American bike

very american bike (to me also the type of bike, not just the stars and colors, except the basket on the front) parked at a very dutch canal! :)

here you can once again clearly see why many bikes end up in canals....

Rembrandt lunging!!

rembrandt does lunges!! did you know? the painter? yes! i didnt know either, until we had a proper look at this statue you can see above. a lunge? no, not lunch. tim is trying to do a lunge too, but as you can see, its totally wrong, while rembrandt's lunge is perfect.

never heard of a lunge? i dont know when i heard of them first (probably when i saw bojos do them in the gym, heavy weights in hand)... i do very well remember when i did one for the first time. it was not too long ago, and i didnt have to do one, but many of them, while holding a barbell on my shoulders. ehm yes, i was following a "body pump" class. result? i could barely walk down the stairs for days afterwards. ugh.... now i try to do them every now and then, and although wikipedia says that "the lunge is a basic movement that is fairly simple to do for beginner athletes", i dont think its really that easy.... (or perhaps im just not an athlete...). here you can watch a video as to how to do a proper lunge. but you can also just look at rembrandt above, whahahaha.

this is along the river amstel. we biked there on saturday, as it was another great after-summer-day. no jackets needed! behind rembrandt you see a "molen", which was built in 1636. lunging rembrandt was placed next to in 1969, 300 years after he died. many of rembrandt's drawings were made along this stretch of river. i just wonder whether he was always lunging when he painted. then he must have had some powerful leg and butt-muscles! ;)

The Netherlands!

no, this is not an open air museum or something. this is an actual city, Edam, not too far from amsterdam. we were there 2 weeks ago, just driving around a bit. it was so cute, but as usual these days, i hardly took pictures. i just snapped a few when we were in the car again already, so this one is a bit crooked.

the days are rapidly getting shorter. its now dark out when i leave for work in the morning. buuuhhhh. it wont be too long before i will leave and return while its dark. i should still tell you about my work! in fact, there is so much i like to write about. and pictures i like to show... but then its evening, and suddenly its time for bed and then.... im just too tired.... at the moments days go by so fast! i guess im still not in some sort of rhythm. i do think getting up so early is a little less terrible as it was in the very beginning... :)

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...)

Train rides...

i think this was a tulip field or something.... very flat, of course... :) theres always a tree-lined road somewhere near or in the distance (do you see the dots in the back?), very dutch too.... when in the train from amsterdam to utrecht (or groningen to utrecht), you speed through many green pastures. some with cows, others with sheep... some empty. i like staring out of the window, letting it all pass by. yesterday morning everything was covered in a layer of fog, and it was just so beautiful! for a moment i truly enjoyed the trip and didnt mind i was up so early....

in the afternoon the train was a little crowded, so when i finally found a seat, it was taken by a backpack. the girl in the seat next to the bag ignored my "sorry" (in american it would be "excuse me", of course). then she ignored some other noise i produced to make clear i wanted that seat ( i think the noise really made clear that she better remove the bag that instant, but she didnt even look up!) then, a bit louder (it felt like i was screaming but i probably wasnt), i asked (actually demanded) to sit there... she looked really pissed off and very slowly removed her bag, but continued to take more space than necessary. in the meantime someone else had removed his bag too, but by then the only seat i wanted was the one she refused to give up for as long as possible.

instances like that really make me dislike people. the entire train ride i was furious and she probably wasnt even aware that her behavior was ridiculous. i wonder whether at such moments it would be good if people could read my thoughts....? most likely not, during my commutes i have a lot (and i mean a LOT) of bad thoughts about the people around me... just like they have about me.... maybe?

Bikes, bikes!

this is just a small selection of all the bikes we saw at the cancelled balloon festival. but when it started to rain, most of them were gone in no time! we really didnt want to bike in the rain (nor behind all the other people, most certainly biking slower than us... ;) ), so we just stood in the field and waited it out (there even was some hail!!). so yes, i guess it was a good decision that they cancelled it, i for sure would not have wanted to be in a hot-air balloon with rain and thunder...... (also really stupid how we watched the weather the entire day. but when it remained more or less dry, we just went and only saw the dark clouds upon arrival).

but isnt this a cute bike?! i like the big basket in the front. this is something that became fashionable the past few years, to carry all your stuff (instead of putting it on the back rack, or on your back). i have a much smaller wired one. i would like such a sturdy big one, if only it didnt make parking so much more difficult! (bike parking is a serious problem. nowadays i often goto the train station by bike, but i have to leave at least 5 minutes earlier so that i can find a spot to park my bike... now many people are still on holidays, so i expect it to get even worse in a few weeks).

some googling and i found the website belonging to this basket/bike. it belongs to a lady living near groningen, and, as you might have guessed, she bakes pies and cakes to order, and even delivers them in her neighborhood....

