Chris and I have officially surfed into our 4th borrowed house! Josefien’s sister Trijntje is letting us stay at her adorable little studio apt on a beautiful street. 

  
The toilet is in the hallway and the shower is in the kitchen but the big beautiful windows let in a ton of light! Even though it’s been raining non-stop this week! I know that cloudy with little falling cold needles of rain is classic Netherlands weather, but we’ve been so spoiled by sunny beach weather this summer. Aaaaand we don’t own any waterproof clothing.

So, we’ve been going to as many indoor things as possible. Luckily we invested in a Museumkaart, which is pretty much the best thing ever and I wish existed everywhere. It’s basically a card that costs 60 Euro up front but then you get free access to nearly every museum in the Netherlands for a year! Sooo, Chris and I have been living in and out of museums all summer. When we’re not on the beach.

Since it’s been in the 50s and 60s and raining all week, we’ve been on a museum binge. On Sunday we realized that there is a fotomuseum we haven’t seen yet so decided to stop by. When we showed up there was a line out the door and it turns out we showed up just minutes before one of the most famous rock photographers of all time, Anton Corbijn, did a signing at his exhibit! Aaand it was the very last day to see the exhibit! Perfect timing! 

  Chris and I oggled all of the gorgeous photos of Bowie, R.E.M, Arcade Fire and tons of others and then rode to see my grandmother’s old house where she grew up. She said when her father was sick with TB while she was a little girl, she’d visit him in the top room and they’d look out to the Scheveningen Lighthouse together. 

   
 It turns out, the house is currently for sale! So, we looked it up online and found a bunch of photos of the inside of the house. 🙂 http://m.funda.nl/koop/den-haag/appartement-49438236-van-slingelandtstraat-52-c/fotos/

Today, Chris and I went to see a huge, amazing car museum called the Louwman Museum. It’s about a 25 minute bike ride in the aforementioned evil spikey rain, but the museum is really amazing. So many cool vintage cars starting with horse drawn carriages and cars from every era and every unique shape and size.

   
    
  
I made Chris take a picture by this one because I thought it looked like pug.  
   
 We didn’t even make it through half of the collection so we’re planning a return trip.  We had a mini “feast” (chocolate cake, baby coke, bierjes & jenever!) in the huge, beautiful cafe which is probably my favourite part of the whole museum.  It’s set up to look like a street from the turn of the century with old storefronts and… well, it’s really hard to describe, but trust me, it’s awesome!

Since it’s been so rainy, we decided to stop by the Albert Heijn “XL” and buy things for dinner and cocktails! I’ve been thinking about dying my hair purple again, but haven’t been able to find purple hair dye anywhere, so I settled on a bright red I found at the super market. So, tonight Chris and I have been drinking delicious cocktails made with the bizarre but delicious fancy sodas I found, I dyed my hair & we ended up watching a marathon of the Teen Nick show “Victorious” which Chris and I have been laughing way too much at. And That 70s Show. And the TV at Trijntje’s is very dapper and wears a hat. 

  
 
  
Also, the shower in the kitchen has some difficulty draining, so it looked like a giant shower of gazpacho when I was done rinsing out my hair. 

 Good night everyone! More updates soon!

Tomorrow we’re heading to Delft to conquer the tower at the Nieuwe Kerk! Tot Ziens!

