Weather doesn't dampen memorable time in Netherlands

My father and I finally made it to our Mellema homeland of Friesland and found it, quite frankly, to be freezing.

March has been the worst in recent memory in the Netherlands this year, and a combination of wind, rain and snow left the country chilly and overcast.

But none of that could put a damper on the Dutch themselves. Even in the large cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, we encountered a friendliness and warmth that burst any prejudices about frosty northern European attitudes.

That reached a high level in Friesland, and especially in Heerenveen -- a city known for perhaps two things, its Thialf speedskating rink and its soccer team.

While sitting on press row in a driving snowstorm in Heerenveen on Saturday, I found time to converse with the journalist to my left.

He was a fan of the NBA, had been to the U.S. to interview Eindhoven native Rik Smits when he played for the Indiana Pacers. The trip gave him a chance to see the game at its highest level.

In my own way, that was what the soccer portion of the trip to the Netherlands was about. Dad said he wanted to see "tulips, canals and windmills." We visited the Keukenhof flower garden, which had plenty of beautiful flowers, went to the Kinderdijk, a collection of windmills as far as you can see and saw canals in every city we encountered.

But as I was also on the trip, we had to see some soccer matches. There were four, and both of us got to see the final two, including the wintry match in Heerenveen.

Dutch soccer is not the best in Europe, a place reserved for the English, Italian, Spanish and German leagues.

The best team in the Eredivisie this year is PSV Eindhoven, which appears likely to win its fourth straight title and its seventh championship in the last decade.

But having said that, the Eredivisie is a solid league where competition is fierce. Behind PSV are a half-dozen teams all searching for a spot in the playoffs.

Teams placed second through fifth compete for a possible spot in the Champions League or the UEFA Cup. With only four matches left, those spots are entirely up for grabs.

As a result, matches tend to be very wide open. I saw Ajax defeat Willem II 4-1, watched Vitesse Arnhem recover from a 3-1 deficit to tie NAC Breda 3-3 and then experienced an amazing Heerenveen recovery. Down 3-1 at halftime, the Frieslanders scored three times in the second half, the final goal a spectacular effort by American Michael Bradley. The goal, Bradley's second of the game, was his 15th of the season.

Too often in the U.S., we talk about playing the beautiful game, about playing chess on the green expanse of a soccer field and often our teams shadow box around each other, probing before finally engaging each other.

There's nothing wrong with a cultured approach. Remember my favorite team is English club Arsenal, a team whose reputation is built on their ability to make a seemingly endless series of passes before possibly taking a shot.

Then again, those pass masters had to scramble to draw 1-1 with Middlesbrough while I was in the seats and fell 2-1 to Chelsea the day before we flew home. Their chance at the Premiership title appears, in every sense, to have passed.

The Dutch contests were another matter. None of the games were masterpieces. Tactics were routinely thrown out and substitutions made to readjust on the fly. Vitesse made a double substation midway through the first half to change the mix.

Heerenveen's Gertjean Verbeek took off two players at halftime. One of the subs, Paulo Henrique, scored inside the first five minutes of the second half. The momentum continued until Bradley scored the winner.

Thirteen goals in two matches may not bring words such as "defensive solidarity" to mind, but 22,780 roared their approval in Arnhem and 25,600 made plenty of noise at Heerenveen's Abe Leenstra Stadion.

Don't forget swimming…:ŒSoccer isn't the only sport on people's lips in The Netherlands at the moment. The European Swimming and Diving Championships continue this week in Eindhoven. For someone who is attracted to pools with lane markers like a chlorinated moth to a flame, it was enjoyable to watch Europe's best go at it.

The crowds weren't massive, but they were passionate. The swimming, however, was nothing short of dynamite. We tend to focus on "Olympic sports" only in Olympic years. That means we will see plenty of swimming from Beijing as we follow the likes of Michael Phelps.

But there are some great swimmers around the world. And to my mind, any top quality swim meet is worth watching, if only on television.

A bit of advice:ŒHonesty and a desire to spread caution require me to say that there was one Dutchman who we encountered who failed to meet the level of friendliness we encountered on the trip.

A hotelier in the beautiful city of Delft took advantage of a mistake we made in booking on the Internet and charged us a higher rate than we expected. As my friend Danny Steenstra said when we met him in Heerenveen, there are people like this everywhere.

Delft is wonderful, the pottery is amazing, the city square is old and enchanting and the new Vermeer Museum is well worth a few hours of your time. It is also convenient to Rotterdam and many other places in the southwestern portion of the country.

But don't stay at the Hotel on the Canal.