Leiden

Leiden City Logo

We had a great weekend in Leiden visiting an Irish physicist who works for the European space agency and his wife, a German teacher, and their 18-month-old. They live in a narrow Dutch house with stairs almost as steep as ladders right in the city center. I've already gushed about visiting the Netherlands after we visited Groningen. Since we love bicycles, boats, windmills, and Dutch art and design, we always especially enjoy visits there. Plus those chocolate sprinkles to put on your morning bread. What's not to like?
We saw these long bikes with wooden boxes with benches. Once we saw one with four preschoolers sitting in it: two facing forward and two backward.

Long bike with attached children's box-seat

 

Saturday morning I got up early and borrowed Brian's bike to ride with Jill to the playground. Not much car traffic in the city, but lots of pedestrians and bikes. Later while the toddler napped, Brain took us to the local science museum. I liked the story behind this bow and arrow next to Einthoven's Nobel Prize for the invention of the electrocardiogram: "The recording of the first electrocardiogram was a typical do-it-yourself job. Einthoven and his assistants were forced to invent nearly all the equipment themselves and build it, too. In his laboratory even bow and arrow were useful instruments. After applying a tiny drop of molten quartz to the arrow, it was shot. Only fibres obtained by this method were thin enough for his string galvanometer." I also liked Onnes motto: "knowledge through measurement."

Einthoven's  1924 Nobel Prize certificate and bow and arrow used to make thin quartz strings

 

We ate Dutch pannenkoeken at an outdoor café by a canal for lunch. These are more like large crepes than pancakes. Then we met Jill and their child at the Saturday market to buy fish for dinner. The  Dutch eat raw herring on rolls and we stood beside a woman cleaning herring as fast as possible while the vendors called out for people to buy. Dutch is fun to listen to, with the throat-clearing sound sprinkled into what sounds halfway between German and English, although Jill says 30% of the words come from French.





Dutch pannekoek with goat cheese and walnuts

 

Brian took us on an afternoon boat ride through Leiden's canals. Very pleasant way to travel, though I was glad Brian was responsible for navigating the boat traffic jams waiting to get under the bridges. Many of the bridges are so low we had to duck.

View from the boat's prow looking out from under a bridge

 

They were having a music festival called Woodstock on the Water. Barges carrying 60s rock bands with exaggerated flower people costumes and wigs were being towed from place to place along the canals. Since it was perfect summer weather, the canals were crowded with all sorts of craft carrying party-ers out to enjoy the sunshine and music.

Woodstock band playing on a barge



Sunday morning we went 10 km. west to the beach. Rich and I had a long walk on the beach and then I went swimming, first swim in the ocean since New Zealand. Not warm, but no colder than Goleta beach. No waves to speak of. The beach was packed. There was a chair by the lifeguard station holding wristbands. Parents write their cell phone numbers on the bands in case their kids get lost at the beach. I was struck by how Dutch children need to navigate bicycle traffic and water. It would be easy to fall in a canal. We only saw one child on a boat wearing a life jacket.

Wristbands

 Lots of beautiful boats.

Boats with building with Dutch shutters

 



 We took the train to Düsseldorf, stayed overnight with a friend's mother, and picked up Ross and Alexander by train from the airport. Sarah comes tomorrow and then we'll have a full house.