Feta Attraction

Kersen

2009-07-18T00:37:00.007+02:00

This right here is one of my absolute favorite things about California: fantastic local produce.

About a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment is a store called Monterey Market. Their parking lot is about half as large as it should be, as are their aisles. But my goodness, do they have some nice produce! An entire aisle of mushrooms, perhaps ten different tomato varieties, maybe six or eight types of eggplants.

I try to shop there during off hours. When the crowds are thinner, I sometimes have room for my little shopping scheme. My strategy is to find one instance of the first item on my shopping list. I walk over to that instance, then I look around until I find a preferable instance (usually I mean cheaper, but other legibly labeled possibilities include local, pesticide-free, organic, and heirloom). Then I go stand at the preferable instance and repeat, until I'm reasonably certain I've spotted all the options for that item, and I can fill my basket with some yumminess and move on to the second list item. Sure, it might take a while, but I really don't mind very much. This method works best in their large, tented area outside; once you're inside the darker, cramped store, it's tricky to find all the instances of one fruit or vegetable.

These cherries called to me today. They were actually calling to a lot of people; I had to quickly snap this photo before anybody impaled me with a cart. It was a popular display, is what I'm saying. But after rifling through them for a few seconds, I fell in love with their glossiness and the myriad reflections of the sky light. (This beautiful heap was in the tent, hence the sky light.)

As always, click on the photo to enlarge.

Verhuizen

2009-07-10T02:01:00.008+02:00

Well, howdy.

You probably know that I've moved to sunny, sunny California. If not, surprise!

It's obviously been a very long time since I've posted on this blog. But now that I'm getting settled in California, I'm realizing that I still like taking photos and writing about them, am still far from most of my family, and still like cheese, so really, I should be blogging here some more, no?

Today's title is best translated as "moving house," which is a modest description of something I've done several times now. This last time was much easier than, shall we say, other moves described on this blog. Shall I stick with the Dutch posting titles for a while longer? I think so.

As for today's photo, what do you think it is? Post your guess in the comments. Whoever guesses closest will receive, let's say, five greeting cards, hand-made by Gouda Girl. Happy guessing!

Euro Cup

2008-06-10T10:15:00.008+02:00

I may have had a break- through.

Some of you know that I don't really get soccer. Going to games is fun, but watching on TV is rather dull. People run around, the ball hardly ever goes in, this is not great entertainment.

Last night, I finally got angry at someone for blocking my view of soccer on TV.

I was at the Amstel Stroom, the closest bar to our apartment (I love it when Casey's coworkers decide to go there). The projection TV was showing the first round of the Euro Cup: Netherlands vs. Italy.

For those of you not into soccer tournaments, here's a little about how they work. Teams get put into groups, and the groups play each other. The winning teams from each group moves on to the next round, and the losing teams do not. For this round of this tournament, the groups are four teams, and the best two move on. Makes sense?

OK. The Dutch team is in a group with Italy (who won the World Cup two years ago), France (who finished second in the World Cup two years ago), and Romania (who is fine but not favored). There are several good Dutch players now, but being put in this group weakened their odds of going all the way by quite a bit.

Yesterday (Monday) were two games of interest: earlier in the evening was Romania vs. France, for which France was favored. That game ended at a 0-0 tie. (See, this is why I can't get into soccer. Two hours of running around and sweating in summer heat, and not a single goal.) Anyway, the uneventful game had a surprising outcome, which is actually good for Holland's chances of moving on. (It's not likely that they can do better than Italy AND France, so if Romania helps keep one of them down...) I didn't watch the game, but Casey said that the Romanian players were doing a lot of diving (faking injuries to get the ref to call penalties on the other team). Sucks for France, since they seem to have cleaned up a bit since their diving performances in the World Cup. Anyway.

The second game was the aforementioned Nederland vs. Italia. I'm not sure what I expected... I guess for Italy to do a lot of diving (like in the World Cup) and for the final score to be something like 1-0 Italy.

I'll spare you my amateur game recap. Suffice to say that the Dutch team won, 3-0. There were many shots on goal from both sides, so it was an exciting match, but in the end, the Dutch team seemed to have far more energy than the Italian one, and they dominated much of the game. The average age of the players has a lot to do with that, I think.

The atmosphere in the pub was fun. Lots of orange, an assortment of noisemakers, and one guy had face paint to share and walked around at breaks decorating others with Dutch flags. Then a drunk Brian Dennehy-looking guy showed up to cheer far too loudly, to the whole bar's amusement. (I have to say, I was impressed with how positive even the old drunk guy's cheers were. "Come on Holland! Yeah, good, Kuyt! Good, van Nistelrooy! One more goal!" I can boo the Yankees with the best of them, but I still appreciated that the crazy loud drunk guy managed to stay positive most of the time instead of starting up anti-Italy chants or whatnot. The majority of his cheering would not have been out of place at a youth soccer game.)

Anyway, that's the story of the day I finally got into soccer. I'm SO watching the rest of the Euro Cup. Hup, Holland, hup!

Mooie Dag

2008-05-15T15:12:00.010+02:00

I've had a nice day.

A few months ago I noticed that I'd misplaced (my only copy of) my Dutch tax ID number. Trying to avoid more Dutch bureaucracy at all costs, I searched increasingly obscure nooks in my apartment for the paper, until finally I had to give up and make another appointment to get the paper. After several confusing phone calls (government people are not allowed to speak English, I think for liability reasons), Casey learned from his department secretary that the tax numbers had been reorganized since I last went, and that now I had to go to my local registration office. The same office that, after a year and a half of indescribably awful bureaucratic experiences, was the one that made me cry within its walls. Today I couldn't put it off any longer, so I struck out after lunch, time-killing novel in hand.

Walking into these offices, you first must find a counter where you explain your errand and get an appropriate waiting number. The guy at this counter was uncharacteristically friendly today, smiling and waving at the baby carried by the couple in line in front of me. When it was my turn, I told him in rudimentary Dutch that I needed my tax ID, and he smiled, handed me a number, and said, "Perfect!" I looked at the number (J708) and back at him. He gave me a thumbs-up, and eventually I realized he was telling me that my Dutch was perfect. So I grinned and took a seat, happy (but cautious).

After a totally reasonable wait, my number was called. In the office, I explained again that I needed my tax number, and the guy nodded and said, "Ja, dat kan." This phrase has been the bane of my existence for some while. It means "that can be," and it's used in the most aggravating instances possible. E.g., "How much longer do I have to wait for the immigration decision? I was told three weeks and it's now been six months!" "Ja, dat kan" (dismissively). But what was this? "Dat kan" pronounced in a helpful tone?

So, I got my tax number and made it out of that office intact! On the way home I got a few errands done. I even inadvertently bargained the fish monger down by 10%!

In celebration of my really nice (albeit pedestrian) day, I'm posting a photo from Amsterdam. It's been a while! This one was taken a few weeks ago, from the middle of the Seven Bridges along Reguliersgracht. Mike (an old friend from college) was visiting, and we rented paddle boats. The three of us took turns pedaling, navigating, and steering, and despite my best efforts to slowly run us into various walls and Casey and Mike's efforts to play chicken with large tour boats, we managed to make it back to the dock in our allotted 1.5 hr. Highly recommended (and thanks to Rachel for encouraging me to try it)!

Microblogging

2008-04-21T13:42:00.011+02:00

I fear I've been neglecting those of you not on Facebook. In the spirit of further reducing attention spans, I suppose I've been substituting a lot of my blogging with microblogging. My preferred medium is the Facebook status update; Casey's is Twitter. To catch you all up, I'm posting highlights from the past few weeks. Like with blogs, these should be read from the bottom up. Oh, and here's a photo from Krakow.