As Requested and much awaited, here is my list of the little things I’ve noticed about The Netherlands that make it unique. To get things started off on the right foot, we’ll jump right into talking about toilets! On family vacations abroad while I was growing up, my siblings can attest, I was weirdly obsessed with different toilets. You never knew there could be so many forms to serve a function! And where our toilets in the US are pretty much identical from sea to shining sea, in the rest of the world they seem to differ from house to house. I used to take photos of them and always thought I would make a collection of all of the various types I came across. I’m sure my mom probably thought I was just a creep when she went to get our film developed (camera film, whaat?!). But I digress… In Holland there are a couple of things I’ve never noticed before in other places I’ve trekked across Europe. Firstly and most awkwardly, it has a bit of a “landing” before the bowl where everything sort of sits before being washed away. Why in the world this exists other than to create aroma issues, I have no idea. Someone told me it had to do with water conservation, but it takes quite a bit of water just to flush things off of this landing. So, I’m calling bs on that one. pun intended.    I hope Josefien forgives me for posting a photo of her toilet on the Internet. In other bathroom news in Holland, their toilet paper here is really thick! 4 ply is standard, and if you’re being cheap, you can buy 3 ply. 2 ply hardly exists and I’m pretty sure is only for hobos in the lowest tiers of society.   Third and last potty related observation about The Netherlands is that using the restroom publicly is hardly EVER free of charge. Getting a beer at a bar? Still gotta pay 50 cents to pee! Paid 20 Euro to get into this music festival? I invite you to wait in this long line to pay 50 cents for the privilege of peeing in this port-a-potty! Even waiting on a platform at a Train Station for a train to come, you must pay to use the toilet. (Although I should mention that the aforementioned quality of toilet paper here never wavers)  I feel personally conflicted about this because I’ve had multiple conversations about how i would gladly pay a nominal fee to use a nice public restroom in large cities in NYC where it seems entirely impossible to find public restrooms. And my sister Molly has frequently told me terrible stories about how residents of NYC will just not drink water to avoid having to find a restroom and then passed out from dehydration but the city refuses to get public restrooms that require pay for use because it just “isn’t right to have to pay to use the restroom”. Stuck doing the pee dance in the middle of times square, I would gladly pay to use a restroom, but somehow it just feels wrong that I paid 8 Euro to see the windmill at Kinderdijk and yet am still obliged to pay 50 cents to relieve my bladder. On to better and less potty-related items… BIKES!       I know the Dutch are famous for their biking, and not without reason, their biking infrastructure is second to none and every street you go down will have at least 50 bikes parked along the sidewalk. Our housemate told us that there are more bikes in Holland than there are people and I definitely believe it. Along every major road there is a bike path. And not just a “lane” on the street, it has it’s own road parallel to the road but separate even with it’s own traffice signals, adorably in the shape of a bike. There are also bike paths running from city to city cutting right through beautiful farm land and very well maintained! Chris and I have taken advantage of these extensive bike paths in the last few weeks taking on long bike trips from city to city.  

