Of course my internet went down last night.

Of course a last-minute work project dropped on my head like a pile of bricks last night.

Of course I got no sleep whatsoever last night.

Of course. Of course. Of course.

The good news is that the drive to Seattle this morning was without incident. And my flight to Amsterdam was equally drama-free.

Small victories in the grand scheme of things. But I'll take what I can get, I suppose.

Here's hoping my luck holds out.

As I read through the news headlines tonight, I can honestly say that the thing I am looking forward to most is not being able to read the news headlines.

Oh to escape from this sick, sad world if only for a little while.

And... finished packing.

Not having to rush around at the last minute trying to get a suitcase put together? Priceless.

Look at me! I'm packing for vacation three whole days before I'm set to leave!

That almost never happens!

While there's no way I'm going to get everything done tonight, I will make serious headway so I can (hopefully) finish up tomorrow. And while it feels strange to be so far ahead of the game, it sure beats trying to pack everything the night before my flight like I usually do...

Here's hoping I know when to stop...

The time has ben dragging.

Dragging so bad.

Soon.

Very soon now.

I don't care that I had to work on Labor Day.

Because I can finally see a vacation on my monthly calendar...

I'm not 100% sure where or what... but at least I know when.

130 days.

18-1/2 weeks.

4-1/4 months.

1/3 of a year.

So close. Yet so very, very far away.

Don't go checking your calendar just yet... because Bullet Sunday on Monday starts... now...

   
• Skuttle. The plan was to head into Amsterdam today... the reality is that I'm laying around on a big red couch trying to rest up my aching rib cage for a ten-hour flight home tomorrow morning. I tried feeling sad about it, but this has been such a great vacation that I just can't muster the pity.

   
• Heart. Did you know that the seven red shapes on the flag of Fryslân are not hearts?

They're pompeblêden... the leaves of yellow water-lily! But in blood red for some reason. Probably because that's more scary to their enemies than if they were yellow-green...

No. Yeah... red is definitely more bad-ass.

   
• Smurftastic. And so the Netherlands has Smurf-flavored gelato...

There was no ingredients statement, so I don't know if it's made with real Smurfs or not...

In any event, I'm guessing Gargamel won.

   
• Tagged. While I don't necessarily condone defacing public or private property, I have to say the graffiti in Leeuwarden was some pretty impressive stuff...

But what would you expect from Wom the Hipster-Killing Zombie?

   
• Chickens. And, just when you think that beautiful hand-painted signage is a lost art, also in Leeuwarden...

You almost don't notice that the building is crooked and all the windows are jacked up. Perhaps Wom the Hipster-Killing Zombie has a day-job?

   
• Cheese. My biggest regret in leaving the Netherlands is that I can't bring a big wheel of cheese with me. They had it for sale at The Keukenhof, but it weighs 20-30 pounds and costs around $120-$200 (depending on how aged it is and how much your wheel weighs). You do get to buy it from a wooden cow, however...

I'm guessing 30 pounds of cheese would last me about a week.

   
No more bullets. No more vacation.

Our final day in Fryslân was spent taking the ferry over to Schiermonnikoog, a kinda resort island that's home to a massively huge beach.

Cars are only allowed for registered residents, which means that visitors have to either ride the bus, arrange for a resident taxi driver, or rent a bicycle. The DutchBitch opted for the bicycles, which was an interesting prospect considering I haven't ridden one in over 30 years. With this in mind, she rented bicycles which feature "Electric Assist"... a small motor that helps you along as you peddle. Turns out that this was a very good move, because my crushed ribcage left me needing all the help I can get...

Turns out that riding a bike is... errr... just like riding a bike, and I managed just fine. The only problem I had was getting off and on it, but that was thanks to getting run into by a car more than anything else.

Our first stop was a World War II bunker that oversees much of the island...

In the same area is Vredenhof Cemetery, which is a peaceful little place where we spotted soldiers buried from France, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Germany...

Then it was time to cycle to the massive beach that covers the north-side of the island...

It's an impossibly huge beach, as this pano shows (click to embiggen). This is but a small section of the waterfront, and those dots in the distance are people...

From there we rode around town a bit, then went to a cafe for drinks while we waited for the ferry back to the mainland...

Pretty much the perfect end to my brief adventure in Fryslân!

