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.  =)

Autumn's Here

I was running this morning when this song by Hawksley Workman came on.

And then there was a blog post about autumn.

I love, love, love the vivid colours around here.  

This river was so calm this morning.  It's not normally this glassy.  It made for a perfect morning of picture adventuring!

(click on the photos to enlarge them.  they look so much nicer that way)

<3 reflections!

For those of you not on facebook, I'm sorry for the lack of Madrid photos.  I'll get around sooner or later.  I'll sum the trip up for you though: it was freakin' awesome.  

The End.

Run Forrest, Run!

Last weekend, I willingly subjected myself to physical torture-- running for two hours non-stop, as I participated in the 36th Annual Amsterdam Marathon.

Okay fine, I trained for almost two months, so it wasn't that bad (in fact, I was actually under my goal time) until the next day when I couldn't sit down without bracing myself because my quads decided they didn't want to function anymore.  It was only around kilometer 14-17 that I truly wanted to fall over and die.  The only thing that got me through was knowing that I had a team of people spread throughout the route cheering me on....and singing "O Canada". 

Attaching The Official time tracking chip to my shoe.  Telltale sign that this race is for realsies.

Finally found my starting chute and am ready to run!

I believe this was around the 5km mark, still feeling great at this point. Seeing Sander's parents gave my energy levels a good boost too.

Finish line! I'm somewhere in that crowd...

The amazing banner that Sander made.  Funny story though, I was so focused on spotting familiar faces that I missed the banner, not once, but twice as they cheered me on throughout the race.

My support team cheering me on.  At this point, I was so happy to be going downhill...that is until I realized that I had to run up the hill I just went down. 



When I arrived in Holland, I said "by the end of the year I want to be able to run half a marathon".  Little did I know I'd reach this goal just two months after arriving.  I am so proud to have reached my goal, and so thankful that I had a wonderful group of people there to support me.  I couldn't have done it without them!

You're the one that I want

I went on a date with John Travolta this weekend.  My attire was suspiciously similar to Olivia Newton John in the movie Grease.  It may or may not have been planned that way.

A pre-party shot of most of the house gang.  The short one on the left (sorry Mia! That's the best way to describe you, you're teeny) is Mia.  We're going to Spain together next week.  

Side note: I have a funny story about Mia being short.  I rode her bike to the pool over the weekend.  I felt something along the lines of this, minus all the American attire obviously

It was hilarious.  I wish someone was around to snap a pic for me.

We are sitting on 25 crates of beer.  That's 600 beers for those of you whose math sucks as much as mine.  

Pre-party dinner (thanks Nicole!).  These are all Sander's housemates (minus Mia who is taking the picture).

It was a fabulous party.   The next day was a little rough for some, but rocking out to Disney tunes while cleaning helped a lot (Jamie you would have loved it!  We started off with Bear Necessities).  Sunday evening, the whole house got together and we watched Lion King as we nursed ourselves back to health. 

Releasing my inner child

Apparently I've gotten lazy with the blogging.  I'm sorry!

Over the weekend, I went to Efteling which is a Dutch theme park.  There were so many wicked rollercoasters! My favorite was this one: Joris en de Draak.  It was a very magical and truly Dutch experience complete with a fairly tale forest and nice long lines.  Oh, and the garbage bins look like giant faces and when you put garbage in, they say thank you!  

That's all I have for now.  I haven't been up to much these days, so I think it's safe to say I've settled into my Dutch life.  My weeks have been much busier now that I have started my Dutch class.  I've also been running more (1/2 marathon is in 9 days!!) and spending more time with the kids.  

I have a few things to look forward to in the next couple weeks (ie: costume party, marathon, trip to Spain) so stay tuned for some exciting updates!

Love to you all!