Schiermonnikoog

Schiermonnikoog ('Island of the grey monks') is one of the Frisian islands, an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea that spreads along the coasts of the Netherlands and Germany. On these islands, and along the coasts of both countries, they speak Frisian as opposed to Dutch or German.

(it is the 5th one from the left, not counting the two small dots)


To get to Schiermonnikoog from Groningen, you take a bus to Lauwersoog, then a ferry. The bus arrived at 11:30 and the ferry didn't leave until 1:30. There is nothing in Lauwersoog except one restaurant. We decided that the restaurant was paying the bus company to strand people there.





I had been invited by my friend Zdenek and had in turn invited another friend, Wymer. But at the last minute Zdenek decided to take a later bus. I didn't hear from him until later on. Apparently, they had taken the wrong bus and had no idea where they were going. They never did make it is Schiermonnikoog.



I don't know about these ones, but I was sure I saw Canadian Geese in a field later. Apparently, they were introduced into Northern Europe and have established populations in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavia.










this is a pheasant!


These are from the inside of an old Nazi bunker...the islands were captured during WWII and the Germans had fortification on all of them to defend the Nothern frontier of Europe. It was pitch black inside and really spooky.




(click to enlarge)

Belgium

Brussels: skyscrapers, modern, new vs. projects, run-down, old.

Jamie and I spent the afternoon in the botanical gardens in the North of Brussels waiting for Chrissy, who had gone to her father's birthplace Morlanwelz, for the day. Cut through the entire city of Brussels en Route to the South train-station from our hostel (apparently Van Gogh's old studio), which was also in the North. Completely missed any of the tourist areas, or anything lively at all really...the North is all fancy telecom buildings and hotels, while the South is kind of crumbling, lots of immigrants, and interesting juxtapositions like a skate-park right outside a church. At night we tried to find what was labeled as the 'hip' area (always be wary of that word!) but found only a two-block concentration of strange Asian restaurants (Shamrocks: a Smart Indian Restaurant), some pubs, and a few nice heated terasses. Had a few beers before trekking back up to our hostel...where someone had stolen my already-made bed.
While Brussels (and Brugge as well) is situated in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (the Flemish region), we got by with French which almost everyone seemed to speak. We did notice that, in contrary to the Netherlands, noone really seemed to speak English.









Brugge/Bruges (pronounced Bruche, Broogs, Bruje.....): old, quaint, chocolate, beer, tourists, umbrellas, canals, snacks.

Beautiful town, if a tad touristy. Unfortunately it rained quite constantly. Our hostel was a mighty cozy little place with a nice variety of games including Stratego, a favourite of Chrissy and mine, which we indulged in after a hot shower (where you had to continuously pull a handle for a flow of water). Visited the chocolate museum, an unremarkable journey through the history and production of chocolate (with some free samples), and dined at the local burger joint "Pickles", where the employee was kind enough to let us drink the cherry beer we had bought earlier. Went out a bit later for some mulled wine and cherry pie.








Michelangelo's Madonna with Child
This is the chocolate one


This is the real one

Indische Buurt

Today I walked up to the Indische Buurt, which sort of means Indian neighbourhood, just north of the center of Groningen. While it does seem to be home to at least a small Asian community (some Asian grocery stores, Surinamese restaurants) it doesn't really 'live up' to its name in that way....no Samosa stands on every corner or anything...which would have been delicious. It's very quiet, with a lot of nice big parks with big ponds in them, and rows and rows of residential flats, one main street going through that had a lot of sports specialty stores for some reason.











two blokes I met on the street who really wanted me to take their picture. the one on the left is from Suriname and the one on the right is Nigerian.




swingin'


people had really nice little gardens and shrubbery outside their homes....


digging up the road


peeked into the hospital...looks like an airport! didn't feel like a hospital at all.

tobacco

Every so often, in the evenings, there is a strong smell of tobacco throughout the entire city, or at least the city center. I guess it's when the wind is blowing in a certain direction.

The reason for this, apparently, is:

...the Tobacco Museum (Tabacologisch Museum) of the Niemeyer company, with a unique collection of material on the history of tobacco-smoking ranging from 3,000- year-old American Indian pipes to the present day, illustrating the manufacture of pipes and displaying pipes, snuff-boxes, spittoons and tobacco jars of porcelain, silver, meerschaum, crystal and ivory....

Treasure Hunting

Every time there is a market (Tuesday, Friday and Saturday) boxes of produce that is deemed unsellable is left in the square. I found out about it one my way home from class one day. It was about 6PM (the market closes at around 5) and I saw an older gentleman rummaging through what looked like trash. Slowing my bike to investiate, he handed me an avocado, in perfect condition, and I was hooked. Since then, I have been going after almost every market. You would think that the students would pounce on this stuff, but they don't seem to care. They pass by on their bikes, often looking judgmentally at the people who are doing it, who tend to be young hippie couples, older anti-establishment types, and other intelligent people in general. My grocery bill has been cut substantially since I discovered this ritual.

Here's some of the loot I've picked up:

6 red peppers, 1 Canteloupe, 2 Avocados, 1 apple, 1 tomato, 1 mango


1 cucumber, a box of cherry tomatoes, 1 tomato, 2 potatoes, 1 orange, 1 red pepper, 2 chilis, 3 canteloupes, 2 papayas, 3 peaches, 1 apple, 1 kiwi


2 boxes of blueberries, 1 box of rasberries, 2 bundles of white asparagus (there were crates and crates of these!1), 3 heads of lettuce, 4 tomatoes, 2 onions, 1 box of mushrooms, 2 potatoes, half a zuchinni, 1 banana, 1 mango