Den Haag / Amsterdam / Zeewolde

Again with the lateness, I know. This post is about not last weekend, but three weekends ago. But my oh my, what a story it is!

Last weekend, Steven, Aaron, Skylar, and myself spent the weekend with a friend of Steven’s family, Ronald Wanders. Ronald lives with his family in Zeewolde, this tiny town in the middle of what used to be an inland sea, but those industrious Dutch drained the sucker about thirty years ago and built themselves some suburbs. Ronald is also a millionaire. Steven had also never met Ronald before. In fact, the only person who had met Ronald was Steven’s grandfather’s cousin. Despite this ridiculously thin connection however, Ronald invited us up to stay with him and his family for the weekend. Not wanting to refuse a free room, we of course accepted the invitation.

And so Thursday afternoon we hopped on the train to Zeewolde, not entirely sure what to expect. We arrived in Zeewolde that night, and called Ronald to come pick us up. A few minutes later, an Audi R8 and VW Golf screeched into the parking lot. This huge six-foot-four, 300-pound man wearing a black leather jacket and Ray Ban sunglasses climbed out of the R8 and grunted, “Is one of you fellas Steven Cutbirth?” We all looked at each other and knew we were in for a great weekend.

Despite the intimidating look, Ronald is one of the nicest men I have ever met. He is the epitome of hospitality. We weren’t expecting anything more than a place to sleep and night, and maybe directions to the bus stop. Not only did we get free lodging, but we had breakfast in the mornings, beers in the evenings, a posse of twenty year-olds to guide and chauffeur us around Zeewolde and Amsterdam, and-most surprisingly-access to his automobiles.

On Friday we were planning on taking the train to Den Haag, but Ronald told us to take the VW Golf. Before we headed out, we stopped by his office (his house and office are connected) to say goodbye, where we met his business partner, Eric. Looking out the window, I spied Ronald’s R8 parked next to Eric’s Audi S5, and joked, “So which one are we taking, the R8 or the S5?”

Eric cocked his head to one side and said, “Wait. I have idea.” He paused and looked at us inquisitively. “Do you want to take the S5?” We all laughed, thinking he was joking – the S5 is $100,000 of premium sports car – 350 horsepower, V8 engine, the works. But he just looked at us with a grin and glint in his eye. “Come. Come with me. We will see the car!”

We all followed diligently, making feeble attempts to decline the offer, but he countered us with every excuse. It was too small – “With a car like this, you don’t get space, you create space!” We don’t have Dutch driver’s licenses – “Can you drive in America? Then you are fine!” But Eric, it’s just too, well, nice – “Listen! The car? I don’t give a s#&% about it. Okay, well, I do give a s#&%, but I don’t. It’s fully insured, everything. Don’t worry! You are young, in the Netherlands, go have fun!” Before we knew it, Eric practically forced the keys into Skylar’s hands and we were on our way.

Bewildered but pleased, we typed Den Haag into the car’s navigation system and headed out. After a few hours of cruising we pulled into town and parked (very carefully). We walked to the Mauritshuis, one of the premiere art museums in the country, where we saw, among other things, Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and a few self-portraits by Rembrandt. After touring the museum, we grabbed a bite of lunch and then headed back to the car. On the way to the car, however, we passed by a stand selling a dutch delicacy, raw-herring. Skylar and I couldn’t resist – check out the video:

Mmmmm….tasty!

Before turning around to head back to Zeewolde, we decided to take a detour to the town of Scheveningen to set our feet in the North Sea. We felt like we were at the end of the world, because the only thing beyond the horizon is the North Pole. But there was no time for further exploring, because we needed to get the car back to Eric. We made it back alright, albeit 45 minutes late – the navigation system tried to sabotage us – but it was okay, Eric didn’t care.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. We went to dinner with Ronald’s oldest daughter, Vicki, and then met up with Ronald and his wife Tina at Zeewolde’s only pub. We nearly picked a fight with some local teenagers who had been giving Vicki some trouble in school, but we decided spending the night in Dutch jail wouldn’t be the best option.

The next day we took the Golf to Amsterdam. After spending a few hours trying to find free parking, we ended up parking in a local apartment complex and rode the tram into town. Amsterdam is a beautiful city, especially if the sun is shining like it did for us. We visited the Van Gogh and Rijk museums, both who had really impressive collections. I really liked Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Crows” and Rembrandt’s “The Nightwatch.” Both were neat, to say the least.

That night, we met up with another of Ronald’s friends, and he walked us around Amsterdam a little bit. It was getting late, so we didn’t really have much time to do anything, but we did manage to go see Amsterdam’s “famous windows” in the Red Light District. It was strange. I think that people tend to trivialize Amsterdam’s stance on prostitution, making a sort of joke about it. Joking makes it easier to gloss over what prostitution is all about. Being there, however, showed the sharp reality of it all – those are real women behind the glass, they have mothers and fathers somewhere – and it cleared away the facade to show how dirty and sad it all is.

And that was about it for our little adventure with Ronald. We headed back to Zeewolde that night, had some more pizza, played cards with Ronald’s family, and headed to bed. The next morning, he drove us into Utrecht to catch our train back to Maastricht. And this post has been long, and very narrative-esque, so I will end it here.