America for me!

There's a poem somewhere beginning, 'Oh, the old world...' and goes on to describe the wonders and delights of Greece and Rome and all that, but winds up each verse with '...America for me!' After two weeks of touring on the continent, I am delighted with all that I saw and ate but immensely glad to be back on home soil once more and incredibly proud to be an American!

Fortunately daylight savings time works right into the whole jetlag thing, so we're so zombied-out with the time change anyway that we won't even feel the injustice of waking up an hour earlier tomorrow. Baby already makes me feel hungry all the time, so the meal weirdness isn't as much of an issue as it usually is with travel.

Well, what can I say about Holland? Wonderful food, fabulous chocolate sprinkles (I ate a chocolate sprinkle sandwich for breakfast every day), incredibly warm and friendly people, and really uncharacteristically good weather for us the two weeks we were there. It was really too fabulous of a trip - and so much better than expected, considering my apprehensions about timeframe, pregnant travel, expense of the euro, etc. - to complain about anything, so let's just briefly catalogue the ways in which I come away with an improved opinion of America (the following are sweeping generalisations):

-American plumbing. In America you usually have warm water in the powder rooms. The sinks are usually big enough to fit both hands under the faucet at once. The towels are usually big and folded over a rack rather than hung from a rivet on a hook on the wall. The toilet paper is usually white (not brown, except in some environmentally nutty stores where they sell recycled toilet paper) and actually soft.

-American cuisine. In America, if you order water in a restaurant, it is usually a good way of indulging your cheapness and acknowledging that you don't want to pay for a drink. It is not common to order water, explicitly specify that it be tap water and not bottled, and be brought bottled water (and charged a hefty price in Euros for it). It is furthermore not common in America, should such a situation befall you, to be told by the waiter, after you are caught sneaking off to the WC with the bottle to covertly fill it up because you are dying of thirst, that you are not allowed to help yourself to water from the WC.

-American customer service. In America, there are signs everywhere. There are people in the airports to direct you if you are confused. Now, in all fairness, not everyone in America can speak a foreign language for the assistance of any hapless tourist who happens by. But at least we try. And we generally have good, prompt, and attentive service in public places. This may be because, without a minimum wage of 8-10 euros/hour, many people in the service-oriented industry are working for tips and actually have a vested interest in keeping the customers happy.

Hmm, that should do it for the basic observations. In general, Holland is still a country of windmills and canals (most without railings and many with narrow, cobbled streets directly adjoining along which it is a harrowing nightmare to parallel park) and tulips (although it wasn't tulip season yet when we went). Because most of the country is polder (reclaimed from the sea), meaning it was dyked (sp?) in and pumped dry across the centuries, its architecture isn't nearly as old as that in England. No castles, and the charming stone churches don't go back much beyond the 1600s. But there are thatched cottages and farms aplenty.

It was never meant to be a sight-seeing vacation; it was always about the people and the family that my Oma (Dutch word for grandmother) wanted us to visit. That was our expectation, and everything else that happened was a bonus. That being said, it was a bonus - full of serendipity and happiness.

But I'm glad to be back!

(Observation: Baby is a very helpful traveling companion. Owing to Baby's presence, we got to skip the long line at check-in and got a whole extra meal on the flight back.)