Those are for deaf people

Random things I learned on the weekend Mark visited:

- The man that lives in the narrowest house in Amsterdam is taller than his house is wide.  Thus, he cannot lie down across his room. 

- The Red Light District has blue lights too.  They are not men....but they may or may not have been at some point in time. 

- Anne Frank actually started writing a book about her life in hiding before she died.  Her father then published her journals because he read that she wanted to be a famous writer when she got older. 

- The Jewish District of Holland, which at one point had some of the most amazing houses in Amsterdam, is now the most hideous street in the city after its reconstruction by acid tripping hippies in the 60s.
- there are speculaas latte's at Starbucks.
- Despite what people think, the use of marijuana in The Netherlands isn't technically legal.  It is simply tolerated and is not considered a criminal offence.  Instead, the police focus more on hard drugs and since then the use of drugs such as heroin (which used to be a major problem) has dramatically decreased.

Those are just some of the important things we learned as we toured Amsterdam.  After our Amsterdam adventure, we spent the rest of the weekend at Sander's place, partying with his housemates.  I'll leave the story at that to preserve the memories and dignity of all of us that were deathly hungover the next day.  The take home message of the story: epic weekend. 

Standing on the widest bridge in Amsterdam.

My friend, Flores

I have a new friend here in Holland!  He's a bit younger than me, but so much fun to be around.  He has really blond hair and knows English quite well.  We haven't planned it yet, but I think he's gonna be my Dutch running buddy.  He already knows the kids quite well, and lives just down the street, so it's really easy for him to pop by for visits once and a while.  =)

Oops, I forgot to mention that my new friend was of the canine variety, didn't I?

He came over to play the other day.  As you can see, he was more interested in the stick, but nonetheless it was wonderful to have his company.  Oh and that's Cleo's best friend Okki in the pink.

Pilou is a little scared of him (probably because he's twice her size), but Cleo and Pippa love him to pieces!

Catch up!

Life across the pond has been busy, but really, I know that's no excuse for my lack of updates.  So here, chew on this for the next week.

My Trip to Madrid
Yeah, I know, it was a while ago, but I swear, I did actually go.

Meet Mia: 

She was my awesome travel partner who is a camera nerd, just like me.  We had a fantastic time wasting our days away snapping pictures in the park (in between a lot of Sangria).

We saw a ton of cool stuff.  Including...

National Monuments

Random book sales

Famous squares (this one is Peurta del Mayor).  We also spent a lot of time around Peurta del Sol, but were unsure why it was so famous.  Click here to find out.  =)  

And the Royal Palace with its beautiful gardens!

We also drank a lot of Sangria and ate a ridiculous amount of Tapas:

 Oh, and we had churos dipped in melted chocolate. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

And to top off the whole trip, we had a night out at the theater.  We saw Donka.  It was by the same producers that make the Cirque du Solieil shows, thus is was kinda strange but keeps you interested with its insane acrobatics and freak-of-nature tricks.  

And that was my holiday to Spain in a nutshell.  

Since then, the speed of life has picked up quite a bit.  Kristel has been insanely busy with work lately, so I've been spending loads of time with the kids.  I've also been investing a lot of time into my Dutch class.  Slowly, but surely I'm gonna learn the language that is so strangely complicated.  

Last weekend Sander and I went to visit his parents in Eindhoven.  It was a nice, relaxing weekend with a good bike ride, a few rounds of rumikub and some good visiting.  This past weekend, was pretty low-key since Sander has finals this week.  Mia cooked us some traditional Indian food on Friday night.  It was absolutely amazing.  She's gonna make me some Tandori chicken sometime *drool*. Sunday was full of studying (well, Sander studied, I played Scrabble) and then we went to a bbq.  

So that's all for now.  Life is great, and I'm loving every moment of it.  Mark is coming to visit this weekend (excitement!!).  We're making a trip into Amsterdam to see all the touristy things and then we're gonna spend some time in Utrecht, enjoying the non-touristy Dutchness.  =)