I finally got around to downloading some pictures to the blog. The top pic is our street - there is almost no traffic, but it's not really quiet. There are tons of kids who play outside and definitely use their outdoor voices!

The second pic is the front of our house. The little orange cat seems to live in the yard. I've named it Sunshine, but I don't feed it. It's a very sweet cat, though,

The last pic is the view of our back garden from inside the dining room. The hydrangeas are blooming right now - very pretty. There is plenty of room for the patio furniture and the grill, but not very much yardwork to do.

I'll post a few more pictures once I make sure these look good.

Open water swimming

Back home in the Netherlands, the weather has finally started to feel like summer. Think hot and humid with no air conditioning. I did some stuff over the weekend including biking to Huizen to shop their Saturday market and walking through the woods on Sunday. Both days I thought about riding my bike over to the little beach on one of the nearby lakes for a swim, but I never quite got there.

Today, I spent the day at work just trying not to break a sweat. That means a slow bike ride to work and riding the elevator between floors. But I was still getting crabby from the heat. This afternoon, I biked home and dug out my triathlon gear. It’s been a long time!

I headed out toward the lake taking the shortcut along the unpaved path. I took my hybrid bike so I could take this trail and also bring along a towel, bike lock, and other junk. The little beach is an easy 40 minute ride from my house. It’s a tiny beach along a bike path – no access by car. I was a little worried that nobody would be there making it a bit dangerous to swim by myself. But when I arrived, there were about 10 people there including a family that pulled up in a speedboat.

I only got a couple of strange looks as I took off my shoes and got in the water with my biking clothes on! But the water was so cool and felt fantastic! All of my crabbiness just melted away. I swam around for a few minutes and then I noticed that one of the other swimmers was not wearing much. In fact, she had nothing on at all. This didn’t seem to bother anyone else, not even the family with young children. At least the naked lady looked good. Some of the other swimmers would have been pretty frightening with no clothes – they were frightening enough with clothes ON!

At any rate, I swam around a little longer and then rode home. In 40 minutes of riding, I was still dripping water when I got home. It’s that humid! But now that I’ve found an awesome place to swim, it can stay hot for a while longer!

Ooh, the chocolate!

Switzerland was really a cool place. I really need to plan a hiking vacation to the mountains for next summer. The air was clean and fresh and the chocolate was to die for. And the view of the snowcapped mountains from the taxi was almost too tempting. The taxi driver tried to convince us to skip work and go sight seeing instead. On a beautiful sunny day, we almost accepted.

So, instead of going on a nice hike in the mountains, here is how the trip went down. My flight from Amsterdam was delayed, and it was packed with tourists. When you are traveling for business, there is nothing worse than a plane full of tourists to remind you that you are NOT on vacation. The Japanese tourists were especially aggravating – they are very impatient and tend to push in line. On the plane, I was letting the other people in my row get seated before I took my aisle seat. A Japanese guy tried to push past me, but I wouldn’t let him. He even indicated that he needed to get past me to get to his seat. I told him I would be out of his way as soon as the others were seated. He looked totally frustrated. But the kicker is that nobody was behind him – the rest of the passengers were on a second bus that had not even arrived at the plane!

When I got to Zurich, I got some cash from the ATM. Switzerland uses Swiss Francs rather than the Euro. One Swiss Franc is almost exactly one US Dollar, so I wanted 100 Francs. The cash machine gave me a one hundred Franc note. I walked over to the bank to see if I could get smaller bills, but she assured me that the 100 is the most commonly used bill and I would not have any problem using it. That was my first indication that Switzerland might be rather expensive. The next was the 100 Franc taxi ride to my hotel. It only took 20 minutes. Wow, good thing the company is paying!

At the hotel, I noticed that all the TV programs are dubbed into German (probably Swiss German, which is different than regular German, but hardly important when you don’t understand either one). The only English language programming was CNN. So, if I go to Switzerland for a vacation, I need lots of money and a good book.

