Happy Halloween everyone! I'm sad to miss my favorite holiday. Italy doesn't celebrate it and their candy sucks anyway.

The phrase “gagging for a fag” brings about two totally different mental pictures for the English and Americans.

Keep my seat warm, Netherlands. You haven’t seen the last of me. There's still so much of you I have yet to explore.

Asia Town

Instead of China Town, Amsterdam has Asia Town. I had been missing sushi so I hit up a Japanese restaurant. Italy likes their food and no one else’s so it was nice to have options again.

They had a Buddhist Temple which I hit up. The caretakers taught me the sutra of compassion and I bought some prayer beads.

Traveling had taken its toll on me and I stumbled across a Chinese massage place that gave a 60 minute full body massage for 35 euro. How could I refuse? I melted and felt so refreshed afterwards.

Anne Frank House

If I need to tell you the story of Anne Frank, leave. You’re not allowed to read my blog anymore. I didn’t go into the actual house because the line wait was 2 hours long. Wasn’t worth it.

This isn’t anything like I pictured the house to look like. If they’re wasn’t a plaque on it, I would’ve written it off as an office building.

A church is nearby.

A bronze statue of Anne Frank rests in front of the church.

Towers!

I must have a repressed obsession with towers because that’s all this post is. I can’t remember where any of them are from.

I like this shot.

It looks really goofy with that white spear sticking out of it.

Amsterdam's Museum of Tortures

The Museum of Tortures gave an overview of the various practices used throughout the centuries to gain information. Pretty gruesome stuff.

The rack would stretch the victim until muscles and ligaments tour and bones popped out of joint. :(
A hook would be shoved into the back and out through the stomach. The unfortunate person would be hoisted up while their last meal dripped down. D:
A cage containing rats would be placed on the person’s stomach. Hot coals would be placed in a brazier above the cage, causing the rats to burrow through the person trying to escape the heat. :O

The Spanish Inquisition was brought about to exterminate the enemy of the Catholic church, the Protestants. It lasted 300 years. The idea was to keep people in constant fear by randomly kidnapping people and putting them to the question. Any method of torture the inquisitor could think of was used to get the person to admit to being a Protestant. If the torture didn’t kill them, they would be burned at the stake. Towards the end, a Spanish general got the OK to list everyone as guilty of treason and put them to death. For some reason, the museum didn’t tell us the end of the story but I’m going to guess it didn’t happen considering the Netherlands still exist.

The Bubonic plague was also covered. Not sure why because even though having the plague sucked, it wasn’t a torture. Eh.
The first symptom was coughing. Next you’d vomit blood for several days. Then painful sours would cover your body. Eventually you’d die and be hauled off to the mass graves like thousands of others.
Doctors with beaked masks filled with flowers and perfume tried to care for the sick. Back then, it was thought the only way disease was spread was through bad air. The doctor’s assumed if they couldn’t smell the plague, they couldn’t get it. Because that is in no way true, the doctors would end up dying themselves.

The museum finished with a rollercoaster ride down to “Hell.” I’m terrified of rollercoasters and got shuffled on before I could get away. The attendant had to peel my hands off the safety bar at the end and help me out. A nice old man gave me candy to help calm down. So embarrassing.

Why couldn't school field trips go to cool places like this?

Red Light District

Even though I went here before my camera problems, I figured it was rude to take pictures of scantily clad females in the windows.

To my great amusement, there is not only a day care center but a church in the middle of the district as well. Inlaid in the ground in front of the church is a bronze sculpture of a hand grabbing a breast. The people loved it but the local government was offended. They made a compromise that if the sculptor came forward and paid the fines, they could remain anonymous and the sculpture could stay.

I went into the Museum of Prostitution and met three retired prostitutes there. I talked to them because I was interested in what the job was like. One of them became a prostitute because she wanted a dog and was impatient. By the end of the first night, she had enough money but enjoyed the job and stuck with it for another 17 years. They told me how they wished people would respect the woman’s career choice.
The flat rate is 50 euro for 15 minutes but special requests cost more. Prostitutes are not required to register with the government or be tested for STDs. Most work free of contract and contact a landlord weekly to schedule a work time. A woman always has the right to refuse a man. If something goes wrong, they hit a panic button and bodyguards handle the situation. If necessary, police are involved who are always in favor of the girl. They said they could easily separate sex and love and how some working prostitutes have boyfriends or even husbands. How safe they keep themselves is totally up to them. Men offer more money to have sex without a condom and it can be tempting.
Ignoring the psychological issues or physical risk, it sounds a banging job.

Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists. You can see in his artwork his wavering between sanity and mental break downs. I can’t give much of a description of the van Gogh museum. It was filled with his painting, not much else to say.

There wasn’t a special display at the bottom of an association (Can't remember the name and Google isn't helping. Sorry.) which was founded because lots of Dutch art was being exported and they wanted to keep the treasures in the country. The 150 most popular pieces they recovered were on display.

Vondel Park, the location of the van Gogh museum, was gorgeous but it was windy and cold so I didn’t stay long.

Canal Boat Ride

There wasn’t much room left in Amsterdam for expansion so people built house boats in the canals. They’re insanely expensive for a one-story, 4 room house that sits on the water. During the winter, they must be freezing. I can’t imagine living in one.

A restaurant. It would have been fun to eat there but it was out of my price range.

Houses are narrow and the staircases match. When moving furniture, everything goes out through the large windows.

Towns

Small towns are pretty closed communities. They tolerate tourists to some degree but generally aren’t friendly to outsiders. Moving into the community and being accepted would be near impossible. They intermarry (as in others from the town, not their relatives) and houses are passed down through the generations.

Still an idealic little place.

Fun fact: every front door is different. The idea was that drunken men would their house and be able to get home.

