A weekend in Bruges

Sander and I took a mini holiday to Belgium this weekend.  I wrote a final on Friday, so this was one of my free weekends to enjoy and we decided to escape early on Friday and head to Bruges.

If I was forced to describe the city of Bruges in one word, it would be adorable.

The city is so quaint and it literally charmed the pants off of me.

See:

My catch phrase of the day was "it's so cute I'm going to die".  Honestly, every nook and cranny in that city just made me smile.  We had a wonderful day exploring and of course having Belgian beer and waffles!! 

We also watched a candy demonstration which blew both of our minds.  We initially started watching because the guy was stretching out the candy on this hook and it looked really neat.  They then started using different colors and assembling them into what we thought was the most pathetic stack of gooey messy candy.  It wasn't until I saw the little candies on the ledge that I realized what he was making! The end product was a delicious hard candy which we got to taste as he cut the strings into tiny pieces.

These are all handmade!! I had no idea the process was so intricate! 

It was a wonderful little trip and I cannot wait to return sometime.  One day in that gorgeous city just was not enough! 

Totally nuts!

Yesterday, Nienke and I cracked a kilo of these lovely nuts (that were collected throughout Utrecht) and made the most amazing hazelnut pie. Such a fun baking adventure!! Nut hunting is definitely on my agenda for next fall!

Pie Night and Fall Colours

Pumpkin Pie Night

Thanksgiving wasn't quite complete without a pumpkin pie.  I had full intentions of making a pie for our lovely dinner, however, I ran into the slight problem of not being able to find a pumpkin! Pro-tip: pumpkins over here look different! I believe I did see a few pumpkins here and there, but they weren't the type of pumpkin I was used to, so I walked right past them.  Linda was kind enough to bring one the day of our dinner, so we whipped up a quick no-bake pumpkin cheesecake dessert (which was delicious), but I still had the craving for a real pumpkin pie.

Then the following week, I found a real pumpkin (or rather, the type of pumpkin I'm used to seeing) and I was inspired to give this whole pie thing a go.  It was so good! There was some improvising (*ahem, using a spring form pan cause we had no pie plate), but in the end, it was pretty darn close to the real thing.  Of course, being that it was my first ever pie crust, there were some improvements to be made, however, I have to say, for my first go at pumpkin pie, I was pretty proud of us!

A Beautiful Fall Day

The trees around here have been absolutely amazing the last couple of weeks.  I've been dying to get out there and enjoy the colours  (including a beautiful blue sky), but I've been so incredibly busy with school (which is going well, by the way.  I officially passed my first course!).  Yesterday, I finally made it out to the forest area for an afternoon walk.  I really thought I had missed most of the leaves (all the trees by our place are bare by now), but I was pleasantly surprised to see some trees still full!

Dutch Thanksgiving

Well, another Turkey Day has come and gone and, though there was no turkey consumed this year, it was a solid Thanksgiving celebration!

Living abroad is really fun.  You're constantly encountering new things whether that is a new food, a new word in a new language or a new friend.  It's easy to find the excitement in all this newness.  However, it's also very easy to miss what you're used to.

There is nothing in this world that can replace the comfort of being surrounded by all the people you care about most, and there is nothing that can make me miss home more than family and friends getting together and not being able to join in.  I know every time a birthday, a holiday, or even a simple dinner party with friends rolls around I will be disappointed that I cannot join, and I know it's something that will take time to get used to.  However, with all the newness around here, comes along the opportunity to share tradition and create new ones too! That's why as Thanksgiving approached, I felt the need to plan a dinner.  I knew it wouldn't be the same as it was at home, but it was the perfect opportunity to ward away a heavy heart and share a Canadian tradition with some Dutchies.

All in all, our first Dutch Thanksgiving was a huge success.  We shared an amazing meal cooked by all of us (thank you everyone for contributing!!) and it was the best start to a tradition here.  The evening was perfect and I couldn't have imagined anything more.  I also want to send out a huge THANK YOU to Sander for putting up with the crazy Canadian in me, to Linda for coming early to help prep (and play Agricola....which might be something we have to do again next year), and to Ted and Jan for helping with the never ending pile of dishes!

September Summary

Wow, can't believe it has been a month since I've last written! I wish I had some wild and crazy stories to share, but unfortunately, I'm living a fairly normal life over here.