 And people of all ages bike here which is so amazing But don’t be fooled by how cute little old dutch ladies on bikes look, the dutch take their bike lanes very seriously and don’t suffer fools going the wrong way or taking up too much room in the lane lightly. I had a woman purposefully knock me off of my bike because she was incensed that I was going the wrong way in the lane. We also learned that the bell on a bike should only be used when necessary to let someone know they’re in the way or doing something wrong. When we first arrived, I rang my bell just to let a lady know I was passing her on the left and she was INCENSED that I had rung my bell at her. She let me know by throwing me an angry look and ringing her bell at me incessantly as I passed. But the Dutch also show a lot of affection in the way they ride bikes. I’ve seen the best and strangest things happen on bikes in the time we’ve been here. I’ve seen couples holding hands and kissing while riding their respective bikes, I’ve seen them carry their friends and family on the back and front of their bikes. I once saw three grown men sharing a single bike. It’s really impressive. But they also carry their babies, too! Apart from the magic of the Bakfiets, which is essentially a bike modfied to have a big wooden compartment for kids to ride in in the front, many people here have carriers on the front and backs of their bikes, or tandem bikes made for one adult and one child, and I even once saw a man just carrying an infant in his arms while riding home from the beach. Yesteday Chris and I saw a couple that were holding hands while one rode a bike and the other was skating on a long board.       They can also carry a 24 case of beer with one hand while riding home on a bike and have crates designed just for this purpose. Aptly, the Duolingo app Chris and I have been practicing our Dutch with used this phrase last week:   I’m sure I’ll be using this phrase all the time… Another cool aspect of the bike culture in NL is that bikes get flyered at music events!       Another strange aspect of Dutch life is that they love to drink little beers. At pretty much any restaurant or bar, you can order for 2 or 3 euro, a “bierje” which is just a beer served in a small glass.    While this is really pleasant with dinner, it is a little weird at a festival or event. As I mentioned in a previous blog, they have amazing festivals nearly every weekend in the summer. 🙂 But at these festivals you wait in line to buy a 2 Euro beer twice the size of a dixie cup. Since no one wants to wait in line every time they finish a tiny beer, you can get them in little cardboard cup holders in sets of 6! Which I actually find adorable and charming, but it leads to little baby cups littering the ground everywhere you walk because trash cans are impossible to find.    When Chris and I were at a huge free festival called ParkPop, there were little kids running around collecting these disposed cups and turning them into veritable art installations and forts! That part was actually pretty cool. I’ve also noticed that the Dutch don’t seem to ever use top sheets in their beds. Chris and I have been house surfing a lot and staying in various places and each bed seems to come standard with a fitted sheet below and just a feather duvet with a duvet cover on top! Growing up in the Texas heat and being used to sleeping under just a sheet, this particular oddity of Holland drives me a little crazy at night. It’s too hot under the covers and too cold out of them!  Not that I’m complaining, we’ve been totally blessed with amazing places to stay, but it’s my job to come up with these random tidbits, ya know. Speaking of sleepless nights, the birds here are CRAZY! Chris and I will frequently wake up in the night both laughing because of the bizarre noises the apparently mutant seagulls make here. Sometimes it sounds like they’re laughing maniacally, sometimes it sounds other worldly. I’m never short of amazed by the crazy sounds of birds here. I took a short video the other night for your amusement:    And while we’re on the topic of weird videos, here’s a video of our neighbor trying to vacuum up some of her clothes that fell down from her drying rack and landed on the roof below.    It should also be mentioned that virtually no one owns a dryer here (as is common in most of Europe) and, randomly, their washing machines have wash cycles ranging from 2 hours at the shortest and 4 hours at the longest. To end this unusually long post, I’ll just say that other things we’re getting used to here in our own experience are little things like not having ridden in a car in 2 months! Going from spending at least an hour in my car every day in the states, it feels a little weird! And I haven’t blow dryed my hair in 8 weeks! Also, they laugh at the idea that American grocery stores have baggers that bag your groceries. Silly Americans…here the checkers throw your items to their left and have a big lever that sweeps them to one side so they can b Next post, I’ll tell the harrowing tale of getting stung in the eye by a bee in a gigantic rose garden! ❤

5,133 miles away from the hellish summers of San Antonio, I think I finally understand what all the excitement is about. Sure, I’ve spent weeks at a time traveling to various destinations during long summers, but this is the first summer I’ve spent almost entirely in a place where the weather is almost disgustingly pleasant throughout 90% of summer. It’s amazing!

Most mornings we wake up to a nice breeze blowing in through the windows and a greenish light reflecting off off lush tree leaves. The weather is always somewhere between 65-75 degrees fahrenheit with varying levels of blustery wind.

    

 Because of this beautiful weather, pretty much everything that can be outside, will be outside. There are festivals and outdoor get togethers every weekend. At the aforementioned surfer house we’ve stayed at, Chris and I have already attended more outdoor BBQs in the last 5 weeks than the last 2 years in BBQ-obsessed Texas.

Last week there was a huge freak summer storm and they had to move one such festival inside. It was moved to a huge indoor venue/complex called Paard van Troje (Trojan Horse) – The bartender at the show happened to be a girl I had met at a BBQ a few weeks earlier and she told me that that venue is actually closed entirely throughout summer because most live music is played outdoors in festivals! They actually had to re-stock all of their beer, liquor, etc that morning to have it ready for that night.

Despite the unbelievably beautiful weather, most days Chris and I find ourselves in our natural night-owl routine of staying up playing music, reading books, watching movies and writing until 4 am and sleeping in until noon. In the afternoons we try to stuff in as many museum visits as possible. In The Netherlands they have an annual membership card that covers 90% of all of the museums and its only $60! With our “Museumkaart” in hand, Chris and I feel like we have the key to the city and sometimes like we’re part of a very fancy elite card carrying group. Then at night we bike around the city or go on long walks and Chris eats copious amounts of raw Herring.

