Kerstmis

Christmas was nice considering I was away from all things familiar to me. Christmas Eve was spent in Waalwijk with John and his parents. We ate dinner together, I went to a Catholic Mass all in Dutch and Latin (I pretended like I knew what was going on), and afterward we enjoyed sausage bread, opened presents and played Rumikube until 2am!



Christmas day I took the train back to Hilversum and played some darts with Richard, beat him as usual, and had cheese fondue with my other roommates, Chris and Marlenka. We opened gifts and ended the evening by watching a movie together.


My Hilversum family!!




Second Christmas day I headed to Amsterdam. I made my way through the city to a grocery store that was open and got ingredients to make some peanutbutter bars that my grandma gave me a recipe for. I made the treats at John's apartment and went back into town to meet John and his friends for a Christmas get together. Everyone seemed to enjoy my American treats. We ate Indonesian food and attempted to play Who Wants to be a Millionaire on Wii, but it was too hard to translate the Dutch and it was all about Dutch history so I couldn't contribute much. Instead, we decided to play charades and limited it to the English language. Hahah.

Lindsey flies in tomorrow to celebrate New Years with me in Amsterdam. Can't wait!

and the food

I've tried some typical Dutch food in the past days. Richard made pancakes the other night. The first I had was cheese with bacon, and the second was apple and banana. Below is Richard teaching me the ways to the perfect pancake. And then the finished product.




The second Dutch treat was herring. Raw herring. With onions. You have to tip your head back and hang the herring into your mouth and bite it off. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I think one try of this was enough for me.

The land of Hilversum

Some pics I've taken throughout the weeks of lovely Hilversum and all it has to offer. The first image is the street I walk down to go to work each morning. The second is a close up of typical Dutch homes. Each has a large window and supposedly if the curtains are open it means protestants live there and they want to show they have nothing to hide. If the blinds are closed they are Catholic. The last image is a look back on the street from the bridge I cross.





Below are images of Media Park where I work. We like to refer to it as Hillywood because it's where all the famous Dutchy's come, although I couldn't tell you a famous Dutch actor from anyone else. But it's still exciting. No? The colourful building is the museum in Media park, one of the first buildings you see as you enter, and the second image of the white building is where I work.




This is a typical street in Hilversum filled with small shops. The red brick sidewalk is the bike road; never walk on this if you want to stay safe.



And finally some frozen canals and "snow." It hasn't actually snowed here, just the trees have frosted over and the frost begins to flake off creating a bit of powder; although I am told it's mostly from pollution. The last image are a bunch of kids playing on the frozen canal with their doggies.

weekend plans and dams.

I am still keeping busy and with the holiday season fast approaching, the busyness will continue. I spent another weekend in Amsterdam with my friend John. I got to ride on the back of his bike some more, but it was less exciting this time now that I have become a veteran at it. The problem is Amsterdam is very chilly being that the breeze comes from the sea and that mixed with being carted around on the back of a bike is less than pleasant. But I keep trying to tell myself it is much colder in Iowa and I shouldn't be complaining; it's not helping much though. I did get to actually ride a bike for real on Saturday. We were in the "central park" of Amsterdam and I took the bike for a quick ride; although it took me a bit of getting used to that the breaks aren't on the handles but on the pedals. I also went to a book exchange party that John's friends were having Sunday night. I didn't feel as though I should take any books seeing that I didn't bring any to trade but a guy picked up a book called "I amsterdam" and said it had my name written on it and I should take it. It's really fantastic with pictures from all over the city and very well designed. We closed the evening with Indian food, my telling stories of cheerleading and homecoming court and a few Christmas carols were sung around a piano.

Work continues to go well. I had to stay until 9pm last night because a client came back after viewing the proofs at the printers and wanted to make last minute text corrections to a map we designed. The process was not as easy as they thought it might be and it caused us to have to work late. But I can leave early a different day to make up for the extra hours put in. So far I have seen 3 of my designs printed: a brochure for an art exhibit held in Amsterdam, the map we had to stay late to make corrections on last night, and a wedding thank you card.