School is going great so far.  I am absolutely loving learning more about cancer and being challenged intellectually.  The program set up is really working well for me too.  We do one class at a time and it runs for only one month.  It can be stressful since you have a lot of material to cover in such a short time, but it's nice only having one class to focus on.  Also, my favorite part is that every 4 weeks, you're guaranteed a free weekend with no studying!

That free weekend happens to be this weekend, and I'll admit, I'm taking the relaxing to a whole new level! It has been a perfect mix of hanging out at home and visiting with friends! Last night we celebrated Jorine's birthday with some pretty fancy cocktails, and today I'm hanging out at home and toying around with the idea of making a Thanksgiving dinner here.  If anyone has some recipe ideas to wow these Dutchies, please share!

That's all I have to update on for now.  Hopefully in the next month I'll be more diligent with keeping everyone in the boring loop that makes up my life. ;)

For now, I'll leave you with a lovely pic I snapped last weekend while out for my Sunday morning run with the running group.  The sun was shining and there wasn't a breeze.  The canals were so insanely calm and their glass-like water was absolutely gorgeous!

Never Ever

If you had told me 5 years ago that I'd be doing a master's in oncology in Amsterdam, I'd probably have laughed in your face and gone on my way. Looking at my life with an objective eye today and clearly seeing (and appreciating) how lucky I am!!

As you may or may not know, I started school again on Monday.  This is wonderful as it is super nice to be back in a routine, however, I can already tell that it's going to be claiming most of my free time. For those of you who aren't sucked into the deep black hole of Facebook, I cannot promise to write proper updates often enough. As a compensation, I'll be sharing snip-its via photos and quick messages.  I know it doesn't quite suffice, but I'll try my best to fill in the details as I go along.  

Part 2: Hiking

According to the famous saying, a picture tells a thousand words. However, I'm not sure a picture nor a thousand words are enough to convey the experience of hiking in the Alps.

There is no way to capture the satisfaction of hiking uphill for hours and finally reaching that spot overlooking the entire valley.  You cannot photograph the feeling of aching muscles and blisters nor the thirst and hunger.  There is no way to share the warmth of the sun, the sound of the wind rustling the grass, nor the sweet smell of the mountain air.

Pictures just don't do it justice.

And I'm not entirely convinced that words can either.

There were so many moments throughout our hikes where we stood completely dumbfounded by the beauty of mother nature.  I hope that everyone has the opportunity to experience something of the sort in their lifetime. It truly leaves you breathless and grasping for words.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my measly attempt at bringing the Alps to your computer screen.

I sincerely hope that one day I can return and continue to explore.  Due to Sander's broken toe, he was not able to join in on the last hike we did.  It was honestly one of the toughest, most terrifying and inspiring things I've ever done and I would love to relive it one day! I walked over a mountain with my own two feet.  I climbed rebar ladders and walked next to a glacier.  I somewhat regret not taking more photos and videos during this hike, but due to safety (read: I didn't want to lose my footing and tumble down the mountain to my death), I thought it was best to pack it away.  In the end though, I have my own memories of the hike and you guys will just have to go experience it yourself!!

Austria: Part One

Lucky(?) for you guys, I have a lot to say about the one week adventure Sander and I just took in the Austrian Alps.  There's no way I can get everything out in one post! So, keep your eyes on the blog for there'll be a bit more activity in the next two weeks.

If you want the short version, all you need to know is that Austria is beautiful.  Here's some proof, though I encourage you to keep reading.

Saturday, August 8: Fly to Munich
Sander and I decided that renting a car was the best option for us for this trip.  We did a little research and it turned out that it was not only faster, but also cheaper for us to fly part way rather than driving all the way from the Netherlands.  So at a respectable time of day (yay, no early morning flight), we caught our flight to Munich. 

When we arrived in Munich, we went immediately to collect our car.  If I said the airport was busy, that'd be an understatement.  The car rental area was absolute chaos.  The lines were about 50 people deep and hardly moving.  We were dreading the wait, but when we turned the corner, we saw that our rental agency had hardly any line at all! Sander and I high-fived and marched on with our 16kg backpacks and waited....and waited......and waited.  The line was a bit deceiving as it still took us nearly an hour to get our car, but that's alright.  Soon enough we were on our way to the Oetztal Valley going 150km/h on the Autobahn.

