Winter view

this was yesterday, somewhere around groningen. we had a teeny tiny bit of snow...... the roads were terribly slippery, with a layer of ice. but today the lower part of the country had some real snow, and here in groningen we got nothing at all!! so i was a bit disappointed.....

tim had to work (again!) and i went for a bit of shopping. but so did everyone else here. it was crazy crowded..... at least i got some christmas ornaments for almost nothing, for next year... :)

Autumn already!

just a quick post. we baked a dutch apple pie, but now its late already.... soooooo, time to sleep so we can finally taste it tomorrow... (no, seriously!).

i took the above picture this past sunday. some places really look like autumn already. but... while we had some awful, rainy, autumn-like days in august, september started great. last week we had lunch outside, and in the evenings i could sit in the sun on the balcony! this weekend is supposed to be rather summery too! yaaajjj!

Summer weather?!

the weather?! rain. and rain. some more rain. ah, and rain. by the way, its cold too. summer? noooo, not at all. feels more like autumn. buuuhhhh. i cannot remember for how long the weather is really crappy now, but its been quite a while. and its still raining. the past week we mostly had rain. and this weekend we had some. we were in Groningen, as i really wanted to go to a special happening on saturday evening. despite the forecasts, the weather was actually not too bad on saturday. we went shopping a bit in the city center. then we quickly went home, had a small dinner and rushed out again for the main event of the weekend, and something i seriously had looked forward too. not in the least as i would finally take some pictures again...

we biked 10 kms to a pasture somewhere outside groningen. there it would happend; the hot-air balloon festival. last year it was so crowded that police at some point asked people not to come anymore. in the morning we had read that despite the rain, the event would take place. and well, during the day we hardly had any rain, so we just went. the maximum-allowable-number-of-hot-air-balloons-in-the-netherlands would fill the air. and some would have funny shapes. jeeejjjj!! when we arrived (a bit late, we were worried it had already started), quite some people were about to leave. why? we asked. look, they said, and pointed to the sky (it might be that people from groningen speak less than people from amsterdam). oopps, it was indeed quite dark suddenly... but... the organizers announced that there was a chance it would still happen, so we waited. walked around a bit. and then... at the moment the organizers announced the entire thing was blown off because of bad weather and thunderstorms and what not, rain came indeed down like crazy. luckily we had one small umbrella and just stood there, like many others, waiting for it to stop..... (some people even found shelter in the dixies standing around, ugh....) while waiting i took this picture, as you can see the sky doesnt look too bad, but right behind and above us was quite a different story. and well.... merely 45 minutes after we arrived we biked back again, no hot air balloons for us.... just a little more rain while biking... :(

Early trains....

here you see 2 dutch train engines.

and then i wrote an entire story about my experience with trains since i went to secondary school. i was so bored by it that i removed it again.... :)

lets just say i took the train this morning at 6.45 am from groningen. i think i slept a bit during this ride, and i hope i didnt drool. i did catch myself with my mouth open, and wonder whether the lady opposite of me noticed it too; it probably wasnt pretty. i also tried to read, yet most of the times i was just holding the book and had my eyes closed. i dragged my laptop with me; i was certain i would work the 2 hours i was sitting in the train, but i didnt even get the thing out of my bag........

i still need to get used to commuting..... or at least spend this time in a more useful way..... 

i did see a rainbow last week. it was very pretty :) (but im not carrying my camera at the moment, like i used to in boston)

Look around!

this was back in may 2013 in new york. the last time me and tim went to new york before he moved back to the netherlands. i stayed a month longer, and went once more with my sister. 

we had quite rainy weather! and here it was coming down really heavily.... eventually we went into a cafe and had cake, just to escape the rain (ah, and for the cake, of course...). i think they put those "look" signs on several places to warn pedestrians that they shouldnt just cross the street, but actually look as well.... here in amsterdam they spray-painted some warnings on the street as well, mostly for bicyclists, telling them they should actually stop for the red light... (however most of these signs quickly faded away, so i still never took a picture of them...)

currently, the weather in the netherlands is really bad! buuuuhhh. feels like autumn with strong winds and lots of rain. i think last weekend the apartment block behind ours lost some of their roof (parts are still hanging in the trees), so this week they placed new pallets of "roof-stuff" on those roofs. but with those strong winds again, i am afraid it will be blown off again before they can use it....

