Randall Golhof

Because Stupidbook has a habit of randomly showing and disappearing posts, here is a list of my daily posts for my trip to Europe.

Sun Aug 4 – Back in Netherlands for the first time since 1975
Mon Aug 5 – Hotel Pulitzer
Mon Aug 5 – Those Dam Boat Guys Reservation
Tue Aug 6 – Royal Palace
Tue Aug 6 – Those Dam Boat Guys Tour
Wed Aug 7 – Insane Camera Day
Wed Aug 7 – The Red Light District
Thu Aug 8 – The Rijksmuseum Not On Acid
Thu Aug 8 – Vondelpark
Thu Aug 8 – The National Maritime Museum
Thu Aug 8 – The Amsterdam Lookout
Fri Aug 9 – Off To Amersfoort
Sat Aug 10 – De Haar Castle
Sun Aug 11 – The Onze Lieve Vrouwetoren – Our Lady’s Tower
Sun Aug 11 – A Stroll Around Amersfoort
Mon Aug 12 – Observations About Netherlands and the Dutch People
Mon Aug 12 – Off To Oslo
Tue Aug 13 – Doing Oslo
Wed Aug 14 – Telemark At Last
Thu Aug 15 – Driving from Dalen to Stavangar – Over the Plateau
Fri Aug 16 – Priekstolen
Sat Aug 17 – Pining For The Fjords
Sun Aug 18 – Edvard Grieg and To Hellesøy And Back
Mon Aug 19 – Oh I Hear Bergen In The Rain
Tue Aug 20 – On to Flåm then to Myrdal and Back Again
Wed Aug 21 – Flåm to Geiranger – A Spectacular Drive
Thu Aug 22 – Only 3 Ferries To Ålesund
Fri Aug 23 – Around Ålesund
Sat Aug 24 – Around Ålesund and Islands Beyond
Sun Aug 25 – The End Of Norway
Mon Aug 26 – The Beginning Of Iceland
Tue Aug 27 – Strolling About Reykjavik
Wed Aug 28 – The Invisible Snæfellsjökull
Thu Aug 29 – Finally The Westfjords
Fri Aug 30 – Falls, Flora and Ísafjörður
Sat Aug 31 – Sunny Day At The Edge Of The World
Sun Sep 1 – From The Edge Of The World To Sunny Reykjavik
Mon Sep 2 – Þingvellir, Perlan, and the Disturbing Sculpture Garden
Tue Sep 3 – Home For A Rest

Tallness

Dutch men are the tallest in the world. Dutch women are the second tallest (after Latvia – go figure?) In Canada I am used to being above average height (it probably helps that there are so many Asians and that is NOT racist to observe.) I am 5’11” and in Canada the average male height is 5’8.5″. Here in Netherlands the average male height is 6’0″. When I mentioned this in a bar one guy asked me if I drank milk, which I stopped doing over 40 years ago. Perhaps that explains it. You will also notice how unusually tall the women are. There may be some isolated tribes in Africa that are taller, but as far as nations go, this is the land of giants.

Transit

The Netherlands public transit system is the best in the world. There are some here who do not believe that, but they have never taken a bus in Vancouver. It helps that the country is small, densely populated, and flat as a pancake. Look at a map of Europe – the highways and railroads are way more concentrated here than elsewhere, including England, France and Germany which all have good transit systems. I took the train between Schipol, Amsterdam and Amersfoort and they were right on time, fast, and mostly empty (at least in first class – it’s worth paying the premium and it is still pretty cheap.)

Agriculture

It may be hard to believe but tiny Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food after the US. Even more than Canada and we export a lot of food. This country may have the most productive farm land on the planet and has a mild and wet climate, which I suppose a lot of plants like. It is also by far the largest exporter of flowers, and not just tulips.

Small Beers

By default if you order a beer, they will serve you 25 cl. Yes liquids are all in centilitres here and that is about half a pint. You can ask for a 50 cl (a proper pint) glass. It’s worth doing because the service is not very good and who knows when someone will come around and take your order for another. I mentioned this to one bartender who said it’s because people don’t want the beer to get warm. I replied they don’t drink fast enough, but I was polite and did not mention I order the large drinks because the service sucks.