April 26
Casey just realized that next weekend is a six-day weekend. Ah, the Netherlands... 9:36AM
Jessica is welcoming summer with face moisturizer with SPF! 9:34am

April 23
Jessica is more skilled than you might think... at burning soup. 7:36pm

April 22
Jessica is loving all the sunshine. It made the weekend in Limburg even nicer! 11:15am

April 20
Jessica has a brand-new cousin! 10:04pm
Casey is enjoying the hills of Limburg. 3:15pm

April 17
Jessica needs more dang sleep. 6:44am

April 16
Jessica hopes that the canal cruise she's going on today passes her bedroom window, so she can check just how easy it was for those tourists in Dec. to see her naked. 10:10am
Jessica should not have had that last beer. Bah, 2am. 2:12am

April 14
Jessica loves pinking shears. Whee! 7:37pm

April 12
Jessica esta llena de la comida argentiniana. 10:32pm
Casey is in a sirloin-induced coma, thanks to a birthday dinner from my folks. 10:14PM
Casey is looking forward to a nice steak dinner! 12:46PM

April 11
Jessica is happy she has guys sliding down hills in couches on TV. 9:03pm

April 9
Jessica is licking limes. 3:30pm

April 8
Jessica is watching snow fall on the cherry tree in her courtyard. Actually it's more like sleet. And it's not "her" courtyard exactly. 3:27pm

April 6
Jessica just realized that with her upcoming move she will inherit, along with proximity to all the TJ's frozen raspberries she can eat, Governor Schwarzenegger. 11:09pm

April 5
Jessica urges YOU to vacation in Poland. 7:32pm

April 4
Jessica is back home in the land of vowels. 11:57pm
Casey is now safely home in Amsterdam. Relieved and exhausted after a great trip! 11:51PM
Casey is taking the train back to Warsaw. Hopefully this express train actually expresses. 8:45AM

April 3
Casey is out of the salt mine now (thanks for all the concern!). Now enjoying last full day in Krakow. 6:24PM

April 2
Casey is in a salt mine 130 m underground. 1:31PM

March 29
Jessica is going to Poland. Back in a week! 6:09am

March 28
Jessica is learning Polsku. 11:24am

March 27
Casey is getting psyched for a trip to Poland! 6:37PM
Jessica is truly bad at sewing. But she thinks her favorite shirt is almost wearable again. 12:55pm

March 26
Jessica is making cucumber sandwiches. 1:21pm
Jessica na na NA na na na, na NA na na naaaa... 12:04am

March 25
Jessica is just not that into her to-do list today. 1:40pm
Jessica is watching the snow fall. Again. 10:21am
Casey is enjoying March snow in Amsterdam: http://tinyurl.com/375jlo 9:24AM

March 23
Jessica 's little brother is coming to visit for her birthday! 7:39pm

March 21
Jessica totally forgot that paying for dry cleaning also means getting extra clothes hangers. SWEET. 7:52pm
Casey is starting the four-day easter weekend in his bathrobe... 9:51AM

March 18
Jessica cannot get the Super Mario Galaxy music out of her head. 10:57am

March 17
Jessica is reading her Poland guidebook! 11:31pm
Jessica is looking for a guidebook on Poland. 10:52am

March 16
Jessica is unimpressed with her brownie substitutions, but at least she still has a fudgy goo, so really it's not the end of the world. 2:06pm
Jessica is happy with her beans, and starting on the brownies. 1:08pm
Jessica is cooking beans, and trying to work up the energy to make brownies from scratch. 10:10am

March 7
Jessica is NOW BOOKING reservations at Hotel Law's Amsterdam location through November ‘08. New Berkeley-area location opening January ‘09! 12:56pm

March 6
Jessica is a jogging fiend! TWICE in one week! 8:59am

March 5
Jessica is looking forward to garbage pickup day. Boo, forgotten container of black beans. 1:21pm

March 4
Jessica wishes she were a better runner. 4:21pm

March 2
Jessica is all set with the waffles and the chocolate now. 10:54pm

February 29
Jessica is Belgium bound! 10:20am

February 28
Jessica is getting all nostalgic for Boston, between the Frank Black and the Legally Blonde. 10:01pm
Jessica was totally like 5 feet from Frank Black. 12:29am

February 26
Jessica loves German TV. Who knew that mimes were integral parts of church services? 4:15pm

South for the winter

2007-12-10T08:45:00.000+01:00

Well, kids, tragedy has struck. In the form of pavement striking my camera.

A few weeks ago we took a weekend trip to Maastricht, in Limburg in the south of the country. Within hours of arriving in the most picturesque city I'd seen in many months, I'd managed to hurl my camera into a cobblestone sidewalk, rendering it a sad, sad pile of metal and plastic.

I did, on the walk from the train station to our hotel, snap this little shot of the Saint Servatius bridge, the oldest in the country. At least it's something. (Also something: now I get to pick out a new camera!)

So anyway, the weekend was good, undocumented though it may be. The city was beautiful and hilly, and the trip was a fantastic break.

Since I named this blog after cheese, I should mention here that Casey and I split a really tasty cheese plate just before heading back home. I wanted to sample some of the famously stinky local variety, and it was even better than I'd hoped. And less stinky (although it was a very cold evening, which helped).

Geit

2007-10-22T10:23:00.000+02:00

Here's a photo from the goat farm at the Amster- damse Bos, about which several of you have heard me rave from time to time. This particular photo I took when I visited there in June with Casey's niece. I'm the sure the goat was hoping to nibble my camera at the time.

The Amsterdamse Bos is a forest on the southern edge of Amsterdam, about a 40 minute bike ride, mostly along the river, from our apartment. The Bos has all sorts of diverting pieces: soccer and (field) hockey fields; a rowing baan (what's the word in English?); some little islands with ropes courses, a cool raft, a rope swing, and the like; two horse stables; a theater... but my favorite amenity is the goat farm. Well, that and the game in the visitor center where you match photos of poo with the animal that made it. Anyway, at the goat farm you can pet the goats, buy grain or milk to feed them, watch them try to eat anything not nailed down and several things that are, AND taste goat ice cream and goat brie and other awesome goat cheeses. The farm has done nothing to temper my enthusiasm to acquire a pet goat.

This particular goat was roughly teenage. Kids' hair is much softer than adults', which I'm not sure I'd realized. Aren't goats CUTE???

Texel

2007-10-16T16:59:00.001+02:00

As I write, I'm on a plane to the US. Captive without the internets, I'm finally writing a blog post again.

I took today's photo in Texel (pronounced "Tessel") when my aunt and cousin were visiting at the beginning of September. Texel is the largest of the Wadden Islands. "Wadden" is basically "wading," and a couple of the islands you can actually wade to from the mainland at low tide, and you can also walk between two of them, also at low tide.

Texel is quite easy to reach from Amsterdam, and yet it's remarkably deserted, even on the weekends. And YET, it's the most populous of the Wadden Islands. Casey and I are quite excited to go back and see some of the others.

These little houses seem to be somewhat privately owned, but I think they're only storage. They did have some individualism in the form of decorations, but they are maybe half the size of the garden "houses" near the city that are country escapes for city people.

We camped at a tulip farm (at a grass clearing, not on actual bulbs). Most of the island is farms, but the west coast is a long dune nature preserve, which reminded me a lot of the dunes at Cape Cod or on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. We didn't have time to explore the dunes as much as we'd have liked. Definitely worth a long weekend.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a downloaded episode of Most Smartest Model to watch.

