeper than that of the tower in Pisa. This tower isn't so bad, but it does have a noticeable tilt.

This shot is what I will think about when I remember our time in the Netherlands: thousands of bicycles parked in front of old buildings. I think this is part of one of the universities in Groningen.
The canals are always lined with boats. This is a nice view we encountered right after accidentally wandering through the red light district.
Here is a close up of the tower right before we payed our 3 euro for the opportunity to hike up its hundreds of steps.
Up, up, up! The tower was filled with bells!
At the top we were able to look out the clock face onto the town below!

Well, it's been fun in the Netherlands, but we're off to Belgium tomorrow! We have one last farm (and a bunch of breweries) to visit before we head home. I'm really excited!

When in Holland do as the Hollandaise do

We've been in the Netherlands since Tuesday hanging out with my cousin, Zara, and her boyfriend's family. They are extremely nice people and have been feeding us a steady diet of traditional Dutch food. Yesterday we took a trip down to Amsterdam. Mostly we just walked around the city and wandered up and down the canals. At some point we split a space cake and wandered around some more. Around 4pm we entered the Rijksmuseum, which is unfortunately under construction. As a sort of consolation prize for most of the building being closed off, the museum has put all of its most famous paintings on display. We got to see works by Jan Steen, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn as well as silver artifacts, elaborately crafted doll houses and inlaid rifles used by the Dutch elite. I enjoyed seeing the Night Watch, but I must say I think my favorites were the playful scenes by Jan Steen.

Anyway, here are few shots of the town. It was overcast, so my camera wasn't at its best, but I think you'll like these.

The house boat on the left has grass on its roof!

Rheingau

Somehow, our desire to go on a hike along the Rhine was actualized into a 13 mile trek. It was a long walk, but we covered some beautiful scenery and passed through four castles. One was a youth hostel (wouldn't that be a cool place to stay?), one was in ruins and two were open to the public for a small fee.

This is where we started, in the picturesque town of Bacharach.

We had to climb up a couple of hundred ice-covered stone steps to get up to the ridge of the hill. Once at the top, we had amazing views the for the whole hike.
This part of Germany is wine country, though the vines aren't much to look at in the middle of winter.
At some points we were walking through snow 6 inches deep.
Here's the ruin that we ate our lunch at.
This a shot of the same castle, but from below.

I keep falling behind on photos...

...because I've been doing a lot of awesome things! Last week we visited with our friends Christoph and Vera in Mainz, Germany. Mainz is famous for being the home of Johannes Gutenberg and of course we had to visit the museum. Most of it was in German, but that didn't detract from all the neat books and ancient printing presses on display.

This is Mainz's cathedral. It's celebrating its 1000 year birthday soon, though Vera said that this was technically incorrect since the original church was destroyed in WWII. Christoph countered that there had been something on the spot for 1000 years and that was good enough.
We took a tour through Mainz's cemetery, where all the fashionable elite are buried.
We spent part of the day in Weisbaden (strangely, this name rhymes with Lisbon), where the Romans built their baths. Steam and even hot water bubbles out from parts of the city.
Christoph tried to convince us to drink some of the water, even though it smells strongly of sulfur.
This is the cathedral at Weisbaden.
We went to Germany and barbecued ribs. It took all day but was worth every second. To go with it, we made soup beans, kohlrabi slaw, and green beans. Yum!