Wind farm

just offshore, you can see a wind farm (all those white stripes). yesterday certainly was a good day to generate energy from the wind.... 

a while ago i think it was on the news that there were plans to build many more of these offshore farms. then some beach bar owners and so on got worried that it will deter tourists, as it doesnt look pretty. i actually think they are out far enough not to scare any tourists away......

Hello spring!

the first day of spring almost felt like a summerday! it has never been warmer in the netherlands on this day before, although it was (and still is) very very windy!! it was around 20C in some places (70F),and many people visited the beach today.

the crocuses are already done blooming, the purple field i showed you recently is gone entirely... :( here, someplace else in the netherlands, you can still see some. i really liked this statue of the boy with a lamb he is somehow holding. yet i totally forgot to look at the artists name or the title of the sculpture...

Car decoration

saw this last week when we went to the beach. i quite liked it!! especially since the car around it was white and ugly.... :)

Dutch tulips!

i forgot to post yesterday. or rather... i waited and waited and then it was late and i just wanted to goto sleep. thats what often happens....

i bought the above tulips a week ago in utrecht, where i used to live before we moved to boston. there i always bought flowers at the same flower stand, and the past 4 or 5 (or more) years the price has not changed. nor have the people selling the flowers. except that the little boy (the son of the owner, i guess), grew quite a bit bigger by now (in both directions, up and sideways). i got 50 tulips for 5 euros (about 7 dollars!). i kept a bit more than half of it, and gave the remainder to my mom last week. look how pretty! and the grew quite a bit..... (never mind the mess on the table...)

i really missed buying flowers when we lived in the USA. but mostly they offered ugly colored bouquets for outrageous amounts of money, or just one pathetic rose. and mostly already blooming... so just for that its good to be back in the land where the flowers come from....

Beach weather

when the weather was crazy sunny and rather warm, we drove by the beach. its still early enough in the seaon for the parking to still be free (jaaajj!). the little beach cottages are still in storage and not yet lined up on the beach, and dogs can still roam around without restriction.

i thought this woman was taking a selfie with her phone, but it turned out she was taking a picture of a sign on the beach, haha. 

we just had a walk. i didnt even check how cold the water was, but we saw some kids playing in their shorts!!

They read?

this store sells all kinds of appliances, but they dont like it when dogs urinate on their displayed goods. the yellow note says: "doggies, you can look, but do not piss on it!" in dutch it sounds like a silly rhyme for the "kijken" (to watch) and the "zeiken" (to piss). but i just didnt know dogs could read... :)

the weather has cooled down again. buuuuuhhhh. now we are back to normal temperatures for this time of the year.

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!!

Self portrait

we saw a huge shiny american type of car with shiny mirrors that were just asking for a self portrait. again an early summer kind of day!

DInosaur egg

even though we could not find a signature, we recognized this baby dinosaur as most likely made by ROA, whose murals we also saw in miami and a deserted place in california (a picture i still have to post). ROA is originally from belgium, but he has been all around the world to paint the most amazing murals... i like the mom with the 2 kids in the "bakfiets", all 3 looking at it...

yesterday they announced obama will visit amsterdam while he is in the netherlands for the nuclear security summit in the hague. just now we watched some program where they interviewed some american tourists in amsterdam. one lady mentioned that perhaps obama would be disturbed by all the graffiti we have here (indeed, we have a lot more graffiti, lots of ugly graffiti too, than boston for example). and 2 young girls said that they didnt like they have to pay for everything, even for a glass of water (thats true, and i also miss the glass of water you immediately get in an american restaurant).

Narrow bridge

up until the moment we got off this bridge, i wasnt sure we were going to fit. and then the second one came, as you see above. and that one was even more narrow!! 

it felt a bit like that one time we drove through a sequoia tree in califonia. that was something i somehow really wanted to do, even though we had to pay for it (theres my dutch mentality again!). the actual driving through the tree was quite disappointing and it was mostly just scary; the cut was clearly made when cars were a bit smaller. we had to flip the side mirrors and instead of enjoying this glorious moment of driving through a tree (really, what did i think?!!), we were just making sure we werent scratching the car. until i realized i wasnt taking pictures and well... uugghh... the car that came after us tried and tried, but really didnt fit and had to turn around.....

so... for this bridge we didnt have to pay, but it was equally scary, even though i realized that it was made for cars to drive on (right??!! or had we missed some sign, maybe? didnt we?!). and then we were on the other side.... :)

Perfect weather!!

it seems almost impossible to believe, but today the weather was even better than yesterday. and today i had signed up for an official run!! 7.5 kms. i was a bit nervous... since a while, me and tim do runs of 10 kms every now and then, but then its not official. since it was international womens day yesterday, this run was only for women. that was only a tiny bit comforting. and it meant twice as many cute outfits i had to compete with. nononono! it was a running competition, not an outfit one..... ;) 

above you see me in blue (but with purple running shoes; they are the best!!) and my friend in orange. i finished under 50 minutes (as you can see here), and i was happy with that. many were much faster than me, but i already ran faster than i normally do.... and while tim came home this morning after his 2nd of 3 night shifts, he went with us, and followed us by bike along the course. several times during our run he would bike past us, and then i would suddenly see him leaning against his bike, taking pictures. after which he would jump on his bike again... so if not for the race, i had to keep running for those pictures!! (how romantic is all that!! no?) afterwards, seeing those pictures, made me think of this, or this.... i most certainly need to practice a bit more.....

after that, tim really really had to sleep and i just enjoyed the sun on the balcony..... :)

