Traveling Tuesdays - Belgium and Holland Part 2

Picking up from where I left off last week, here's Part 2 (of several) from my alumni tour to Belgium and Holland.

Day 3 – Tuesday, April 19 – Rijksmuseum, ship sets sail, and tour of Volendam

It was really nice to see all of the passengers on the bus Tuesday morning, ready to start our tour. Our first event of the day was a tour of the Rijkmuseum. I was still not feeling well at this point, but faked it as well as I could.

Our guide from Gohagan (our travel vendor), Carl, told us that we were split into tour groups – Bus #1 and Bus #2 – and we would be with these groups for the rest of the trip, just to make it logistically easier. Within our bus group, we were then split into two color groups. NU was the Blue group with North Carolina, and all of our passengers really enjoyed being grouped together. Emily and I liked that too, as we had each other to rely on.

One of the really cool things we had on this trip were Quiet Vox Whispers or “whispers” in our ship rooms to use for excursions. These were really great to have, as the sound box and ear piece allowed for us to have freedom and not crowd around our guides during tours in order to hear what they were saying. I would sometimes be 30 feet away from my guide but I could hear everything he or she was saying - it was awesome! They were easy to use and quite comfortable in my one ear. Being someone who was at the end of a line or last to enter a room, I found them to be very helpful. It made me wish I would have had them on my previous alumni tour.

Diana gave us some history on Amsterdam and the Rijksmusem on our drive to the museum. She was extremely knowledgeable about everything she talked about – Holland, paintings, flowers, etc. - and spoke excellent English. At the museum, our group was lucky to have Diana as our tour guide. She was great! She selected about 15 paintings to highlight for us and we all enjoyed her anecdotes too. There was a small child who was crying and she kept referring to the “little brat” in our Whispers. I was worried the passengers would think she was rude (kinda did) but they thought she was hilarious and extremely knowledgeable about the art in the museum so I guess that means I'm just too sensitive :-)

There was one incident while we were at the Rijksmuseum: one of my passengers fainted. We were looking at our last painting as a group, The Night Watchmen, and Diana had literally just told all of us to enjoy the next 40 minutes ourselves by roaming the museum when he fainted. I didn’t see it happen, but we were all startled when he hit the floor with a crash. The museum staff was extremely kind and helpful during the whole situation. Emily got most of the passengers to disperse and I stayed with the Roses. The staff let me buy him some water (all liquids are prohibited in the museum because apparently people used to throw acid on paintings and ruin them) and we kept him sitting until he felt strong enough to stand. We had been standing for over an hour when he fainted so I think he was just tired. Luckily, it was a one time incident and he was fine the rest of the trip.

We went back to the ship for lunch after the museum. We had some free time as the ship sailed for 3 hours from Amsterdam to Volendam. We did have to participate in a 20 minute safety check but most of us were enjoying the beautiful weather on the sun deck anyway so it wasn’t really an issue of annoyance for most people.

Sailing down the Rhine.

We had a walking tour of Volendam in the afternoon. Diana was once again our tour guide and we enjoyed seeing a few people in traditional dress during our walking tour.

Volendam

Volendam

Volendam

Volendam

Volendam

On our walking tour on Volendam. These are people's homes. Wouldn't that be weird to see tourists taking pictures just outside your door?

One of the homes in Volendam. Very traditional Dutch home - narrow and long. Kind of looks like some of the homes in Chicago.

We literally walking right through someone's backyard under the drying laundry. Weird!

Street of houses in Volendam.

Some traditional wooden shoes

More homes

Our group listening to Diana tell us more about Volendam and Dutch culture.

More of our group (you can see our "Whisperers" in our ears).

Cute little house.

Our reception was in the small, private lounge on the boat. All ten passengers attended and we had a great time. Many of them told me this was the highlight of their trip, which made me happy. We enjoyed mingling and getting to know each other better. A bartender stayed in the room the whole time for drink orders and we had several canapés for everyone.

Banner at NU reception

Goodies for my passengers - hats, visors, lanyrads, and Willie the Wildcat stickers.

Following the reception, I had dinner with the Roses and FitzSimons. We had a wonderful night and it was a great way to get to know them all better. I very much enjoyed spending time with both of these couples throughout the trip, and they ate dinner together most nights.

Dinner with the Roses and FitzSimons (minus Mr. Fitz, who took this photo).