Hup Holland!

we were away for a few days to a place with no internet. but still in the netherlands.... :) (later more about that). so... we missed the first game the dutch played in the world cup.... no tv either. but.... around us we sort of could hear when there was a goal for the dutch. somehow i did not expect the dutch had won (and with 5-1!), as there wasnt a lot of noise after the game. the next day we continued to wonder whether they had won or not..... 

whaha. like this it sounds like i really care about soccer, but actually i dont. we didnt dress up in orange for the game, but we saw many who did (although the above photo was taken during kings day), and many people also decorated their house/and or the entire street... i guess this orange fever will get worse with each winning game...... lets see!

Wind turbines

as i once wrote before, while driving through the netherlands, you see a lot of wind turbines generating wind energy. i am always trying to take pictures of them. sometimes, like above, i think they fit in the landscape. and sometimes i try to take picture as it looks so ugly!!

this was through the car window, which i didnt get entirely clean. whenever we stop for gas, i get out to clean the windshield, while tim fills up the car and pays (i guess i get the better deal here). i started doing this in the USA, on our road trips, as many of the pictures were taken while driving. just a few months back, the car was particularly dirty and we spent some time getting the windows clean. i even needed tim to help (it was not overcrowded at the station so we were not blocking the pump or anything). but then... when he went to pay for the gas, the lady said to him; "well well, you are not supposed to clean your car that long!!" it really pissed me off, he just spent over 60 euros on gas, and then we cannot use their bucket of water...? i do think it was a typical dutch reaction (3 years US made me a bit sensitive to that). somehow the dutch can never shut up, and always need to express their frustrations! how frustrating... ;)

Parking & Canals

i took this picture last monday. ah, only now i realize that was yesterday. indeed, i took this picture yesterday, but somehow it seems ages ago... :) as you see, it was very sunny....

i guess most people know amsterdam has a lot of canals. 165 in total, some 60 miles of water, combined. there are also a lot of bikes, cars, houses, and not a lot of space. so... parking is often done right at the waterfront. unfortunately, its very important to always lock your bike to something (as i have written several times before). not only because someone might otherwise steal your bike.. every year between 12,000 and 15,000 bikes are fished out of the water!! im pretty sure most people dont have the habit of throwing their bikes into the water on purpose (i certainly dont have that desire), but someone else might just do it for you. here you can see a video of the piles of bikes coming out of the canals...

it also happens that cars get into the water. it is estimated that around 35 cars end up on the bottom of an amsterdam canal. they are parked at the edge as well, and having the car in reverse gear when expecting to go forward is sometimes all it takes to end up in the canal..... (this happened to one of tims colleagues. she got out fine but the car didnt... we dont need to park next to the water but just to be sure we did get an emergency hammer recently....)

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)

Pollard willows

see?! this is how grey and rainy the netherlands is right now. beeehhhh!! again a rainy day today. we drove on this narrow road, which is actually a 2-way road. every now and then there was some space so that cars could pass each other (but we didnt see any other). the trees you see above are so very dutch! they line many small roads and pastures. according to the digital dictionary, in english you call them pollard willow (we call them "knotwilg"). by heavily cutting back the branches of the tree close to its trunk, you get that bushy growth on top. this has been done by people for many centuries; its cut off branches were used to make all sorts of stuff; from houses (or more like building blocks of houses) to weaving baskets and other utensils made by braiding some branches... nowadays we dont use their branches for that anymore, and more and more trees disappear. but those trees are such a dutch thing, some people are trying to actively keep them in the dutch landscape. to keep the trees healthy; their branches need to be cut periodically. if not, their top becomes too heavy and they will die. nowadays this is mostly done by volunteers. birds (mostly owls) like to make their nests in these trees and lots of vegetation grows on them as well....

before posting this picture, i just knew the dutch name of these trees, and that they are very dutch...!