Just kidding (Mom, you can relax).  We weren't going 150km/h being that we had a little Ford Fiesta (we named it Mrs. Vroom as it had about as much punch as our 2003 Ford Focus, Mr. Vroom, that we had in Canada).  But I did have my first experience of being on a highway with no speed limit. It's still mind boggling for me.  There were even areas with the posted speed limit of 130km/h! Crazy!

It's also the only place I've ever seen the posted speed limit of 120km/h in a construction zone!

Anyway, as we tootled along and all the Audi's, Mercedes's and BMW's zoomed passed us, it dawned on us that we hadn't had anything to eat and we were starving!! Typical Sander and Kaylee move.  We also needed to stop at a gas station and get a placard for our windshield (in Austria, you have to buy a permit to drive on the highways), so we pulled off to a roadside stop and had a very authentic German meal of burgers and fries at the Burger King.  Funnily enough we did the same thing to ourselves in Seattle last summer and also ended up at a Burger King.  I think this might be turning into a tradition.  Finally, we had all that we needed and we drove into the Alps.  

We arrived in Oetz just after 6pm and decided to stop at a grocery store and pick up food since the stores would be closed the next day (stores aren't open on Sunday's).  Turns out stores also close early on Saturday's and we couldn't get groceries!  We thought maybe a different grocery store would be open later so we kept driving to Umhausen-- where we had reserved a campsite where we thought we had reserved a campsite.  Despite the fact that Sander reserved a site using their online system a week in advance, they had no spot for us and they were full for the night.  We were annoyed, but not worried as there was another campsite 6km up the road in the next town, Langenfeld.

Off to Langenfeld we go.
No room.  

But "there's another campground just a few kilometers down the road".
Off to Huben we go.
No room.
But "there's another campground just a few kilometers down the road".
Off to Winkle-- the second last campground in the entire valley.

We had no food and nowhere to stay.  Let's just say the worry was beginning to settle in a bit. 

For no reason though because they had room! But they only take cash, and we had no cash.

Begged the lady to hold a spot for us.

Off to the gas station up the road.
No ATM.
"There's a bank in Langenfeld"
Back to Langenfeld we go.
Miraculously we find the bank on our first try.
Get cash.
Back to Winkle.

We register. 

"You don't need to pay now.  You can pay when you leave".

Thank you, language barrier.  That would have been nice to know before we drove around looking for a way to get cash! 

In the end though it all worked out.  We had a place to stay and we found a grocery store that was open from 9-12 the next day.  Following that adventure, we cracked a beer (that we bought at the gas station while trying to find an ATM) and settled on eating out for dinner that night.

Sunday, August 9

We woke up refreshed and ready for a nice easy hike to warm up our legs! First, we headed out to get groceries, and then we packed day packs and hit the mountain!

It was a beautiful hike in the end, though we had a rough start.  We wanted to start the hike on a side trail that met up with the main trail.  Seemed easy enough according to the map, however, there was a serious lack of trail markers, and about 10 minutes in, we were off the path!! We continued to hike for a bit before we gave up and decided to just do the hike from the other trail head.  So back to the car we went, and we drove to the other start point. That one was easy to find and really well marked.  

Between the trees, we had beautiful views of the receding villages below us and after a 3 hour ascent, we were welcomed by an Alpine hut that was, sadly, not in service at the time. We had a lovely picnic lunch looking down into the valley before we started our descent back into town. 

After hiking, we went to go join Jasper for a beer in a little village named Au.  He arrived in the area a few days before us and had been hiking and staying in huts.  He decided to come down to the valley and hang out with us for a couple days.

Monday, August 10

After hiking the day before and our muscles not being used to it, we decided to take the day easy.  I had seen an outdoor pool somewhere during our frantic search for a campground and we were dead set on finding it and spending the afternoon in the glorious sunshine. 

And we did just that. It was the perfect day to charge us up for a couple days of hiking.

Tuesday, August 11

Jasper woke up with the sun and hit the trail first thing in the morning.  He was catching the bus from our campsite to Sölden and then hiking up to Breslauer hut where he was going to spend the night. Sander and I aren't nearly as hardcore and were taking the whole holiday thing seriously so we slept in and took a different route to the hut.  

After tearing down camp, we drove to the trail head in this little village called Vent.  It's basically at the end of the valley and not too far from the Italian border.  It's also not too far from where Ötzi was found in 1991 which I thought was pretty cool!