Monday I will take a train with John to Waalwijk for Christmas Eve to celebrate with his parents. If I haven't mentioned it before, they celebrate two Christmas days. So first Christmas day I will take the train back to Hilversum and spend the day with my roommates. We will cook a meal together and have roommate fun. Richard has got our apartment ready for the festivities by hanging Christmas lights in our kitchen and spraying fake snow around the windows. Second Christmas day I will go to Amsterdam to a party some of John's friends are having (the ones that had the book exchange party). It's so nice I can go to all these functions and meet people but it's hard because I am the only one who doesn't speak Dutch; luckily everyone speaks English when they are around me, otherwise I would be lost!

bandit

Friday night I spent time with my roommates Richard and Aaron playing cards. We got snacks at the grocery store and I taught everyone how to play up and down the river. We had so much fun we played 3 full games and ate lots of cheese and bread, ending the night with a good Magnum bar.

Saturday I made my way to Amsterdam. I got to sit next to a 7 week old puppy, who climbed on my lap and chewed my scarf on the train. When I asked the guy what the pup's name was it was Bandit! How random that it is the same as my beagle pooch. When I arrived in amsterdam I met John and a friend of his and we made our way to the Northern part of the city where John lives. We had to take a ferry to cross the water to get there. We spent the afternoon hanging out, went to the grocery store and made dinner for John's friends that were coming over. We enjoyed a nice meal, where we finally learned what the english word for this vegetable we were eating was, chicory. I don't think I'd ever had it/seen it before. After dinner I had my first bike riding experience here! We wanted to go into the center for drinks and so everyone hopped on their bikes and I got to sit on the back of John's. People make it look so easy when there are two on a bike but it's also slightly frightening. I think I did well though.



Right now, Richard and I are attempting to bake brownies. I'm a little leery because we baked them in the microwave, but I guess it's not a microwave like we know because it grills and airbakes. who knows I suppose I will find out.

8.00am

this is what it looks like out my bedroom window at 8am. so dark.

the waffles

Happy Sinterklaas

Today was Sinterklaas day, which doesn't mean much when you are older in Holland unless you have kids. But this is the day when children leave their shoes out and receive presents and candy. Usually you either celebrate Sinterklaas day with gifts or Christmas. All the shops were closed down this evening for the holiday, even though they have been staying up until 9 because of the holiday season. Having the shops open is a pretty big deal in Hilversum because most people aren't able to go shopping or go out because everything closes down by 6pm. Last night I took the opportunity to walk through the streets and window shop after work.

Tonight I met my friend John after work and we walked through the richer part of Hilversum where there are nice homes and into the town center. We enjoyed some coffee and apple strudel for our sinterklaas day. Sinterklaas and black piet even popped into the bar.

Work has been going really great. I work with four other people. There were a total of six of us but Jamie just returned to Minnesota yesterday morning. I am busy every day working on various projects for companies all over the world—an interiors shop in Southern Spain, architecture firm based in the Middle East, a website for a famous Dutch author, brochures for an art exhibit in Amsterdam—the list goes on. We work from 9.30am to 6pm and the weather here is usually overcast and rainy all day. At least we are inside I suppose.

Monday night all of us from work went out to a Thai restaurant for Jamie's last night in town. It was a good time and sad saying goodbye. Below is all of us in the office saying goodbye to Jamie.

Rens, Jamie, Me, Tarek, Paul


Rens, Jamie, Me, Azza, Paul

…

Oh ya Mom and Dad. I forgot to mention I had a marriage proposal this weekend so I found my ticket to stay here. Hah!

Waffle and bon bon country

This weekend Jamie and I got up early Saturday morning and made our way to Brugge, Belgium. It was such a quaint and beautiful city. Old buildings and architecture, canals and waterways, chocolate shops on every corner. Basically we just enjoyed the old city and their home brewed beer. The Christmas markets opened on Friday so there were tons of festivities of ice skating and music and glühwein. Below is the city center/market at night.



Sunday we woke up, put on our same clothes as the day before, stole bread and a knife from breakfast at our hostel so we wouldn't have to spend money on lunch and walked through the pouring rain to the station to get to Brussels.



Brussels was great as well with the Christmas markets and we tried Belgian waffles. They were so difficult to eat that it kind of ruined the experience. Whipped cream was dripping everywhere as we stood on the street and attempted to eat them without a huge mess. Although it looks a lot like bird poop, below is a pic of our drippings on the street as well as my shoe. We left Brussels after a few hours because we couldn't take the rain anymore.