Happy Harbor Day!

Magnet #569 - Little Dutch Shoes

And the Dutch NY400 fun continues!

Having woken up late this morning, I hightailed it down to the tip of Manhattan, so that I check out Holland on the Hudson.

First, dudes! Flotilla! So much fun watching the boats sail by - sharing the waterways with frigates and ferries and water taxis.

But, as you watch the historic replicas sail by, you kind of get a feel for how this land must have just looked really inviting on first site. The boats kept buzzing the port, to the cheers of all the onlookers lining the railings.

Even cooler, was being able to see the Halve Maen - Henry Hudson's Half Moon. Apparently, every year it retraces Hudson's historic voyage from Europe to here. How could would that be to sail across the ocean blue? (Maybe not for me, really, since I'm till refusing to take any sort of cruise - the ocean is too far from hospital care, should we need it. I'm just sayin'!)

I loved the Royal Marine Band of the Royal Netherlands Navy, even though I got confused because they were playing our armed forces theme songs. Still cute. There's something about a boy in dress whites, playing his...piccolo?

Then, as it turns out they were totally not joking about having a little New Amsterdam village on the Hudson. The tiny little village was squished in front of the Old Customs House. It was small, but it was cool to try some of the native yummy Dutch foods (I couldn't do the salmon or the little fishy sandwiches, sorry), and to see the guy making little Dutch shoes. He's been doing it for four generations!

I could swear, though, that when I went to the Netherlands a few years ago, my Dutch host mom was like, dude, Holland's not just about the Dutch shoes, and no, Joy, we don't all wear them. So I feel kinda funny putting up this magnet.

They totally blocked off the little village though, when the Netherlands' Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima came to visit! So funny to watch all the people paparazzi the poor folks.

While the royals checked out Little Amsterdam, I checked out Cass Gilbert's Alexander Hamilton's U.S. Customs House. Such a gorgeous Beaux Arts building - amazing, inside and out. And, thank you Smithsonian for the free museum George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian housed there! So interesting to see the Native American women's dress exhibit - I was a big fan of Terry C. Johnston's Titus Bass series, so it was interesting to put a tiny bit context around his books, even if it was just trying to figure out what the women were wearing. Heh.

Whew. What a long, long multicultural day. I can't believe how much stuff was going on here this weekend - there was the NY400 activities downtown, the Broadway on Broadway stuff in Times Square, Fashion Week in Bryant Park, the MS Race, and lord knows what else.

Seriously, unless you're dead, you can never be bored in NYC.