Emmen

2007-04-29T16:39:00.000+02:00

When we go on day trips in the Netherlands, we generally head south out of Amsterdam, along the Randstad (the corridor of cities from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, including Leiden and The Hague).

Last week Casey had a conference in Emmen, the largest city in the province of Drenthe, in the east. Casey goes out in this direction a few times a month for work, but I'd never been out there (except on trains to Germany). Tuesday I decided to visit him in Drenthe and see what I was missing.

For one thing, I was quickly reminded how small the regions are of different Dutch accents. (Just 10 minutes east of Amsterdam, people pronounce r's totally differently.) In Emmen I had a really hard time understanding people. *Really* hard. At one point I wasn't sure whether a woman was speaking Dutch or German to me, and I studied German for four years! Anyway, embarrassing language mistakes aside, Emmen was pretty mellow. And I got to see a hunebed! Hunebedden are ancient monuments made of stones left behind by glaciers retreating after the ice age. The structures date back about 5000 years and are burial chambers (Neolithic ones, at that). Today's picture is of hunebed D43: Schimmeres. It's a "long grave" and has two small burial chambers, plus a place for offerings. It's tucked away down a little path through some woods, which I never would have found without a map and good directions. As I was looking at the hunnebed, a guy biked up and said that he'd lived 500 meters away for a year and a half and never knew it was there. (Yes, I had trouble understanding him, too.)

De lente

2007-04-13T10:18:00.000+02:00

Yes, another flower picture. "De lente" means "spring" in Dutch, and it is certainly spring now. The sun isn't setting until around 8, which makes my rowing lessons much more scenic than the first lesson (which involved about 20 minutes of rowing in the unhelpful dark).

Anyway, the picture for today was also taken at Keukenhof, on April 1st, during my mom's visit. Note the windmill, which was built in Groningen in the late 19th century and moved to Lisse several decades later. (Clicking on the photo brings you to a larger version.)

In unrelated news, we finally got the results from our Dutch exam. We both passed! My teacher said that this exam is not just for our language school, but also for a standardized national Dutch as second language evaluation. It's a nice bonus, to have an official evaluation from the government saying that I can indeed speak... a little bit of Dutch. Well, small steps. Or, I should say, kleine stappen.

Long time, no see

2007-04-08T14:30:00.000+02:00

I've discovered the Catch-22 of blogging: when you're busy, you have no time to blog about what you're doing. Quick summary:

- Salsa lessons were fun, but we haven't signed up for the next level, because of upcoming travel.

- Our Dutch language courses were really excellent, but very time-consuming for the 6 weeks that they lasted. Class was 6 hours per week, and we were supposed to have about 6 hours of homework per week. I generally spent more like 8 hours per week on the homework, and even then, there was always something that I skimped on. Like the incredible amounts of vocabulary words assigned--my stack of flashcards topples over, and I only made cards for the first half of the course! But we definitely notice improvement in our everyday Dutch. It's easier to understand the announcements when trains are delayed or rerouted, we can read the free newspapers and entertainment magazines, and I'm even taking a rowing class that's mostly in Dutch (although the teacher does have to break into English occasionally, when it becomes painfully obvious that I'm not understanding).

- We had long weekends in Barcelona and Paris. Someday I hope to post some of those photos, because they were great trips.

Now to the present. My mother was visiting for the past week. I think it was a really excellent week: she got to see a lot of Holland, and Casey and I even managed to NOT give her the flu that we were both getting over just as she arrived.

For today I've chosen a picture that I took at Keukenhof, a garden in Lisse (the center of tulip production) that is only open for a few months out of the year: spring bulb time, and then again in late summer. (As always, click on the photo to see it large.) Keukenhof has more varieties of tulips than I ever thought possible: some were waist-high, some miniature, some looked like peonies, some almost like poinsettias... and it went on for acres and acres, with ponds and sculptures and quiet wooded areas and meadows and even a windmill overlooking a tulip farm. Most of the blooms were tulips; some were daffodils and crocuses, and there were just enough hyacinths to make breezes smell sweet. But today I'm posting crocuses, for you Bostonians and Chicagoans who are just starting to see springtime. Happy Easter!

sneeuw

2007-02-10T14:27:00.000+01:00

Winter has finally arrived!

This past week it snowed a tiny bit, then hailed twice (or maybe it was frozen rain), then snowed again. I'm grateful that it's not quite the snot-freezing cold that you Chicagoans are getting, but it is finally time to break out the scarf.

I took today's photo after the final snow, on Thursday afternoon. It's my bike light. By Friday morning, all traces of the winter wonderland had vanished, making me glad that I went out while I had the chance.

Happy winter!

Rotterdam

2007-02-09T11:00:00.000+01:00

Two Sundays ago we went to Rotterdam. The main objective was the Rotterdam International Film Festival, but a big secondary goal was to see some of the cool and weird modern architecture that the city is famous for.

We started the day by meeting Joe and Latha. Joe works with Casey and is married to Latha, who worked with Casey in Boston.

Upon arrival in Rotterdam, we quickly found the festival headquarters and picked up the movie tickets we'd reserved. The headquarters were very slickly decorated (or "film-y," as Latha observed).

We set off to experience some wacky architecture. Rotterdam was almost entirely demolished in WWII, so the city started fresh after the war. And the city did not disappoint. At every intersection was an opportunity for gawking.

Today's photo is of the Kijk-Kubus ("Cube Houses" or, more literally, "Show Cubes"). It's a series of houses, each made up of a cube tilted 45 degrees. One was open to visitors, so we went inside. The floor plan is open, but the angled walls pinch the space at places, effectively separating the space off into rooms. And they're larger than I expected: three tall stories, although the top floor is just one sun room (with a VIEW).

After the Kijk-Kubus, we ate lunch and then walked to the Erasmus Bridge. The bridge is on the 500 euro note as the symbol of Europe's modern architecture, and it is indeed impressive (coincidentally, my Google search for just the right image returned *only* that photo, taken by a postdoc we know at Northwestern). Having lived in Boston, we all thought it looked like the Zakim Bridge. We continued to admire the spaces in Rotterdam: at the foot of the bridge was a nice cafe with outdoor seating and more modern art.

From the bridge we walked to a park. At the park's north end is a museum, which seemed to be overflowing with sculptures that leaked into the park. My favorite was the 20 foot tall bent screw (flat head). Next we warmed up in another cafe and parted ways, they to the Maritime Museum, Casey and I to our first movie.

I should explain a major attraction of the festival. In theaters here, all non-Dutch movies are subtitled in Dutch. This doesn't matter for English-language movies, but we do occasionally like to see non-American movies. However, at an international festival, the prints are usually subtitled in English, since a festival print will probably be shown in the Netherlands only a few times, and English is now the European lingua franca (pun intended). So, our goal for the festival was to see non-English-language films.

To that end, we chose a series of short films by a Brazilian director, Kleber Mendonca Filho, and an Indonesian feature film called Opera Jawa.

The program of shorts was, incredibly, scheduled for just one hour. They opened the theater 15 minutes late, showed the first four films, and interviewed the director, and then the director showed clips from movies that he liked. At this point we made our escape, as they were about to show one more short, interview the director, and then have some "surprise bonus." The four films we saw were shown chronologically, and Casey and I agreed that the most recent (Electrodomestica) was the most enjoyable. The two middle ones, though, were also fun to watch. The second film was a ghost story from the director's elementary school, about a ghost haunting the school bathrooms (he testified that he and his friends used to wait until they got home to pee). The film was shot in digital and the actors were actively blurred, so that their images only came into focus for an instant now and then. The third film was a series of still photographs that told a story about a girl whose curiosity about a green record causes a pair of green gloves to come after her mother, removing her limbs one at a time.