Only rain

this weekend it rained. and it rained. and then it rained a bit more. ah, there was quite some wind too. beeehhh. we didnt do much. partly because of that... 

today there was a marathon in our neighborhood, and i really wanted to watch. but even for watching the weather was just too shitty (imagine those running!!). we did do the dishes, as they hadnt been done in quite a while (it felt a bit like a marathon, we had used up all the plates, and most of the cutlery, and we have quite a lot...).

as you can see, when we drove here it rained as well. driving in the netherlands is more frustrating than driving in the usa (except that the roads are much better here than in massachusetts); people are less patient and more aggressive. the speed limit varies constantly, and sometimes its not clear how fast you are allowed to go... and at exactly those spots (or so it seems), they check your speed, resulting in several tickets by now.... :(  whereas we drove a real big american truck in the usa, we now have a normal car, and i still feel small next to all these big trucks. i especially hate it when they are trying to pass each other. trucks are on a strict speed limit, 80 km/hr, but somehow they always need to pass each other, slowing down all the other traffic thats going 130 km/hr. like above, where i suddenly felt trapped between all those big vehicles....

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!!

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!!

Sinterklaas storm

yesterday we had another big storm in the netherlands! as most of the trees fell down during the previous one in october, that was at least a bit less of a worry. a tiny bit then... the wind was blowing again like crazy and hail was coming down with massive amounts. at some point i was afraid the large window we have in the living room would just be blown out, but luckily it didnt....

yesterday was also "sinterklaas avond". and above you see the clothes of sinterklaas! most certainly he could not have hung them out like that yesterday, they would have been blown away! santa claus is thought to at least have some origins in the dutch sinterklaas, brought to the other side of the ocean by dutch immigrants. but... sinterklaas has helpers, and perhaps because of that you might have read or heard something about this dutch tradition during the past weeks. even the united nations (or some working group consisting of volunteers) looked into it! you can read about that here, for example. but many, many articles have appeared. so... as it is late i will not get into it as well, so much has been said and written about it already! it certainly got many dutch very agitated... i will just say this; its a fest mostly for children and i loved it (especially getting all those presents!!), and thats what it should continue to be.....
sinterklaas (as well as the storm) has left the country now, back to spain. so now we can focus on santa claus and his little helpers.... ;)

Crazy storm

on this picture it all looks quite calm, but it wasnt at all! do you see all those branches scattered around? the water wasnt calm either... this was yesterday, during the storm. we went to the gym, and decided to walk instead of bike, considering the crazy winds. we walked past the nearby school and the children were just having their break; they were all outside and i guess they liked running around in the crazy winds; they were even louder than they normally are. when we got back, we discovered something had blown off the balcony, even though it had been very well attached! luckily that was on the backside, with just neglected gardens from the people on the lowest floor and not on the street side with all the cars!

the news showed how bad the storm really has been for large parts of the netherlands (and europe!); in the center of amsterdam (as well as other cities), many large trees fell down. at least 1 fell on a houseboat that sunk within 15 minutes. even worse; a tree fell on a 21-year-old tourist, killing her. other people got hurt when trees fell on their cars. theres millions and millions of euros in material damage.... 

it calmed down, but today its still quite stormy and rainy at times...

