Bed cover

in the fanciest store in amsterdam (i would compare it to bergdorf goodman, i guess), we saw this bed cover. i got tim to pose, and took several pictures, but my camera is getting a bit old, and the one pic where he is really aligned with his new body is missing... (sometimes it wont actually store the pictures anymore. on top of that i lost the lens cover 2 weekens ago. buuh. still need to do something about that). i was really tempted to buy it. were it not for him.... then at least for myself!! but that was before i saw the price.... :)
ah, and imagine the excitement kids will have! im sure i would.... maybe not as a ballet dancer... but i think the cover next to it was a super hero or so.... ;)

Floating garden

see that green spot next to the boat? a floating garden!! as those living on the water still want to have a garden.... i do wonder whether they can walk on it?!

Outdoor gym

this is in the amsterdam forest (het amsterdamse bos). it is called "the bosbaan"  and is a rowing lake. but its used for swimming too.... when we were there, again a few weeks back, we stumbled upon the triathlon. well, it was 1/8 of a triathlon (i think). they had to swim 750 metres, then bike 20 km, and run 5 km. when a pool of swimmers was released, the water was not this calm, but soon after it become sleek like above.... watching this all made both me and tim sort of wanting to join as well. but we dont have wetsuits (it wasnt cold, so i dont think it was needed), and we also dont have fancy bikese... would a normal dutch bike suffice as well? then i would try... but all the contestants had fancy bikes and helmets (and some a big beer belly; that convinced me i could join as well!). some would come out of the water and jump right on their bikes. others would change (some would even strip completely). some were in a hurry, others first dried themselves before putting on their next set of clothes. same when to returned for their run... quite interesting to see.....!

Endless baking....!

soooo...... the last of my 10 breads is now in the oven.... pfew!! i started thursday with the first batch (then you onlw throw some sourdough starter, flour and water together. but still, you need to think ahead!), kneaded most breads yesterday (and baked 2 as well, that need to "rest" at least 12 hours before you slice them, to let the flavors enhance and blend together), and then started baking this morning. i think i put the oven on around 8, and now, 5 in the afternoon, its still on and has hardly been off..... aside for 2 of the "easy" breads (ie no sourdough breads), i kneaded them all by hand, as you can see here.... i dont mind the kneading. the baking is the trickiest part, and takes the most time (especially since only bread fits each time, as opposed to my american oven where i could do 2!). each time, even though i baked bread so often now, i sill wonder whether "it worked" this time, and how the bread looks (during the first part of baking the bread is covered, so its always a surprise...) flour is everywhere, and i could find some dough on the dress as well, as usual....

anyways.... now its almost done! i baked a variety of breads and i hope people will like them. since i was baking anyways, i also baked 1 bread for our own lunch (yum!), and some apple cake yesterday...  after this, i think the oven needs a break.... :) and time for us to finally check out the festival!

What baguette?!

saw this in edinburgh, scotland, when we were there in july. we were looking for a restaurant, but this was just a sad, sad alley... i hoped to eat in the pub close to where we parked our car. but... while wandering around the kitchen had closed and we needed to find something else. we had italian food. not the best. but not the worst either. i guess i was just hoping for the fish and chips....

anyways... this saturday there is some festival in our neigborhood. it was last year as well, but then we missed it (as we miss most things... somehow i was better at keeping track of all that was going on when we lived in boston!). this year.... i have been asked to bake 10 breads! as you might know, i like to bake bread. in the past few months, i have occassionally baked bread for strangers (there is a dutch food website where you can post your food and/or leftovers, and then people in your neighborhood can come pick it up paying the cost of the ingredients/to make it). and so now, someone asked me to bke 10 breads for this event. im stil, not sure how im going to do it in my tiny oven... but i do know some of the doughs i will have to start now for them to be ready as baked breads on saturday.... so now its time for the kitchen and then for bed.... :)

anyone who is around amsterdam, this is the event! there should be lots of food and what-not!

Real american....

...hotdogs! you can get them in amsterdam.....

i didnt try them. in the supermarket we also have "real american pizza", but then i went to america and couldnt find that "real american pizza" as i knew it....

like the "dutch cheese" thats not always dutch cheese if its not actually from the netherlands.... and so on and so on....

just recently i read in the newspaper that the ducth like starbucks. they dont mind to pay a little more for that coffee as it gives them the feeling of doing like the new yorkers do, walking around with a cup of coffee... i dont get it! we have good coffee and one of the things i missed when in the usa were the cafes where you could really sit down and get a real good coffee (not the diluted american stuff) in a real cup (tastes so much better in a cup as compared to a carton-to-go). but well.... i guess those dutch just want to goto new york!! (and i wouldnt mind a visit either... its been over a year now...)

