Although I was now officially at the Amsterdam pre-convention of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, the Sons of the Desert, nothing we had planned for the day had anything to do with Laurel and Hardy, and we had yet to step foot into Amsterdam. Our Avifauna Hotel was actually in Alphen aan den Rijn, located in South Holland in the Netherlands. On Monday, July 7, 2008, we would begin our bus trip at our hotel and venture into Northern Holland for the day.
The day began on a very bright note – with a mammoth breakfast. This would be my first taste of ‘the European breakfast,’ which was always served in buffet style and included – in addition to the typical breakfast fare of bacon, eggs, sausage, cereal, etc. – coldcuts, cheeses, croissants, and other local delicacies. Needless to say, I filled up each day, and scarcely gave much thought to lunch unless it was provided to us. So after eating, we boarded our bus. Many other Sons had begun to emerge as roughly half of the convention delegates would be taking the pre-convention trips over the next two days.
Marcia Opal, Kathy Hess, Veronica ‘KariKari’ Cabbage, Glenn and Tammi Campbell, Gary Loghead, Lori Jones, Roger Gordon and his wife Belle, Gino Dercola, Steve Wichrowski, the Sorkin family from Cincinnati, Rick Lindner, Bill Oates, Lee and Dee MacBeath, Glenn Kukla, Bob Duncan, the Duffs, Jack Roth, Flip and Elaine Lauer, and many other Sons friends from bygone days were either on our buses or bumping into us on our excursions. It was nice to be back in the company of such insanity.
Bob was conspicuously absent from the trip and sorely missed. Therefore Marcia created ‘Little Bob’ to go on all of our adventures with us
We had all made the mistake of not reviewing anything that we were going to be doing on our pre-convention trip, so each arrival was a surprise shrouded in mystery. The host tent did pass out a flyer with a list of places we would see, but we really didn’t know what any of them were, and they really gave us no introduction to each place or told us where we were on the map. It was only after the trip that I was able to piece together our path from the convention website which actually had done a good job of highlighting the activities.
I had my second near-disaster of the trip this Monday morning. The day before, I had nearly left my camera on a train, only spotted by Big Jimmy as got up from his seat and as I exited the train. This morning I had left my camera battery in the charger back in our room. Thankfully my pal John Duff had the same type of camera and a spare battery with him. What are the odds?
So it took nearly two hours to cover an hour’s worth of ground in the Monday morning traffic. We actually passed through the city of Amsterdam without knowing it as we headed to our first destination, the town of Lelystad and the VOC Shipyard. The VOC stands for Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, which is The Dutch East India Company, the first multi-national trading company in the world. Here was housed a replica the Batavia, a VOC ship that was built in 1628 and shipwrecked during her maiden voyage on the coast of Australia. It was made famous by the mutiny that took place among the survivors.
Outside the VOC Shipyard
My first European cannon picture
Explaining my views to a wooden Dutchman
The Batavia and me
The Markermeer lake, formerly part of the Zeiderzee, a saltwater inlet of the North Sea
Big Jimmy and I explore the ship’s sleeping quarters and toilets
A hammock in the ship’s galley
It was an interesting tour as I had never really seen the inside of a ship like this. The conditions for the crew were obviously wretched as the 341 passengers were forced to share four bedrooms and two indoor bathrooms as well as a few in the open air outdoors (on which they shared one rope as toilet paper – blecch). But mostly what I learned was that it wasn’t warm in the Holland summertime. Upon exiting the boat, it began to rain and get very cold. Oddly, we then entered the Tuigery (building where rigging is prepared) for five minutes and upon exit, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.
Nevertheless, I puchased my first big souvenir here at the shipyard, a sweatshirt that featured Michiel de Ruyter, one of the most famous admirals in Dutch History. Whatever. He kept me warm. At the end of the tour we saw a second ship reproduction that was under construction, this one a warship known as the 7 Provinces. This one was began in 1995, but had to be completely dismantled and rebuilt after they realized that they had made a one-meter error in measurements. Finally, we toured the woodshop and saw a brief film on the ships before heading out.
The 7 Provinces under construction
Wooden figure to be placed on the bow of the 7 Provinces. I’m on the right.
