Remember to click on photos for the full-size view!
Haarlem at night (Not Sunday)
The Atlantic Ocean at Zandwoort Beach, where we biked Sunday
Zandwoort; the Dutch really love mussels..
Terrible picture of me right before it began to pour rain for our bike ride back...
Hooglandse Kerk in Leiden, where we went for an organ recital on Sunday (note that half an hour later the weather is actually decent!)
The typical whitewashed Calvinist interior
The organ we heard, which is the oldest in the Netherlands, unaltered since the early 17th century!
One of the stranger things I forgot to note is that the churches here have graves for floors. You're actually walking around on dead bodies. I understand the ecclesiology behind it, but it's still weird.
After the Hoogslandse Kerk, we went to the Pieterskerk for a recital of Dutch and Spanish baroque music. The organ case was closed up when we arrived...
... and then was dramatically opened!
A few ranks (100-300 pipes) of this organ date from the 1440's.
The organ students got to climb up to the loft. You note that the Hoofdwerk manual has much lower notes, and thus has a 12' series of pipes (24, 12, 8, 6...) rather than 8 or 16!
Detail of the case
Click on the photo to read. A memorial to John Robinson, who was the pastor of the Leiden English Church, more famous for leaving Leiden in a boat called the Mayflower
Exposed pre-Reformation artwork
Leiden has a windmill.
After the concert, 6 of us went to Amsterdam to hang out!
We ate at an Italian restaurant which had complimentary gummi bears at the entrance!
I'm not sure what this is, other than a building shaped like a boat.
The houses on the canals are all askew!
I think this is the Niewe Kerk, but I don't well remember.
We went for drinks at the end of the night at the famous Cafe Americain, with this fountain.
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