Euro Day 9 - Car, Canals and Cards

Sunday July 30, 2017

We had flown into Amsterdam and rented a car.  So at some point we needed to return the car to Amsterdam - so worked in a trip on Sunday to return the car and see the city.  We timed it just right as we hit some heavy rain showers as we came back to the airport to return the car but it had cleared by the time we reached the city.

Amsterdam was a bit of a shock to the system after being in smaller cities in villages for the past week.  Amsterdam was a bee hive of activity with cars, bikes, mopeds and tourists hauling suitcases mixed together in a soup of craziness.  The cannabis culture was not as overt as I thought it would be and we were able to successfully avoid the famed red light district.  My pronouncement that we were going to visit the Rijks Museum was not met with an overly enthusiastic response but I think the kids did get something out of the visit.

We spent most of the day wandering through the various neighborhoods dissected by the canals.  Overall it was a very nice visit to Amsterdam but, like NYC, I find the scale and pace to be a bit much and we were all glad to hop on a train back to Maastricht.

It is a 2.5 hour train ride back across Netherlands to get back to Maastricht.  The time went pretty quickly as we engaged in a raucous game of hearts on the trip back.

Euro Day 8 - Castles and Cable Cars

Karen had a list of things that she wanted to see during this trip and high on that list was a castle.  So we got up relatively early and head down to check out Eltz castle.  The castle construction was started prior to 1157 and is still in the same family (33rd generation !).   There is about 1 km walk through forest to get there from the parking lot but it was a great visit.

The castle is near the city of Koblenz - which is situated right at the intersection of the Rhine and Moselle rivers.  There is another great fort situated high above the rivers and they have cable cars. that take you from the city up to the fort.

At the point at the confluence of the rivers - there is an enourmous statue that Jake and Brett climbed.

We decided to pack in one more stop on the way home for dinner.  Valkenburg is a very cute village close to Maastricht and is similar to other cities in the region - full of nice restaurants with outdoor seating and people that did not get the memo that smoking is really bad for you.  Of course we ended our night with more gelato !

EurO Day 7 - Skiing in July

I scooted off to work and the family went to explore Fort St Pieter and the caves.  I am sure the kids were only mildly excited but the all came back with very positive reviews of the experience.

After I got home from work we decide to hit the slopes !  Well at least the boys did - as the girls think skiing in the winter is a marginal idea and a non-starter in the summer.  So they wen out to hit a small concert festival in town.  The Netherlands is a pretty flat country but they managed to build an indoor ski slope on one of the small hills.  It has a nice 6 person chairlift that is slower than a DMV worker on a Monday.  We were thoroughly unprepared from a clothing standpoint - as it is a crisp 25 degrees on the hill and we packed for summer.  The crowds were light and we had a nice time for 2 hours before our hands got numb and we decided we had mastered the 2 slopes.

After returning home - the girls had texted that one of bands was playing a bunch of American 80's rock - so Jake and I headed down to check it out.  We made it in time to catch some good Dutch Survivor and AC/DC before they transitioned back to more local tunes.

Euro Day 6 - Hydration

Thursday July 27, 2017

Another day in the office for Dad and the rest of the family geared up for a cruise down the Maas river to Liege in Belgium.  It is about a 2 hr cruise each direction with 2 hours to tour around Liege. Liege is more industrial and not quiet as picturesque as Maastricht or Aachen.  However the reports were the cruise was enjoyable (despite all the commentary being in Dutch) and they got their stairs in at the city.

When I return from work - everybody is geared up to head into the city and go eat.  My suggestion of a night in and boiling up some pasta is met with a chorus of boos.   I think the fact that Euro's look like monopoly money is sending us down the wrong path.

There are endless options to eat in Maastricht with most of them having both inside and outside dining.  Although the restaurants are diverse in their food, they are united in their goal to give out as little non-alcoholic liquid as possible.  If you order a beer or wine you get a reasonable size for a reasonable price.  However if you order a soda or water, they bring you a bottle that they stole from the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" set.  Granted the tubs of soda that we roll out in the US are obscene but only supplying 6oz of liquid with a meal seems to violate the Geneva convention.  And don't even bother asking for ice as they will gaze at you as if you were wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat.