Tipping

On that note, the service is poor by North American standards because there is generally no tipping, at least in pubs. Often you pay for each drink at the time of ordering – at least that is fast because you can just wave your card at the machine. Consequently the staff have a much more laid-back approach to customer service. For this reason I usually order at the bar and then sit down, or just sit at the bar if I don’t want to sit outside. At least then there is almost always a bartender within hailing distance.

Kissing

Everyone kisses 3 times on the cheeks as a greeting, or at least the women do! As a reserved person I am not used to that, but while meeting my relatives I was able to tolerate, and eventually even enjoy the spirit of it. Do not expect me to bring this custom home to Canada – I am the same curmudgeon I always was.

Bicycles

There are more bicycles in Netherlands than people and everybody rides at least one. It helps that the bicycle infrastructure is mature – there are bike lanes everywhere and have been forever. Oh and did I mention the country is flat as a pancake – that sure helps. The city centres are mostly devoid of cars. You have to get used to watching for bikes like you always have to do with cars. I have had a couple of close calls. Oh, and NOBODY WEARS A HELMET. Yay freedom! You’ll get a ticket for that in Vancouver. I think if you can’t ride a bike without crashing, you should not ride a bike.

Transit Tickets

They really have this figured out. For the trams in Amsterdam I bought a 5-day card from a machine. You scan it whenever you get on or off the tram – this is so if you have a timed card for say 1 hour the system knows if you have not gone beyond the time you have paid for. It is similar with the trains. For instance I bought a ticket from Amsterdam to Amersfoort, which required a train change in Utrecht, and had the boarding pass on my phone. You scan it when you enter the departure train station and again when you leave the station at your destination. Presumably the system will know if you went further than what you paid for. This also means once you are in the train system no-one checks your ticket no matter how many or which trains you take to get to your destination. You could even buy a second class ticket and just enter a first class car and I don’t think anyone would know. The Dutch are either too honest or have not figured this out.

Recycling

In Vancouver everything is recycled now. My condo has blue boxes for glass, plastic, cardboard, paper, electronics and organics for composting. Surprisingly there isn’t much of that here. In Amsterdam, the shops and cafes throw their bags of garbage out on the sidewalk for pickup, just like they do in Manhattan. I saw bags full of plastic bottles just mixed in with other crap. I was a bit surprised.

Maturity

The Dutch society is a mature society. It has had a thousand years to grow up. Canadians are immature by comparison. For instance, although it is technically not allowed, if you drink a beer in a park nobody will bother you. And of course there is that famous Red Light District. The motto (which I have instinctively had all my life) is:
Do what you want, just don’t be a dick about it.
Really, that’s all you need to do to be civilized. But no, we can’t have that in Canada. We’re too young and immature. If drinking a beer in a park was allowed, in no time there would be hordes of drunken idiots causing chaos and mayhem everywhere. That is why we can’t have nice things.

Dangerous Trams

Yes they look dangerous. While the don’t go very fast, they do snake along narrow streets that are filled with bikes and pedestrians. If you saw the video I made of a tram ride in Amsterdam, you will see how people and bikes were crossing right in front of the tram and missing by a fraction of a second. Yet nobody seems to get hit because I assume they learn to do this as a child, much as we were taught to look both ways before crossing the street. If we had trams like this in Vancouver, there would be daily carnage and deaths. This is another indication of Dutch maturity and Canadian immaturity.

Public Urination

Is encouraged, at least for those currently identifying as male. Along the canals in Amsterdam and Amersfoort you see these not very private plastic urinals stands. Looks like you just sidle up, whip it out and do your thing in front of crowds of people. Yuck. I did not do this because I am willing to pay for a beer at a pub to use their washroom. Apparently a leading cause of death in Amsterdam is drowning in a canal. They have to keep fishing dead drunken men out of the canals with their fly’s unzipped and their dicks hanging out. I suspect they are all tourists.

Dutch Women

Trigger Warning – Toxic Masculinity Alert:
Dutch women are the most beautiful in the world. Admittedly there are some obscure bits of the world I have not yet seen, but I am confident in my observation. As a misanthrope (in general, not specifically) I’m not the “people-watching” type, but as a straight white male of the patriarchy who refuses to check his privilege, I really noticed it everywhere. The women are all tall, slender, mostly blonde (not that there is anything wrong with brunette) and at that point you hardly even need much in the way of facial beauty, but they have that too. I am not as discerning a judge of male beauty but I can assume the guys are pretty handsome in general. It helps that the Dutch are not fat, similar to France and Iceland but NOT England or North America.