At work, we learned some interesting things about Switzerland. Every house must have a bomb shelter and emergency food. Even if you are building a brand new house, you better plan to build a bomb shelter. Things run pretty much right on time in Switzerland. The taxi drivers that we arranged to take us to and from the hotel were always 10 minutes early. We saw a storage room that was completely organized. Bottles and jars were neatly lined up with their labels facing front. It was definitely different from all the messy store rooms I’m used to. The Swiss people eat a lot of cheese, but they don’t drink milk like the folks in Holland. I saw lots of people riding their bikes and most of them had helmets on, again a contrast to Holland.

In the evenings, we had a little time on our own. The first night we shopped for chocolate. We found the local chocolate shop and bought small amounts of the terribly expensive chocolate. Then we went to a grocery store to buy some less expensive stuff. When I got back to the hotel, I tried the expensive stuff and it was beyond fabulous! If I hadn’t already spent $60 on chocolate, I would have gone back to get more.

The second evening, we borrowed the hotel bikes and rode around town a bit. The taxi driver had given us directions to a restaurant that we could ride to that was on a lake. When we arrived, we laughed out loud. The lake was more of a pond and the restaurant looked like the snack bar for the mini-golf course. So, we just rode around a bit more and then went back into the town center for dinner. Of course, I should tell you that I did not have my bike helmet with me, so I was living dangerously. And, at one point we decided to take a side street just to see where it went. Well, that side street went straight up a hill. After biking in Holland, neither of us was doing very good on the hill. We had to stop a couple times to catch our breath. Good thing we had mountain bikes with lots of gears! As we got to the top, we realized that there was nothing to see, so we rode back down. Down is always more fun than up! But at least we earned our dinner and it was nice to get outside to enjoy the weather.

Girls on the Town

Friday night a group of us from work went out for drinks at the local watering hole. While my Dutch is still not very good, I know to watch for the emails that say “Biertje bij Demmers.” Demmers is the name of the bar and biertje means beer (the “tje” at the end is a diminutive, so it’s literally a small beer). Of course they also serve wine for non-beer drinkers like me.

Demmers is a little pub in Naarden Vesting and it has a nice outdoor seating area. It’s close to work, and also not too far from my house. That makes it very convenient for biking. So, after work we all gathered and began enjoying the start of another weekend. Most of the conversation at these events is in Dutch, and I think I only understand about 10% of it. Some of my coworkers either think I’m more fluent than that or they are trying to help me learn. Here’s what I heard at one point:

“Blah, blah, blah, eat something, blah blah blah…Karen, blah blah, eat something?”

Naturally I answered yes! With Dennis out of town, I have no place I need to go so what the heck! I’ve learned that when you’re with friends the answer to most questions is yes. It’s best to assume the question is whether you want to do something fun, or try something new. When you’re at the store, the correct answer is mostly no. Here you are assuming that they asked if you want help, have a store discount card, or want a bag.

After we paid the bar tab, I hung around to find out what I agreed to and who else was going. It turned out that several of the ladies were going up the street to eat dinner at a restaurant. As we got settled in the restaurant, the girls decided that I needed help translating the menu so they were going to ask the Irish bartender to come over and give us a personal translation. Of course I told them I can read a Dutch menu and don’t need help. But once the (handsome) bartender came over, I understood why they wanted the translation!

This smaller group of people and quieter atmosphere made the conversation a bit easier for me. They mostly spoke English unless they didn’t know how to say it. Then one of the other ladies would help with the translation. Having dinner with these ladies was really fun for me and I’m glad they included me.

Right now I'm in Switzerland for work. My next post will have some good travel stories!

Holiday Time

Its summer vacation for the school kids here in the Netherlands. That means everyone is taking most of their 5 weeks of vacation. Yeah, 5 weeks – and your vacation is calculated by age instead of how long you’ve been with the company. Oh, and most people in the Netherlands also get an additional 13 days off as part of a government plan to increase employment.

As someone without kids, I’m working through the school holidays and will take my time off in September. But that means that I’m covering for a lot of people in my group. Out of 6 of us, there will be 2 in the office for the next several weeks. That should keep me busy while my husband is in the US!

With all the holidays, people are talking a lot about their plans. It seems that most people get a camper and head to wide outdoors! When you pack the camper, there is always the question of what appliances you should take along. Do you really need the coffee maker AND the fryer? Apparently, it’s quite common to take a fryer along so you can make French fries at the camp-site. And, of course, you have to bring your 5 kilo bag of potatoes too. I would have thought my coworkers were pulling my leg on this one, but I saw the neighbors packing their potatoes in the camper.

