Well holy moly I just realized I forgot to post a picture that Luca and I took at Keukenhof, tulip wonderland! I prevailed upon a young (probably Korean) man — Luca didn’t think he looked too pleased as he was having an intense convo with his gf but I figured he’s gotta respect an old Asian woman and of course he was perfectly polite about it.

It’s been nice to hang with my son (mijn zoon) … mostly we are going out to drink and eat. With all that biking thrown in. He’s worked during the week but I’m fine on my own although today I had a panicked moment trying to find the canal boat people with my lost water bottle. But it all worked out!

In any case since Luca loves whisky cocktails — and even the Dutch jenever (it’s like gin?) though locals seem to prefer beer (and of course Heineken type to boot), he’s made a quest of finding actual cocktail bars. And beer places that sell more Belgian style than Dutch style beers. It’s all good. There’s even a store or two that sells our favorite type of beers (barrel aged stouts) — from the US and other places. Of course very expensive but tasty.

That said, we find that the food and drink here are generally a little less pricey than comparable quality in Chicago. Right now the dollar is strong but even so Luca has found things cheaper. Although they’re on average paid less. So there’s that.

In any case other than eating, drinking, biking and touring, we did a canal boat ride yesterday and I met his gf, Evi (pronounced like A-fee) who joined us on the ride.

It suddenly dropped 20 degrees from yesterday but the tour was gezellig (cozy) with blankets and heated seats, nice people, BYOB or if you want, his drinks. We were good! Had fun! And here are some pics from the boat.

Houseboats are a big thing here though I don’t think I got many photos on the canal ride!? Our guide, Atilla (and yes he’s Hungarian), was very nice and informative, it was a small boat, the other people were easy-going, and all in all it was a great trip (thank you Donna for the recommendation!). Evi was apparently impressed with how chatty and friendly all the Americans were (actually it was a Toronto couple, originally Puerto Rican couple who now live in Atlanta, Minnesota couple with each of their moms and a daughter, and the three of us. Max boat capacity is 12 so it was perfect). But she didn’t think that 12 Dutch strangers (or four sets of strangers) would be that friendly in such a short period. I’m sure I was the chattiest but what else is new?!!

Afterward, we went to an old Dutch bar that Evi suggested, as it has a very old traditional look (lots of wood). So more beers (we already had a few on the boat) and later, we went to a Tiki bar place. We wanted to get hot pot, but they had a 45 minute wait. So we stopped in the cute bar. Hm, I see a recurring alcohol theme here! Luca and I also had Indonesian for lunch (it’s supposed to be very good here — they were a Dutch colony so there’s an old relationship there) — it was tasty but I liked the hot pot better. Though I might not have ordered well at the Indonesian place.

On a totally separate topic — Luca does not live in one of those very cute, 1600-1700 built leaning places that you see in all those photos. His bldg was probably built in the 1950s … it’s very cute inside with high ceilings, a balcony, decent appliances (though small Euro-fridge of course) and has the obligatory really steep winding staircases. I honestly don’t know what people are doing if they have arthritis? I’ve been back a few times from a long day of walking and my knees hurt with all those stairs!

I’m not sure how well these photos show it — and it’s missing a lot of the stairs that turn corners — but here are few of the sets of steps I’ve had to use several times a day.

Very narrow. Quite steep. And in the mornings, really dark to walk down since the motion activated lights seem more tuned to people going up than down.

I’m going to close this with another cute photo of us with Evi …