It was nice to take a few weeks off of playing gigs, especially after we played a gig nearly every night the week before we flew from SA. But recently we’ve gotten back into the habit of practicing and hope to record an EP here in The Hague soon! Last week on a whim, we googled Open Mic Nights in the Hague and ended up at an adorable little place called Cafe de Bieb. I knew it was the place for us as soon as I realized they have my new favourite belgian beer, La Chouffe, and not only because it has this adorable little kabouter on it :

We met the organizer to put our name down and he was incredibly nice and inviting and noted that he and Chris both have the same issue constantly trying to swoop their hair out of their eyes. Our first surprise was that every performer sang and introduced themselves in English although the vast majority of performers and audience members seemed to be Dutch. The 2nd thing I noticed was that, unlike every other open mic I’ve been to, everyone in the audience was listening intently instead of talking amongst themselves, clinking beer glasses or perusing social media on their phones. The cafe itself is pretty small with only a handful of tables, made smaller by the section of tables that’s been torn away to make room for the stage. It’s packed with people all standing around the stage and bar huddled together watching the performers. Chris and I played our set of three songs and got a really great reception.

  
The organizer approached us and said he’d filmed one of our songs to send to a promoter in Leiden who needs an act to fill a slot at a festival on the canal this weekend! So, with that we finally booked our first legit gig. Now just to figure out how to get up to Leiden…

On Saturday night I decided to make some homemade butterbeer and give a crack at reading the first Harry potter book in Dutch from Josefien’s collection.  

 I was surprised by how easy it was for me to pick up on most of the language pretty quickly but mostly surprised that most of the characters’ names are changed! Getting used to Dumbledore being Perkamentus and the Dudleys as Duffelings was getting a bit overwhelming so Chris and I decided to watch the HP7 movie instead, as we’ve been very slowly rewatching them over the last few months. All coked up on HP excitement, we ended up staying up till 3 am. And then, like many of my ill advised drunken ideas begin, we decided to ride our bikes the hour up to Leiden instead of dealing with the train. And, bonus, save 8 Euros! Woo!
That was, until the alarm went off at 8:30 and we attempted to peel ourselves out of our sleepy stupors. We had to be at the park by 11 and at 9:30 I had the realization, hey Libby, don’t you come from a long lineage of people that are chronically tardy? We dragged ourselves out the door at 9:50 am and resolved to hoof it! NBD, right? Wrong. It was somehow the most stressful and grueling bike ride that seemed to never end! Although we weren’t too cranky to notice the absolutely spectacular scenery around us, we were probably too sleepy to really appreciate it.  

  

  

 Soaked in sweat, we arrived only a mere 20 minutes late, and were done with our sound check in 5 minutes.

   
  The festival is called PickNick and was a super adorable free event with music, kids crafts, families and food. Chris and I played for the first time as an official duo. We are now playing officially under the moniker, “Madlaw”! We played a set of new and old tunes that we crafted 10 minutes before the set while trying to both sit in a hammock adjacent to the stage.  
    
   

The set went great. I think my favourite part was seeing people riding past the park on their bikes get off just to stand and watch us for a while. The weather could not have been nicer and we laid on the grass by the canal enjoying the music and watching boats go by and little adorably weird kids yell and scream in dutch in the kids section.

 Now we were in a quandary. We were too exhausted to stay but too tired to take the loong hour and half ride home. So we settled on getting strong beers at this adorable pub in Leiden before trekking back home. We had some delicious beers in a historic bar called De Bonte Kuh in the shadow of a massive 14th century church.       
  Newly fueled, we trucked it back home arriving home just as my phone navigation died. But along the way we rode past picturesque Dutch countryside and even met a family of swans!   

    
    
    
    
 
And…as you might imagine, today, the next day, was spent lazing around the house and soothing our achey bodies with a marathon of Wet Hot American Summer: The First Day of Camp. We’ve earned it! haha My knees hurt, New post about the weird things we’ve encountered in Holland tomorow!