I’ll be traveling to Europe soon. Here are some tips to make the traveling easier and more enjoyable. Forgive the personal anecdotes – making mistakes is how you get smarter.

Investigate and plan your trip well ahead of time

OK, you have limited time and a pretty good idea of where you are going and what you want to do. If you just want to fly somewhere and hitchhike randomly and stay in hostels, this post is not for you.

The Internet was invented for this. The best program ever written is Google Earth. Some think Google Maps is just as good for this but they are wrong. You can look at anywhere on earth from above, and most civilized places in Street View. Use it to see where you are going. It can show you where roads, trains, lodging, restaurants and pretty much anything else is. It shows transit stops.

flights.google.com is good for showing you all reasonable flights to where you are going. Book your flights on the airline’s website.

You can use tripadvisor.ca to show you all the amenities in a particular location. It’s worth reading the comments (ignore the really negative ones – those people are probably jerks in real life.) Use travelocity.ca to see what hotels are available for a particular date. When you decide on a hotel, go to their website and book there; travelocity, hotels.com and the other aggregate sites charge you ahead of time. That seems like an unnecessary hassle and risk. Hotels don’t usually charge you up front. Don’t believe other sites have a better price – they don’t. You can look at travelocity to compare car rentals. Again, book them at the rental company website.

Reserve your flights, rental cars and hotels well ahead of time

I assume the first things you have planned are your dates of travel, your itinerary and flights, and whether you need a car at times. If not, this post is probably not for you. However most people have limited time and certain things they want to see or do.

Airplane flights are cheaper the earlier you book. Hotels and rental cars may become scarce at busy times. When I visited France for the Vimy Ridge ceremony in 2017, I knew when I planned it that thousands of Canadians were going to be there at the same time. The nearest city, Lille, is not that big, and I figured that they would have the biggest influx of foreigners since World War 2 (for a better reason), so I booked everything there 9 months in advance. I was not wrong. I checked into my hotel in Lille the day before, and while peacefully enjoying a beer at the bar that evening, a busload of Canadian teenagers and their chaperones showed up whose bookings were messed up and there were no spare rooms in the entire city. I picked up my reserved car at the train station the next morning, and I pity someone who was relying on renting a car at the last minute.

Reserve special tours or events ahead of time

There are some things you might want to do that require a reservation well in advance. My favourite personal example is ascending the Statue of Liberty all the way up to the crown in New York. Thankfully I checked well ahead of time, and it turns out you have to reserve a spot several months in advance to do this. You can show up any time to go up to the base, but any higher requires a reservation. Note there are something like 377 stairs to climb!

Interestingly, I was able to attend 5 Broadway plays in New York (including Hamilton) without booking well ahead of time. It probably helped that I was single and traveling in November. The hotel concierge directed me to a local website that had tickets for these plays, including resale tickets from people who couldn’t make it. This might not work well at busier times or if you are not single.

Reserve your airline seats ahead of time, and check in as early as possible

Having a seat assignment in advance is the single closest thing to a guarantee you’ll actually depart with your flight. After all, if a flight is full, it makes sense that the first people to bump are those without seat reservations. Sure it costs extra, but that is going to be a very small part of the cost of your vacation. You do not want the hassle of missing a flight if you can avoid it.

After that, the last passengers to check in for the flight are typically the ones who find themselves bumped involuntarily. You can usually check in and get your boarding pass 24 hours ahead of time on your phone if you have the airline’s app. So do it.

Reserve your airplane seat at the rear of the aircraft

The best reason for this is that if the plane is not full, the empty seats are going to be at the rear because most people don’t want to sit back there, presumably because there is some advantage in egressing the aircraft a few minutes earlier. So what if it takes 5 minutes longer to get out – you’re not going to be waiting 30+ minutes at the baggage carousel because you didn’t check a bag (see below.) And when the plane stops, don’t stand up immediately like everyone else does. That’s just stupid – it’s going to take a while.

I prefer a window seat, so that is the best chance of having an empty seat beside me. You never know if you are going to be seated next to a screaming child or a fat pig. Also if there are more empty seats elsewhere, feel free to just move there. I’ve done this, the flight attendants won’t care.

