Guest blog by Stretch

Thursday, May 19,  Guest blog by Jim (Stretch).

Starting with what I came home to this evening, above is a shot of the church tower taken from the terrace of the apartment we are renting in Haarlem.  People live and work here surrounded by beauty like this.  This is probably what I enjoy most about what we experience in Europe.  The beauty that is part of almost every minute you spend here.

Here is Sara relaxing on the terrace after an interesting day that included a successful interview and social visit with Sir Harry Van der Kamp, star bass baritone singer of early music.

But enough about Sara. ;-) This morning  I started out walking about 20 minutes to the main train station in Haarlem and taking a 10 minute train ride to Sandpoort, a small village on the North Sea.  Sara’s friends Jackie and Ton live there with their children.  Ton, whom I had not met, had kindly offered to show me things that would be of interest to someone of a technical bent, mainly focused on shipping.

First Ton and I walked from their home to a functioning flour mill driven by wind power; that is, by the kind of windmill that you associate with The Netherlands, and imagine is just a relic.  In this case, the windmill, built around 1780, grinds wheat into flour that is a commercial product.  A non-profit organization owns the facility and leases it to a miller who operates it with paid and volunteer labor. It is there to provide an opportunity for visitors to understand the role of windmills in the history of their nation.  Ton had been there dozens of times before with visitors from foreign countries, but somehow with our combined hunger of knowledge, the docent there was inspired to allow us access to areas of the mill that are usually off limits to visitors, and to recount a lot of new information to Ton.  It was fascinating for me to see how wood, iron, and stone could be fashioned, using hand tools, into this functioning machine, built on 18^th century technology.

After the mill visit, Ton, his son Stefan, and I drove to the port of Ijmuiden.  Above is a shot of a platform that is used to erect modern windmills in the sea, and a ship that carries the parts to the construction site.  Below is a huge steel making facility, with a tug boat in the foreground, or forewater, in this case. ;‑)

I guess that in addition to just blogging, whatever that is, I am pointing out that the people who live in  beautiful  cities like Haarlem and Amsterdam are not just making trinkets for the tourists.  It is possible to have a beautiful country that does serious business.

We visited a lock and watched a ship use the lock, which was very interesting.  The lock connects a major shipping canal from Amsterdam to the North Sea.  Locks do not make for very interesting photos.  After the lock we drove to a ferry crossing.  Here is a shot of Ton and Stefan on the ferry.  There were our car, a truck, about 30 bicycles, and a few motorbikes making the crossing.

After having a cup of tea back at his home, Ton kindly drove me back to Haarlem, where Sara and I had an adult beverage on the terrace (see above), enjoying the first warm, dry evening we have seen in The Netherlands this trip.  Then we went out for fabulous Indonesian food (rijstafel and gado gado).