Raphael Kessler

The first time I went to the Netherlands I was too young to appreciate some of the national products. It was actually the last family holiday we all went on for about a dozen years. The most memorable bits being a phenomenal Schnitzel Holstein I had at 'De Kanal Restaurant' my brother putting his foot through the front door of the place we were staying, when I slammed it on him, and boring drives across country, with the occasional windmill to break the monotony. Oh yeah, there were some pictures of sunflowers in a museum.

I have since returned to Holland to several times, to see friends and get some Hopjes (coffee sweets) and Drop (Liquorice sweets), go diving, see concerts by both Dutch and international artists amongst other reasons. 

One time I voted in their general election for a dead bald homosexual. Apparently the fellow did quite well, it makes you wonder what would happen if he actually won the election, would they wheel in the coffin for the inauguration, Prime Minister's Question Time would be a bit dreary as well.

Driving around with my friend the number of windmills about was really quite ridiculous, they seem to be outnumbered only by bicycles, they even have multi-storey bicycle parks (photo 1).

The Amster Dam itself is no longer actually a dam but a big phallic monument in the town centre (photo 1). The train station was one of the more impressive looking buildings I saw (photo 2). The typical buildings in Amsterdam (photo 3) are narrow things alongside a canal. The stereotypical picture of Amsterdam is of a canal with a nice old bridge across, so I thought I should take a photo of one of the few spots that actually looks like that (photos 4 & 5).

Amsterdam is probably most famous for sex and drugs than anything else. There are sex museums and brothels all around one area, with the girls on display in the windows, leaving little to the imagination. In many cases it would probably be a lot better for business if they were more discrete. The porn is not as profligate as the reputation might suggest, with porn supermarkets (photo 1) being common only in  limited areas. The same goes for the famous coffee shops. It is quite amusing to see shops like "The Cannabis Connoisseurs Club" and "The Hash Marijuana Hemp Museum" (photo 2). My favourite however was in the small supermarket where there was a weed and rolling paper vending machine (photo 3). The weed can be bought pre-rolled or for the purists self-rolled (photo 4). 

One of the more peculiar things I saw in Holland was when after a dive (yes, the water was cold, the visibility was poor, I still enjoyed it though) when we went and saw part of the North Sea Protection works. These huge gates swing across the mouth of the river to form a barrier reducing the chances of flooding at high tide. To give a sense of scale, the ball bearings are the worlds largest at a whopping ten metres diameter. 

One time I went to Holland I was accompanied by my friend Hanna from Arizona (photo 1), when we actually did much more touristic stuff than I usually do there. She got a little bit excited when she met Hanser Brinker, the boy who stuck his finger in a dyke (photo 2) or perhaps she was going for a metaphorical reconstruction. My friend Micha (photo 3) acted as tour guide, being a local we thought some might think he would be good at this, however the reality is that he hadn't visited most of the places previously either. Obviously it would have been foolish to have gone to Amsterdam and not sample the local product (photo 4). 

At the beach near Bloemendaal is a place called Woodstock which is a nice place to chill out in the comfy seats, listen to the music, have a drink, a smoke, and watch the scantily clad women go past, or just do a bit of light reading (photos 1 - 3). 

On a recent European foray, I popped over the border from Belgium to the Netherlands. My friend with whom I was travelling had a fixation about the beefy cattle and how ripped they looked (jealousy I think, from one cow to another).

By the way if people from Poland are Poles why aren't people from Holland Holes?