Going Dutch: an American in Holland

My flourishing house plants

2010-01-30T02:32:00.000-08:00

I need to share something that I am very proud of. You may think it's pretty dumb or insignificant, but to me it is an amazing thing...

Here it is: I have not killed one house plant in 7 months.

This is a remarkable feat if you know my record. In the past, I would have been what you could call a houseplant serial killer. I've killed so many plants that if there was an FBI list for brutal botanical death, I would be on the top 10 most wanted list.

Here's what usually would happen in the past...I would buy or receive as a gift a beautiful green leafy plant and usually within 6 weeks, it would be a shriveled up, brown and definitely dead. I have even killed plants that are fool-proof (like cacti and palms).

But something miraculous has happened. I have somehow grown a green thumb (or a few green fingers if you are going with the way the Brits say it) since my move to NL. I have a total of 5 large house plants and each and every one of them is green and thriving. I was most excited yesterday when my orchid plant bloomed again after quite a long dormant period. I had been convince I'd killed it but the orchid has now shown me it's still going strong.

I discovered the source of all the plant deaths. I was chronically over-watering them. I know, it's dumb, I admit it. But I was treating the plant like a pet thinking they needed care and nourishment daily. Once I actually read up on it and saw how little water they needed I was shocked. So I backed off and stopped smothering them with attention (water) and began treating them like a plant and not a pet. Once I started to that, my plants flourished!

So I think it is now time to take me off the botanical killers top 10 list. I've reformed my ways and I've got some beautiful plants to show for it.

Erwtensoep ingredient hoarding over the weekend

2010-01-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

Erwtensoep, the split pea soup that I love so much, must have been on everyone's mind this weekend. The weather in NL has continued to stay frosty and bitter cold and it's been snowing again. So, the cold weather, snow and greyness seems to have everyone craving the perfect comfort soup (well, in my opinion at least. I'm a savory food lover all the way) erwtensoep. I have written up a description of what it is back in August under my "Top 10 things I love about Dutch food entry", but just to referesh your memory it is a thick and yummy soup of stewed up split peas, celeriac, leeks, winter carrots and ham hock with smoked sausage (rookworst) usually served with it. Absolute heaven in a bowl. And my love for it transcends the ages. My mother made it quite regularly in the wintertime when I was growing up (she must of known I'd marry a Dutch guy one day), so the appreciation started from an early age.

So, going back to my observations over the weekend regarding erwtensoep...the supermarket was sold out of the key erwtensoep ingredients I just mentioned!! How funny is that?! And this wasn't just at our little supermarket, we had heard from others this was also the case in their shops as well. It was like a large subliminal message was put out across the tv and radios to the Dutch public. I'd be interested to know from any people reading this, that also live in NL, if you also bought erwtensoep ingredients or mixes over the weekend? We could do a small study here. :-) I'm such a student aren't I?

Weirdly enough, my erwtensoep craving came up on Thursday night so I bought most of the key ingredients already. Thank goodness, because I am quite an addict with this soup!! Pretty soon, my skin might turn a shade of green from the excessive consumption.

Happy 2010

2010-01-09T01:33:00.000-08:00

I have not written on here for a while, which I am very sorry about. I am awful at time management and have let my studies and other things consume my time way more than I should! So one of my New Year resolutions was to write in my blog more!

We spent Christmas back "home" at my parents' house in Connecticut. We hadn't been in Connecticut for actual Christmas day since I moved over to this side of the pond, so nearly 5 years! It was so lovely to be with them and you could see how happy my mom was to have all of us together, that was the best part. Unfortunately, due to the airlines jacking up prices during the holidays, we could only spend 5 days there. If we had stayed for New Years, it would have cost us $4000 to fly back on January 2nd! Instead, we flew back and celebrated ringing in the New Year here.

This was my second celebration of New Years in the Netherlands. I love how they celebrate here, litterally with a bang! Fireworks are illegal everyday of the year here except for the 14 hours between 10am of December 31st and 2am of January 1st. Like clockwork, the fireworks start exactly at 10am (as I learned when I was thrust out of my jetlag induced heavy sleep by our neighborhood children.) In the beginning of the day, I would jump when I heard them but slowly throughout the day, my nerves softened as I heard the loud cracks and bangs.