Amsterdam houseboat

here you see some houseboat in a canal in amsterdam. i guess its a bit more expensive to have on in this city compared to groningen. also here, you are not really having a private place. on summer days many people will come by in boats. the houses on both sides, and of course the traffic and all the tourists... :) no garden either....

tommorrow regular life starts for most again; universities start the new year, all primary and secondary schools have started again... etc etc. by now most everyone should have come back from holidays. i had a quiet start into working life again over the summer. and now i just hope it wont be too crowded in the train....

Concert beds

so... this is the inside of the famous amsterdam concert hall.... last month we went to a piano concert. as you can see, there are no chairs!! of course, normally there are chairs, but this was a special occasion. normally, the musicians are on the stage that you can see underneath the organ, but this time they were placed more or less between the audience. and yes, the audience brought their own mats, and some even brought blankets and pillows. the idea was to fully immerse yourself in the music. this was a piece for 4 pianos (and a little bit of organ, but they could have left that out for me personally). the piece is called "canto ostinato" by simeon ten holt, i guess here you can listen to some of the music (if you dont know it, i urge you to check it out!!). bluntly said, its repetitive piano music (4 pianos, as i said), and i really love it (although i know several people who cannot stand the repetitiveness of the music. i think its really wonderful, and lying down like that really fits this kind of music).

when i discovered about this concert, most tickets were sold out already. only places on a chair were still available!! luckily, they were quite a bit cheaper than the "sleeping" places (and no need to bring your own mat!) (20 euros vs 35, thats quite a difference). so.... me, tim and my sister got tickets and we went. we had great seats! not only could we see the musicians very well, we also had plenty opportunity to observe all those lying down. it was a great experience, and i think in the end we were a bit more comfortable on a chair than lying down... :) (listening to music like that at home is different from doing so in public..!!). it was fun to see some people (almost?) falling asleep, and others turning around seemingly uncomfortable.... :)

Staying here...

this is the museum square in amsterdam sometime last month on a beuatiful summer evening. i showed you some pics before from this square (as you can see here). in the back you see the rijksmuseum, but we were actually going to the building behind us, the concert hall.

anyways. yes. tim is in groningen and i am staying in amsterdam. because yes! finally, finally. finally!! i am working again. it has taken forever, with lots of frustrations, desperations, hope, lost hope, hours and hours in the gym, and even more hours of searching and applying for jobs. i did not enjoy this time, so i am extremely happy to be working again. 

in fact, i sent the application for the job i have now already end of february. was invited for an interview in may. did not get the job (this was painful as i made it to the last 2). was invited for another position at the same place, got it and started a few weeks later (mid-june). before i knew, i suddenly had to work again! and so, in this case, having work was more important than living together. its not ideal, but neither was the situation when i was without work while i so desperately wanted (and needed) to work!!

more about my work another time. now its about time i start working for today!!! :)) i can just tell you its science-related, but i am not working as a scientist in a lab anymore. and i am very happy about that too...... :)

Crazy clouds!

well hello!! i thought it was about time to post a new picture...... :)

i took this one a few weeks back, but only now i noticed the magnificent clouds... i didnt notice it when i took the picture, nor did i when i was looking at them at my computer.... only now, when i decided that the first of august was a good date to post again.....

so, this is amsterdam, and the weather has been good quite often the past few weeks. at times even hot. plenty opportunity to cruise the canals, as you can see here... we just came back from the theater, that you can see here to the left, on top it says "carre" in red letters.

well well well. lots has changed. other things have remained the same..... more on that in the coming posts? and yes, i most certainly am curious about the blogs i just to check regularly. i havent in a while... but i did think about you!! :) hope all is well!

