We're so boring

It's been pretty quiet on here, sorry! We're just hanging out waiting for Nadirah to finish her exam at the end of October, after which we may be shooting back to Malaysia for a week (she hasn't been home during their "Christmas" for 5-6 years). Miss everybody and still loving life over here. A lazy Dutch Sunday is something to be hold, they make sure you have one! Can't get rid of this bold stuff either :)

Oh yeah - we went to Antwerp

Um, just about all I can say - nothing against the Belgians, but pretty much a poor man's Netherlands.

Paris is cool...kinda like Des Moines with a tower

Well, despite my very American aversion to all things French - we just made the obligatory trip to Paris. I hate to admit it, but everything you hear about the French being aloof and snooty was just not true for us. We had a wonderful time, everyone was just great to us, and most people speak english to you with no ill will. We stayed at this beautiful little bed and breakfast in the southeast part of the city, please let me know if you're ever going - I would wholeheartedly recommend it!

We shocked ourselves and hit almost every tourist site in one day! Of course, given the amount of working out we do - we were wrecked afterwards. We walked from Notre Dame, through the Louvre, up the Champs Elysee and climbed both the Arc de Triumphe and the Eiffel Tower. I was quaking climbing those Eiffel tower stairs....the whole fear of hights works great suspended on a narrow staircase. I've included some pictures in the photo section!

A short 4 hour train ride away, I love it...

Rock and Roll....

Just went to The Strokes concert last night, gotta say - they are awesome live, music was way more intense in person. Watching a concert in Amsterdam is also an experience in and of itself, as soon as the light went out it looked like someone had turned on a fog machine.

We just got our new car, it's a beast...the Ford Focus! Watching Nadirah park it in our sliver of a garage made me lose a few more of my remaining hairs. I don't think we'll be using it much, but it's nice having that option for when we travel now. I still remember when I first came here after college, when we thought the little cars were so hilarious!

ICK!!! Work!!

Well, it's back to the grindstone after an entirely enjoyable month off in Netherlands. As with most things in the Netherlands, our internet has taken forever so we still don't have it after 6 weeks! I just felt the intense need to share a typical dutch lunch with everyone....please enjoy.

A Dutch lunch (and this is most people, not one or two), you take 4 pieces of of dry wheat bread. First rule, there are no condiments - none at all. Then, the first two pieces are for a (read 1) slice of ham or cheese each, not both at the same time. This bread with scraps of ham is then eaten quite carefully with a fork and knife, cutting the said bread into small squares. The next piece of bread is then very lighty smeared with a paste made of egg salad (Actually quite good). Repeat small squares.

Now, we have arrived at our last piece of bread - the epic portion of our meal - desert! Remember those litttle chocolate sprinkles we use on cookies? Well, you take these and spread them carefully on the bread. The result is then of course a perfectly dry piece of bread with dry spinkles carefully spread on top. As you could surmise, the bread is then carefully cut, including the sprinkles, into small squares as mentioned earlier. And there you have it - Dutch lunch!





Did I forget the only beverage is whole milk, of which at least 2 glasses must be quaffed...no wonder everyone here is so healthy!



We love the Netherlands so far, everyone is quite nice - and the city is so beautiful. They take their time to do things, but life is quite a nice experience here. We're off to Belgium this weekend - updates soon!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

It's off to work Nadirah goes as I sit around the hotel room.

I sucked it up and bought a bike yesterday - for $300! Now, this is the most expensive bike I have ever purchased. You may ask yourself how sweet and cool my bike is, and how cool I must therefore be by association. My $300 bike looks like something from 1920 that is rusted out, with old school fenders and a little light. No handbrakes either, the old school pedal brakes from when we were kids. Yes, this glorious testament to mankind's ingenuity cost me that much - and the seller told me I'd be lucky if it lasted a year before being stolen. As far as I can tell, I may have gotten a bit of the old tourist screw job, but only 40 bucks or so. The bikes actually cost this much since everyone needs one I guess.... in case you were wondering, the seat hurts my butt.

So, while Nadirah is working away, I have to come up with some things to do around here by myelf (no fun sightseeing without her!). One funny little thing I noticed - your computers here require you to take breaks. Every half hour on her work computer a little message pops up telling you to take a 5 minute break and gives you exercises to do. If you ignore it, it says it will report you under some law - pretty cool!

Finally all settled in!

Well, after a wonderful 12 hour journey with 7 huge bags - we've arrived at our new home city of Amsterdam! Milo has calmed down, rough trip for a cat who gets scared on our front stairs... After a crazy first couple days, we now have a possible new apartment and have figured out some of the basics here. One, everything is closed a lot earlier and opens a lot later than we have in the states. Usual hours even for major shopping areas are 9-6, and closed Sunday. So not much commercialism is allowed in to weekends, seems people are out more walking and riding around. Everything has seemed so interesting so far, I think this will be a wonderful learning and growing experience for both of us! They take their quality of life very seriously here.

Our new apartment wasn't right on the canal as per initial hopes, but we couldn't pass up the huge place we found, with garage even! The garage seems like it's a huge thing here, you never seem them. The wait list for parking is around 6 years, so you have to pay daily some huge parking fee. We're just along the SW side, below the last canal ring. We're right by the Leidseplain (nice area with lots of great restaurants). Location Pictures soon to follow!

I forgot what a riot little league is...

Please, please, please - try to go to a little league game sometime. We're back in the States for a week to see family before heading off to Amsterdam, with our first stop being Philadelphia. I'm the oldest cousin in my family by far, and these two cousins are only 8 and 6. The eldest had a baseball game that morning, and if anyone outside the US wonders why we love this stupid sport, they have to go to one of these games.

You've got my uncle, the most laid back and good natured guy I've met, looking like someone's slowly strangling him - trying to walk these kids through basic things like not picking your nose and remembering you have to catch the ball. Some of the kids are shorter than the bats, and no one has quite figured out what they're doing yet! At one point, they had a little mixup with 3 boys stuck on third base, wondering where to go - I haven't laughed that hard in a while...my cousin did quite well though, and even went in for a bone crushing collision at home.

It was great seeing everyone, wierd how old I'm getting when the little guys aren't so little anymore.

Indonesians think I'm funny looking

Within a couple days of getting back from Hong Kong, it was off to Indonesia for 5 days starting April 13th. Bandung is the an industrial city in the volcanic mountains of central Java, full of textiles and gorgeous views. I was as excited as a little school girl when we got off the plane and it was only 85 degrees, almost chilly!

We had a great guide, who took us to the large museum built by the dutch in the 1700s. To our joy and wonderment, it was school field trip day!! One thing I never really thought about is what a museum filled with 500 school age kids from rural indonesia would think of me. To give you an idea, your average indonesian male is probably 5'5" and 150 pounds soaking wet. As I'm sure you know, I'm just a tad larger than that. There seemed to be upwards of 20 schools there, and within a few minutes, I started getting nervous requests in Malay for photos. Cutest kids I've ever seen, but I suddenly found the everyone was soon more interested in taking photos with the behemoth Matseleh (white guy) than the nearby science exhibits. The rest of the morning at the museum consisted of an unending series of pictures! Everyone else seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, and the guide said a lot of these kids were from bused in from areas where they had probably never seen someone my size....

After this it was off for 4 days of shopping and some side trips to see the country side. We visited a couple of the volcanic craters in the surrounding mountains, and drove through some amazing scenery full of terraces and tea plantations.