The climax of the fireworks happens obviously at midnight. At the stroke of midnight, people go outside their doors and wish the neighbors a Gelukkig Nieuwjaar and begin to watch an amazing spectacle. It is even more amazing especially if some of the neighbors have decided to buy at least 10 or 12 boxes of illegal fireworks from Belgium. Those types of fireworks are much bigger, louder and colorful and much more fun!! We stood out in the freezing cold for ages because we just couldn't get enough, and we weren't the only ones. The streets were packed with people. It was pretty funny because the fireworks just kept going and going, they just kept hauling out box after box. We figured some of them spent hundreds of euros them!

If you'd like to see an example of these crazy fireworks that I am talking about, watch this clip on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtjXLaJLul0

During the celebrations of Oud en Nieuw (New Year's in Dutch) in the Netherlands, it is also obligatory to eat lots of oliebollen. These are a sweet little treat of raisiny fried dough balls and I like to top my with lots of powdered sugar! If you eat too many of these though, your belly starts looking like as soft and doughy as an olliebollen!

Happy 2010 everyone and hope it brings lots of great things to you all!

Snow!!!

2009-12-21T10:57:00.001-08:00

We've had an amazing amount of snowfall here over the past couple of days. Over the past 24 hours, about 10 to 12 cm (5 inches) of snow fell. Snow is quite a rare thing in the Netherlands nowadays (global warming probably). But what is even more rare was that it snowed a lot AND right before Christmas! We heard on the news that there hasn't been a white Christmas in the Netherlands since the early 80s! Besides the snow, it has been super cold here too. Everyday it's struggled to get above freezing and early last Saturday morning it got down to minus 18c (0F!). Brrrrr! It's really been feeling like home here with the weather as it's been. But actually it's quickly reminded me how much I HAVEN'T missed those Connecticut super cold winters and snow storms! It's beautiful to watch, but once you have to dig your way out of it and your car becomes one big sloppy mess, then it's not fun or pretty anymore!

I passed exam #2!!

2009-11-12T07:33:00.001-08:00

Remember I was discussing about the extra super duper hard mother of a 3 hour exam?? Well, I just checked the online grading system and I received my grade finally. I got an 8!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I really thought I was going to get maybe a 6 if I was lucky. This is a great surprise. I couldn't be happier then I am right now. If I had failed, I would have had to subject myself to that 3 hours of hell all over again in December along with 2 other exams to study for. Phew! Now I can start the officially worrying about the next exams I've got in December: Epidemiology and Advanced Statistics! Ah, the life of a student!

Unusual spotting op de fiets

2009-11-11T11:29:00.001-08:00

This is a quick one but I have been dying to share because it is so hilarious!

As I was cycling home the other day, I saw a man cycle past me on the other side of the road. Now, normally seeing another cyclist doesn't really cause me much reaction. But this did and I will tell you why. The man was shaving himself as he was cycling. I am not joking. This was a first for me and I've witnessed some pretty odd things in my life. This guy was hairy too, it didn't look like a simple job, I don't know how he did it! And I have only just learned to cycle with both hands off the handlebars for a couple of seconds without killing himself!

I'm a boffin*

2009-11-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

I need to get better at writing on my blog! But the reason I haven't been on lately is because I have been quite a boffin* over the past few weeks.

I had my first exams recently and, I am not kidding, I studied everyday for about 8-10 hours everyday for 10 days. I have never studied this much in my life I don't think. But I never had a study week in the US when I did my bachelor's (and if we did, I probably wouldn't have studied much until the 24 hours before!!). The study week the week before your exams is a great concept. And I loved that I could tune into my favorite 80s radio station and stay in my pjs all day while I studied! And since we live in the "elderly tower" (see my elderly tower blog), it was so peaceful and quiet here during the day so was great for studying (except that I could hear our neighbor whenever he was going pee through our wall in the study, seriously! yuck!).