Defense tower

i took this picture when we were out on the canals of amsterdam in a boat!! it was so pretty, especially when at sunset. you really get a different view from amsterdam than when standing on the bridges... recently i took a picture of this tower while standing on the nearest bridge, and was sure this was a church. so... i was just going over google maps, looking for a church around that location.... but it isnt a church at all! this tower is called the "montelbaanstower" and was built in 1516 at the then outer city limits, to defend the city. to pay for digging of this canal and to build the tower, taxes on beer were increased. as in 1591 the city grew beyond the tower, it no longer served its purpose. the upper half was extended to its decorative form (i would say church-like form) in 1606. in dutch, you can read quite a bit about the history of this tower here.

ha, i also found an interesting news report from last year october; the municipality was looking to rent the place out again. from 2009 to 2013 it was being used by "secret garden", an organization for gay muslims. the rent was 9000 euros (!!) per month (although the organization did get some discount). no word on who i srenting it now though...

Anyone there...???!

hello again!! we had a nice and quiet time in osnabruck. i took just this 1 picture of osnabruck, and thats it... (even though its a really cute city. but when we were there it was raining too much!) fortunately, we also went to another city where i did take some pictures. during that week tim finished his PhD thesis. its now at the "leescommissie" (i.e. professors are now reading it and if they approve, he is allowed to defend it on the already set date, september 9....!). the past few weeks lots of other stuff happened as well, and my mind was not at blogging.... hopefully the coming days/weeks i will let you know more... :)

first this! above you see amsterdam. this past friday (and the entire weekend, and today as well) the weather was amaaaaaaazing. a colleague of tim invited his on his boat (not the one you see above) and we cruised through the canals of amsterdam. first stop was this pier where we had a bbq and a beautiful sunset over amsterdam. to the left you see the st nicholas church (built between 1884-1887) and to the right a chinese restaurant thats floating on the water. we just sneaked in there to use the restroom, but it actually looked quite interesting. its called the sea palace (but it could as well be a tourist trap, who knows...). anyways, i never had been on a private boat on the canals in amsterdam (as a kid i did do the boat tour everyone should do at least once when in amsterdam), and it was so cool! you have a totally different view and suddenly everyone is nice and waves to you... or was it because we were waving to everyone liked excited children? 

Adult magnet

in the comments yesterday i read a far better title; adult & child magnet! and yes indeed, as much as it is a childrens magnet, these water sprayers are an adult magnet too. this man (and i assume) his son spent a good 5 minutes biking through it. we were not sure who enjoyed it most. they would bike through the water, then around the square, and suddenly they would be back again. both of them were completely soaked at one point.... me and tim made up the story that he had had a fight with his wife, took out the kid for a ride, and would come back soaked, just to make her even more angry. the other possibility was that they were already divorced, and that she was coming to pick up their son. for fun he was arriving completely wet.... most likely; they were just having fun!! (i do hope they didnt have to bike back home too far, as it was not that warm, especially not when wet).

King's day!

since last year we have a king, and so the traditional queen's day is now renamed king's day (the dutch havent had a king since 1890...!). its also moved from april 30 to april 27 (the birthday of our current king). but... since april 27 is on a sunday this year, we had kings day today; the 26th... complicated, no?

but the day itself isnt complicated at all. you should wear at least something orange (as this is the dutch royal color. the royals are named "van oranje", which literally means "from orange"), you go out and have fun! if it falls on a weekday, it means the day is off (for most people; shops are also mostly closed or only open half days). the day is spent outside; kids (mostly, but some adults too) put all the stuff they dont want anymore on a blanket in the park, and other dutch in need of this crap buy it for not too much money (mostly). many kids do tricks, or play an instrument, or sing songs like you see above, and hope to get some money. its all fun when the weather is nice.... :)

well, the weather wasnt bad at all! and this was my first kings day since a loooong time. we bought some crap from people who didnt want it anymore, walked around a lot, were dressed in orange, and saw the fireworks ending all the festivities!

Cattle guard?!

when we biked into the amsterdamse bos, we passed a cattle guard. while tim was saying that surely that was of no use, "a cattle guard?!! really? here?! what for?", we saw why.... we saw 2 of these scottish highlander cows, right along the biking path. look at the horns!! they are roaming around freely in a part of the forest, and you can just bike, hike or run along them. dogs are allowed too, but should be on a leash.

tim took this picture as i was too slow getting my camera out. i do not want to bike with my bag around me, or in the basket in front of my bike as the chances of being robbed are just too real, unfortunately (just this weekend it happened to a 19 year old girl biking at night in our neighborhood when 2 guys on a scooter drove up to her, pulled her bag off her and sped away).