I am going to give a more abundant summary of the hike itself in a separate post, but I'll give you this much: it was AWESOME.  I was so excited to experience sleeping in an Alpine hut on top of a mountain!

Wednesday, August 12

Another hiking day.  Details to come.


Thursday, August 13

After two days of hiking, we decided to have another relaxing day.  I heard there was a lake close to our campground and I was looking forward to laying by the water reading my book for the day. We were both feeling a little crispy from all the sun so we hid in the shade at our campground for the morning and planned some hikes for the next day.  Around 2, Sander and I packed our day packs and started walking to the lake. As we got closer and closer we realized that it was more of a pond.....and get this, it was completely fenced off and you had to pay to use it! We quickly abandoned that idea and decided to drive back to Langenfeld and enjoy the outdoor pool again.

It was the perfect rest day until Sander had the opportunity to experience the pain of a movement in full force being stopped prematurely.  As he was walking barefoot at the pool, he stubbed his toe on the edge of the shower.  It instantly turned purple and swelled up to a laughable size.

The other laughable thing encountered that day were the size of the slugs in our campground.  I was absolutely fascinated by them and enjoyed conducting stimulus-response experiments on them.

Friday, August 14

Another hiking day!! Or so we thought.  We had 2 trails in mind, but being that Sander's toe was three times its normal size and purple all the way around, we decided to do a shorter one.  So we picked a trail and headed to the start.  Nearly an hour later, we still hadn't managed to navigate ourselves to where we wanted to go.  We ended up on a really steep, twisty and narrow road and couldn't find anywhere to park.  In the end, we decided to do a different hike all together.  We figured we'd do a trail in Sölden instead.  It was perfect since we were meeting up with Jasper, Richard, Alissa and Nienke there later that day anyway.  So we start heading to the trail head, and again, steep road and nowhere to park! At this point we were both fed up and possibly a little hangry.  We quickly abandoned the plan to hike before any fatalities occurred and just drove to the campground.  We thought we could have a bite to eat there and then revisit the hiking idea once we could think clearly again.

After lunch, we were both feeling much better and were ready to hike....that was until Sander actually tried putting on his boots! His poor toe was being squashed in the most painful way and there was no way he could hike.  At the third failed attempt, we finally decided to simply give up on the idea of hiking.

Instead we did a super mini hike in flip flops to a pasture overlooking Sölden.  It was a beautiful view and so relaxing to sit in the long grass and just take in all the sights, smells and feelings.  And read, of course.

After a while of hardcore chilling, the clouds began to roll in (which was actually the first time all week despite the doom and gloom they had been predicting).  We decided to get down before the rain.  Though sliding down a muddy path in flip-flops sounds like fun, I wanted to do a pretty massive hike the next day so I was doing my best to avoid injury. 

When we got down, Jasper was waiting at the campground for us and we made a trip to get beer from the grocery store.  We visited over drinks while we waited for Richard, Alissa and Nienke to arrive and then realized that the next day was a holiday and that the grocery store was going to be closed! So, back to the grocery store to get food for the next day.  We made a third trip sometime between that one and the rest of the gang arriving, but I cannot remember why.  I do remember buying a ridiculous amount of Austrian foods and some liquor to take home with us, but I'm fairly certain we didn't make a trip simply for that.  I also bought a trail map that time, but I've already lost it.  =(  I'm 99.9% certain it made it home but I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I put it after that!

Once everyone else arrived, we went out for dinner and had the most delicious and gigantic pizzas! We then visited for a bit and hit the hay early since we were starting our hike at 8am sharp.

Saturday, August 15

Hiking day with this lovely group:

We thought our car lacked punch with two people and backpacks.  Add three more bodies and day packs and we basically were dragging the back end up the mountain! 

More details about the hike to come.

After hiking, we made dinner and hid inside the reception area of the campground since it was raining so hard. We tried to create a 5 person version of the Dutch card game Klaverjessen.  It was a bit ridiculous at first, but once we ironed out some of the rules it ended up working out alright.  At the very least, it was entertaining and was a really fun way to spend the evening! 