But it was a lot of stress and I became so obsessed with statistics that I began to have a reoccuring dream of men holding a gun to my head and having me recite probability theory and hypothesis proofing!! It was like a mathematical satire of a Quentin Tarantino film.

The exams themselves were much harder than I expected. They were like exams on steriods. I don't know if I am blissfully ignorant about what it was like with my bachelor's study, but I don't ever remember exams being this difficult. The stastistics exam was hard, but my other course (Methodology Nutrition Research) was even harder! That exam in particular was three hours long and was all essays so we were constantly writing for the 3 hours. No one finished before the 3 hours were up. I literally finished my last sentence when the guy said we were out of time. I know a lot of others didn't finish. I kept thinking how happy I was taking that exam in my native language. Most of the people in my class were not native English speakers so I can't imagine what it was like for them. And the questions were awful. One went something like this, "do you feel the researchers had full control over the laboratory assays of the biomarker results. please explain." WTF! That question was a low blow. Everyone I talked to afterwards skipped that question or gave some form of BS (my chosen method).

But with all this hard work, I found out some great news yesterday, I passed my statistics exam with flying colors. And shockingly, I did really well. My final exam mark was a 9!!! (the Dutch grading system is 1-10, 1 being "you suck" and 10 being "you are brilliant"). The sucess was even sweeter for me because in the past, I struggled greatly with math and my grades reflected it. So, after 29 years, maybe things are finally starting to sink in!

I still haven't found out the results of the Methodology exam. D-day is tomorrow supposedly for that exam, so I will let you know how I did. I definitely didn't get a 9 and if I did, I am going to start looking out the window for flying pigs and purple cows.

*Boffin is a word one of my friends from London called me recently and I had no clue what is was. I even looked it up in my Oxford dictionary (proving my boffiness)!! It is a british slang word for a scientist...or a very clever person! Yup, I think that definitely is me!

My Daily Commute

2009-10-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

I am totally loving my daily commute by bike to university everyday. My route takes me through the forest, a national park, past lots of cows and horses and little villages with thatched roof houses. It is gorgeous. And I cycle on a little cycle road that is seperate from the main road so it is super safe. Also, because the journey is a good 70 minutes rountrip everyday up some pretty decent hills, it means I get my daily workout in and don't need to go to the gym. It makes me happy everyday I do it (well, except when it is pouring with rain!). Maybe for you to understand why I love my commute so much, let me explain to you the other commutes I have had before in various places around the world:

1. Atlanta, Georgia - USA Driving into downtown Atlanta to one of the hospitals I was doing my dietetic internship in was probably one of the toughest commutes. It involved sitting on I-85 on a completely gridlock 8 lane highway (that's right folks, 8 lanes!) moving at a glacial pace twice a day for about an hour each way. John Mayer even sings about this notorious gridlock highway in his song, "Why Georgia, Why" if you want to hear more about it. The funny thing was, it was only about 4 miles (7km) I had to drive. I probably could have walked it faster, but Atlanta isn't built for pedestrians, just cars. Also, I probably would have been a victim of a violent crime if I walked through some of those neighborhoods! No wonder I had a constant muscle spasm in my eye that entire year.

2. Fairfield, Connecticut - USA Driving to work in the Southwestern Connecticut always involves traffic because of the close proximity to New York City. So if you, like everyone and their brother, need to travel to a job that is requires you to go south on I-95, you are screwed. This obviously happens again vice verse on the way home. The roads in CT aren't the 8 lane width of the ones in Atlanta, so the traffic can be even worse and more stand still. I usually tried to avoid the big roads and took back roads. This sometimes would help and make it faster. But, this idea I would usually back fire in my face. Most times, I'd get stuck in back of 2 or 3 big yellow school busses for my whole journey in the morning! So it was usually the case of choosing the lesser of the two evils...big yellow school bus or I-95...and the school bus usually one.