Amsterdamse bos

sunday late afternoon the weather was so nice, that we went biking a bit. we biked to the amsterdamse bos (i.e. the amsterdam forest), not too far from our place. i had expected it to be very crowded, as the park next to our house was, but it wasnt. there were just a few people, so we choose a nice spot along the water. this forest is huge, and there are many trails for biking, running or hiking. theres a lot of rowing on the water. and apparently you can swim here as the water is very clean (but it didnt look too inviting to me, and for that its anyways still too cold). its not too far from the airport, so you can see many planes taking off. this year the park exists 80 years! it looks all very natural, but it was entirely manmade 80 years ago. the first part of the park opened in 1937, and in 1964 it was completed. its located in an especially created polder, 4 metres below sea level. ah, and something i didnt expect; its 3 times bigger than the new york central park!

Morning rainbow

this was early morning, yesterday. it was about to rain, or probably already raining back there... but in reaity the rainbow looked better, ofcourse....

on either side of the apartment are similar apartmet blocks. when i took the photo, i saw the guy opposite from us busy in the kitchen. i hope he didnt think i was taking a picture of him! (but it prevented me from taking more pics...). on the other side we have the living room and some big windows. the apartment straight across from us is for sale, and the other weekend it had "open house", so people were coming on and off to check it out (its old and overpriced, not in the best neighborhood. but... in amsterdam and supposedly this neighborhood is "up and coming"). we were having lunch and i thought they could not really see us as the blinds were down. but... 2 girls started waving frantically, when we were watching them all.... good to know!

in our apartment in boston we never closed the blinds. our apartment was on a corner (and the windows, espcially in the bedroom, a bit smaller); no other apartments in sight. i definitely liked that better..... i do have to admit its fun to study your neighbors, from many i more or less know their habits when at home (or at least some of them), even though i have no clue who they are or what they do, and never see them on the street or something!

And again...

and dogs again!! this gives you a better idea of the enormity of the 2 dogs, and that its really quite cute, no?

first time i was biking in this park, just minding my own business, i thought i had imagined it. really??! 2 giant dogs...? until i looked again and they were really there......

Another race!

as i had recently done the 7.5 km race, i thought tim should do one as well. so... i signed him up for a 10K this sunday, also in our neighborhood. the weather was less perfect than when i had to run, but it all started out fine. there were quite a bit more contestants, and i didnt really know the route they were running, so i decided to just wait at the fnish to take some pictures. at the start i already couldnt find him, but later on tim at least recognized his black cap in a few of the pics, whahahaha. a 5K and 10K run started at the same time, and before i knew, the first had finished (in under 20 minutes!!). there was a group of young people in pink shirts from an amsterdam high school. these 2 5K runners had ran together, but right at the finish the one in red trousers decided to pick up the pace. it was so funny to see! they looked at each other and then ran the last few metres like crazy, i think the red trousered boy was first!

just around the time i was expecting tim, it started to rain. and real hard. even some hail came down. beeehhh. so i almost missed him again... and he didnt see me at all, too focused on running. he did it in 49 minutes, 11 minutes faster than his practice time!! (and more than 15 minutes faster than i would...). i thought it really was a nice race, with a 5K, 10K and a half marathon, as well as a 1K kids run (that was the cutest to see). here are some more pictures.

today obama is visiting the rijksmuseum in amsterdam. apparently, the entire museum square is off limits because of that. as the dutch are also hosting the nuclear security summit, the hague is impossible to reach as well, and its forbidden to take pictures at our airport, even at the panorama deck for the time being. i guess its the best time to leave the country for a bit!

Construction work!

do you see that giant birds nest to the right?! i noticed it yesterday when we were eating in the sun, outside on the balcony (!!). a couple of magpies (what a cute word for that bird. we call them "ekster") were flying with branches far too big for them (sometimes they hardly could get into the air, so big), dropping them off at their home. i thought they would just sit on top of the pile of branches, but they were entering right in the middle of it, so its really a house. i wonder how many rooms it has and what kind of furniture they are making....

our house could use some construction too, but unfortunately thats not going to happen as long as we live there. the block next to it is completely renovated and the entire floorplan changed, im sure for the better. we have 2 rooms (and a kitchen and a living room), but their shap is so odd you cannot really use the space to the fullest. too bad it wont change much by adding some branches!!