Touring the Countryside

I left Amsterdam for a day tour to go look around the Holland countryside.
First stop was a museum.

The traditional dress of the peasants. The snowman looks really out of place.

The religious attire.

A replica of a sailor’s boat.

A replica of a house.

These three are pieces of a larger mosaic made out of 22,000 cigar stickers. That man is going to die of lung cancer.

Flags of the provinces.

If I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, Netherlands, I’d go home. Being as I’m here, I want to see more of your stuff.

One can’t think of the Netherlands without thinking of windmills. Many are out of commission in favor for electric ones now and are falling into disrepair.
Too bad tulips weren’t in season. I would’ve loved to see the fields of them.

Cheese is a big thing in the Netherlands. Sheep, cows, and goats are everywhere. Much of the country is below sea level and completely flat, making for great grazing territory.

A cheese factory. Milk is heated in the silver cauldron in the lower right to separate the curds and whey. The curds are pressed in the red machine in the back right. Then the cheese is soaked in a salt bath for flavor and preservation. Later, the cheese is wrapped in a layer of wax allowing it to exist 2 months outside the fridge.

The third symbol of the Netherlands is the wooden shoe. It used to take five hours to make a pair but now it takes five minutes thanks to machines. The right ones carves the shoe while the left one hollows out the inside. When they dry, they’re sanded and ready to go.

The finished product. Surprisingly, the wooden shoe is still used today. They’re great to protect the foot of farmers from horse hooves and construction workers from dropped steel beams. They can be worn plain or painted.

My dad’s side of the family is pure Dutch and came from the villages of Garsthizen and Eppenhuizen in the Province of Groningen and the adjacent province of Vriesland. Have fun with the names.

Naturally, I had to take a trip to Amsterdam to get in touch with my heritage.

The two main languages are Dutch and English. Everyone speaks fluent English because no one else in the world cares to learn Dutch. Apparently, I look like a native Netherlander because everyone spoke to me in Dutch or would ask me for directions. Once they found out I was American, the first question they would ask is where my family came from. The second question would be who I voted for. I was taken aback at how much the Europeans knew about American politics.

The hostel I stayed at had mixed rooms, allowing me to talk to a range of people. I talked to travelers from Ireland, Australia, New York, and other parts of the Netherlands. It was fun. The staff was friendly and gave me lots of free fries because my fondness for Heinz ketchup amused them.

Unfortunately, the first half of my trip I went to places where pictures weren’t allowed like the van Gogh museum and Museum of Tortures. Then during the second half an error occurred in my memory card and I couldn’t take any more pictures. You’ll have to deal with text descriptions for the most part.

Northern Tunisia is much greener than the south. It’s like a whole different world.

It has a much higher standard of living than southern half. Look at the comparison of these two towns.

South.

North.

It’s due to them being next to the Mediterranean Sea. The Sahara doesn’t reach that far, allowing better farming conditions and a center for exports.

Mosaics

Mosaics are made up of hundreds of pieces of tiles arranged to make a picture. It must take hours of patience to make such a thing.

This is the most famous mosaic in existence because of its religious subject matter. All other mosaics focus on daily life, animals, or mythology.

Neptune and a seahorse.

Neptune again with a chariot. Our tour guide admitted that Neptune was his favorite god.

The four seasons. Starting at the upper left and going clockwise, it goes from Spring to Winter.

A piece of a larger mosaic covering the story of Ulysses. If you’ve read the Odyssey, you don’t need me to tell you the story. If you haven’t, too bad. It’s waaaay too long.

The largest mosaic known. The women are working on restoring it.

It’s mostly a repeating pattern of this.

After awhile, I got bored of looking at square rocks inlaid into concrete and started taking pictures of the ceiling. It was really pretty.

Medina

Medina counts as a holy city in Islam and if you go there nine times, you no longer need to take a pilgrimage to Mecca. That’s a good thing for me because as a non-Muslim, Saudi Arabia will not allow me to enter.

Mosaics were everywhere on the inside. It seems to be their decoration of choice for holy places instead of paintings.

A prayer room that I’m not allowed in.

I can still reach my camera around the corner.

Clocks that tell the times throughout the day when one should pray. The times are a little flexible and one can even double or triple them up if they have a busy day.

Green is the color of Heaven so tombs of important people are painted in green.

This art piece is called Snowflake in Forest. Tunisia has no snow so I’m curious as to why and how this was done.

Mosque

A mosque is the Muslim place of prayer.
There’s something like 2,000 columns decorating the place recovered from ancient Roman cities.

This watch tower is the oldest of its kind in the world. Flags are raised when it’s time for prayer and faraway citizens can see them and start heading to the mosk. Bells are usually rung as well for the convenience of those nearby.

When praying, men and women are separated. This can be by a wall, a screen, or just a few feet of empty space.

A sundial marking the prayer times so those in the watchtower would know when to ring the bells and raise the flags.

A closer view of the sundial.

Troglodyte Village

Troglodyte homes are little more than tunnels dug into the side of a mountain. Originally, they were used as hiding places from invaders. People stay in them nowadays because they can be pretty comfortable with a natural way of keeping cool.

The paintings on this door are signs of welcoming to friendly visitors and a way to keep evil spirits out.

This was the entryway.
A sign of hospitality in Tunisia is to serve the guest mint tea. To refuse the tea is one of the worst signs of rudeness. In a real show of generosity, they made freshly baked bread with a mixture of honey and olive oil for dipping. Delicious.

The family was pretty open to 20 students stomping around their house taking pictures of everything. Everyone left a donation in thanks.

I could happily live in a house like this.

They have electricity, cable, and phone lines but they still do many things the old fashioned way. This woman is grinding up grain for bread between two flat rocks.

This little girl was adorable and insisted on showing everyone her pet chameleon.