I’m also a bit surprised at the camping locations people pick. One my way to work yesterday, I saw a tent pitched by the water near Naarden Vesting. Naarden Vesting is really cool, but you can see it in one day. And with no public toilets and no shower facilities, why would you want to camp there?

One of my coworkers is going to Switzerland to go hiking. It’s not camping and her luggage will be taken from one chalet to the next so she doesn’t have to carry a huge backpack. I thought this sounded cool, so I asked about the details on such a trip. She said to check the internet. On-line, I found two companies that lead hiking tours like the one she described. The tours sounded fantastic except that they were all 2 weeks long. OK, hiking is cool, but NOT for 2 weeks. I was thinking 3-4 days would be plenty of hiking. 2 weeks sounds just painful.

Fortunately next week I’ll have a chance to do some more research on light hiking in Switzerland. I’m going to Zurich for a few days next week for work. I’m hoping to find some good travel brochures in the hotel, because that’s probably all I’m going to see.

Dutch Humor

So you all know that Dennis had a sore foot last week. He managed to rest it enough so he was able to get through the airport without too much trouble. But when he got home, he still decided to have a doctor look at it. Naturally they did an x-ray and they found out it's broken. The third metatasil, to be exact, is broken all the way through. He has an appointment to see an orthopaedic sugeon tomorrow, so we'll know a bit more then. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the ortho will tell him to stay off it for a few more weeks, and use ice and ibuprofin if it hurts. We'll see if I'm right. I'm not a doctor (I just play one on TV).

Now that Dennis is back home in Chicago, I'm feeling a bit lonely here. But at least I can still ride my bike and walk! So that's what I've been doing - besides work, of course. Today I walked over to another little town nearby to see their carnival. It was a long walk, one hour each way, so I treated myself to cotton candy at the carnival. Carnivals are always such good people-watching. And when the old lady remarked about my cotton candy, I just smiled and laughed along with her. Yeah, I had no idea what she said.

Yesterday, I took the train to the bigger town just south of us, Hilversum to do some shopping. They have a bigger town center than ours, so it was worth the trip. I walked pretty far through town and was ready to head back when I realized I had no idea where the train station was. I asked several people for directions and was beginning to feel like I was going in circles. Each person told me to go back the way I had just come! Finally, a guy in a car asked ME for directions. Again, I really don't know what he said, but he named a street and it sounded like a question. Sometimes you just have to make the guess. I answered that I can't even find the train station! He was the only person who gave me good directions. I finally found the train station by asking the person who was lost. Funny!

On Friday night, I went into Bussum to get a haircut. I was very relieved that the stylist spoke English. The last time I was there, I had to wait for the one person who spoke English. So, we were speaking Engish the whole time. When it was time to pay, we walked to the register where there were several other people. The cashier asked if I was in their computer system. I said yeah and told her my very very Dutch surname. The whole group laughed out loud!

I also managed to see a movie in the theater, too. There's a small movie theater just a couple blocks from our house. I wanted to see Juno, and knew that Dennis wouldn't be very interested. So, I walked over. Movie theaters are one of those things that are different in every country. In Singapore, you had to choose your seats when you but the ticket. Here, you can call ahead for resverations. Even though I didn't have reservations, I was still able to get a ticket. The theater was small - only about 100 seats. Their concession stand sells beer and wine, but most people just had a cup of tea. No popcorn and no Big Gulp! They had a limited selection of candy, but you had to look for it. The atmosphere was more like a concert or a play than a movie.

There is one scene in the movie, where the girl is driving through a yuppie neighborhood. They pass a bunch of houses, but there were only three different models. So it looked like they were just driving by the same three houses over and over, but the landscaping changed. Anyway, this bit of American humor made me laugh out loud. I'm sure the Dutch people just didn't get the joke!

The British think they have the corner of the market on humor and that no Dutch person has a sense of humor. My conclusion is that Dutch people are funny. And since laughter is the best medicine, I hope this helps Dennis' foot heal faster!