3. London -UK I've saved the "best" for last people. Ahh, the joys of the London Underground, aka "the tube" to Londoners. As a tourist, I always thought of it as cool and exciting and romantic. But when I lived there and used it everyday, that idea slowly faded. My first year in London entailed a daily commute of a 20 minute walk to the tube from our apartement, then sitting on two different lines on the tube for nearly an hour AND THEN sitting on a bus for another 20 minutes. A commute like that will drive anyone into the ground. And I gained lots of weight that year from the stress of it all. But, that wasn't the worst. Have you ever been on the Central line at rush hour? If you want to feel like cattle on a transport vehicle, this is the journey for you. You stand so close and packed in with people, that you can not only smell who and who didn't bathe that day, but also what the person next to you ate for breakfast. Mmmmm. And if you think that's bad, just get ready for the summer time journeys with the tube. I remember a few times when we had London heat waves (a British heat wave that is, around 30 degrees (85F)), underground in the bowels of the earth in the Central line, it was like being in the gates of Hell. Close your eyes and imagine how it would feel like to sit in an baking oven. Yup, I am not exaggerating. I went home during one of these heat waves and saw that the BBC had measured the temperature on the Central line that day at an amazing 47 degrees celcius (116F)!!! The London Underground people supposedly say they can't fit air conditioning units on the tube because it is an old Victorian structure. What an excuse, eh?! But...did you know that London is finally, after 150 years, modernising and replacing their entire water main & sewage system from Victorian times??! Now....that previous statement about the Underground and air conditioning makes soooo much sense, doesn't it?

Here I am not, happier than ever with my bike. I am glad I have survived all my journeys in one piece. I don't think I would appreciate my current journey as much if I hadn't have the horrors of those previous experiences. But, we'll see how I feel about the daily cycling after a long rainy and cold winter! I am sure the honeymoon period of the cycling will have worn off by then.

My 4 alternative ways of learning a foreign language

2009-10-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

Due to a very long story (well, basically me being too picky about where I take class), I have to wait until January to start more Dutch classes. I took 1.5 years of classes when I was in London, and of course I've learned from exposure, so my base knowledge is pretty good. I just need to get better! In the mean time, I am trying to do some self-study. It isn't easy at times because I have had assignments to work on in the evenings for my MSc study. So I have been trying to fit in learning Dutch using fun methods so it doesn't feel like I am doing "extra work." I have been using alternative methods besides my old Dutch workbooks from London. I mean come on, there's only so many times you can write stuff like: "Ik ga, je gaat, hij/zij gaat, we gaan...") and still get something out of it. So, here are some alternative ways I have been doing it:

1. Watching Sesame Street in Dutch It is so much fun to watch the characters I grew up with speaking in another language! There is something mezmerising about watching Bert & Ernie having an argument in Dutch. Besides that, they speak very slowly and simply, so it is very easy to understand what they are saying. The only weird thing is that in the Dutch version, Big Bird is blue instead of yellow in. For some reason, the color must of gotten lost in translation. That or they just thought Big Bird looked prettier that way. But thankfully all my other favorite characters look and act the same!

2. Reading children's books I have started off with some fairy tales and Mother Goose type of stuff. Again, just like with Sesame Street, extremely easy and simple words. And because I know all the stories, it is much easier to follow along and guess what a word might be. The only thing that I have found a bit crazy is that after reading a lot of these stories for the first time in 20 odd years, I can't believe I never got frightened by them when I was little. For instance, in Little Red Riding Hood, the grandmother and her get eaten alive by the wolf, and then when the hunter finds the wolf, he cuts him open with a big knife to save the LRRH and grandma. Or take Hansel & Gretel. They get locked up by a witch who tries to force feed them to get them nice and fat so she get eat them. Then they save themselves by pushing her into an oven and burning her to death. JEEZ! I always had quite a vivid imagination and still do (actually, it's gotten worse as I've gotten older!). I don't know how I used to read these stories as a little girl and still sleep at night.

3. Comic books We had found an old ALF (the big furry red alien from the 80s tv show) comic book of my husband's at his parents house ages ago. It was given to me because everyone knows how much I loved and still love Alf but was put away somewhere and forgotten about until recently. I came upon it again and thought it would be a good way to work on my Dutch. So I have started reading it in the past couple of weeks and have had so much fun with it. Because there are the pictures that go along with the story, it is such a great way to learn. Also, it has allowed me to be reconnected with my big furry alien friend. I never would have thought at the age of 8 while watching an episode of Alf that one day he'd also be helping me learn a new language. I know he is sitting on his planet of Melmac right now very proud of me.