The Indonesian feature film, Opera Jawa, was commissioned in 2006 by a film festival in Vienna. It's a "baroque opera" with Indonesian-style music and dance. It is a beautiful film, with great dancing. The sets, too, were interesting. Several dances made use of woven cones that are used for cooking rice and protecting food from flies. One memorable dance had a woman being chased by several men hiding under giant woven cones that covered their entire bodies. They danced her into this spiral that was reminiscent of a hedge maze, only made out of stacked coconut husks. The director was present at this screening, too, and had some interesting points about the story. He had modified the ancient legend, two kings fighting over a queen, to a wealthy businessman, a poor potter, and the potter's wife. He explained that he thought of kings as having power over land, and that the potter uses the earth in an analogy to a king, which was a neat point that I hadn't thought of.

At the same time, Joe and Latha were watching a different movie in the same theater complex, so afterwards we met up, grabbed some pret-a-manger food for the road, and caught a train home, tired but satisfied with our day out.

camping

2007-01-27T22:22:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I posted, hasn't it?

Today's photo is from a camping trip we went on while we were in Hawaii over Christmastime. Casey's friend Sage got permits for the three of us to camp for two nights in Kokee, the state forest up in the mountains in the central part of the island. It was a very nice camping trip, actually. Casey's sister loaned us a bunch of her supplies (tent, sleeping bags, chairs, propane grill), and we ate very well, hiked around some trails I'd never seen, and generally amused ourselves without electricity for a few days.

Our camp site was in a grove of tall pine trees (I'm sure I should know the type of tree, but I don't), overlooking a river, which was easy to climb down to if we wanted to bathe (which I didn't really). (In my defense, it was cold.)

The photo for today was taken while standing at our camp site, looking out at the hillside across the river. (Elevation! How I've missed you!)

It. Is. Defended! (Doctor Who, anyone?)

2006-12-15T19:21:00.000+01:00

About six weeks ago, Casey emailed a copy of his written PhD thesis (all 280-something pages) to his committee, so that they could read it before the defense (which was scheduled for Thursday, December 7). To his amusement but not surprise, on December 6, the two committee members who were not his advisor heavily implied that they had not read the thesis yet.

The defense ostensibly has three distinct parts: Casey's ~45 minute public presentation, questions from the committee after the audience leaves, and then some amount of time for the committee to confer amongst themselves in private. In practice, the questions were mostly all asked during the presentation, and the audience was permitted to ask questions, too, instead of just the committee. And the questions were not particularly confrontational; most of them were for clarification.

In the end, Casey successfully defended, and he is now a doctor. He still goes by Casey, though, but if you must address him with a title, he'd prefer "Doctor Claw."

Sinterklaas!

2006-12-06T18:25:00.000+01:00

Today is Saint Nicholas Day (Sinterklaas in Dutch)!

The picture I'm using for today is of the Sinterklaas's arrival in Amsterdam, about two weeks ago. The story is that Sinterklaas arrives from Spain on a steam ship. This steam ship actually comes in along the Amstel, so we could see the entrance from our apartment. We went outside early and took in the atmosphere.. tons of kids dressed up as the Sint or as Zwarte Piets (his small black-faced assistants).. There were Zwarte Piets on rollerblades appearing on bridges and such (causing the kids to shout and point sporadically) for a few minutes before the boat parade.. which consisted of several decked-out boats full of Zwarte Piets and bands, and then finally Sinterklaas's boat.

The boat parade went downtown, and Sinterklaas alighted at the Maritime Museum, where he got onto a white horse and rode around the city in a three-hour parade. I met up with the parade at the end point, in Leidseplein. The parade on land was even more impressive than by boat. It took at least an hour to go by, possibly more like two hours, and there were tons of floats and Zwarte Piets handing out spiced cookies and candies. Sinterklaas rode up in his white horse and then dismounted and went up to the balcony of a theater in the square, and he gave an address to all the children gathered. And this is where I took today's picture.

Of course the whole point of Sinterklaas is to get presents, right? To that end, Dutch children put out shoes by the chimney on the night of December 5th, and they wake up on December 6th with gifts (each with a poem to the recipient, from Sinterklaas) in the shoes. Casey's department had a Sinterklaas party last week. In this instance, the gifts were the slightly minor side effect of some very funny poems and bizarre wrapping.

Also, on Saturday, I saw our neighbor's kids dressed up and parading around the sidewalk.. The oldest one was dressed as Sinterklaas, and he had a trail of five or six Zwarte Piets. I think these kids were not actually wearing black face, but there definitely were some at the parade who were. People seem to be trying to make it more PC these days, by saying that they're just black from all the soot in the chimneys, but it's pretty clear that those are not the real roots of the legend. It is interesting to see this -- I can't imagine parents putting their children in black face in the states. Obviously when the US adopted Sinterklaas as Santa Claus, they changed the Piets to ethnically generic elves. I'm curious to see how the legend evolves in the Netherlands.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-29T14:28:00.000+01:00

Almost every year of my life, I have spent Thanksgiving with the Andersons. So when I found out that the daughter of the family (who is between my brother and me in age) would be in Heidelberg, Germany, for the year, I knew it was fated that we would spend Thanksgiving together.

Thursday morning, Casey and I loaded ourselves and our assorted food products onto the train and headed off for a four-day weekend in Germany.

The photo for today is taken from the Philosophers' Way in Heidelberg, looking down on the medeival part of the city and the castle (the Romans settled on the other side of the river, where we were standing). As always, you can click on the photo to see a larger version. We spent all day Friday walking around Heidelberg. The city is very picturesque, and it also has what I think is my favorite pedestrian street yet--Hauptstrasse, with the perfect amount of bustle and noise without actual crowding or blockage of store windows to look in. Excellent!

The aquaduct-looking structure to the left is actually the base of a public park, which used to be the castle's former gardens. The weather was perfect for us to walk around, enjoying the hillsides (quite a change from flat Amsterdam).

Saturday we took a train to two nearby smaller towns along the Neckar River in what is sometimes called the "castle district" of Germany. I'll try to post photos from there soon.

Martinmas

2006-11-11T23:21:00.000+01:00

Today was Saint Martin's Day, when Dutch children make paper lanterns and walk around to their neighbors singing songs in exchange for candy. It's like Halloween (which is not celebrated here), only sweeter. Unfortunately, we were under the impression that it was a tradition only in the northern part of the country, so we were unprepared when kids rang our doorbell expecting candy. So we closed our curtains and hid from them. Then later I snuck out to the balcony and took a few pictures.

The photo for today is of three celebrants with their lanterns and parents. One of the parents has a bike. I brightened the photo a bit and changed the contrast, which introduced a graininess, but I actually kind of like the graininess with the surreal point of view and the very long shadows. Like for all photos on this blog, clicking on the photo will take you to a larger version.

Next year, I will be prepared for Saint Martin's Day. A candy-buying reminder is already on my Google calendar.

Where was I?

2006-10-25T15:43:00.000+02:00

On my way to the grocery store today, I saw my breath, for the first time since I've been here. This made me reflect on the passage of time and, then, on how I haven't written anything in my blog for a while.

So, Berlin. In general we felt like we were in Chicago for most of the time that we were in Berlin. Of course the comparison is not complete; Berlin didn't invent the skyscraper, and Chicago wasn't Hitler's vision of the capital of a new continent. But at least superficially, it works for us. There's a similar mix of modern and old buildings, similar scale of both city and the buildings therein, and similar commercial history. And they're both flat cities with parks and well-preserved sight lines to interesting buildings.

