On our way up north to the hotel we stopped at Afsluitdijk, which separates the Wad Sea to create a large in-land lake that they are slowly trying to drain to gain more land in the Netherlands.
This is a map of the northern part of the Netherlands. We are sitting on the big red dot. The grey is land, the dark grey is land they have drained the lake to get.
Tungky
Yaroslav and Erin
Joost, Alina, Mireia, Fabian
Marjoline is driving the car and we are following the van with the very frustrating TomTom.
A random rail road crossing. Note the smaller arms are for the bike paths, the longer arms are for the driving paths.
This is why the Netherlands does not allow Genetically Modified Crops.
Dutch country side...much like Michigan or the rest of the midwest...amazing!
Winding country roads.
Small little Dutch towns. (yes, I know I was just repetitively redundant.)
But you know it's a real town because it has a windmill.
In Pieterburen (the city we stayed in) they have a seal rescue. They even have a seal ambulance that looks exactly like people ambulances here in the Netherlands. Your Dutch lesson for the day: seals are called Zeehonden or Sea Hounds.
We went inside and got to see all the Zeehonden they had rescued recently and who were still recovering.
I understand why they are called Sea hounds, they like to roll around on their backs like dog, they have big, sad, watery eyes like dogs and they bark like dogs.
This is the pile of nets collected. The nets get wrapped around seals' necks and they choke or are cut to death. It's pretty gruesome, and this pile of nets is very large.
This little Zeehond is all by himself, but he seems to fit the quintessential cartoon depiction of seal.
http://www.zeehondencreche.nl/home/home_e.htm You too could adopt a seal.
For dinner it was "we kill it, you grill it". So the restaurant put out all the food and lit the grill and told us to cook our own. So we had to get an american gothic pose with our grill ware.
Behind the restaurant is a playground. Erin, Alina, Fatemeh and I had to go back and jump around.
Midgetgolfbaan? I can only assume that means miniature golf...well, I guess that's not the only thing I could assume...
Alina is still going. Erin is defeated!
Erin having fun.
Later on Tungky joined us.
Now Alina is defeated and Tungky is still going!
Then came Joost.
Finally, so did Marjoline.
ready to set off
does it look like desert?
Crossing the deepest water
Waiting for the ferry after caught by a heavy rain
heading to the ferry
on the ferry