Autumn storm

we have a real storm at the moment in the netherlands! the wind is howling like crazy and we saw some big tree branches broken off already... trains are not going (or less), and flights have been cancelled as well. ah, and the check of our leaking roof (which happend over 2 weeks ago now) was cancelled too; too dangerous to climb on the roof right now. they will come tomorrow. right.... 

i guess in boston such a storm would have happened with more preparation prior to it; shops would have been emptied of milk, eggs, bread and water. and candles of course... 

our roof is making all kinds of noises. i do hope it will stay attached to the house..... ;)

the above picture was yesterday, by the way. then it was a bit stormy already, with very dark clouds. but the next moment it was sunny again. only to be followed by very heavy rain... and sun again.... in the US, many highways dont have lights, like you can see here. and i always thought; oh, in the netherlands the highways are so perfect, and always very well lit!! now guess what; just recently the government decided to shut off the lights around 9 in the evening, to save electricity and repair costs etc... so our roads are very dark now too.... grrrrrr

It's time...

for my american red shoes...! unfortunately not to trudge through mountains of snow, but to avoid wet feet. it has been raining like crazy the entire weekend (as well as friday, and perhaps thursday, i dont even remember), and it will rain tomorrow as well.

while tim suddenly had to come into work for a few hours today, i was deciding whether i would just spend the entire afternoon on the couch or do something useful.. that was until i suddenly saw quite a puddle of water in front of the old-fashioned heater. water? is the thing now spewing water?? hmm, highly unlikely. is it perhaps condensation....but from what... the drying laundry? (i can be a little slow) then i finally looked up and saw it was coming from the ceiling.... buhuhuhuhuh. water was dripping down and quite a bit!! its coming down from that ugly plastic ceiling that tim cleaned back in july. for once it was a good thing we have been extremely slow with filling the cupboards we bought a little while ago. they all needed to be moved to not get wet. it has been dripping all afternoon and evening (worsening a bit). for once i was also happy we werent out all day, i think we would have come back to quite a mess! tomorrow someone will come and check. no, they couldnt come before dark today. and as he said on the phone "you know, its the rain. there is a lot of rain coming down right now, and lots of rain gives lots of leaks, but its just the heavy rain you know". hmppf. great...

(and no, i dont know whether the neighbors really have better stuff. i do hope for them its less wet than in our place..., i also hope the ugly ceiling wont come down or something... you never know...)

Dutch desert!!

no, not a dutch dessert... but a desert! there actually is some desert in the netherlands and we walked through it on wednesday during our little getaway. its about 14 square miles and aside from sand, there is quite some vegetation at some places, as you can see here! usually this area is called the Loonse and Drunense dunes, but dunes we have enough, so i think its more impressive to call it a desert :) in the tiny netherlands...... on summer days it can really get hot here (especially for the dutch).

we had a really pretty and oh so quiet walk, so very nice. even though it was october, it was warm enough to walk without a jacket, a real treat. the wind makes sure this landscape is changing continuously. we didnt see too many people, only one other couple. they were exhausted after trudging through the sand. it was indeed pretty tiring, but for us it was fine..., although the lady mentioned that we had it easier as we brought our cameras; a nice excuse to stop every now and then to catch your breath (eehhm, to take a picture..).

Yeah pink!!

it was crazy hot today! especially for september, and for the netherlands... it was 30C (86F), and this is where we were.... the pink tube was great!! we bought it last august on the campground in new hampshire. we stayed at a very nice one, surrounded by a river. but.... it rained for 3 days and 2 nights.... :( no swimming, it was too cold!! then... each time i could have used it, i had forgotten to bring it, much to my frustration. of course we did ship it back to the netherlands and luckily it was in one of the boxes we did unpack (i think 9 are still waiting to be unpacked... but there is no space for all my clothes yet. buhuhuhuhuh, very frustrating). so.... today was finally the day... i was in the sea (just a little chilly) floating on this bright pink tube.... soooo nice...

and then on the way home tim managed to punch a huge hole in it.... quite the expensive tube... :((

1700 bridges..

amsterdam has some 1700 bridges, many of them very old and cute, but i managed to picture a boring one!! the first bridge, and still standing, was built in the 14th century (which obviously isnt the one above), so there has been some time to get to over 1700 of them.

when it was so hot, the past weeks (now it has cooled down a bit, and every now and then we have some rain showers, but all in all its still pleasant), the bridges had some trouble. they need to open to let boats pass, but when temperatures rise over 25C (77F), this can give rise to some serious trouble; once open they cant close anymore, or vice versa, which can cause serious damage to those (historic) bridges. so they need to be kept cool with water as you can see above. however... at some point it was just so hot that some of the bridges expanded anyways, and cooling with water did not help. as a result, the bridges were just kept closed (too bad for the boats wanting to pass!).

