Sneaking In One More 2012 Post

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!  It feels like forever since I've sat down at the computer to write a blog post.  We have been on the move a lot over the past week.  Jon and Christina left Eindhoven yesterday after a jam-packed week of good times.  Like I've done with a few recaps, I think I'll break this one up into more than one post.  We have too many photos to do just one!  Plus, then I can wait to include some of Jon and Christina's pics as well.

But before I jump into the recap, I wanted to note what's happening on our street (and basically all streets in the Netherlands) right now.  Fireworks.  Noise.  Lots of both.  Jackaroo is not a fan and neither am I.  She is shivering under my feet right now.  Apparently NYE is the only day the whole year where you are allowed to shoot off fireworks on the street.  And these Dutchies are taking full advantage.  It sounds like WWII out there.  And the best part is that right now, it's all little children doing the merrymaking.  Unsupervised 8 year olds with fireworks. Yeah, I'm not concerned at all.  We hear that tonight the adults will get involved and things will be even crazier.  Hopefully it will at least be fun to watch!  And that our car, house, and hair makes it through un-singed.

So, on to the visit.  We picked Jon and Christina (I'll henceforth refer to them as J and C) from the Amsterdam airport and then basically headed right for Germany.  We wanted to catch the last day of the Christmas markets in Dusseldorf.  We arrived there with no issues and walked through a bunch of the markets, snagging some delicious potato pancakes and sausages along the way of course.  We then hit up the Rheinuferpromenade (walk along the river) to the Rheinturm (large tower). 

The crew on the trip in.

Along the promenade.

Rheinturm

The view from the top.

After our sightseeing and walking, we hit up a few German pubs and then scouted out dinner.  We went to a very traditional German brewhouse and managed to snag the last seats in the place.  

C and I went for the wiener schnitzel while T and J were more adventurous.  They tried the boiled pig knuckle.  Our server even made sure to let the boys know that they were ordering boiled meat, but they persisted.  It looked like this:

Yep, that's the skin.

They both said that it was delicious though, so it seems they made the right decision.  Christmas Eve was a busy day spent in Eindhoven.  We biked to Nuenen (same place we went with my parents) and enjoyed some lunch and then oliebollen (fried dough balls).  

I missed this girl.

At night, we were going to join a torch-lighting procession happening downtown, but ended up leaving the house too late. Lucky for us though, as we biked in for dinner, we came across the route they were processing along.  There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of people with torches. It was pretty cool to see.

The boys at dinner.

After dinner, we went to an acoustic concert at a restaurant/bar.  We saw Woody and Paul, two guys playing guitars.  Lucky for us, all of their songs were in English, which made the experience more enjoyable.

Christmas day was spent at home. We didn't take any pictures that day, so I'll have to check with C to see if she has any. Our friend Amanda, a fellow expat from Amsterdam, joined us. We spent the day cooking, eating, drinking, and playing games (with a few Skype sessions to the States thrown in there).  All in all a very enjoyable day.

I'll be back in the near future to finish writing about the rest of J and C's visit. Catch ya in 2013!  Happy New Year!

Prettige Feestdagen to All

Can you hear the sleigh bells jingalin' ring ting tingalin' too?  I think I can!  Christmas is almost here!   And things are feeling festive in Eindhoven.  We haven't captured any shots of the decorations downtown yet, but they are everywhere.  It appears that once Sinterklaas celebrations are over, then Christmas decorations go up.  Downtown is all lit up. We did manage to get this pic though when we were walking through the Markt last weekend:

 Yes, my friends, that is what I would like to refer to as the Taj Majal of ice skating rinks.  This baby popped up on the main market square with no warning at all!  You can't tell in the picture, but it was raining like crazy when we took this photo.  However, there were still tons of folks skating around the (very wet) ice.  Maybe we'll have to try this out some night.

We are also getting in the spirit at our house.  The only decorations that we brought with us were our stockings, so of course we hung those by the fireplace:

Oooh, Todd has already stuffed mine.

You can also see the stars and some red and silver ornaments in the back.  We bought a few other things, and the house is looking pretty cheery if I do say so myself.   Our front door is also sporting some Christmas cheer:

Small, but cute.  We weren't sure if there were going to be places to buy Christmas trees here, so we opted to not get one this year.  But, little urban farms of pre-cut trees are cropping up everywhere in the past week, so maybe next year.  

Our only actual Christmas party this year took place last weekend.  It was the holiday party for Todd's work. And boy was it an event!  We estimated that there were around 600 people in attendance.  Here's a snapshot of the dance floor:

We had fun, and it was nice for me to meet a lot of the people that Todd works with all the time.  