4. Reading the subtitles Nearly all of our popular American or British tv series and movies on television and in the theater here are subtitled and not dubbed. So what I try to do is when we watch anything on tv that is in English with Dutch subtitles, I will always read the subtitles on the bottom of the screen along with listening. It is another great way of learning new words or how differently things are phrased when translated into Dutch. Sometimes this can be really different. For instance, we were watching Spiderman last night, and someone yelled out in English "he's a dork!" but in the subtitles it said in Dutch "hij is een ei." Literally meaning in English "he is an egg." I really liked that!! Also, I thought it was much more poetic sounding than he is a dork.

I would also like to mention crossword puzzles, which I did try. It might work for you, but not for me. I am bad at crosswords in English to begin with, so doing them in another language became an absolute nightmare!! The boardgame Scrabble also falls into this "puzzle" category. As my family and friends know, anything with the word "puzzle" in it is a four letter word for me. I think hell for me consists of a 50,000 piece puzzle and a 50 meter long New York Times-style crossword puzzle.

If you have any other tips or fun ways of learning a new language, I am totally game!! Please let me know.

Seriously Yummy!

2009-10-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Remember I included vla as one of my top ten favorite Dutch foods?? That yummy custardy dessert...mmmm. Well, I have discovered some great flavors so far: apple cinnamon, apple-peach, caramel. But the other day, I discovered the best of them all: bitterkoekje flavor vla. (Bitterkoekjes are like macaroons basically, or almond cookies for the non-foodies among us). This stuff is fantastic. Heaven on earth! It even has this almondy puree swirling through it. If I had Prader-Willi Syndrome like tendencies (sorry, I have been studying nutritional genetics lately) I could eat an entire liter carton of it. I am going to have to resist eating this stuff everynight, or else I am going to start looking as round as a bitterkoekje.

And before you start thinking it is pretty pathetic she is getting all excited about just some custard....let me just remind you: I come from the country that invented the deep fried Mars bars and cheese in a can*. Enough said.

*if you don't know what cheese in a can is, or the level of nastiness it has, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Cheese

Adjusting to student life

2009-09-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

Sooooo, sorry that it's been a while since I have written. As you may or may not know, I have gone back to school full-time to do my masters degree after 7 years of working. I have been so busy since starting classes 3 weeks ago, I can't believe it! Becoming a student again has been much harder and busier than I anticipated. I think my brain is in shock mode still. Making the adjustment from working life to student life was a difficult one for my brain to make, not to mention not having the nice paycheck to look forward to!

But one thing that's been happening recently, it that I've been feeling like an idiot in some shape or form nearly everyday whilst I sit in class. We are learning some pretty challenging stuff at the moment in my Statistics and Methodology Nutrition Research classes. Let me get you an example from one of my most hated topics: binomial distribution.

This is statistical theory at its worst. I don't know about you, but when I see something like this, I begin to break out into a cold sweat. Probably the most boring and awful things you have to learn. It is something that only statisticians actually get excited and amazed about. For instance, our lecturer said today in class that when he sees certain P values, he gets tears in his eyes. That is a statistician for you. But you know what, I can't say I've ever had that happen within my career as a dietitian (actually, I have had emotions relating to anger, such as wanting to hire a hit man on certain co-workers because I found them so irritating).

But, the thing is, I have learned a lot of this stuff that I am learning now, before. I first took statistics 10 years ago with my bachelor's degree. But I don't remember things being this hard the first time around. I just don't get why it is harder now! It is either because: a. The American version of statistics is at Kindergarten level, b. I'm slowly losing brain cells as I approach 30, or c. I actually care about doing well, unlike 10 years ago when I was more interested in finding the next frat house party that was giving out free beer. The more I think about it actually, it is probably option C (though I do worry B may also be happening).

So next time you say the word "distribution" or "correlation," light a small candle for me to the statistics gods.