Too bad!

as you can see, they were just doing some work on that cute house, so its covered with this ugly white cloth... :( too bad!! up close the wooden house was indeed just painted to shiny green perfection. this is still at the zaanse schans, just like yesterdays picture. i wouldnt mind going back anytime soon just to take some more pictures (even though its one of those places that has been photographed by everyone already, apparently it gets almost 1 million visitors per year). too bad you of course do have to pay for parking... (7.50, some 10 dollars if you stay longer than 30 minutes, which you will most certainly do).

Too pretty!

yesterday we went to yet another very very dutch place. very touristy too. suddenly we were one of the few dutch people amongst mostly asian tourists. but we had big cameras too, and took as many pictures. unfortunately, looking at them today, i was mostly disappointed... :( we even had those great typical dutch clouds as you can see above! lots of them in crazy formations, some very dark, others more white, all perfect, but my photography not so much....  this is one of the few i actually liked. 

here we are at the zaanse schans, a neighborhood of the town zaandam (not too far from amsterdam). there are 8 windmills of which you see a few here, and they all have a name! those are sawmills, oilmills, a dyemill and a mustardmill. i was just disappointed there wasnt a flour mill so that i could buy some for my bread baking... (as opposed to the US, different types of flour arent that readily available in supermarkets). 

this is not only a tourist destination; actual people are living here too. they bike around and we experienced that they are VERY annoyed when you dare stepping on the bicycle path, even if you are not blocking their way (just the possibility that you might slow a dutch person down while they are biking is enough for most of them to make it very clear that you have to stay out of their way). dont you worry, i do that too.... sometimes... :)

Dutch landscape

yesterday i posted a freaky photo of the museum we visited this sunday, so now one thats a bit nicer. this was the day before the crazy storm and at one moment it was cloudy, then it was raining, and here it was sunny... this cycle was on repeat that day.

we were again in an open air museum, this time a little further from home, in Arnhem. but actually, to see something like the above, you dont need to visit a museum, you can see it in the "real" netherlands as well! arent those houses cute? as well as the bridge, and even further away, the windmill? this museum is different from the one i showed you earlier. its more spacious, and has several farms, and houses from different time periods. i dont really know which one i like better, i guess they are both very nice. this one is also nice for just wandering around in the woods (in winter thats what you can do; you cannot go into the buildings, but you can still walk around in the park).

oh, did i mention already someone finally came to fix the roof? he thought it was most likely the pipe from the gas heater. it was a bit loose, and he fixed it a bit... im still a bit hesitant to put our stuff back in that spot.....

Dutch landscape

this is so dutch! the windmill, the water, the grey sky.... although this is a typical dutch scene that you can see around the netherlands (with a more modern boat perhaps), this is actually in an open air museum, the Zuiderzeemuseum in the city of Enkhuizen. here they recreated a typical dutch village as it existed over 100 years ago. many of the houses are authentic and were "just" moved stone by stone from their original location to the museum. the museum opened in 1983.

we went there this weekend, and it was really nice to walk around. i had been there as a kid quite a few times (at least thats how i remember it) with my mom and sister, but this was the first time i think i was there as an adult; the boat ride to the museum was less impressive than it was in my memory (and of course we had to pay for parking, grrrr). next weekend is the last weekend its open; after that it closes for the winter. everything looked so perfect and old, but not fake old as often seems to happen in such recreations of the past.

other than that, still nobody has come to check our leaking roof. luckily it hasnt been raining as crazy as the past weekend when the leak occurred, but we certainly wont be putting stuff there until it has been fixed. and thus the living room is even more a mess than it already was and im getting quite frustrated....