This will be our first Christmas ever away from family.  Even when I lived in France, I had traveled back to the States for Christmas.  It will be weird (my mantra: must not dwell on this, must not dwell on this), which makes us even more grateful that our friends Jon and Christina are coming to visit.  They are arriving on Sunday, and we have a packed week planned with them.  Germany (I think I have convinced Todd he can handle another Christmas market - boom!), other cities in the Netherlands, and a 2 night trip to Belgium are all on the docket.  We couldn't be more excited!

So with that, I am signing off for now.  I may post next week, but if I don't you can definitely expect some major recaps in the New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone - I think of you often!

Stuck

Last night was a real treat (please pick up on my sarcasm).  Actually, it did begin as a treat.   Todd and I had ventured about 8 miles out of Eindhoven to check out a restaurant/brewery  to which we had never been, called the Gouden Leeuw (Golden Lion).  We had a lovely dinner, albeit a tad fancier than we were expecting.  Let's just say it began with an amuse-bouche that was served on top of some smoking nitrogen.  The meal was 3 delicious courses, and we felt pretty fancy for a Tuesday night.  

Our waiter went into the kitchen and google translated how to say nitrogen for us.

On our way home from dinner, which ended late around 10:15pm, our GPS route brought us to a street that was closed for construction   No matter, we just turned right and had the GPS reroute us.  Well, the GPS is dumb and doesn't have a real brain and didn't think to mention that we would need to go down dirt roads to use that route.  We stayed on the dirt road for a bit because it seemed like a decently legitimate road and drove better than some brick roads we've been on.  We were also looking at the map and saw we didn't have long to go before getting back onto a paved road.  Suddenly though, we were in some deep you know what.  The tracks got softer and the mud was piled higher.  Todd somehow managed to turn the car around and we were going to go back the other way, and then suddenly we came to a halting stop.  Oops.  We had high centered the car in the mud.  

This is where we ended up:

So, yes, we were in the middle of some farm land, but even with google satellite it still looks like we're on a real road.  Ahem, not the case.  Would someone please write a complaint letter to Google for me (and whoever manufactures Audi's GPS system)?

You can imagine we weren't too happy at this point. Todd had thankfully worn his new Christmas boots to dinner (good thing he was allowed to wear them early by his mom :), so he hopped out into the mud and we tried the push and go routine while I drove.  Nothing, nada, really didn't even budge an inch.  

We then called the lease company that our car is through and after a frustrating phone conversation, they sent a tow truck.  We waited 45 minutes and finally got a call that the towing guy was in the area.  However, it was very hard to explain exactly which field we were in the middle of and you can also see on the map that there are multiple streets named "Hoogeind".  Finally, Todd was able to see his truck lights so he trudged over on foot,  hopped in the vehicle with the dude, and then helped him to navigate all the way back around to the entrance we had come in on.  That may sound confusing, and believe me, it was.  I had stayed back in the car and eventually I could see them coming down the "road" we were stuck on.  I was happy.  But then, the guy could not get his tow truck down the road because it was too sloppy.  How did our little tiny car make it down there?

The tow guy tried to help figure out an alternative plan of action and provided Todd with a shovel.  Todd tried digging us out for a long time.  It was about 12:30am at this point.  The tow guy decided that this just wasn't going to happen and gave us a number of a place to call in the morning, a "loonwerker" who would probably own a tractor that could pull us out.  He then gave us a ride home, but we had to leave our poor car stuck in the mud.  We got home at 1:15am.

This morning, we called the "loonwerker" to ask for help.  No such luck, since Todd asked to speak in English and was greeted by the man saying "Niet spreken Engels, doei" (No English - BYE), and then he hung up.  So, we did the only thing left to do and hopped on our bikes and rode the 5 miles to our car.  We stopped at a business that looked like it might have farming equipment and thankfully a man dressed in coveralls was willing to help us.  Thankfully we were in the middle of farm country and had some options for asking people who potentially owned a tractor (or at least 4 wheel drive).  We made it back to our car and to make an already too long story shorter, he was able to tow us out (even though he didn't speak (literally an ounce of) English and we don't speak Dutch - hand gestures were imperative).  Thank goodness!  We were very concerned that we wouldn't be able to get that baby out of there!!

Here's a pic of the action this morning:

Can you tell we had a long night/morning?  At least we and the car survived and now we have a story to tell.  Now all I have to do is clean our car!

In other news, here's a few pictures from our time in Den Bosch (a nearby city) this past weekend.

Restaurant-lined street

Thanks for reading this long one!

Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet

Last night millions of Dutch children put their shoes (sometimes of the wooden variety) at the front door, filled with hay and carrots.  The hay and carrots are for Sinterklaas' horse.  The children then wait for the arrival of Sinterklaas as he travels on rooftops through the Netherlands, peeking down chimneys to check on the good (or bad) boys and girls.  On the night of December 5, Sinterklaas goes to each house and leaves either gifts or coal for the children in the home depending on their level of goodness throughout the year.  A very nice tradition that brings families together.  The Dutch celebrate with a big family meal on December 5th as well.

