Day 17: First Day in The Netherlands

Monday, May 1, 2017

          So today was not like yesterday, it was actually kind of crappy. We woke up kind of early to check out, and we were off to the Netherlands. We took the metro to the Midi station where we took the train to Den Haag. There were multiple Den Haag stations, and the train had no signs or anything telling us which stop we were at, so we ended up missing the train station. This was one of the really fast trains, so the next stop wasn’t for a good 20 minutes. We ended up getting off at the Amsterdam Airport, and took a train back to Den Haag Central. Thankfully that train ride took only about half an hour.

          At the train station they had a place to leave our luggage, and half of it was out of order. We had lost about an hour of time because we missed our station so we were a little bit on edge. We were having trouble getting some of the lockers to work, and we were going to try for the last time, there was a small misunderstanding, and someone (not saying names) made a small scene. It was a little embarrassing, but at least eventually I figured out which lockers worked and left our luggage there.

          The first place we went was the Biblioteque, where we were able to get a lot of information. We went to a lot different places, including the Celestial Vault, the Gemeente Museum, and the Parliament. We also tried haring for the first time, (it’s actually really good). After being in Den Haag for a couple hours we took the train to Rotterdam, put our luggage away (very easily I might add) and we did some more scavenges. We went to a museum, we took a ferry to SS Rotterdam and we took the metro to Blaak. 

          On the shuttle to the metro and on the metro we met an older couple from New Jersey and we were talking to them for a little bit about the GSH. While I was explaining it they said, “You look exhausted, this trip seems very busy.” THIS WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY. This couple so far, has been the only people who have commented on the intensity of this trip. Whenever we talk to people about the trip, they say things like “oh that sounds fun” or “oh lucky you you’re missing a lot of school.” That was me before the trip and in San Francisco. I was clearly not prepared for how intense (mostly in a good way) this trip is. So them realizing it just from me explaining it really made my day.

          We made a couple train stops and we saw the Cube Houses, the Holland Casino, and finally we bought some food. That was another highlight of the day: Sitting and eating real food at the same time. We ate on the train, but we were still eating food so I wasn’t complaining.

So we ended up going BACK TO BRUSSELS!! We checked out of our hotel, dragged our bags to multiple places, and made a scene at luggage lockers, all to come back to Brussels and stay in the EXACT same hotel we stayed in the previous two nights. We also didn’t get to the hotel until midnight.

          So overall today was really NOT a good day. It wasn’t because of the things we did, the things we did were fine. Some of them were actually cool. It was more of our team vibe. We were both on edge with each other kind of throughout the day, and it was on and off, which kind of screwed with out dynamic. It did drain energy out of both of us, and it was obvious. We tried eating chocolate to make us feel better, and we tried to just push through it. Nothing worked, it was just one of those days. Which happened to be during one of our hardest legs travelling throughout Europe. We were both tired, and we ended up back where we started location wise. But we have a place to stay for the night, so I can’t complain too much. I also got to talk to family, which put me in a much better mood for the night. It was really nice to talk to them since it was the first time talking to them since I left, I miss them and am excited to go home. I think today was just a rough day, and one of those things all teams go through, but I hope tomorrow will be better, and we will move forward from this (towards winning!!). So until next time!! ;)

Daddy's View

Imagine you win contest for a meal at a restaurant you've been dying to try.  The prize will pay for your entire bill, no matter how much it is... but you can only order *certain* menu items.  For example, you've heard great things about the steaks... but those aren't eligible for the prize voucher!  In fact, all of your tried and true favorites aren't eligible either!

Then you start looking at the other stuff.  You pull aside the waiter and ask about the wild game menu item you've never tried or even heard of.  there's a little hesitancy at first, but as the meals come out, you realize the food is great and you're super excited and proud of yourself!  part of you likes to think you tried all these new foods because you're an open-minded person, but you know it was really because that's what was eligible for the prize voucher.  

That's what this Europe leg is like - all the known headline tourist city centers and big number "bonus" scavenges are not worth as much as the smaller, lesser known cities.  

For example, Den Haag (The Hague) was worth twice as much as Amsterdam in total points, and it is much smaller and less crowded so the "time cost" per item is also much lower.  You can accomplish all of Den Haag's scavenges in less than a day, but you have a very small chance to hit all of the Amsterdam scavenges even in a full day.  

As an example for the bonuses, going to luxembourg would be worth at lest four times as much as Den Haag's biggest single scavenge.  But, going to luxembourg would take all day.  doing all of Den Haag's 14 scavenges would yield four times as much as luxembourg, take just one third of the day, and when laid out appropriately is actually do-able.  

This is of course the least romantic way to look at travel, but when you have a bazillion scavenges across eight countries that are all over europe, you have to find some way to put the puzzle together.

So that's what we did - no bonuses and no big cities.  Just train after train to little cities in belgium the first day, and the netherlands the second day.  Get out, hop on a bike, walk through the city, or metro around.  Hit the scavenges, get back to the train, and get to the next city.

This is the *opposite* of what i wrote about earlier, which is savoring the butterscotch candy and really feeling it in your mouth.  This strategy was like going to a buffet and taking a few bites from each different section - you don't get full on any one section, but you try a lot of things.  The scavenges - and that europe requires a lot of walking - gave us a really solid feel for each place.

And yes, it was quite hilarious, at the end of the night on our netherlands day, we ended up at exactly the hotel we left that morning.  This was also a robotic calculated "best course of action" move.  we had to get to england the next day, because we had to get to ireland the day after, and this was the only way to do it.  it turns out we hauled our luggage all over the netherlands just for exercise :)

Notable items:

-  Broodje harring in netherlands.  think of tom (of tom and jerry fame) leaning back his head and holding up a fish and dipping it into his mouth and pulling out the skeleton.  that little fish is broodje harring, or what it looked like.  it turns out, it's quite good.  here's a shot of it pre-tom consumption.

-  woman with a pearl earring.  this is like a super famous picture.  the reason i don't typically visit museums is i went to see the mona lisa when i was 20.  it's in this huge museum, huge lines, and you walk up and it's this tiny painting that i don't frankly have the brain cells to appreciate fully.  this painting had the same treatment, but it was a scavenge - here's sydney with it (exactly as i looked with mona from 25 yrs ago).

-  rotterdam is a really cool town.  there's definitely a dividing line for cities in europe b/w ones that were devestated byt he war, and ones that were not.  the ones that were, have really ambitious, cool, new architecture.  they're really modern cities with modern architecture.  the ones that weren't touched, have less of the new wave architecture.  rotterdam had the new stuff :)

-  one of the many great things about the GSH is it forces you to order items from the "menu of life" that you probably wouldn't try.  for example, eat in the homes of stranges (from sri lanka and egypt) or have picnic meals with strangers on trains or parks.  here's a picnic with strangers on the train ride back from rotterdam to brussels.  lovely gals.