My pals the Duffs catch some Z’s on the bus. Ironically – or maybe not so – they are the founders of the Early To Bed Tent of South Pasedena, California
Our next stop was in Zaanse Schans, a hamlet with period houses, souvenir shops, a cheese farm, wooden shoe workshop, and industrial windmills. It was a nice little place to walk around. Being in Holland, I thought it imperative that we actually go inside one of the windmills so we chose the Oliemolen (Oil Mill) built in 1672. This was a functioning windmill in which peanut oil was manufactured. It was cool to see its awesome smashing power (via a huge block of wood attached to the gears) and how it operated. We even got to go up top to see the gears and stand on the outside platform.
With my new sweatshirt and the windmills of the Dutch village Zaanse Schans
Atop the De Zaansche Molen windmill
Other than that, our 90 minutes in Zaanse Schans mostly consisted of walking around and browsing the shops. My favorite part was the cheese shop where free samples abounded. I seriously went through the line at least five times and filled up on various exotic cheese delicacies. The Wileys had some sandwiches for lunch, but I was just happy with the free cheese. The ice cream counter was out of ice cream, milkshakes, and sundaes, but again the cheese was plenty for me. On our walk out of Zaanse Schans, we saw some live roosters and some ducks fighting over french fries.
I like cheese
Jimmy enjoys his official Holland slurpee
Jimmy and I try on a wooden shoe
A cock in the Netherlands (I’m the one pointing)
Let’s check in with the Duffs again on the bus to Marken
We left Zaanse Schans at around 3:30pm (Lori was 15 minutes late and held up the bus) and headed off to our next destination. Marken is a little island where ‘time stood still’ full of old homes and shops. Originally this was going to be the second visit of the day, but it was rescheduled. We arrived around 4pm, but by that time most of the little shops had all closed up, so our visit there was little more than walking through the village. I did find a magnet in one of the shops that was still open and we bought ourselves some bottled water at the local grocery store. I also had already had my fill of pay toilets (although never actually using one) so I relieved myself behind the grocery store.
In order to write off the entire European vacation, I visited a Dutch supermarket in Marken and have this picture to prove it
After passing through Marken, we boarded a boat for a 30-minute voyage through the harbor of the IJsselmeer to a fishing town called Volendam. Many of the shops here were also either closed or closing down as we arrived, just as a huge downpour of rain began. We took shelter under some business awnings until it let up a bit and then set out to find a place to eat. We ended up at a place called De Lunch Havenrestaurant and we had a nice cozy dinner (with the typical leisurely pace of all European restaurants). Still in search of atypical meals indiginous to the area, I had schipperschnitzel – which was mushrooms, onions, and bacon (actually ham) over eggs. And of course my fries (frites) came with mayonnaise (fritesauce).
Eileen Lauer, me, Jimmy, and Rick. My pal Flip Lauer is taking the photo and bought us the Amstel
Jimmy is thrilled about the weather
Among the puddles of rain in Volendam
Dinner in Volendam with me, Lori, Janet, John, Kris, Jimmy, Jimmy, and Bob Duncan
With most of the shops closed by this time and the rain still coming down, we had no choice but to duck into Softy’s Loket, a local ice cream parlor that was still open. There I went for the double scoop of grape gelato and banana ice cream. We made one final venture out into the rain to gather along with many other Sons under a large awning as we awaited the time to ‘go on the bus’ (in the Dutch vernacular) at 9pm. I spent most of the time chatting with British Son and friend Dave Tomlinson, who amidst chatting about our tents and autograph collecting, told us that it was the inclement weather that was forcing these little towns to close up shop so early.
Ominous with a scoop of gelato
We arrived back at the Hotel Avifauna at 10:15pm and naturally it was still rather light outside, but we were too tired from being constantly on the road to do much else. Jimmy and I split the cost of an wireless internet access card and we got that up and running and I sent emails to the folks at home. We crashed and awaited another long day on the bus through Southern Holland that would be happening early the next day.
And one final check-in with the Duffs as we headed back to the hotel
Great captions! I laughed the whole time. I couldn’t make out ‘Little Bob’ in any of the photos… except the first!
Dave Chasteen
August 17th, 2008