Understanding Northern European Weather

2009-09-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

You'd think that I'd be able to tell when it is going to rain or not. I had a great teacher when I grew up. My father has an advanced degree in meteorology and I grew up hearing his passion for weather forecasting all the time. He taught us the different cloud formations, the ins and outs of barometric pressure and how to identify incoming fronts. However, I have found that although I can "read" the skies in my native New England climate, I am absoulte crap at doing it in the Northern European climate! Alas, for the second time this week, I was caught in "het regent pijpestelen" (it's raining cats and dogs) whilst on my bike.

You see, the weather in Northern Europe is entirely different than what we have back home. In America, you have a continental weather pattern. A storm in Caliifornia will most likely make it's way to Connecticut within a few days. 99% of the time, storms always move directly from West to East. Also, if you see dark clouds moving towards you, you can almost always expect hard heavy rain and then it is over and the sun shines through and clouds are gone. However, that is not that case in Northern Europe. For example, the weather in the UK (which I started to appreciate like a fine wine whilst living there). The British Isles are one big rain factory. Funny enough, the rain starts and ends there when you look at the radar. Usually the rain never goes further than off the coast of the county of Kent or somewhere up in Scotland, where it then dissipates and vanishes off the radar!

Dutch weather can be much the same (although it isn't as much of a rain factory that the UK is). Storms can move in from many different directions instead of just West to East. You can get them moving Northwest-Southwest, North-South, Southwest-Northwest, East-West, etc. Basically, you never know from what direction it is going to hit you! Also, you can see big black clouds for days and have no resulting rain. Another scenario is that you have a quick showery rain for 5 minutes while it is sunny out and and wonder where the rain has come from! These are phenomenons I still am not used to after 4 years in Northern Europe and continue to amaze me to this day.

Before you think I am complaining, I am not. I actually really like the weather here! I absolutely love the fact that it never gets too hot here or too cold. Yes, you have the exceptional 90F degree summer days and 25F degree winters here. But normally you have mild winters and cool summers. For a Connecticut girl like me (used to putting on 5 layers of heavy clothing when going outside to 10F temperatures), I love the fact that I can get by here in the winter with just a normal wool jacket and a scarf if necessary. Or, if you have every experienced the regular 90% humidity and 90 degree temps that we get in the USA every summer, the cool winters in Northern Europe feel like heaven to your skin!

So, after living over here for quite a while, I have come up with a list of 4 basic rules about the temperamental weather here. These may help you if you ever travel or live in this part of the world:

Rule 1: Always carry an umbrella with you. Even if it looks sunny out. And, the cheaper the better. As the wind here is so strong, you will regularly have one destroyed by updrafting wind turning your umbrella inside out. Thus $20 down the drain if you bought a more luxurious umbrella. Go to the dollar/pound/euro shops and by them as cheap as possible to save yourself the annoyance of pissed away money. Also, this umbrella can come in handy when you are cycling. Yes, it looks funny, but it's possible to ride and hold your brolly! It works wonders!

Rule 2: If you don't like the weather forecast, just wait a few days and check it again. The forecast usually changes as the weather is so temperamental. For example: our wedding. 4 days before our big day they were saying rain and thunderstorms and cool temperatures. Then 1 day before it was forecast to be perfect. 80 degrees, sunny and dry!

Rule 3: If you are a woman, don't wear too many thin cotton short skirts outside here unless you want to show everyone what color and style underware you have on (Marilyn Monroe style). I have learned this lesson the hard way (especially when wearing underware that you wouldn't really want to show off, like my Christmas themed snowflake undies I was wearing in July one time). It gets windy as hell in this part of the world. And the wind can suddenly come on even if it wasn't windy when you left the house in the morning. This undie showing scenario happened to me in east London once and I had some creepy guy say to me: "that's the best view I've had in ages!" So save yourself the embarassment girls! Save the cute cotton dresses for another time.

Rule 4: Lastly --- Enjoy the rain! I find it very romantic. When it is raining, find yourself a warm and cosy pub or cafe and have a cup of hot coffee or tea (or a pint) or some hot soup. Sit back and relax and appreciate the rain for what it is. And smile knowing that you don't have to water your garden that day because of it!