In the weeks leading up to December 5, Sinterklaas decorations are everywhere.  You'll also see him in shopping malls and the like, just like Santa in the States.  However, instead of elves as helpers, Sinterklaas has Zwarte Pieten, or Black Petes.  You heard me right.  This is probably a big culture shock moment for non-Dutch folk who weren't forewarned.  Aside from the name, which in itself might have you on edge, the Zwarte Pieten also dress in black face.  From my observations in Eindhoven, Zwarte Piet actually seems to be more popular as a character than Sinterklaas himself.  Plenty of our neighbors have little pictures of Zwarte Piet hanging in their windows.  Now, please allow me to present you this YouTube video to show you some Zwarte Pieten in action:

Interesting, right?  And controversial.  And part of a tradition that goes back to 1850.  Most Dutch are strongly in support of keeping Sinterklaas' helpers in black face, since they are supposed to be from Spain and dressed in Spanish moorish costumes (they used to carry burlap sacs in which to transport the bad children back to Spain).  Some Dutch will explain that their faces are black because they go down the chimneys to deliver the gifts and get all sorts of sooty up in there.  The wikipedia article on the subject does a pretty good job of explaining the history.  And the Holland Sentinel (ahem, Holland, MI for those of you who aren't from West MI) actually has a couple of good reads on the topic here and here.

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens with this tradition in the years to come. In the meantime, I'm sure the Dutch will continue to honor their traditions and I'm sure the rest of the world will be thinking, "Huh?".

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

I believe the Christmas season, at least for Todd and me, has arrived!  The Dutch are in full on Sinterklaas celebrations (my next post will be devoted to him), but I'm looking toward Christmas.  To get in the Christmas spirit, I am once again listening to my NSYNC and Glee Christmas albums.  Seriously, how can you not get warm fuzzies listening to "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays"?  I have also begun to decorate our home. We brought our stockings along, so those are hanging over the fireplace.  We had our first snow in the Netherlands yesterday.  It was very fun to look out the window and see snow. Dare I say I missed it?  However, my love of the snow was zapped when I needed to take my bike out in it.

As a work-from-homer and only part-timer, I can typically arrange my schedule to avoid needing to ride my bike in terrible weather.  But yesterday I happened to have a meeting with the internship coordinator at Philips.  This meant hopping on my bike to get to his office about 4km away. Not far normally, but a tad sucky when traveling through a blizzard.  Thankfully, I arrived early to my meeting and could dry myself off in the bathroom and look somewhat presentable.  It continued to snow a soggy, wet, drippy variety of snow both ways on my bike.  I snapped this pic when I got home:

I was drenched, and promptly put on a nice warm sweater.  So life wasn't so bad after all.

This past weekend was another excellent "get in the spirit of the season" opportunity.  We went to Cologne to check out the Christmas markets.  Cologne is about an hour and a half from us, so we went for the evening.  Cologne has 5 different markets set up throughout the city with a different theme at each one.  We made it to 4 of the 5 before Todd was on Christmas market overload and we went home.  We began at the market that is situated under the amazing Gothic cathedral, the largest in Germany.

This particular market was the busiest by far.  So busy we could hardly even get to the booths to buy our gluhwein!  Gluhwein is what the hot mulled wine is called that everyone drinks in the market.  It is especially fun because each market sells their gluhwein in a different mug. We have a nice little collection of Christmas mugs now.  After the Cathedral market we went to the market in Old Town, the market at the harbor on the Rhine river and then the Market of Angels.  Along the way, we put together our dinner from the various food stands.  Sausages, potato pancakes, toasted almonds...we tried a lot.  

Market #2

See my cute mug?

Ferris wheel in the middle of the market.

Amazing that these are all temporary structures!

Take your pick of sausage.

Ice rink.

Market #3, Harbor.

Market #4, Angels.

The atmosphere was lively and fun, we had a great time!  

GLOW

Happy Friday everyone!  This post is a bit overdue, since it details something we did a few weeks ago.  Every year, Eindhoven, "the city of light", hosts a big festival called GLOW.  GLOW is basically an outdoor event where artists create these really cool light installations all over the city.  The installations appear as freestanding art and projected onto buildings in various ways.  We had looked up where to go before arriving, but as we arrived, we basically just joined a herd of 100's of people who were walking around the city to check things out.  So without further ado, here's the pics we snapped:

Lampshade bouquets.

Where's Waldo, err, me.

Not sure what's written here, but if you're extra curious, google translate works wonders.

My favorite: light projected on the cathedral with accompanying music. Very cool.

The "orchestra".

The GLOW cafe.

This was a weird one. Talking lips.

Slightly creepy, but kind of cool since the faces constantly changed.

This one blinked.

Overall, a very well done festival of light.  Tomorrow we're heading to the Christmas markets in Cologne, which I am really looking forward to.  You know I'll be back with the details!

Have a great weekend everyone!