Sunday, August 16

Sander and I woke up early and tore down camp.  Our plan was to hit the road at 8, however, we ended up being a few minutes behind and left at 8:11.  We figured we were fine since our flight wasn't until 3pm and we only had a 3 hour 15 minute drive back to Munich. Assuming our math is right, we expected to get there at around 11:30.  We figured that'd leave enough time if something happened or if we got stuck in traffic.  What we didn't plan for though was being stuck in traffic for HOURS. At one point, we were trying to calculate the average speed we had to travel in order to get there in time.  Our math wasn't giving us very promising numbers especially since we still had to stop to fill up the rental car with gas.  Surprisingly though, we weren't freaking out.  I think it's safe to say we were properly stressed, but it was more of the pit-in-your-stomach type stressed rather than the freak-out kind of stressed.

We pulled into the rental car return at 1pm and somehow made it through check-in, luggage drop and security in a mere 35 minutes.  We still had plenty of time to be bored at the airport which was fantastic since we felt like we were in first class!  The airport lounge had free coffee/tea and the most comfortable waiting area.  It was a mini library with reclining chairs!!  It was a really nice way to unwind after being so stressed all morning. 

The flight home was quick and uneventful.  We pulled into Schiphol exactly on time and made our way to baggage claim in record time.  Like usual, you hurry up to wait and our luggage took forever to arrive.  

And that's when my favorite holiday conversation occured:

Sander: hmm....I haven't seen our keys in a while.  Do you know where they are?
Me: yeah, we put them in the toiletry bag.  Remember?
Sander: riiiiiight.  Oh good.  Glad we know where they are.

[standing silently watching bags going past, waiting and waiting and waiting for ours to come when we glance over to each other, wide eyed and horrified at our joint epiphany]
Together: the keys are in our checked bags!!!!

Yup, we're the dumb travelers that put both sets of keys in the CHECKED luggage.  Annnnd The Stupidity Award goes to Kaylee and Sander!  Let's just say we've never been so happy to see our bags come out on the belt!  

We grabbed our bags, high-fived and tiredly trudged towards the trains exhausted and completely content from the perfect holiday we just shared together. 

Stay tuned for Part 2: Hiking.  It will be making an appearance next week sometime!!! 

The Forest, The Tour and a day in Enschede

The Forest

Just outside of Utrecht, there is a "forest".  I put it in quotes cause compared to our Canadian forests (that are sadly burning right now) it's more like a little patch of trees than an actual forest.  However, when in a country where the population density is 500 people per square kilometer (Canada has 4, just to put thing into perspective for you), it's hard to come by any space.  Especially since the Netherlands is a fraction (1/18 to be exact) of the size of Alberta.  Moral of the story: the Netherlands is tiny and full, so this rather large patch of trees is actually quite refreshing.  I spent the whole afternoon wandering the trails and stopped for a picnic lunch under some trees.  It was wonderful!

This one reminded me a bit of Alberta! 

The Tour

Last weekend was a bit of a whirlwind of a weekend. Saturday started bright and early for me.  I went to Maarssen to see Pippa, Pilou and Cleo's piano recital! It was so wonderful to see them again.  I cannot believe how much they have grown and matured!

They put on a wonderful performance and have taken leaps and bounds in their piano playing.  Cleo has even started singing lessons and sang while she played Mamma Mia! I was so impressed!

After the piano recital I headed back into the chaos of Utrecht for the Tour de France.  As you may or may not know, The Tour started this year in Utrecht.  It was so cool to see in real life.  The first day was a timed lap so each cyclist went one by one.  It was a shorter lap so they were basically sprinting past us going at least 50km/h.  I tried taking a video to share the experience, but as it always happens, it's not as good as real life! 

The next day, the cyclists did a lap through Utrecht and then headed out of the city.  It was really fun to watch and even more fun since they went by at the end of our block! We watched them leave the start line and then walked down to get a good view of the real action.  

I'm so glad we braved the heat and spent the day outside.  I know it's so cliche to say, but I feel like it was a once in a lifetime chance, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to see it live!


A day in Enschede

Yesterday, Sander and I took a little trip to Enschede and met up with Nora and Hannah! They're spending some time in Germany right now visiting family and friends and made the trip to the land of bicycles to spend the day with us! We shopped around a bit but mostly wandered distractedly while catching up on a couple months of news.  It was absolutely wonderful!

That's pretty much a summary of what I've been up to the last couple weeks.  I've started my Dutch class now so my days are significantly fuller. ;)  I've already noticed a huge increase in my abilities and feel like by the end of the intensive course I'll be much more comfortable with the language!