Knight Rider Revival!

2009-09-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have made an exciting discovery on the television here!!! I screamed in excitement to my husband the other day when I saw it. No, I did not see my lotto numbers come up...even better...I discovered Knight Rider re-runs are on tv here!! Score! I have been reunited with KITT and Michael again.

Okay, so it is an ultra cheesy 80s style series starring none other than "the Hoff". But that is why it was so great. Yeah, it isn't one of those classics tv series like Cheers or Seinfeld. But it was fun and come on, who didn't envy that car!! Unfortunately, not as many people had that same passion for Knight Rider as we did. After it's brief 4 years on air, the plug was pulled by NBC in 1986 and it went off the air. But, my brother and I still loved it and would watch it endlessly on re-runs on Saturday mornings or while I was home sick with one of my re-occuring ear infections. Nothing quite cheered me up like hearing the Knight Rider theme song on the screen and then seeing Michael and KITT together fighting the bad guys!!

Along with Knight Rider, I have also made some other classic 80s re-run discoveries on the tv here - Magnum P.I., Who's the Boss and Roseanne. Now, all I need to find is ALF re-runs on tv here and I am seriously going to be the happiest women in the world. Thank you Dutch television for making my day!

The humbling cycling experience

2009-09-02T23:55:00.001-07:00

So I am getting used to my daily commute of 24km roundtrip to my university and back. And wait! Before you think, "oh come on! that is easy, you live in Holland where everything is flat." Let me stop you to say that we live in the hilly part of the country. Yes, the majority of NL is flat as a pancake, but they actually have hilly parts in the East that you could compare to what we have in Fairfield County Connecticut or the south of England. Those types of short sharp hills that really can kill you if you are not used to them. Especially if you have a normal bike with just a few speeds on it!

As I am getting used to commute on these types of hills, I am not the fastests as I climb them. I had a humbling experience the other day as I was climbing such a hill. All the sudden, on my left, a man that was pushing 70 years old, cycles quickly past me and smiles at me and smuggly says in Dutch, "dat kan beter!" (in English: you can do better than that!). Then he continues past me climbing the hill at an alarming speed. So, needless to say, I was beaten on the hill by a man more than twice my age. Later in my ride, I was also passed by a morbidly obese couple cycling up another hill.

So, my humbling experience on my bike really put things into perspective. Yes, I suck at climbing hills, even on a racing bike with 32 speeds. And you see, I wasn't born with a bike under my arm like most of the Dutch are, they have a natural ability to cycle that I just do not have. Oh well, I can't be good at everything! But I will train to get better. Hopefully one of these days I will be so good I can find that old guy on his bike and pass him and look at him to say "dat kan beter!"

I'm a Student Again

2009-08-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

After working for 7 years, I have decided to go back to school full time to get my masters degree in Nutrition & Health at the Univeristy of Wageningen. Something I'm stressing out about a bit as I am a little scared to be turning back the clocks and starting over again as a full-time student! Anyways, I just finished a week of orientation at my new university (called the algemene introductiedagen in Dutch). They do this for both the bachelors students and the masters students. Basically, a week of fun, games, pub crawls and partying whilst getting to know people. I wasn't too sure about doing it in the first place mostly because I was worried I'd feel old. But when I heard that 95% of new students join in on the week, I thought, what the heck! I didn't want to miss out on anything. It's pretty weird after being out of the student life for so long. But actually it was lots of fun, although tiring (and imagine, I didn't even join in on all the nights of drinking and staying out until 4am), and I had a blast and never felt old!

There were a lot of cool people in my orientation group. We all got along extremely well and I hope that we stay in touch now that classes are starting soon and a lot of us are in different programmes. The amazing part was that in my whole group of 18, everyone was from all over the world. Philippines, Brazil, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, South Africa, France, Greece, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and me from the USA. I learned during the week that the city of Wageningen is the most diverse city in the Netherlands after Amsterdam. It has roughly 150 different nationalities that live within the city. This is mostly because of the University, which is internationally know and has people come to study from all over the world. So it's pretty cool to be part of it all.

