Kersen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?)

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!

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

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

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?

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

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.