Whatever Lola wants....(or in this case, mother-in-law wants)

Well;
I had a request to talk about shopping here. Since we had a day hitting the IKEA, the Jumbo grocery store, and the Praxis hardware store, it seems appropriate to address my mother-in-law's question about shopping here. Having not lived in the US (or anywhere else) in the 50's I would guess that that is sort of where we are in some ways (granted this is from Leave-it-to-Beaver idealism, rather than first hand knowledge).

We have grocery stores that would look a lot like your standard grocery stores in the states, maybe bigger or smaller, and selling beer and wine, which might or might not happen depending on where you live. Within biking distance I can use the following chains: Em-Te, Jumbo, Albert Heijn, Jumbo, Aldi (which strangely carries the Trader Joe brand on some items), Plus, Bio (all organics), and Lijn. The grocery stores carry a lot of prepackaged prepared foods that are fresh, so you get your stir fry mix or your soup mix in the fresh veggie section. You can also pick up a prefabbed dinner complete with all the food, just to put in oven or microwave. Often these are very tasty and complete. And of course very handy, when you don't have many herbs and your sole spice is pepper. But, I miss cooking....that will be a story for when our household goods arrive (they are in a warehouse some place farther south in the country....they'll get here eventually).

Now, on top of that variety there are tons of butchers and bakers. Our baker is on the Dutch olympic baking team and an amazing baker (and really funny, posed as though a baguette is a javelin). The Dutch favor very creamy cakes. And there is a custom of open door hospitality involving a small piece of pastry or a cookie and a cup of coffee for almost anyone that wanders in your home. This can create a cultural discomfort...but that is for another post.

Beyond the butchers and bakers and the large grocers, every town has a fruit & veggie market at least once a week - even tiny Volkel. Uden has it twice a week. Often you can buy other things like flowers and fish or even bicycle stuff and clothing.

What we have discovered is that things are sold more ripe here...both local produce like the strawberries and cherries, and the imports. Consquently, I shop at least twice a week, or we cannot have fresh fruits and veggies (both of which Eileen decidedly enjoys with her rice cereal).

So, we buy for two or three days at a time.

Here is the time to say that we will start stocking up on canned goods, cat food, meats, and other frozen foods once a month at a commisary on a US faciility. We have issued in our home, beyond the kitchen fridge (which has no freezer), a standard US size fridge/freezer, and a full freezer as well.

In answer to the thought questions: IKEA is pretty much like IKEA every where, down to the restaurant, and the Swedish food, and the snack bar. Jumbo is local and smaller than some, but recently redone and a very decent grocery option. Praxis is more ACE without the helpful hardware man than like Home Depot.

I hope this answered what shopping is like, please let me know if there are details that are of interest.

We like recycling, we love recycling, how 'bout u (or je)?

Well as promised I will be trying to cover a topic or two in each blog. This one is a threefold discussion: 1) Dutch miscommunication, 2) Dutch directions to locations, and 3) recycling here.

We live in this wonderful old (or made to look old) Dutch farmhouse. It is owned by this lovely couple who are in their early 60s (we think...haven't asked them). They are willing to do almost anything to make this house better and more livable for us. But, they don't speak a word of English (okay maybe a word or two, but that is due to cognates and luck). We had asked them what we do about disposable diapers. Thanks to Rebecca Operhall we have been using diapers that we should be able to flush, but our plumbing might not deal with that well. So were we to put them in the trash or was there an alternative?

Tien and Maritje (the landlords) have a daughter-in-law who we asked, Marguerite. Marguerite gave Maritje the information about the chance to recycle diapers here. I joined Tien and Maritje for coffee...and Maritje tried to explain what Marguerite had told her.

Misunderstanding one: I thought that Marguerite was going to stop by. So I stayed well beyond my welcome waiting for her until it became clear that she was not coming.

Maritje said that I needed to go to the old folks home to pick up sacks for recycling. I asked Old Folk's home? Hoping for an address or phone number or some way to reach this mythical land. -- Misunderstanding two: Maritje tried a different tact: Old Men's home....ah, that was much better. We went back and forth with me coming no closer to an answer, except that I had a town name and that was our local town of Volkel which is pretty small. Just so you know, I have never actually gotten a street address for anything unless it was an American offering directions. This is not a unique problem with the landlords.

The next morning, I went and parked the car outside the grocery store and took the baby and walked. Past the church and before the petting farm was a building that was clearly inhabited by elderly folks. I took a chance and tried a couple of doors before finding the front door and a nurse at a duty station. She handed me two big rolls of plastic bags and somehow we managed to communicate with each other....I found that out back of the old folks home were two large barrels for incontinance and that I was allowed to take the diapers to them.

So now, twice a week, Eileen and I wander to town with a large bag of soiled diapers. Believe it or not, they do indeed recycle soiled diapers from the elderly and babies. Apparently, they have found a way to wash away the human waste and then break the diapers into plastic and pulp components.

This is better than waiting two weeks for the trash to be picked up; and it goes to the right place. I guess here is where I say that trash here is similar but not identical to trash in the US. We put the trash into one of two carts, a smaller green cart for compostable trash and a larger black cart for everything that cannot be recycled and is not hazardous by Dutch standards. Each gets picked up on alternate Mondays (next monday is green). I think that there are stiff penalties for exceeding our trash limits, but I haven't heard that officially yet.

Now in the house -- house camping

Well;
We have been in the house for several weeks. We managed to guess right using our Dutch English dictionary, babelfish, google translate, etc. We got internet and phone service in three weeks: better than most do here! So I should be able to post more faithfully.

We borrowed some furniture from the nearest US facility: Schinnen Army Garrison. We have an institutional table and chairs, couch, two upholstered chairs that match the couch and a very firm platform bed. We also have some borrowed cutlery and plates. We did this because Ma and Pa Hirsch (Grandma and Grandpa or Ken and Carol depending on your reference frame) came to visit me. They had a 5 day visit, including our first forray into Amsterdam.

Hold baggage arrived on 30 June -- a couple days after we got the keys to the house. It contained most of the baby containment devices that we owned, plus the bare minimum for house camping.


Still no photos. I will add them when we can.

Eric works long hours, but I think he is really enjoying the challenges and opportunities of the new position. Me, I should be learning Dutch. Instead, Eileen and I manage to market, go to the butcher and baker and green grocer...and navigate pretty well.

I will continue to add to this blog as time and ideas permit. My thought right now is to start focussing on parts of life here that are new to me. Some of them are new because we are in Europe. Some are new because I have never lived someplace this rural. Some are new because I have really never been truly a military spouse until now.