Fun run

yesterday we participated in the color run! as you might know, the color run is more of a fun run than an athletic event where you run 5 km (3 miles) and every kilometer you get sprayed with another color, so that you look quite silly when done.... i had read about those while in the us, but we returned to the netherlands before there was one close to boston... then i discovered they were also in the netherlands, so i got a friend and tim crazy enough to join me. jaaaj!! it was supposed to be in utrecht, where i used to live before moving to boston.

when they finally releassed the course map, it turned out not to be in utrecht at all, but in a tiny town nearby. not very well accessible by public transport. grrrrrr... that already pissed me off, just like the "rules" they posted: bringing your own food or drinks was prohibited (water would only be allowed in case of hot weather). and their "advice" pissed me off even more: bring plenty of money, so that you can buy food and drinks at the party! (we had paid already 30 euros per person (some 40 dollars) for the ticket). so i did some googling and discovered that the color run does good by donating part of the entrance fee to charity (i must say i missed that point and solely joined for my own fun, but some were really thinking they were "doing good" by participating in this event; but.... 90% of the money goes to the organization, and only 10% goes to a good cause! moreover, most of the event is run by volunteers who got nothing more than a t-shirt (and of course the chance to douse everyone in color, that must have been a fun job). considering that 10.000 tickets were sold for this run... they made a LOT of money.... (in the US, over 600.000 people participated last year in various cities). (in fact, on their website they do mention they are a "for-profit" organization, but they are better at telling everyone they are "giving back and doing good")

well, anyways... while we started off pretty annoyed (we were stuck in a train with other color runners, and most of them turned out to be giggling girls... the 3 of us felt old and out of place!!), had to walk over 30 minutes just to get to the location NOT in the center of utrecht, had to aimlessly wait over an hour in the hot sun just to be able to start running (i actually didnt mind the sun, but apparently some more fragile creatures collapsed before they even started running)... the actual run was quite fun. well... run... i think around 75% of those giggling hip young girls were not running at all, but just walking (and some were smoking too, arrrghhhh, those dutch idiots)!! that really surprised me (although i didnt start running until 29 and would not have been able to run at their age either....). all those colors were pretty to see (but not fun to get into your mouth, at least it was just colored food grade corn starch), and as you see above, at the "party" everyone got to throw their own packet of color. too bad i didnt bring my camera... surely there wont be a next time, but i wouldnt mind watching from the sidelines to take pictures....

OK, hot...

this afternoon the tiny kitchen reached a toasty 34C (over 93F). the living room was only a tiny bit cooler (31C). the house has a flat roof and we are on the upper floor..  yes, very close to the sun at the 4th floor (5th for americans).... ;)

somehow i decided i should just bake some bread. at least the oven took less time to heat up, but the dough didnt behave as it should (added too much water; the flours here are different and i havent figured the right measurements out yet, buuuhhh. and of course, it was a little too hot for the yeast.)

so above you see the kitchen. its not much bigger than what you see here, really, grrr. on the other side is the countertop with the stove, oven and no space for a dishwasher (or fridge, its in the next room, grrr again. the fridge that is, there is no space anywhere (or money) for a dishwasher!)). if one is in the kitchen, its not easy for the other to pass, theres simply not enough space (or maybe that should be an incentive to spend more time at the gym...?). at least tim recently hung some rods so all the pans are hanging on the wall, that really cleared up some cabinet space..

and in the mean time, its still hot, even now, well after midnight. it cooled off a little, but not enough for a good night of sleep, im sure. and guess what, it was record breaking hot. for the netherlands that is. and on this particular day (so what kind of record is that!?). and not in amsterdam, but in the south of the netherlands. it was 36.9 C at some point (98.42F), somewhere, and thats still less hot than what we experienced in boston, or in the desert during our road trips... :) reminds me, i should post some pictures of that one of these days!

oh, and i just love this tiny clock! i got it from ikea last time we were there, and you can flip it to any of the four sides, then it lights up a particular color, and gives you either the time, temperature, timer, or the alarm setting... perfect for a tiny kitchen... 