The photo I chose for today is of the Berliner Dom, a cathedral on the eastern side of the city. It was built around the turn of the century and then almost immediately hit by bombs in WWII, and it took until 1993 -- after German reunification -- to finish restoration.

Behind the church on the left is the TV tower built in the late 60s by the (communist) GDR. The pink splotches are remnants of the World Cup (held throughout Germany this summer); the sphere was decorated to look like a pink soccer ball.

This was our last day in Berlin. We rented bikes and went around the city and through Tiergarten. "Tier" means "animal," and it is right next to the zoo, but Tiergarten itself is a huge wooded park in the center of the city. It felt more like a state park in the US than like a city park, except that you'd occasionally cross a bridge that had some cool sculptures at each end, or some monument in a clearing.

The day after we left was the anniversary of reunification. We saw the city well on its way getting ready for the holiday, closing off streets and setting up for festivals.

last Saturday

2006-10-08T16:10:00.000+02:00

Our friends from Chicago had a wedding to go to in France, and they wanted to see one other (new-to-them) European city while they were on the continent. I told them I'd try to meet them wherever, and when they finally decided on Berlin, Casey was so excited that he blew off his thesis for a weekend and came along. Myself, I was excited to get to use the German I'd learned in high school and college, and curious to see how much of it I'd retained, and of course the history is unique.

The train ride (my first international one) was easy. Only 6.5 hours, and we didn't even have to change trains. Casey implied I was paranoid when I packed little bags of pistachios and arare, but I was vindicated when they announced that the bistro car was out of order. We got reading done on the train -- a borrowed Berlin guidebook, some German romantic literature, and some historical fiction involving Leibniz and Queen Sophie-Charlotte of Brandenburg (all very topical).

Taking the train in, we went through Spandau, where Nazis were imprisoned after the war. The train then went through the western part of Berlin, which is mostly modern and sort of Chicago-looking. Then, in the middle of a large business center, there's a bombed-out church (kept as a reminder of horrors of war). I heard someone gasp when the church came into view. Then the train rode through Tiergarten, and we could look out at the zoo and at kids playing in the park.

Our first destination in Berlin? A bomb shelter. Actually, first Casey got some currywurst, but then we went to a museum called "The Story of Berlin," which was in the same building as a 1970s bomb shelter. The photo for today was taken inside the shelter; it's a row of bunks. The shelter is interesting -- the main purpose is to keep people (~3500 of them) alive for two weeks. Most of the space is taken up by bunks. Oxygen is kept at a low level, so that people will be tired and sleep a lot. Each person is alotted ~2 liters of water per day (from a well 30 m deep). There are no showers. And all the food is a canned breadlike substance, which is high in calories and requires minimal preparation.

The museum itself was also interesting. It started with the first mention of Berlin in some commerce record in the 1200s. I was most interested to see what a German museum would say about the events leading up to World War II, and they were ultimately presented without any excuses. The Allies were never mentioned with negative epithets, and by the same token the economic downturn in the 30s was mentioned but not dwelt on. I don't think they even mentioned the effect of the Treaty of Versailles on German morale, which is often cited in history classes in the US as at least part of the reason that Germans began to feel isolated from the rest of the world.

voetball

2006-09-20T09:47:00.000+02:00

Getting tickets to soccer games in Amsterdam is less straightforward than getting baseball tickets in the US, but neither is it as difficult as people here told us it would be, in that the games don't sell out as often as people think.

To minimize hooliganism, the Eredivisie (the top Dutch soccer league) requires, for most seats at most games, anyone buying tickets to be a registered "supporter." There are different types, but the basic supporter's card costs only 6 euros, is good for two years, and lets you buy 3-4 tickets for most games and 1 ticket for games against big rivals. You can also buy tickets for away games; every stadium has a section for fans of the visiting team, separated to prevent fighting.

At the end of August, Casey and I trekked south to the Amsterdam ArenA (I don't know why they capitalize the final A; maybe they're confused about the definition of "palindrome") and each bought an Ajax club card and two tickets to a game against Vitesse, a middling Dutch team. We found two people in Casey's department who wanted to join us, and last week we went to the game!

The biggest difference I noticed between soccer games here and, say, baseball games in the US is that at soccer games, people don't get up for beer or bathroom breaks until half time. Also the chants are much more complicated. There's some long song when the team comes out (although for that one, the words are displayed on the big screen [I'd call it a jumbotron, but it's not all that jumbo]). There are also long chants throughout, like whenever a goal is scored, and also for no apparent reason. There was one section to our right that never sat or even was quiet, the entire game. The guy selling us tickets warned us away from sitting there, saying it "might not be safe." At the time I thought he meant that fights might break out, but I see now that he meant, "you might get hurt from all the jumping and banner-waving."

So we sat in a section that looked like overflow for the visiting team's fans, probably only used as such at games against bigger (and closer?) rivals like ADO Den Haag and FC Utrecht. Thus, we were surrounded by plexiglass topped with steel spikes. In today's picture, you can see this steel. The picture is of one of Ajax's many shots on goal during that game, although this particular one did not go in. I felt odd taking photos during the game, as if I was being sacreligious by not fixing all my attention on the game itself. Even the two guys next to me, who were sharing a very large joint, did not take their eyes off the game as they passed it back and forth.

And the final score? Ajax 3-0.

vijftien

2006-09-14T10:59:00.000+02:00

I've been unpacking the past week and not doing much of note, so I figure I'll post one more Prague picture.

This was on our first day there. We walked around a bit and climbed a church tower to see the view and get our bearings. The church we were at was St. Nicholas in Lesser Town (not to be confused with either of the other two St. Nicholas churches in the city). This view is facing east, toward Charles Bridge (Karlov Most; where the crowd is) and Old Town.

As we were leaving the viewing deck, walking down the tower stairs, we heard music that seemed to be coming from the church (which the guidebook said was beautiful inside). We tried to investigate, but the church was closed. But if we wanted to come back in an hour, we could pay $10 and see a performance of Mozart's Requium inside. So that is indeed what we did.

never ship goods to Amsterdam

2006-09-07T13:24:00.000+02:00

After a long wait (4-8 weeks longer than originally estimated), Tuesday was moving day. The (British) movers were supposed to arrive at "lunchtime," and we told the Turkish family to come at 3, since all they had to do was hoist two items (a dresser and a bookcase).

At 2:15 our Turkish friend showed up (his role was to translate to the Turkish family, who spoke only Turkish and a small amount of Dutch).

At 2:30 the movers showed up... sans stuff, which was parked on the other side of the river, because they couldn't fit their ENORMOUS TRACTOR TRAILER onto our street. Specifically, around the corners to get onto our street, which was plenty wide itself. So they parked as close as they could, in view of our apartment but with a river in the way.

So, we called the Turkish family (thankfully our translator friend was early) and told them to come an hour later. Apparently they were displeased. Then there was a series of phone calls to the department secretary and the city (to see if they could remove a post from the bike path... but to get a worker out to remove the post, you have to APPLY WEEKS IN ADVANCE; the city just told us to drive the wrong way on the one-way street, which the driver refused to do). I ran through some other possibilities in my head... Was there an unused boat nearby? How much could my bicycle carry? Both ideas sounded possibly disastrous.

So we had to rent a van, which I had no idea how to say in Dutch. Eventually I found a place that spoke good enough English that they could help us find another place that did rent vans, and also that the movers could get to, so that they could load up the van. (This plan was devised by Casey, who was using my cell phone to talk to the movers' UK headquarters at the same time that I was going through the car rental section in the phone book.)