Dutch dining

on my birthday, it was actually only the second time we went out to dinner since i am back in the netherlands. as i mentioned before, going out to dinner here is just so much more expensive, much slower (which can be a good thing), and the service... well... it can be OK, but often it is less than that or even plain awful. however, at least the food is usually much tastier :)

in the usa, it took me quite a while to get used to the overly friendly (and to me a little fake) "Hi, my name is ... and i will be taking care of you today. please let me you if you need anything, ok?" but it was not difficult to get used to the endless possibilities when ordering. at first it was a bit intimidating, and i was always jealous of the real americans ordering exactly what they want, without the waitress having to sum up all the possibilities (types of dressing, bread, size, types of milk etc etc). it surely took me a while before i could order like that..., and i was real proud when i could!! :D

so... now back to dutch dining. i guess it will be shocking for americans. it might take ages before they notice you are there and want to order something. you will not get water automatically (more often than not there will be a note on the menu saying that they dont serve water. unless you pay for bottled water). you will not be able to order salad A with dressing from salad B, and you will not be allowed to take your leftovers home (but the portions arent crazy big like in the US so thats usually not an issue anyways). moreover, you will have to pay for everything. see that bill above? it lists a 0.75 cents (about a dollar) charge for the mayonnaise!! here in the netherlands we eat our fries with mayonnaise, but you will always have to pay for it. this is even the case at mc donalds!! i liked that in the USA there was always a ketchup bottle on the table, and it was never a problem when we asked for some mayo, they would just bring it (and not bill it!).

now when we sat down, the waitress asked what we liked to drink. tim wanted a beer, and he could choose between a normal or a large (0.5 ltr) size. then i said to him; lets take the large and we will just share it! (i also still have to get used to the fact that now everyone can understand again what i say, although in the US sharing has never been a problem). when the beer finally came, the guy bringing it put it in the middle of the table and said "i understood you want to share this beer??!!" and then put 2 straws in the beer. only when he left i understood this snark... i actually should have called him back to explain himself, but i didnt want to make a scene. but thinking about it still pisses me off!! we were there to enjoy ourselves and drink as much as WE want, even if that means sharing one beer. and as you see, 2 entrees, 1 beer and 2 coffees came down to 37 euros, which is 50 dollars (at least there is no 20% tip as waiters here get a normal salary. you can tip as you  like, or not tip at all, although they will not appreciate no tip at all)

Dutch clouds

weather is still awful around here! yesterday at least it was dry every now and then, but very very windy. today was even worse.... the temperature has dropped dramatically so i guess we officially have started the dutch autumn.... no indian summer like in boston.... buuuhhh!

to me the above looks so dutch (its a little outside of amsterdam)! the house, clouds, the water... all the green...

Oooh, biking..!

a typical dutch scene. bikes, bikes and bikes. ive been biking a bit, mostly with tim since i dont really now my way still on a bike in amsterdam. and... i get to experience again why i so often used to say "aaarrghhh, everyone around me needs to take lessons in biking!!! from ME!". while in boston i really missed biking, and was very annoyed by the aggression many motorists displayed just by seeing someone on a bike on THEIR road. and i remember even once writing that those that do bike in boston dont really know how to, and that dutch are so much better at it... HA! a perfect example of glorifying the dutch bikers when not surrounded by them, while in fact.... i am more often than not annoyed by fellow bikers! (and scooters too, but thats for another post). yesterday we biked through the city center during a busy time of day and then you get bike traffic jams. people are too slow, people bike next to each other so that you cannot pass them (and refuse to move aside when you are approaching), people are frantically using their "fietsbel" (bicycle bell) to let you know they are coming and YOU need to move aside asap (and then they turn out to ride so slow that you have to pass them again). others are on their fancy phones while biking and dont pay any attention (that really pisses me off, and is something new, 3 years ago it wasnt this bad), and yet others are so superfast that they think they have the right to just hop onto the footpath to pass everyone, perhaps even running over some pedestrians in the process. then at the next traffic light everyone is together again, even the fast ones (unless they ignore the light, which happens often too), and the whole process starts again.....  aaarrrghhhh. i had forgotten all that and how i get worked up about it. tim doesnt really have that problem... he probably has a lower chance of heart disease than i do.... :) oh, and then i didnt even mention the tourists. all those tourists that want to have the real experience and rent a bike, usually in large groups, blocking every possibility to pass them while they are figuring out how you actually move forward on a bike.... ;)

pfew. i feel a bit calmer now... the street above leads to the entrance port i showed you earlier, but you dont get to bike underneath it...