Had my first session of Dutch surfing on Sunday. It was great to be able to check the surf cam, then hop on my bike and be at the beach 15 minutes later. The surf forecast was pretty good and the camera was reporting similar conditions - they were both pretty spot on. Ended up getting stomach high waves, with the occasional chest high set. The waves lacked the typical power you’d see on the East Coast, as many of them petered out after the initial drop in. However, a few waves held throughout and provided some long rides.
I had similar conditions: crumbly waves, and probably a bit smaller
Since I don’t have a surfboard over here (yet), I ended up renting a 9′6″ NSP from the beachside surf shop. I put on my 5/4 wetsuit, 5mm gloves, and 5mm boots, decided to hold off on the hood, then headed out. I actually wasn’t too cold in the 48 degree water - probably because I had all that rubber on. I ended up dropping in on another surfer because a really good wave came through. I apologized to him afterwards, to which he remarked: “No problem, the waves are here for all of us to enjoy”. All in all, good first Dutch session - hope there are many more to come!
I somehow convinced 8 of my friends to fly over to Ireland for my bachelor party in early March. Many of them, realizing they’d be spending at least 8 hours on a flight (closer to 20 for Brett), decided to turn the trip into a week long adventure. I spent the first weekend in Ireland with them, went back to the Netherlands for a couple days of work, then came back for the long weekend and bachelor party.
Landon was the first to arrive in Ireland, so I grabbed a cheap Aer Lingus flight to Dublin from Amsterdam with plans to meet him that night. Our meeting point was the little Bed & Breakfast in Wicklow where we were staying - about an hour drive from the airport. So I picked up a rental car at the airport that I had previously booked for a cheap rate online. Unfortunately I was rudely awakened to find out the price of insurance tripled the cost of the rental, but I soon found out the insurance we well worth it after my first experience driving on the left side of the road. First mistake: I tried to get in the car on the left side, quickly realizing the steering wheel was on the right side. I smoothly played it off by pretending I was inspecting the car… After figuring out how to drive stick with my left hand, I was off and following the Google Map directions. Having not reviewed them beforehand, I was a little surprised to find step #11 told me to “Take the exit”. Miraculously, I took a random exit and eventually made it to meet Landon.
Landon and I headed down to the town of Enniskerry for dinner and our first Guinness in country. There was only one pub open in this sleepy town (population: 2600) and it was packed with locals watching the Wales/France six nations rugby game. They were all interested in the game because Ireland had a six nations rugby match the next day. We had a fantastic meal of mussels and Irish Stew, and the Guinness was out of this world.
The next day, we explored the beautiful area surrounding our B&B before heading back to Dublin to meet up with Bill, Brett, and Garcia. Brilliant shades of green and flowering plants were abundant amongst the rolling hills of this countryside. The B&B was good (breakfast wasn’t great) and I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to get outside of Dublin and go to Wicklow.
That afternoon we walked to Croke Park (pronounced “Crow Park”) to check out the scene and to try to scalp some tickets for the Ireland/England rugby match. Brett was the only one that was able to score a ticket, while the rest of us had a great time hanging out in the bar watching the game with a Guinness in hand.
The next morning we met up with Mike & Mark for a bit, before everyone departed for Cork, except Mike & I, who were heading back to the Netherlands that night. We took a quick tour of Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells and the more impressive Long Room.
It was a short weekend, but filled with lots of action and well worth the trip. It was a great preview for my return in a few days for the bachelor party.
Lindsey flew into town for a long weekend in February over Valentine’s weekend (sorry, I’m obviously behind on my posts). Since we’d already gotten the gist of Den Haag, we decided to make a weekend trip to Paris. After staying the first night in the Netherlands, we took the Thalys train from Den Haag Holland Spoor (the other train station) to Paris Noord train station. It was about a 3 hour trip and was very pleasant as we packed a lunch and ate it on the train. Upon our arrival, we pretty quickly figured out the metro/RER system to get close to our hotel. After we got off the RER (B line), we had a 10 minute walk to the hotel, where we passed by a group that was protesting - that’s when we knew we were in Paris…
Lindsey with French bread on the way to the hotel
We stayed at the Hotel Grande Ecoles in the Latin Quarter, which was a very nice and quaint hotel. The room wasn’t anything special, but the location was great and the gardens around the room were very nice. This would be an excellent place to stay in the summer.
The first night we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant with a view of Notre Dame. This dinner was an engagement present to us from Eric & Courtney, and we had a blast. Really good food and the view was incredible. Unfortunately, our waiter “accidentally” charged us about 75 euro too much, to which we quickly alerted him of his mistake. He corrected it, but it left a sour taste in our mouths.
Notre Dame during the day
Thoughout the next two days we saw all of the great tourist attractions: Notre Dame, Musee D’Orsay, Eiffel Tower (at night), Arc Du Triumph, Montmarte, Sacre Couer, Musee Du Louvre, and St Chapelle. My favorite was the Sacre Couer because it offered a fantastic view of the entire city. We first had to climb the towers to the top and were rewarded with a 360 degree view.
Artistic Shot from the top of Sacre Couer
Another highlight was visiting St Chapelle with its beautiful stained glass windows.
Musee D’Orsay and Musee Du Louvre were both excellent in their own right - I didn’t particularly favor one over the other, I’m glad we did both!
Matt & Polynesian Statue
When we weren’t going around the touristy sites, we made plenty of time to visit cafes and to relax. Next time we’ll plan to do less on the tourist side and more on the relaxing side. While we had great weather overall, it was still only in the 40s since it was February. This probably helped to keep the crowds down as we didn’t have to wait more than 10 minutes at any tourist attraction. We’re definitely looking forward to going back during the summer