The movers, by the way, came over on the ferry from England at 4am Tuesday, had one move in Leiden (~an hour away), then another job somewhere else, then ours, then two or three more Tuesday night, then one Wednesday morning, then they had to go to Belgium for a few more that day, and Germany on Thursday. At one point the dispatcher in the UK told me that they were going to go on to their next job, and I somehow convinced her that we were on the verge of figuring this all out.

Back to the van rental. Casey and I aren't legal to drive in Europe, we think, and also the vans were stick shift, which Casey can't drive. No problem, the truck driver's well qualified! Except that by the time they finished filling out all the paperwork for the car rental, they only had an hour before the police had told them they had to be out of the city limits (at 6pm)... So WE had to carry most of the stuff up the stairs (including our friend who was only supposed to be here to translate).

In the meantime the Turkish family had announced that they had another job and couldn't come back later. So I had frantically called Casey's department secretary for suggestions, and she eventually found two astronomers in the department (!) who were Dutch and therefore had used the pulley system, and also a rental place for this stuff around the corner. In the meantime I emailed an alleged mover on Craig's List. I considered moving the stuff into Casey's office until we could find a way to get it up the stairs. Ultimately the Turkish family called back and said that they'd do it, but for 2.5 times what they'd asked for originally. Fine. They'd be there at 7.

Even with the movers AND the three of us taking stuff upstairs, the movers didn't have time to return the van. Of the three of us left (Casey, our friend, and me), I was the only one who knew how to drive a stick shift. Which meant that I had to return the van. I had to DRIVE A VAN through Amsterdam. I was not on the rental contract, so I really don't think it was legal for me to drive, aside from the license and insurance issues. Plus I had no idea what half of the pictogram street signs meant. Like the sign for "one way: do not enter".. luckily Casey did. (It's a car. THAT'S the sign.)

By this time it was rush hour. I stayed in 1st and 2nd gears the whole way, because there were so many bicycles... and also because I was concerned about where 3rd gear was. Thankfully Casey had found a branch of the rental company that was not far at all (~10 min run), but with all the unexpected one-way streets, it felt like aeons. I'm very glad my aunt taught me how to drive stick (10 or so years ago).

We returned the van, and while Casey was waiting to sign more paperwork, I ran home. The Turkish family was early, so we started attaching the pulley and cables. We'd actually left a lot more than two items for them, since the impossibly strong movers didn't have enough time to take much of the stuff up the stairs. Today's photo is of one of the brothers preparing to guide a load onto our balcony. There's a thin diagonal cable coming off the load, which ran down to Casey, who was standing in the street so as to pull the load away from the neighbor's balcony while not adding any weight to the load. (The thin horizontal line is a street light.) Several neighbors came out to watch the spectacle, too.

Somewhere in all that, our neighbor's cat disappeared. I'm worried it ran outside while nobody was looking (we had to go through his upstairs part to get to the hook, and his upstairs part shares a hallway with our apartment, which was totally open to the outside, and for a while everyone was paying attention to the hook/pulley system and not to the front door). Our neighbor kept appearing when I wasn't expecting him, shaking a container of dry cat food with the intention of flushing out his hiding cat. (SO alarming.) It's probably fine; cats aren't stupid. But still, we were huge nuisances to him and it sucks that his cat disappeared.

So now our stuff is all inside. The movers were supposed to unpack it and take away all the boxes and paper, I think. At the very least they were supposed to unwrap the furniture and take away THAT paper (four-ply, one plastic-coated). And there's A LOT. Apparently there's a reality show here called "Environmental Police" (but in Dutch), and these police go around and give 50 euro tickets to people who improperly dispose of garbage. And apparently the bulk of the program is people who have just moved in and who throw out their packing material before garbage day. Which means we had to keep these mountains of paper and boxes until Wednesday night, at which point we were afraid to push it, and only threw out an armload. We'll see how long it takes us to make a dent in these piles. We did find someone who's moving soon and can use some boxes and packing material from inside the boxes, but not all of it survived well. And the furniture paper can't be reused.

Incidentally, we used the most highly recommended international forwarders in the US. I'll close with a snippet from an IM conversation from Tuesday night:

S-A says: (10:25:29 PM)
I shall remember this story as further proof of what you said before -- never take your stuff if moving to Europe.

Jessica says: (10:25:40 PM)
never.

Jessica says: (10:26:06 PM)
although i can recommend a cheap turkish family who's quite skilled with the pulley.

lively Prague

2006-08-31T09:35:00.000+02:00

One more Prague photo. This was Monday, as I was touristing on my own while Casey was in the conference. I wandered over to the Old Town square and got to the Astronomical Clock just at the new hour, as the apostles were doing their rotating thing in the windows above the clock face. Then I ambled over toward the Huss (religious reformer) statute, and I heard some noise--pipes, bells, etc. A bunch of stilt walkers were running around with some musicians and dancers waving banners and so forth. One of the dancers started rolling around on the ground and was IMMEDIATELY surrounded by people taking her picture. (What is WITH the tourists who stand directly under someone ON STILTS to take his picture?!) Anyway, they were shouting stuff in Czech, so I have no idea what it was all about, but eventually another group, in black and yellow and beating tribal drum-type things came in, and they danced together, then a red group did the same, and then some Brazilian-themed group came in and danced with all of them. Then there was a little parade around the square, with vehicles.

I found this scene especially cool, because the only other time anyone in my immediate family went to Prague was when my parents went there in ~1972 (for a physics conference, complete with KGB), while Czechoslovakia was under communist rule and presumably less of a lively tourist destination. In fact, not only was it communist at the time, but 1969 saw the Russian appointment of a Czech head of state whose purpose was to return Czechoslovakia to hard-line communism. During the 60s there had been some anti-communist music groups, protests, etc., and in 1968 Russia moved tanks into Prague, to save the Czech people from... themselves. So by the time my parents visited, it was again a punishable offense to dislike the communist ruling. It was even a punishable offense to know that someone else wanted to escape and not report their plan.

The architecture may have been the same, but the throngs of brazen tourists were not there before.

back home

2006-08-25T11:01:00.000+02:00

Hi again. Casey and I just returned from The IAU General Assembly and sightseeing (mostly respectively) in Prague, where I took 340+ pictures and pulled a muscle walking and where it was decided that the solar system does not have nine planets after all. How odd that there isn't a Wikipedia entry on my pulled muscle yet.

Today's picture was taken on our first day in Prague (Saturday), in Lesser Town, at the base of the "hill" that Prague Castle sits on. The highlight of the city is the architecture, which has remained better preserved than in other large European cities through both world wars and communist occupation. The baroque buildings were most plentiful and impressive in their bounty, but I chose this photo to start things off, because my mom likes pink.

I hope to post a few more photos soon (I promise not more than a hundred), but this weekend is Uitmarkt in Amsterdam, so I might be a bit busy.

Dutch history lesson

2006-08-09T14:39:00.003+02:00

For much of World War II, Germany occupied the Netherlands. The Dutch had hoped that they could remain neutral, as they had in the first World War, so their military was unprepared, and they could only resist Germany for four days before surrendering. (Their surrendering also spared Amsterdam from being bombed as heavily as Rotterdam.) The German occupation started in 1940 and lasted until the end of the war.

During the occupation, the Dutch government (including the royalty) fled to England, where they set up a government-in-exile and even broadcast news programs in Dutch on the BBC.

