Dag 1 -- Schipol, Amsterdam -- Groningen

So I decided to blog after all, cuz it's just too weird not to. LOL.

The flight was loooong and cold! I landed in Schipol at 7 am. The customs and luggage process was very smooth and simple, with the only glitch? My passport picture was taken in 1992 and I have changed a WHOLE lot since then. I look nothing like my passport picture. And everywhere I go, they look at me suspiciously, and carefully scruitinize my passport picture to see if it's indeed ME. Doh!

The first odd thing I encountered? A cheese stand at the aiport. Yep, complete with a big painted cow standing next to it too. It's a stand like any newsstand or food cart at the US airports. Only this one is full of wheels of cheese. Showing my true touristy nature, I took a picture of it. :D

The 2 and half hour car ride out of Amsterdam was, umm... uneventful at best. The majority of the time, it was endless farmland on both sides of us. Pastures of cows, sheep, and occationally horses mostly dominate the scenary. There were quite a few big trucks on the road, but no 18-wheelers like we do in the States. There were licence plates from Belguim, Germany, France, and Denmark, very much like we see licence plates from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Oh, and there're pockets of water everywhere. Lakes, ponds, rivers. And windmills. Though not the traditional kinds, but the white modern kinds that we have in the States as well. Cars. Ah... well, the cars are mostly small. VERY small in fact. And mostly of brands we don't see in the States. There's the occasional Toyota, and Honda, but there are a lot more small Fords that they don't sell in the States here. Hardly surprising there are a lot more European makes here. The surprising thing though? Taxis are mostly Mercedes! And not your cheapest C series Mercedes at that. They're also not always advertised. As a matter of fact, as long as the car has a bright blue license plate from NL, it's a taxi. Regular plates are yellow, and some OLD (over 50 years old) cars has very dark blue (almost black) license plates. So if you want a taxi in the Netherlands, look for a blue tag!

Groningen, finally. It was a very peaceful, and somewhat poor town. It's a mostly "white" town, with the occasional Asian and Black. I kept getting caught by surprise that people are not speaking English around me. Ha! The one odd thing I find, is that I get a lot of stares. It's not like there are no Asians around, so why me???

Anyway... after a much needed shower (more about that later), we went setting out to see the "inner city" of Groningen. Food was on both of our minds, so we started with what the Dutch likes best, FRIES! Who'd thought?! Well, there are Fries stands everywhere! Every restaurant, it seemed, had fries. There are at least 10 different sauces to go with them too. Among the weirdest? Peanut sauce and curry (in the form of curry ketchup, which is oddly VERY tasty!).

The big market sprawls out in the normally empty square in the main part of the city. For 3 or 4 days a week every merchant sets up their booth for the day at 6am, and takes everything down around 5pm. no Sundays! In fact, NOTHING is open on Sundays other than restaurants and pubs! Even those open later in the day. Oh, and don't say 5 p.m., nobody understands that. It's 17:00. :)

A couple of streets over from the big market, is the fish market. There're people selling fish, meat, cheese, and surprise, FRIES, here. There were a trio playing Hungarian Dance #5 from Liszt on one street corner, and a guy playing multiple instruments attached to one another, on another street corner. The big forboding looking ancient building facing the market? It houses a supermarket!

There are bikes locked up everywhere. Mostly very old, rusty bikes though. If a bike isn't locked up, it was probably stolen and left there. Even the very rusty and falling apart looking bikes are locked up! People ride bikes everywhere. There are cars around, but VERY VERY few SUV's. And I didn't see a single mini-van. There are big vans, but no family style mini-vans yet. And no wonder. The streets are narrow, and there're usually cars parked along side of them.

Now about street signs. There are cryptic signs everywhere. The red circle around a sign apparently means it's not allowed. So if you see a sign with a picture of a car in the middle, with a red circle along the outside of the sign, it means no cars allowed to drive into that street. That does not stop some people from driving through it nonetheless though. Apparently the Dutch does not have a high regard for traffic signs. Änother common sign is the "except for bikes and mopeds" sign. Most roads are accessible to bikes and mopeds.

We wandered all through Groningen. Went into Media Mart (the biggest electronics store around), a bar (I had a delicious cup of "warm chocolat", sans the slagroom -- whipped cream), and finally, a Chinese buffet for dinner! Yep, the Chinese people in here indeed speaks Dutch, as well as Chinese, and some English. Woohoo! The word got around very quickly among the wait staff that "I" speak English. Ha! It was somewhat different from the Chinese buffets in the States. Each table come equipped with a can that's white with a number on top and red with the same number on the bottom. When you need service, you turn the can upside down to reveal the red side, and a wait staff decends upon you quickly. Very cool! The food was much different from the Chinese buffets in the States, though delicious still. The noodles (mie) is the common dutch Chinese noodles that is sold everywhere. Very smooth and quite good! The only similarity? The cream puffs, canned fruit and soft-served ice-cream for dessert that is so common of the American Chinese buffets. Oh, and the fact that what most people consider "extremely spicy" isn't. The biggest shock? STICKER SHOCK! For the two of us with beer and water (yes, you have to pay for water here at restaurants, they don't serve anything free), it was over 50 Euro (at today's exchange rate, that makes it over $70!) Yikes!

Ok, now that my first day here is almost over (getting dark and everything closes at 5pm, other than restaurants and bars again), it's time to talk about the Red Light District. :)

Very odd indeed. There are a few streets (almost alley-looking actually) that are dedicated to hookers. Each street is lined with windows on both sides. Each window is decorated almost artfully with dildos, vibrators, and the occasional chain and whip (with the words SM on those windows). Each window has curtains to one side and a chair for the hooker to sit in and flaunt their (umm... questionable) beauty and body. They're dressed skimpily (naturally), with lots of makeup and quite a few, with wigs. If the curtain is closed, it usually means a customer is in there already. They do not take kindly to anyone taking pictures of them though. So don't! LOL. Men wander down the street checking out the "babes" and decide which one, if any, they might visit today. You can tell though, if someone means business. haha!


Ok, enough of shocking discoveries for one day! Time for bed. It's been a looooong day!