A few observations...

A few interesting things worth noting so far...

• Ice cubes don't seem to exist... or at least not in any of the glasses of water, iced tea or soda that we have ordered so far.
• Garbage should only be put out on the street the day that it will be picked up... otherwise, the birds will have a feast and they will leave a mess for you to clean up!
• You will be incorrect if you think that each home contains things like ovens, freezers and 'normal size' refrigerators.
• There are no used bikes for sale, despite the thousands of bikes that exist here!
• Yes, this is a country where almost everyone speaks some level of English... but, there is very little written in English and this can make daily life here a bit challenging!
• Overall the service here seems to be very slow compared to US standards.  Don't expect to go and have a 'quick dinner' somewhere, as it won't happen!
• Nobody uses credit cards and businesses are not capable of processing them.  Everyone uses either cash or debit cards.  If you are expensing your purchases then you must quickly get in the habit of asking for your receipts! 
• Time of day is referenced differently here.  For example, if you are referring to 3:00pm then you will say 15:00.
• Right now the days are long here, making it difficult to get a good night sleep.  The sun comes up somewhere between 5:00 and 6:00 and it sets sometime between 22:00 and 23:00.
• The Internet, Wifi and various iPad apps are wonderful things!  An app that enables us to listen to US radio stations is awesome.  Various apps that permit us to read US news articles are great.  An app that enables us to watch US television shows... well, we are still researching this... stay tuned... 

A Beach Day!

It is HOT, HOT, HOT here!  ... high 70's...  The other night I had made a comment to someone about how nice the weather has been and I made mention of the fact that it has been in the 70's.  The girl I was talking with quickly responded back with "I don't know what that means.... I only know Celsius."  I thought to myself... "and I only know Fahrenheit!"

Today we went to the beach....  You will see from our photos below that the sailing regatta was taking place just offshore, out in the North Sea.  Also, check out the guy who is practicing his kite surfing on the beach.  He was definitely getting in a good work out!

Lastly, notice the Bavaria beer glasses.  In Holland, beer is always served in a corresponding glass of the brand of beer you order.  For example, if you order a 'Palm' beer then you can expect to receive it in a glass branded by 'Palm'.  A 'Heineken' beer will come in a glass branded by 'Heineken'.  Interestingly, there seems to be little consistency of beer choices from one place to the next.  Given so much variety, we never know what to order.  Our approach has been to randomly pick one and then try to remember its name.  So far, every beer has tasted good!  There has not been one beer that I haven't truly enjoyed!
Cheers! 

Delft - A beautiful city!

Today we decided to venture out of Den Haag and into a nearby city called Delft.  Perhaps you have heard of Delftware or Delft pottery.  While it's nice, it's not something we wish to collect (although some people do).  In Holland, and in Delft, you will find the pottery everywhere.

Delft is about a 20 minute or so train ride from Den Haag.  After a few errands handled this morning, we happily climbed aboard the Delft bound train and away we went!

By the way, one of our errands was to exchange US currency into Euros.  Per a representative at our local bank, the only place in The Netherlands where money can be exchanged is either at the train stations, or at the airports.  We were told that Netherland banks are, by law, forbidden to do this.  Go figure!!!  Anyhow, everything went well for us...  The guy who had assisted us 'waived' our transaction fee (without us even asking him to do so) and the exchange rate is the highest it's been in a very long time!  Needless to say, our day started out quite well!

We took several photos while strolling through Delft today and some are below for you to enjoy.  Delft is a beautiful city with several canals, lots of old buildings, bikes galore, and a lot of history.  You will see that one of our photos is a plaque referencing Prince William of Orange and his assassination, which occurred in Delft.  Prince William was a Dutch nobleman who successfully led the country's revolt against Spain in the 1500's.  Although the country's flag is red, white and blue, it is very clear that the country's color is orange.  The color orange is everywhere here and it's all because of Prince William of Orange.  We have been told that the country's flag was originally orange, white and blue, but somehow the orange was switched to red several years ago.  Today you will often see a long orange ribbon hanging just above a Netherlands flag.

Today was another great day full of new discoveries!  We hope that each of you enjoy our photos as much as we have enjoyed taking them!