Since almost all of Germany's supplies came through the Netherlands, the country's rail lines were heavily bombed as the war went on. For the last year, the Dutch had very little food, if any. Friends of friends recall living on tulip bulbs and juice made from boiling beets for the last several months of the war.

When the war ended, the queen of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, decided not to move back into the palace (in The Hague) immediately. Instead, she found a more modest house nearby where she lived for several months, until the Dutch people began to forgive her for fleeing. (In contrast, the Danish royalty stayed in Denmark, and stories say that their king wore a Jewish star in protest. The Dutch thought and still do think very highly of this and of the strong Danish resistance, although to be fair to the Dutch, the Netherlands was more strategically located for Germany.) Anyway, the queen lived in this house from August 1, 1945, until May 1, 1946.

This house is now owned by Casey's sister's boyfriend's father, who invited us to stay there for a couple of nights while they (Casey's sister, her boyfriend, her daughter, and her daughter's best friend) were visiting last month. The house, technically in Scheveningen, is indeed not particularly ostentatious from the outside, but it is still very nice. The style is called "drie onder een kop" (three under one cap), which is sort of like a three-house town house. There's a small front yard and a garden in back, and by European standards it is very spacious, but it's true that there are larger mansions on the same street. And, yes, it's definitely smaller than the palace.

The photo for today was taken in the front foyer in the house. It's a series of photos of Queen Wilhelmina's daughter unveiling a plaque honoring the house. (Like all photos on this blog, clicking on the image takes you to a larger version.) The top right photo is recognizable as the front of the house.

tien

2006-08-08T13:47:00.000+02:00

As promised, Amsterdam gay pride parade.

For those of us from Vassar, it's the homo hop on water, only during the day and with a greater diversity of spectators (and participants).

The parade consists of a series of boats. They're each playing their own music (most of them were playing some sort of techno). The boats start out at a dock near Centraal Station, and they go along Prinzengracht (past the Anne Frank House), turn left at the Amstel (away from our apartment, sadly), and finish at a dock on the other side of Centraal. We met up with some people from Casey's office (not an easy feat in itself) and watched for maybe 2 hours. I think we missed the beginning, but we stayed until the boats going by were smaller and much less enthusiastic, at which point people seemed to agree that the parade was over. Then we went to watch Superman IMAX.

This year's theme was "Rembrandt," to commemorate his 400th birthday. I chose this photo for today because I thought this was the float that did the best job with the theme, of the few that didn't ignore the theme altogether. There were a few others that had painting motifs, but this one was way cooler. It was a relatively large one, everyone on the boat was wearing black, and most were wearing the white collars and coordinating their dancing. And it had never occurred to me from looking at paintings just how well those collars bounce around when their wearers are dancing!

But I said "diversity," didn't I? There were people of all ages, in the audience and also on the boats. A man standing behind me put his daughter on his shoulders so that she could see. I think the most surprising thing for me was all the corporate boats. Several banks had boats in the parade (my favorite of those was ING's), and Shell Oil had a good one, too. There was a parade-provided banner on each of the corporate boats, which said "Personal Pride = Company Pride."

negen

2006-08-05T13:00:00.000+02:00

G's in Dutch are pronounced with the gutteral "ch" sound.

Today's photo I took early this morning, biking from the pub to the late-night falafel place. The ad is for a Botero sculpture exhibit in The Hague, which we saw when we were there last month. At any rate, however good Casey claims hamburgers are at the end of a long night, I'm confident that falafel is at least as good. And certain Chicago people will be happy to know that Casey and I have been dubbed "new members of the core" as a result of our stamina. (Really the trick is to not drink very much--but perhaps I shouldn't be giving away our trade secrets.)

Now we're off to the gay pride parade along the canals, and then to Superman IMAX. Tomorrow Casey's ex-officemate will come from Turkey. He's staying with us for three weeks, until he can move into his apartment in Amsterdam. In theory I should finish unpacking my own stuff before he arrives. But I'd rather see the gay pride parade.

acht

2006-08-02T14:44:00.000+02:00

Backtracking a bit...

Today's photo was taken a few blocks from our apartment, on the day that we signed the rental contract (over a month ago now!). For a few weeks, these flowers (hollyhocks?) were blooming all over the city. They're mostly gone now, but the roses are still blooming, along with plenty of other flowers.

This past Saturday, we went back to the Albert Cuypstraat market. Since this time it was a Saturday, it was much busier than the first time we went. The guy with the orange juice machine was there (one tasty ~6 oz cup for a euro), along with the stroopwafel guy (one large gooey stroopwafel for a euro, too). On a healthier note, we finally got some plants for our balcony -- one basil and one tiny trinitaria (or bougainvillea, if you're not talking about them in Puerto Rico). Now our balcony looks slightly less naked. Except for when the wind knocks over our puny plants and you can't see them from below anymore. Maybe next weekend we'll find some bigger pots.

"Seven" in Dutch is "zeven."

Vrijdag

2006-07-22T20:48:00.000+02:00

Friday morning I woke up, showered, and watched a horrible episode of Lois & Clark while getting ready (no WONDER main characters never get together -- all they did that entire episode was talk about their relationship). Casey took my bike to work, and I left a bit later to catch a bus to his office, like many other days. As I was almost at the bus station, I saw Casey, coming back to tell me that the power was out on the Science Park campus, and nobody was allowed into his building. As my laptop, keyboard, and mouse were in there, and the data he's working with are on the local computer in his office, this meant that neither of us could do any work. We quickly agreed that the most productive use of our time would be to run some errands and then see a museum, which would be more crowded on a weekend, and perhaps the free lunchtime organ concert at Westerkirk. Hopefully the power would be fixed by Saturday and we could work then instead.

First: phone cord. Our home phone is not working. When I called the phone company, they said our line was "perfect" and that we needed to read our phone manual (in Dutch and French). We then took the phone into Casey's office, and it worked fine there, but there are two types of phone plugs (the normal US one, and another one that has four prongs and sticks into the side of the phone jack). Anyway, long story short (too late!), before we pay the $75 or whatever for the phone company to come fix our jack, we want to do as much troubleshooting as possible.

So, we got the cord, at a store called "Handyman" with all sorts of adorable logos. From there our idea was to keep walking north and go to one of the two museums we'd heard of that were 17th century houses with French-style gardens. So we left Handyman and walked north, and then we saw what looked like a street market. I spotted some watches a few booths in, and since my crappy Target watch broke last week, I sped over to get one. Long story short (too late!), we had inadvertently stumbled across the largest market in the city, and we were not disappointed. In addition to the watch, we found some spices for our empty cupboard and vegetables, bread, manchego, and italian sausage for lunch. On our way back home to drop off our purchases, I stopped at a health food store and got some vegetarian pate thing that tastes a little bit like liverwurst.

One lunch, a nap, and a frustrating phone test later, we set off again. First we went to the Last-Minute Ticket Shop at Leidseplein for tickets to the Talking Cows at Bimhuis, the new jazz theater. Then we strolled along a canal to the Museum Van Loon, which was lived in as a house from the early 1600s until 1971. One of the bedrooms was last redecorated in 1690-something... So that residents of that house lived with that renovation for almost 300 years!

After the Museum Van Loon closed, we tried the photography museum, "foam," across the canal. This museum was mostly glass and steel, and very fun to explore. The major exhibit was by a Japanese photographer who photographs urban scenes with a small hand-held camera, often with grainy film. Some looked like crap, but I was surprised, after reading the discription in advance, how many of photos struck us both.