The other reason is that more and more people are bringing maximum sized bags on board. If you board late there may not be room in the overhead bins, and your bag may be moved to the hold. You don’t want that because that is the reason you travel with a carry on bag (see below.) Being seated at the rear means you board early when there is plenty of room for your bag.

I don’t worry about it, but there is some circumstantial evidence to support the theory that people at the rear of an airplane have a better chance of survival in the event of a crash.

Rent a small, cheap, automatic car

I travel alone these days, so don’t need anything more than the smallest and cheapest car I can get. If you are a couple, that would apply to you too. Why would you need anything bigger and more expensive? When you are in Europe, everything is smaller. The roads are narrower and may not have shoulders. Lots of roads in the UK have a stone wall or hedge right on the edge and you have to worry about your rear-view mirrors hitting it (ask me how I know – or maybe don’t.) The parking spaces are really narrow. Who need that hassle?

I drove a standard for decades so I know what I’m talking about. In Europe it seems most people drive standards, and the rental cars are mostly standard. That’s fine on the motorways and even in the cities, but when I was driving narrow rural one-lane roads in the UK it required constant vigilance, a steely grip on the stickshift, and continuous changing of gears. An automatic would have been way more relaxing. You can rent an automatic for not much more than a standard so why not?

Keep all booking emails and boarding passes on your phone

This is not hard to do, if you access your email with your phone. I keep emails for a particular trip in its own folder. Your airline’s app will allow you to check in and carry a boarding pass that you don’t need to print. The airport scanners can read it off your phone.

Pack light – do not check a bag onto your flight

OK, I’ve traveled with women before, so this may not apply to you. I can travel indefinitely with a carry-on bag, and a small shoulder bag for my tablet and some misc stuff I might want to carry around while sightseeing during the day and stopping at pubs museums. Here’s what I pack: a laptop, two extra shirts, a Canada flag lapel pin for each shirt, a few pairs of socks and underwear, a toilet bag with toothbrush, toothpaste and spare contacts and solution. And that bag holds more electronics stuff, such as power adapter, usb cables, a cellphone caddy for the rental car, and a high-gain wifi antenna for hotels with poor wifi. Wear clothing that is made of substances not found in nature, so you can easily wash and air-dry them in your hotel room if they start to get a bit rank.

The very best reason is you don’t have to wait at the airport baggage carousel, and then it is much easier to travel around with one bag you can strap to your back. Here’s the one I use: https://www.mec.ca/en/product/5063-408/Never-Check-Duffel

When traveling, I actually wear a small man-purse around my waist, and don’t use pockets. It’s hard to pickpocket, and it holds passport, wallet, phone, keys for hotel/car and spare change. I keep the camera in a shirt pocket. Get into the habit of constantly checking that nothing is missing. Get into that habit in all the rest of your life, and you’ll never lose any of those things.

Don’t forget all necessary electronics and connectors

Twice now I have had to find a drugstore and buy a $15 USB connector that you can get for $1 on Amazon. I need a bunch of electronics and connectors: European power adapter, laptop and power supply, iPod and Apple connector, old iPod and old Apple connector, cellphone and USB, tablet and USB, external hi-gain wifi antenna and USB, camera and USB, USB expander for a laptop that only has 3 USB ports, phone caddy for rental cars, and probably more I forget offhand. Make an inventory before you leave.

Have Some Local Currency

This is mostly not necessary as everywhere civilized takes plastic for everything, but it’s worth some insurance. On the Isle of Skye, my rather remote hotel and bar were on satellite internet, which was sporadic to put it optimistically. People were not able to use their cards for a while, but I was able to pay for my beers with cash. Another time when I flew to Chicago to drive to Oshkosh, it turns out the highways are tolled. Imagine my surprise when the tollbooth didn’t take anything but US currency (not Canadian). They gave me an envelope so I could mail the toll in later, and I dutifully sent them three American quarters for the 75 cent toll when I got home.

Bring a phone caddy for the car

It’s a lot easier to navigate when you have Google Maps. Quite possibly infinitely easier (meaning you won’t get to your destination without it.) Last time in Europe, it was a bit of a pain, and a little risky, to balance the phone on my thigh for a long drive. Also if you want the screen on for hours at a time, you’ll drain the battery pretty quickly. Get a phone caddy that plugs into the cigarette lighter and has a charger. I haven’t used it yet but I just got this one: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B074SF4L8B

Take lots of pictures

You’re probably unlikely to visit many of these places again. When in your dotage and losing your long-term memory, how else are you going to remember the best experiences of your life? Photos and lots of them, well organized on your computer.