Now to spend some time resting up for my trip home. Which I am most certainly not looking forward to.

Fryslân (Friesland) is a region in the Northern Netherlands I have long wanted to visit. Partly because I want to visit all regions of the country... but mostly because it was home to some of my ancestors. My family name of "Simmer" is from the word "Summer" in the Fresian language, and my father has traced our genealogy back several generations to the area.

There are a number of routes you can use to get to Fryslân from South Holland, but The DutchBitch decided to take us the most direct (and interesting!) route... across The Afsluitdijk, a massive dike constructed from 1927 to 1933 which has a roadway over it. The dike completely enclosed a saltwater bay (known as Zuiderzee) which eventually became a giant freshwater lake called IJsselmeer. The 20-mile long dike also allowed for the reclamation of the land masses Wieringermeer, Noordoostpolder, and Flevoland, which added considerable area to the country. On a map, The Afsluitdijk (marked with a red arrow) looks like this...

Amsterdam is in the lower-left there. The areas I've shaded green are lands reclaimed from the sea.

When looking at a map, any time i saw The Afsluitdijk, I thought of it looking like the Øresund Bridge or something...

Which is absurd, of course, because a dike is nothing like a bridge. I guess in my mind it would just look cooler if it was. The reality isn't quite so glamorous, but still interesting...

Obligatory iPhone panorama shot (click to embiggen)...

Stopping at the half-way point.

After an hour-and-a-half drive, we arrived at our first stop... the city of Harlingen. It's a beautiful old fishing town that's the birthplace of my great-great-grandparents...

Stopping at the tourist office, we learned that the area where my great-great-grandparents were born was the poor part of town and a real shit-hole, which is why it was eventually torn down. Which is to say that it was undoubtedly a beautiful and incredibly desirable area of the city to live until my family left, at which time it became a detestable shit-hole, I'm sure. Today, it has once again become a premium, expensive neighborhood to live, so I guess things have come full circle.

Because this area had been completely torn down, the street where my great-great-grandfather was born no longer exists. It has become a private dead-end alley to the right of this cool little house here...

The place where my great-great-grandmother was born has been torn down and divided up into different lots, so I just walked around the block to see the area where she had lived...

After a nice lunch downtown, The DutchBitch and I walked back through the city where she spotted this...

PIRATE brand Virginia Cigarettes... made in the Netherlands?

From Harlingen, we headed to Leeuwarden for more family history. Our first stop was just a block up from our hotel, which is the former location of the Galileërkerk, a church where my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Johannes was interred. The original building was demolished in 1940, but it's location was just north of the former post office, which would be in the vicinity of the building to the left there...

The weather was incredible, and we weren't the only ones taking advantage of it...

Our next stop was the church where both my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Johannes and his son, my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Frederik were married. It's now some kind of local performing arts center, but it still looks vaguely church-like. And it has some kick-ass door decorations...

From there it was onward to Oldehoofsterkerkhof, the church where my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Frederik was interred. In what I can only describe as a "Leaning Tower of Pisa Moment," I finally realized that the reason the tower looks so strange is because it's falling over...

And the closer you get, the more fucked-up things become. There doesn't seem to be a single perpendicular line on this entire building except the windows and doors. I was getting a headache trying to photograph it because my brain kept trying to straighten things out and line stuff up...

Like Harlingen, Leeuwarden is a rather nice city with a pretty downtown area...

Which you walk through in order to get to the part of town where my great-great-great-great-grandparents Hendrik and Catharina lived... and where my great-great-great-grandfather Willem Frederik was born in 1817 (he moved to Harlingen with his wife Geertje in 1845). Though, I'm sure back then it wasn't quite the boarded-up, graffiti-strewn mess it is now...

Our last stop was Blokhuispoort, a former prison where The DutchBitch thought I would feel right at home because my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Johannes was convicted of being drunk and insulting a widow named Dieuke Berents. Wrongly convicted, obviously, since the woman must have totally deserved it. I can only hope that grandpa Johannes gave her a nice bitch-slap for having the nerve to piss him off...

And thus ended my tour of the lands of my ancestors. Now it's time to dope up on pain-killers and see if I can get some sleep before tomorrow's adventure.

Boy, getting hit by a car is not all it's cracked up to be.