EurO Day 5 - Fit for a King

The offices of my company are on the outskirts of the city of Aachen.  Aaachen is an interesting historical city - mostly known as the final resting place of Charlemagne.  It was also the first German city liberated by the Allies in WW2.

The family came into the city today to take in the sights and do a tour of the impressive Aachen cathedral where Charlemagne's remains still exist and the coronation of German Kings were held.

I came into the city after work and met them for a nice traditional German meal of schnitzel and bratwurst.   The European's are not big ketchup fans and prefer mayonnaise with their french fries (gross!).   Most places with accommodate the obnoxious American's by supply ketchup but noticed when I got the bill that they charged us .50 for each packet of ketchup.

We made our way back to Maastricht and ended the evening with more gelato and card games.

Euro Day 4 - Five of Hearts

Tuesday July 25th,

The plan was for the family to take a boat trip down the river to Liege in Belgium but apparently making a 10am departure was a bit too aggressive for that group - so that was postponed to Thursday.  They are likely relieved that I am not there driving everybody onto the next activity and can go at a leisurely pace.

I had never rented a car here in all my previous trips, preferring to rely on the trains and taxis.  So when I needed to fill up the tank this morning there is a learning curve on that process works.  There was no pay at the pump option - so not clear if I should pay first or can pay later.  Pretty sure I don't want diesel fuel but what the heck is Euro95.  Eventually figured it out and was on my way to work. There is almost no traffic between Maastricht and Aachen - so it is a pleasant commute.

Decided to grab a burger for dinner but there was a sign on the front of the restaurant declaring they were on vacation for two weeks....got to love Europe.  On the walk home we stopped for gelato - a nightly tradition.

Back at our apartment we taught the kids to play Hearts after refreshing my memory on the rules by watching some YouTube videos.  The folks that make YouTube videos on card games is an interesting crowd.

Euro Day 3 - Beef Stew My Heart

July 24th, 2017

One of the prices to be paid for this adventure is that I am working this week in our Aachen office.  It is about a 25 minute ride from our place in Maastricht.  My choices on the car radio seem to be bad techno music or drive time radio jabber in a language I don't understand.

The family explored Maastricht during the day while dodging rain showers.  Kelsey had to work on some homework due for an AP class - so it was a good rest up day after a few hectic days of travelling.

When I got home from work - we went out to dinner in the city.  Found a great restaurant near the University to have dinner.  They had the best beef stew that I have ever had, of course maybe that was due to it not having any vegetables.  The meal was also a reminder to always have plenty of Euro on hand as not everywhere takes credit cards like they do in the US.

After dinner we walked through the big square in the middle of the city.  They were tearing down the fencing and other infrastructure from the big Andre Rieu (dutch playing violinist) concert.  The image below from the concert last year tells you how seriously the Dutch take their violin music. This was starkly contrasted when we returned to the apartment to discover that Justin Bieber had cancelled the rest of his tour (including the Boston stop).

We grabbed a Gelato on our stroll back through the city.  It is light here until later and the picture below is after 9pm. Everybody was pretty tired and marked the first time in probably 6 years that Brett was asleep before 10pm on 3 consecutive nights.

Euro - Day 2 - Stairway to Heaven

Sunday July 23rd,

The first day in Europe is always a bit disorienting as your body processes the 6 hr time change. So we had a leisurely morning and hit the road just before noon. The excitement level was palpable when I told everyone the first stop was going to be the Netherlands American Cemetery.  It is the resting place of 8,301 American solders as well as a wall listing 1700 more that were missing.  Seeing all those plots is a solemn visual reminder of the cost of war.   The contrast is the now virtually invisible border crossing into Germany just a few km  down the road.

We then continued our journey into Germany with the destination of Cologne.  The centerpiece of Cologne is the massive cathedral in the center of the city.  It is so massive it is very hard to get the entire thing is a picture unless you are standing a few hundred yards back. This beast was started back in 1248 but was not completed to the original design until 1880.  And Karen thinks my renovation projects were slow !

The best feature is you can climb 533 narrow winding steps to the top.  No elevator, No waiver form.  The biggest regret is that everybody writes their names along the walls all the way up the narrow stairs.  Nobody told me to bring a Sharpie !

Next visit was the chocolate museum down along the Rhine. It was an interesting tour and we learned more than we need to know about your friend the cocoa bean.  It as also interesting to see the manufacturing process but the queue to sample pieces coming off the line had a very poor return on time investment. 

