8-31-2010 Are we ready to go yet?

I am really enjoying Amsterdam but it is getting to be time to leave. Earlier this summer, we shipped two bikes to europe and they have already arrived in Antwerp (Belgium) ready for pick-up. Our friends Bob and Jan have also arrived in Amsterdam; after years of trying to convince them to come ride with us they have finally come to Europe and will spend a month with us, riding through some great roads, eating new foods and hopefully having a wonderful time. The bikes, if you are curious, 2 GTS1000s, the same model that we have been riding for a long time.

Mike and Bob have taken the train to pick up the bikes, we've done our last round of sight seeing (including a visit to the fabulous Rijks museum and the Van Gogh museum). We've eaten our last Kip Sate with Pinda Saus as well. (That's another of our favorite Dutch foods which I forgot to tell you about; chicken on a skewer, dowsed with indonesian style peanut sauce with french fries on the side. Yummy!)

9-1-2010

All packed up, last minute errands taken care of and we're off! Tonights destination is not far, we will stop for the night in Maastricht, near the southern border of the Netherlands. (by the way, I am the one on the far right in the picture!)

Heading out of Amsterdam, it doesn't take long before we are abruptly in the country, riding through countryside full of cows and trees and improbably green pastures. The land is flat and green - incredibly green and the air is... erm.... aromatic from all the animals and farms along the way. Did I say there were lots of cows?

Speaking of cows, the milk they give contributes to the production of one of this country's most famous exports: cheese.

When we stop for lunch, we find one last pancake house before leaving the Netherlands, for a hearty lunch of carbs. Hmm.
A ham and cheese pancake sounds nice, but what kind of cheese do they use? When I ask the waitress, she looks at me as if the question was dumb. The answer is inevitable; "why, Dutch cheese, of course". 

In France, if you asked for "French cheese", you would get a blank look or one of confusion. In every region of France you will find a huge variety of cheeses for a large range of tastes. In Holland, though the choices are more limited; Gouda and its lower fat cousin Edam are the most common Dutch cheeses.  For more adventurous palates, one can try the Leidse cheese flavored with cumin, Frisian clove cheese, or Herb cheese flavored with ingredients such as chives, onion, or nettles...

I can't resist sneaking in these photos from Amsterdam, of a touristified traditional Dutch cheese shop with the enomous wax-covered wheels of cheese that weigh up to 26 pounds! On the shelves, you can see more wheels of cheese, ready to be cut, weighed and taken home.