Drying laundry

its soooo very hot again here! and tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer, perhaps record breaking hot... if anything, its good for getting your laundry dry quickly! i really dislike to dry my clothes (or anything, really), in a dryer, and have always hung my clothes out to dry. and now i can finally hang them outside, on the balcony! it makes it smell so good...!

in our first place in the usa we had to go to a laundromat to do the laundry, but would always drag the wet stuff home to hang it out (the apartment was so huge that one room was dedicated to just that, haha). in the next we had both a washer and a dryer, but i just hung it out in the living room. there is something really relaxing in doing laundry. i like to hang it, and i even like to fold it (but i never iron).

most people around our place here in amsterdam hang their clothes out to dry. many have racks that hang from the railing, but i just wonder if that isnt annoying for the people underneath you, suddenly seeing your towels in front of their window.... 

whats crazy; in the us, the land of the free, its forbidden (!!) in many places to hang out your clothes. some 60 million americans are not allowed to hang their clothes in their own outside space! in some states, there are now laws that forbid apartment complexes to make such stupid rules, but not in massachusetts... (however, the state senator is now "fighting" for "the right to dry"). isnt that crazy? in a country where you can have guns in many states, you cannot dry your clothes in the most environmentallly friendly way (as well as cheapest, and best for your clothes... etc etc).

as you can see, i really like pink, and flowers... i brought this sheet to the us, and back home again...

Reporting live.....

... from amsterdam. im currently sitting in our 33C (91.4F) living room. the heat is crazy! and so it was yesterday, and sunday. and the days before... but today and yesterday are the hottest. as opposed to boston, houses, shops (except supermarkets of course), and even the local gym are not equipped with (proper) airconditioning, as its usually not this hot, and not for this long. i was just enjoying the light breeze by opening the balcony doors on either side of the apartment. a tiny breeze, but still... then i needed something from the kitchen and saw there was lots and LOTS of smoke, clearly not from a BBQ or something. ash particles were coming up too, and had already landed in our bedroom. what was it? then i saw that the idiot downstairs neighbour (i have no clue who they are, but now i know they are idiots), decided to just burn all the trees they had cut down from the neglected garden a week ago. that was all very, very dry ofcourse, and was burning like crazy. pfew, was i happy i hadnt just hung out the white laundry!!

i texted tim, mostly to figure out whether i should perhaps call the police or something. but before i knew, i heard the sirens and police and 2 firefighter trucks arrived. by then the neighbours had already put out the fire themselves, and from what i could see they were not opening the door for the police!!

now they are all gone again, and its too hot to get the vacuum out to get rid of all the ash.... :( wonder what eventually happened..... it was interesting to see how many people suddenly appeared to be home, standing on their balconies to see what was going on....

Ceiling cleaning

even though the weather was amazing again today, we spent nearly the entire day cleaning and painting again. here you see part of the ceiling... my goodness, all the walls and especially the ceiling were rather black. bleeeeehhh. at first we werent sure about cleaning the entire ceiling as its quite a lot of work and in an uncomfortable position, but while painting the walls nicely white the ceiling looked of course more and more black. and so tim (pfew... i couldnt have done it), cleaned the entire ceiling! look what a difference!! (and what an awful ceiling anyways. yuck, who has such a ceiling... ?  :D ).

as in many old houses in amsterdam, there is no central heating here. the living room is heated by a gas heater. i guess coming winter we have to choose whether we want to be warm or clean the ceiling again.... ;)

all the walls in the living room are now done. the floor however is a terrible mess..... since tim did the ceiling, i probably should do the floor.....