The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

Have you ever wondered if automated car washes exist in the Netherlands?

They do and they work!

For about 100 years, there was a little train running under London to help deliver the mail, called the Mail Rail. It stopped running in 2003 and they’ve now created a small, people-friendly version that we rode on Friday.

It makes for a fun way to learn a bit of history.

Not counting the 4+ hour train rides to/from Amsterdam, which should only be 3 hours, but there is track construction slowing things down.

It was all work so the sight seeing was between the train and the office.

We had a fun weekend of walking around Manhattan, taking a ferry over to Brooklyn, visiting the 9/11 Memorial Museum, and being in awe of the new skinny skyscrapers that are being built in the city. Grand Central Station is still impressive, but busy. Plus, it was fun to see the Ghostbusters building and get a partial view of Times Square from the Salesforce office.

On average the Dutch eat over 19 kilograms of cheese per person per year!

The Alkmaar Cheese Market is the oldest and largest cheese market in the Netherlands and has been operating with the same rules, behaviors and dress code, every Friday, since 1593 (431 years ago), except during WWII. However, there has been a cheese scale in use in Alkmaar since 1365 (659 years ago). 

So, we went for a visit today when it opened at 10am on Friday, just like it has for the last few hundred years.

I asked ChatGPT to create a vivid oil painting of our adventures, as described by the blog entries here. The result is:

And so far, it’s been a wet summer in the Netherlands, which means all plants are flourishing in addition to the snails and slugs.

Today we visited the nearby town of Szentendre just to experience a small town and see their transport museum.

We rode the 2nd oldest subway, rode a 4 person bike around Margaret island, and saw more fascinating architecture.

We had a great day of walking around Budapest, earning us about 20,000 steps for the day.

It’s a beautiful city to walk around! The Hungarian language is tough though, but thankfully we can get by in English and saying “thank you” in Hungarian.

Walking distance from our place, is a former summer estate from the 1600’s called Elswout. It’s now a dog friendly (on leash) garden area and wedding venue. It’s a very relaxing area to walk around, so I’m sure we’ll visit again.