Doo Doo Doo Looking out my window

I have mentioned that sometimes see odd things out the windows of the house: e.g. the man on a bike pulling the pony along - or the bar-mobiles. Yesterday some sort of event happened. There were upwards of sixty bike riders, all dressed in warm orange coats, all with balloons tied to the back of their bikes. They road by my house toward town, then I saw them coming back by the house, then once more out past my house toward the windmill.

I have no idea who they were or what they were riding for. Perhaps it was a fund raiser. My friend Yvette mentioned that she had seen them at the local amusement park - Hemelrijk.

Orange is the color that people in the Netherlands wear to show nationalism (their flag, like the French and the British and many others -- including ours -- is Red, White, and Blue -- in fact their flag looks like a sideways version of France's (or perhaps France's is the one that is 90 degrees out of phase)). So, if you are watching a football match or the Olympics, most of the people supporting the Netherlands are wearing Orange and carrying the flag.

Anyway, it was 49 degrees and hailing and/or raining, so Eileen and I enjoyed watching from the living room window. Yeah for heat and a roof!

Comfort foods in a distant land

Every culture has comfort foods. For me, a chicken broth with dumplings or noodles or matzos balls (or even Pho) works wonders on days like this, 46 and rainy outside and 103.5 inside (with babies running in circles).

The Dutch comfort foods tend to be hearty stews with meat and/or sausage, pancakes (which come with cheese, bacon, etc. cooked into them -- or various fruits -- see paragraph below), and white fish.

So, I am of course making Avago-Lemono soup (Greek Egg Lemon Soup).

More on Pancakes. Eileen and I joined a bunch of friends for pancake supper this past week. She and I split a pancake with cheese, leek, and pineapple (which was quite tasty!) and a strawberry sundae for dessert. I am already planning my next trip back there!

Thinking about culture

When we moved here, we heard that it was common to walk your guests to their cars. It turns out that if that were once true, it isn't true this century. I wonder how many other things that we were told are not true. I wonder what the purpose of telling us these untrue things is. Could it be that this person wants to live in a country where people do walk each other out to their cars? Is it all an elaborate game of trick the visitors?

Anyway, those are my cultural thoughts for right now.

too long without blog

Hello blog readers. I have missed you. My parents came for a visit. It was lovely. My father took lots of photos and as they arrive here, I will post them (with his permission). We visited the grave of my paternal grandfather who died as a US Army Air Corps bombardier in WWII. He is buried in Belgium. Otherwise, we mostly stayed close to home except for two days which we spent in Amsterdam.

Eileen reveled in the extra attention and love. We even had a day at the local play area called Hemelrijk. It turns out that if you have a country that is cloudy and rainy and cool much of the year, there is a real need for indoor play parks...sort of like the McDonald's Playland, only usually much bigger and with more screaming children, and usually beer and wine to allow the parents to cope with the large number of screaming kids. Hemelrijk is walking distance from our house and has two large indoor play areas that compliment the smallish lake, waterslides, and other fun outdoor activities that they have. Here is a link http://www.billybird.nl/. Even mom and dad, aka Grandma and Grandpa, took the huge slide!

Amsterdam felt less festive than last time we were there, despite staying at the edge of the Leidseplein (which is full of restaurants and shops) -- right near the museum district. Eileen enjoyed the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum and the family now sports museum cards (museumkaarts) - so we can go to all sorts of museums.

Then, once Mom and Dad were en route to Pittsburgh, we rushed off to Tilburg to put on a dragon costume for Eileen and enjoy a Purim Shpiel in Dutch (Haman is still pronounced Haman -- so we did alright!).

I can finally feel a bit of spring in the air. Crocuses are popping up in the medians.

Speaking of flowers, Eric has planted all my favorites here (or they already existed) - Irises, Hydrangea, Rhododendron, Calla Lilly, tulips...and we have started a few of the veggies inside -- including artichokes! I am really excited to watch the strawberries bloom and have our own fresh produce. Until then, I hit the market.

This week, I finally broke out the hand-me-down bags (5 of them). Eileen has more clothes than she can go through in a week. And we hit market day and bought her a beautiful pair of all purpose shoes for 10 euro.

Swimming is still part of our life, and now I have some American friends joining me for it. I am bummed to have left the Friday group and my friend Ashra and her son Dieter, but we try to meet them after swimming on Fridays. All of the baby swim classes are much more popular than they were six months ago.

I don't know if Flikr will allow me to link to my father's photos with all right reserved to him, but here is the URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/klh2009/

Time with Grandparents

Eileen has some guests for the week: Grandma Carol and Grandpa Ken. They brought gifts and loads of energy to spend on her. Here is a picture of her with her favorite new gift: turtles that stack. There will be more pictures at some point. But wanted to put something out on the net now!