Before we had time to tire of museums, we left (these Museumkaarts are great -- as many entrances as we want in most museums for a year) and walked up to Rembrandtplein, where we sat at an outdoor cafe, writing postcards and gradually eating dinner for a couple of hours.

Then, tram up to Centraal, and walk across the construction to the Muziekgebouw, the new concert hall that also houses Bimhuis, the jazz room. We were early, so we joined the disorganized blobs of people gathered on the terrace and watched boats come in, drop people off, pick them back up... To our surprise, they all managed the jump from boat to terrace without landing in the questionable water. Then we went up to the Bimhuis... a small theater with great red leather seats around a stage looking over the city, behind the seats some tables with chairs, and behind a moving wall, a bar with a view over the harbor.

The photo for today is from the show, which was great. The green curvy building behind the bassist is NEMO, the science museum. Part of the fun of the show was the space, with its view of the city and trains going by (we saw an ICE high-speed train).

Not bad for a spontaneous day.

zes

2006-07-12T16:34:00.001+02:00

Here's a little sculpture from a theater down the street from our apartment. Starting this week, the theater is showing Rembrandt: The Musical. I'm not making that up. Sadly, the show will be performed only in Dutch. I'm almost tempted to go anyway, though, because it's such a great-looking theater. Or maybe I'll just wait until the mambo show in January.

Speaking of stuff in our neighborhood, there is a restaurant nearby that has a huge deck over the water, as well as boat docks with easy-to-get-to-from-a-boat tables right on the water. So people can pull up in their boats, have some beers, and keep going. Anyway, we keep going by that place and seeing it packed with people and thinking it looks cool. So when Casey's sister wanted to meet somewhere in the city (she's visiting her boyfriend's family near Amsterdam), this was the first thing that sprang to mind. So we met there, and it was indeed a pleasant place to be! As an added bonus, my salad had some very good feta (the creamy, not-very-briny kind).

fiets!

2006-07-07T14:38:00.000+02:00

I have a bike! (It's the green one in the photo.)

After spending 175 euros on the bike, the bungee cord straps, and the two locks (the second being the handcuff on the rear tire), I have to say, I miss hand brakes. On the first day, I fell off. Twice. I definitely need to practice stopping and starting before I try biking in a skirt again. And forget about putting Casey on the back there.

But all the bikes have neat mechanically powered lights. When it starts getting dark out, you can engage the little gear that uses friction with the front tire to generate enough electricity for the small front and back lights. And it doesn't feel like I'm losing that much efficiency to the light while pedaling. I also don't mind having only one gear: there are no hills, and without a helmet I don't want to go very fast anyway. So once I get the starting and stopping down, I'll be all set.

Here's my quick guide to Dutch pronunciation. Like in German, "ie" is pronounced like a long "e" sound. So "fiets" ("bike") sounds like the English word "feats." And "drie" ("three") is pronounced... well, I don't think I'm the best person to describe the pronunciation of this word, because every time I ask for three zones on the tram, they think I'm asking for two. (When Casey does it, they think he's asking for one, which is even weirder.) Right, so, "twee" is pronounced kind of like "tveh" might be in English, and "een" is... something like "Maine" without the M. We can't figure out why they're confusing those three words when we say them.

One more word for today -- five is "vijf," pronounced like the little piccolo instrument (fife).

vier

2006-07-02T16:35:00.000+02:00

Back to my original naming scheme. In case you're upset that you missed out on the last post, the Dutch word for "three" is drie.

This picture I took last Thursday at a park near our temporary apartment. It was an uncharacteristically nice day, so I printed up some work and sat on this bench for an hour or two, alternately working and watching the ducks and KLM planes go by. I may have gotten another freckle or two in the process.

I am certainly not as tan as most people here. Right now the sun is up from about 5 am to 10 pm, and most restaurants have well used outdoor seating, and every park is full of sunbathers. However, I did also see some home tanning beds for sale in an electronics store ("it's"), so I suspect at least a few of the orangey people are cheating. (I haven't noticed a plethora of tanning salons, but it's possible I just don't recognize the word for "tan.") I'm curious to look up whether my health insurance covers skin cancer screening and removal.

We spent a lot of Friday and Saturday organizing our new apartment. I'll post a more relevant photo soon. One great surprise is that if we open the balcony doors, we can hear the water lapping on the river bank. The river itself is good entertainment now, too. There are boats going up and down all the time, and on Saturday night one went by with a jazz band that we could hear for a little while. During the day there are puppies to watch. And one crazy guy who shouts a lot.

All is right with the world

2006-06-29T18:05:00.000+02:00

We have made Mexican food.

This bag of tortilla chips was on a comically dusty supermarket shelf, right below the Indian food. (Of course I didn't think to photograph it before tearing it open.)

In the same section of the store, I found canned black beans. I had to buy three pounds of assorted cheeses (they just don't sell small amounts of unaged cheese here), because I was unsure how to approximate monterey jack. Because I know you're wondering now, it turns out that oranjekaas is close enough--salty and mild. Just how I like my... oh, never mind.

I got some very ripe avocados from a market down the street, too, and we brought a can of green chiles from Chicago. It was a pleasant meal.

twee

2006-06-28T09:44:00.000+02:00

On Saturday, we went to the Scheepvaart Museum (which the English brochures call the Maritime Museum). Probably one of my favorite things in the museum was in the (17th century Dutch Admiral) Michiel de Ruyter exhibit: Nazi propaganda posters capitalizing on a centuries-old rivalry with England. Actually, most of the de Ruyter exhibit itself capitalized on a centuries-old rivalry with England, which was also pretty hilarious, but I didn't take pictures of any of those examples.

I did take a picture of this little boat. This is just the stern; the bow has some big cherubs. And a seal with some French written on it (not the Dutch royal crest, which has a lion and hopefully no French). Anyway, it's a boat that belongs to the Dutch royal family and is on loan to the museum. The things sticking up along the middle are oars; there's a little curtained sitting area at the far end (i.e., the bow) where the passengers sit. The best thing about this boat is that it was last used in the 1960's, for a trip with the queen up and down the Amstel River (which is immediately adjacent to our new apartment). Casey and I were imagining sitting out on our balcony and watching THIS float by. I wonder whether I'd scream like I did when I was surprised by the Christmas El train going by my window in Chicago. Probably not, because I bet there would be crowds of people watching, which I'd be able to see from my balcony, thus alerting me to the imminent appearance of the boat. Which brings me to another photo they had in this exhibit: one of all the military rowers on a reconnaissance trip in the boat the day before. They actually called it that!

So I guess my point for today is, I live in a country with royalty. Weird!

een

2006-06-27T21:55:00.000+02:00

I took this picture on Monday toward the beginning of my ~7 mile walk around Amsterdam. I'm still getting settled (for one, I haven't gotten a bicycle yet, although I've now been here for a week).

On this particular day I (thought I) had time to kill in the morning, so I went to the Rijksmusem. But Sunday night someone threw acid on a painting in there, so the museum was closed for the morning. I instead went to the Van Gogh museum, which was packed with people who had been confronted with the same dilemma. So then I walked around for a while, got lunch, and eventually meandered back to the apartment, several miles away. Anyway, this was a cool-looking curvy street, right next to... oh, some canal. (Perhaps it's good that I don't have a bike yet, because I would just get lost faster.)

This photo is not a super example, but it is very cute how much attention people give to their, like, 3 inches of gardening space in front of their buildings--lots of rose bushes and such tied vertically. And yes, people do sweep the sidewalks in front of their doors.

One amusing detail in houses here: they all have those beams sticking out at the top. Those beams have hooks on them. They're for moving furniture in! (They attach ropes and pulleys... it's very impressive.)