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Het Echte Nederlands
Click on the link to see the second part of the trip . . .
Friday:
On Friday we went around Amsterdam, seeing the sights of FDJ's town.
Oh yah
Outside the Rijk's Museum . . .
On the walls . . .
The Night Watch.
By the statues of Rembrandt's The Night Watch we tried to take a group shot, ideally with each of us interacting and acting out the various positions of the statues . . . unfortunately, everyone else there was trying to do the same -so we opted for a few quick pictures.
Photo Credit: FDJ
I love street musicians -they always make for great photo subjects
Shabbos:
The next day we went to the famed Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue (I have pictures of it from when I was there on a week day, a few years back), where I was lucky enough to receive an aliah -I was somewhat thrown-off by the ba'al koreh's pronunciation -a stressed Ayin (Pa'aroh (pharaoh) became parngoh) and a week Gimel that sounded like a Ches.
After the Aliah I was given a Mi Shabeirach, but for some reason couldn't follow a word that the gabai was saying . . . until I realized that he was speaking in Ladino.
Sunday:
What could be more Dutch then bicycles (In fact there are more bikes then people in Holland), so on Sunday we rented bikes, and went for a trip . . . for close 70 kilometers.
A word about Dutch bikes -the retreating Germans took all of the good bikes during the end of the Second World War- for some reason the Dutch have been using the same rusted old bikes ever since.
Our first stop was Ouderkerk, home of the old Portuguese cemetery . . .
The grave stones were very interesting many of them dated back to the Seventeenth century, and were covered with imagery not normally found on Jewish grave stones (something apparently borrowed from the Catholics of Spain).
The mother of Spinoza
R' Menashe ben Yisroel
The black cat perched unmoving on the headstone in an old cemtery was spooky, to say the least
Leaving Holland (which is in fact a Dutch province) . . . we entered Utrecht
Kikes on a Dike -On the Narrow bike path (Photo Credit: FDJ)
A monument for the Jewish families (and non-Jewish soldiers) of this small Dutch town who were killed in the war
A Castle
The long strait path
Looking for directions
Another Windmill
After one last romp around the town (with aching muscles from the trip that day), I put an end to the summer . . . returning the next morning to the Height of Crowns.
Technorati Tags: Amsterdam, Ouderkerk, Holland, Jewish History, Bicycles, Photography, Travel
5 months ago