Purple field

i can never ignore purple... when im in a shop, i automatically pick out the purple clothes, socks, bags... anything! so i defenitely didnt miss this purple field when biking past it. but we had to go back another time, with camera, to get some pictures. we havent had much of a winter here in the netherlands. and no snow. buuuhh (so i was very jealous to see the snow in boston!). it even has been unseasonably warm at times, and so i read these crocuses are out a month early... 

i took this picture last weekend. while having breakfast, the sun was shining like crazy. behind glass it seemed like a wonderful day that needed to be spent outside. so we got our bikes and as soon as we were out, i wanted to go back inside. it was cold!!! so we did just a short bike tour around our neighborhood. at the purple field someone else was already taking pictures, as you can see, but i didnt want to wait until he was done (cold!), and just included him in my picture...

today, on the other hand, it really felt like...well.. almost summer! everyone was out and about, the news mentioned it has never been warmer on this day in the netherlands before (at least since people started measuring it), and we sat in the sun on the balcony with bare arms!! tomorrow its supposed to be even warmer....

Hello again!

somehow one day not posting led to another, which led to a week, and then another..... and then i got clear evidence nobody actually was waiting for my posts; nobody seemed to miss them. and then i just didnt want to post since i was not posting. then i wanted to make it an entire month of not posting. then finally (finally!) someone officially asked me where i was hiding. by then tim had been demanding a new post for a few days, and i refused. and then it was a month and a few days. and well.... here i am again, with a picture of me, instead of one taken by me... :)

this is in amsterdam noord (amsterdam north), across the ij river you see the amsterdam train station. i guess its still not finished, now the roof says rdam (r'dam, which is short for rotterdam, that other dutch city. a'dam is what it should have been). and then there is me, on a swing, attached to a billboard frame. i wonder who placed the swing there, in between the bike racks. you see more and more of these kind of racks, as opposed to the ones where you have to put your front wheel in (something that often damages the wheel). recently i discovered they call such a rack a "nietje", which is dutch for staple. but anyways, when there is a swing, i need to sit in it. often i dont fit (some of you might understand, lets not go into details here), but here i did! then i wondered whether the ropes were strong enough (they didnt really seem very strong), so i got off after tim took some pics (unharmed, at least..)

lets see if there is renewed determination to post more regularly. in another month this blog exists 4 years, and i have never been absent for a month! until now, that was....

Early evening

this was saturday evening, when driving home. the sky was so pretty! and all the black dots are birds that were flying around in a huge flock.

right now its an early morning and the only color outside is grey. with lots of rain. beeeehhhh!!

Water barrier

with much of the country below sea level, we have many dikes to protect the land from the water... like the one above! we drove there yesterday. dont know whether the person walking on the dike was aware that i specifically wanted to include her in the picture (while sitting in the car, haha)

Dutch meadow

and heres the typical dutch flat (very flat!) landscape. at least, when you leave the city.... 

so yes, we do have a car again. we didnt go long without one, selling the previous one sometime last december...

today we brought some stuff to goodwill. our house is too small and the amount of stuff too big. but then we went inside the store and bought some new stuff... an endless cycle. hahahahaha. then we drove around amsterdam, going through the small towns with the cute houses, the tiny streets, and the green pastures connecting it all.... so pretty! an added bonus; at some moments it almost looked sunny...

While running!

so... last friday we left for france in the evening, and arrived at tims parents somewhere around 3 in the night after an 8+ hour drive..... (beehhh! it was boring and dark). we had brought our running shoes, so on sunday we decided to go for a run.... whereas in the usa i found running outside much more difficult than on a treadmill, i discovered in the netherlands that running outside is actually easier. in france i realized whats the obvious reason for this difference; the netherlands is flat! in amsterdam we never have to run up any hill. its flat, flat and flat... in france it wasnt flat at all.... pfew, that was not easy! whereas i felt i was cheating when running downhill, it was hard not to just give up when running uphill. but.. the views were stunning and the silence amazing.... as you can see above (actually taken while driving, not running!)

La photographie

so... we were in france! we had always wanted to see where photography was invented, in 1822... :D no, actually its not too far from where tims parents live and i certainly did not possess active knowledge as to where and when photography was invented. but now i do, and so do you!!

along the road is this giant plaque to make everyone aware that in the tiny french village of Chalon-sur-Saone mister nicephore niepce took the first photogravure etching, in 1822. this was the first important step for the development of photography. close to this place there is a museum, but we did not visit it (maybe next time?).

nicephore niepce (such a funny name) was an inventor of all sorts; together with his brother he also conceived, created and developed the worlds first internal combustion engine. despite this, he died a poor man; his brother spent all the money and there was not even enough money to pay for his funeral and grave. 

Wheres that?!

sorry for my absence.. we unexpectedly went on a little trip. we left on friday evening and just returned today. the above picture i took this morning, while driving. any idea where it might be..?

Leaning forward

in amsterdam (but also in the older parts of other dutch cities), you see a lot of houses like above. leaning forward. sometimes they almost look as if they are about to topple over, on top of you while you are watching, wondering what happened....?

interesting thing is, its not because they are old and in their age started to tilt forward and forward, every year a little bit more (although sometimes that actually is the case). no, its because the dutch did it on purpose. practical as they are... staircases are often very steep and narrow, so often stuff was moved into and out of the house through the windows. on top of most old houses is a hook, so that you can attach a rope and pull stuff up to the desired floor (if you look carefully, you can see the hooks on the top of the house above). the tilt now comes in handy; there is less chance that the lower levels get damaged by the dangling stuff thats being pulled up. another reason is possibly that the facade of the house is protected (at least a little) from rain when its built like this. finally, its thought that it was done on purpose because the top of the house was usually the most ornamented. by building the house tilted forward a little, more emphasis was put on that piece of art.... and ofcourse, building houses like this comes with another example; each upper floor has a little more space, if even just an inch!!