A Flying start

Dan! You just spend 12 hours on the train....what are you going to do next?

Take a train, of course.

So yeah, my wonderful 12 hours of train riding was actually really enjoyable! I saw lots of countryside, marked with the transition from Austrian rolling hills, to German mountains, to low hills, to the extreme flatness that is the Netherlands. Since crossing the Netherlands border, I've seen more livestock than I think I had in about 5 or 6 years combined! It's everywhere- cows, horses, sheep...all of them just grazing away in the vast expanses of fields separated only by starkly straight canals (which are also everywhere here).

Today for excitement, we left Marjorie's excellent apartment at about 8:30 to catch a 9:20 train en route to Texel Island, one of the north most points in the Netherlands. We needed 2 trains, a bus in Den Helder, and a ferry to get there, which took us until around noon to arrive. Once there, we stepped off the ferry and each rented a bike for the afternoon.

Unfortunately, the size of this island is not to be believed. Except roughly an hour break for lunch, we biked CONTINUOUSLY and still only saw roughly half the island. Yes, we covered over 20 miles by bike in about 4 hours. Most of the time was spent looking out over fields of emptiness, punctuated on the horizon by a scant row of trees. One of their claims to fame is their mountain, Den Burg, a whopping 50 feet above sea level. There was also a city there, but we were rushing to get to the North See side of the island....which proved to be extremely difficult. We weren't able to see the See by bike, but after the bikes were due at 5, we caught a bus to Den Koog, an excellent restaurant district really close to the water.

Anyway, I feel it's worth taking a step back to the beginning of our trek. About 7 miles in, we came to the lovely and charming village of Oudeschild on the eastern (Wadden See) side of the island. There, we found a hotel/restaurant and grabbed some unbelievable Dutch food. I had 'Bitterballen' which is pretty much a mystery meat paste inside a fried falafel-sized sphere. Very very good. Even better, however, were Marjorie's "hot snacks." Her lunch, of which I don't presently remember the name, was stuffed miniature envelopes of meat and/or stuffing. It was really, really good. We also got some french fries, which are apparently eaten all the time at meal or snack. Interesting?

Well, what an unbelievably long day. We got back here at midnight, so we're very tired. Tomorrow, I'm seeing Rotterdam, but beforehand, I'm taking some rest on my own and it's going to be great. Perhaps I'll discuss more of our sore details later, but for now, I'm really tired.
Dan

PS, Marjorie reminded me that we ate ice cream in Budapest too, so I ended up having ice cream 8 consecutive days! It was peerfect. Which reminds me...apparently Ben and Jerry's has its sole plant somewhere around Amsterdam. How cool would that be?

PPS - Les Mis has been and is showing in Dutch. Enough said.