Jake and I headed next door to the German Olympic and Sports museum. It was a bit of an odd collection of old equipment and items in German we could not understand.  I was disappointing that they did not have an exhibition of East German weightlifting where you could inject yourself with anabolic steroids. Not the worst thing I have spent 6 Euro on but glad the rest decided to pass on this visit.

We ended the evening of a nice outdoor meal in one of the more popular squares in Cologne.  I think everyone was pretty tired out at the end of the day as we headed back to Maastricht.

Euro - Over Easy

Friday - July 21st

Getting the family ready for 3 weeks on the road can be arduous but nothing Karen can't handle in her sleep.  So it seemed appropriate to complicate matters by letting her know I was going to be at a work offsite retreat for the three days prior to our leaving and that we were going to take advantage of being out of the house to get the floors refinished.  I recommended she get those furniture moving skills back into shape.

Out flight was scheduled to depart at 6:20pm and I was scheduled to speak at the offsite retreat at 2pm.   Given I had a 45 minute ride home and hadn't packed added some extra excitement to the process.  However everything worked like clockwork and we arrived at the airport without any significant drama.

Getting 5 people over to Europe in the summer can take a healthy bite out of the bank account.  Flying into one destination and out of another adds to the planning complications.  The financial and logistical considerations mix with my delight in seeing my families bewildered faces when I run down the itinerary of our flight to Amsterdam on TAP Portugal. Don't most people fly through Lisbon to get to Amsterdam ?

My family was incredulous that I did not spring for business class seats on the initial leg but I did score the best seats in economy with bulkhead and exit row seats that provided extra leg room.

Despite the extra legroom nobody really got any significant sleep on the overnight flight from Boston to Lisbon.  We had a 2 hour layover in Lisbon that had the additional excitement of Kelsey leaving her passport at security.  After another 2 hour flight from Lisbon to Amsterdam - we stumbled, bleary eyed through Schipol looking for our rental car agency.  

To me the biggest question of this trip was going to be answered when we determined if we could fit all of our luggage in the rental car. When I asked the lady at the check-in counter if our luggage would fit in the SUV that I had rented - she chuckled. Not a good sign,  She advised me that my best option was to spend an extra 200 euro on a Audi A4 wagon.  After telling Kelsey that Duke University was now off the table for college -I signed up for the upgrade and headed to the garage.  

Our luggage did fit (barely) and we were off for a 2 hour ride across the Netherlands to our Airbnb in Maastricht.  21 hours after we left our house we were all pretty exhausted.  2 cars, 2 buses  and 2 planes.  We had arrived.

We had just enough energy to take a quick stroll through the city and hit the grocery store down the street for some staples (umm you people don't refrigerate your milk ?!).  Jake was the first down at 8:30pm and everybody was out by 10pm.  Excited to be rested and ready to start tomorrow.

Prologue - Euro 2017

Olen family roadtrips are not unlike the Olympics.  They occur every 4 years and typically bankrupt the hosts.  They are also like hurricanes as, if they meet certain criteria, they are named and involve a significant amount of chaos.  The two main criteria to become a named vacation is at least 20 days on the road and a travel schedule that makes my wife break down in tears.  The tradition started with H2Olen in 2008 and then Westward-O in 2012 - both of which are chronicled earlier in this blog.

The goal was to have a 2016 edition but I had already taken a 10 day vacation, 3 weeks after starting my new job at Abiomed.  So asking to take additional time the next summer seemed to be a bit career limiting.

So I turned my sights to planning for the summer of 2017.   The US Southeast was a one potential destination as it is not a well travelled road.  However, the chance to follow my idol Clark W Griswald on an adventure overseas was compelling.  The kids would be turning 20, 18, 16 this summer and this is likely the last hurrah.  My company has an office in Aachen Germany and figured I could leverage a work trip as the launching pad for Euro 2017 !!!

As usual there are some skeptics within the family ranks.  The news of terrorist attacks in London and other European cities and anti-Trump fever sweeping the globe makes the matriarch of the Olen clan a bit nervous.  Our plan is to tell everyone we are Canadian to minimize our chance of encountering any anti-Trump backlash from over seas.

Should be fun, or at least interesting as we explore different cultures and languages.