All is right with the world

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

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

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.)