When I was younger, rationing photos was necessary. It would cost about 50 cents in film and developing cost per picture, and my budget was limited, so you had to be serious about every shot. Now of course, photos cost nothing. Might as well take hundreds of pictures, and delete only the really bad ones. Keep the mediocre ones, you will thank yourself when you are 92 years old. Take pictures of not just touristy stuff: your hotel and room, restaurants, bars, streetscapes, everything and everywhere you go.

I’m a bit fussy in this way – it’s worth having a good quality digital camera. Some high-end phones with tiny little lenses these days are pretty good, but there are certain laws of optical physics they cannot violate. Software makes up for some of this, but won’t quite substitute for a Zeiss 30x zoom lens. It’s a huge advantage to get a camera that has an extendable viewfinder that you can use in bright sunlight, unlike the LCD display on a phone. I use this one these days: https://www.sony.com/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-hx90v

Post on Facebook every day

Everybody knows the Facebook site really sucks  (you’d think 10,000 programmers could do a better job), but everyone in the world is on it, and it will probably last forever. I have a blog on WordPress, but it is more difficult to create photo and video albums there, so I’ll give Facebook that.

This isn’t for everyone. At the end of the day, I like to write up a short, hopefully entertaining description of what happened that day, and post an album of pictures and videos. I mean ALL the pictures and videos that weren’t deleted because they were awful. It’s not my problem if other people don’t want to spend the time necessary to view and appreciate them. I am not doing this for other people. As I said above, I am doing this for me, so I can revisit the trip in my later years.

If you’ve never heard of it, St Kilda is a small group of islands off the west coast of Scotland, farther west than the Outer Hebrides where Stornoway is. If you go due west from there, the next landfall is Labrador.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland

I became fascinated with this extremely remote place many years ago when I bought a book on life on St Kilda. The main island, Hirta, has been occupied for thousands of years. In more recent centuries the residents were totally Scottish, adhering to the Church of Scotland, raising sheep, fishing, and living in stone bothys and cottages with turf roofs common in the Highlands. The most unusual thing about their lifestyle was collecting eggs from and catching the millions of seabirds that nest there.

There were never more than perhaps 200 residents, and fewer than 100 in later years. In 1930 it was decided to evacuate the island and the remaining 37 residents take up life on mainland Scotland. There were several reasons why life had become untenable, including the young men leaving for jobs on the mainland, crop failure, and over-fishing by trawlers in the area. Life was always hard on St Kilda but was becoming unsustainable. Since then there have been some military personnel there, and some tourist visits. It is now owned by the National Trust of Scotland and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@57.8129643,-8.5702783,4285m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

I want to visit there! I mean who wouldn’t, amirite? There is a company that offers day tours from the Isle of Harris near Stornoway. Next time I go to Scotland!

http://www.seaharris.co.uk/

Why do I bring this up (why would anyone?) I recently discovered an English film made in 1937 about the evacuation of St Kilda, and the conflict that caused amongst the islanders before the final decision was made. It is surprisingly good and kind of touching, and I’ve never been a fan of old movies. It was filmed in the Shetland Islands, but the geography is pretty similar. You can view on Youtube – only 857 views so far. You can be number 858! To keep track of the plot the Wikipedia entry for the film is good, the actors speak pretty fast in a Scottish accent, just don’t read to far ahead!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge_of_the_World

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoiyXr9Beyc

How to create a travel map with images for the day.
Assumes:
Android phone with Google Maps location services turned on
Camera that does not geostamp image files
Camera and phone date/time are the same
Exiftool is installed: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html

Create today’s directory YYYYMMDD.

Upload images from camera – for a Sony HSC-HX90V these are 4320×2432 pixels, about 4MB.

Export the track from Google Maps to a KML file.

Geostamp the images from the track file.
From a command shell:
YYYYMMDD> exiftool -geotag track.kml .

Resize the images for more efficient web upload and TV viewing. I use Windows Live Photo which can do a batch resize to a subdir, with a custom size of max dimension=1920 (good for viewing on TV or ipad.)

To convert mp4 to smaller size:
Run Prism Plus by NCH Software
In Options/Conversions/DecoderOptions select “Use FFMPEG”
Save as 1280×720 at low quality