Hopefully being a college student will be better for me the second time around compared to the first time around. I remember we had "older" students (we called them returning women) when I was doing my bachelor's degree. Thinking back, most of them were the same age as I am now. I always was so jealous of them because they always had the answer to everything, the professors loved them and they got As on the exams all the time. Looking back, it makes sense they did better than me...they had much less of the types of distractions that I had back then (partying until 5am several days a week, soccer team commitments, chasing around boys)! Now that the tables have turned and I am one of those older students, hopefully I can perform just as well as they did!

10 things I love about Dutch food

2009-08-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

1. Hagel slag these are sprinkles that you put on top of your bread in the morning or at lunchtime. You coat your bread with margerine or butter and sprinkle on top the hagel (they come in dark chocolate, milke chocolate or white chocolate flavor). As I was before only used to having sprinkles on my ice cream or cup cakes, this was a new concept to me. But they are such a nice comfort food and bring a little fun to the morning. You can also add them on top of yogurt or vla (see below for what vla is)

2. Pindakaas this is peanut butter, but not like the peanut butter like we have in America, this is totally different in taste. It doesn't have the fake sugary taste of American peanut butter. It is natural and tastes only of roasted peanuts and a bit of salt. It's for the true peanut lover. And unlike the "natural" peanut butter that they sell in America, you don't need to stir in the oil on top before using it. It's already all mixed up in there. And, being so used to American peanut butter, it took me a while to get used to not having PB sweet and processed tasting. But now I love the Dutch version and prefer it.

3. Komijn kaas (Cumin cheese) I love this cheese so much that I would take it to a desert island with me over a fishing wire. It is so so yummy. Basically, it is a cheese such as gouda with cumin seeds in it. I like the komijn oud (mature) version best, but will take it any way. Nothing beats a slice of komijn kaas on a fresh slice of bread. That is my idea of heaven.

4. Vla this is a type of dessert eaten here. The best way I can describe it to an American is like pudding but a bit thinner. Or if you are one of my british friends, it is like custard that is served cold, not hot and much more milky. You can get it in all different flavors: chocolate, vanilla, apple/pear, apple cinnamon (yum!), etc. It's not the healthiest of stuff as it is quite sugary, but is a delicious way to finish off a meal

5. Erwtensoep Dutch split pea soup is so absolutely delicious that, if I could, I would bathe in it. It is a concoction of dried split peas, onion, leek, potato, bacon, smoked ham (amongst other things) and sliced rookworst (see description below). We have this also in America, so it was not new to me. But similar to having the best pizza in Italy, this also goes with the Dutch and their erwtensoep. This is the ultimate comfort food in my opinion. The sign of a good erwtensoep is that it is so think that you can stand your spoon up in it!

6. Rookworst is a smoked sausage. But not just any smoked sausage mind you! This is the most delicous smoked sausage, ever. Once you've had one of these, an American hot dog is just tasteless. Yes it is super fattening and has your how salt allotment in it for the entire day. But sometimes you just need to eat something that is bad for you. They do make lower fat versions but I don't think they are as nice.

7. Kroketten & bitterballen These are typical fast food or bar snacks served in Holland. They are very difficult to describe to someone that has never had them. Basically, it is a snack filled with a meaty roux like mixure, coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried. The two are the same, except the kroketten are large and bitterballen are little balls. Both you dip into mustard when you eat them. If you want to be extra unhealthy, you eat your kroketten with frites (french fries) and feel extra fat afterwards but extremely satisfied.

8. Pannenkoeken Dutch panckakes are more like a cousin than a brother to the American pancake. They are thinner (but not as thin as a crepe) and bigger and have a more airy texture and eggy taste to them. The Dutch eat them with sweet toppings but also with savoury ones like you would a pizza. You can not only have banana, apple, raisin but also ham and cheese, bacon, chicken, vegetable or even indonesian satay. The toppings are cooked with the pancake. The batter is layed down, along with the desired ingredients and cooked that way. I had one recently cooked with with onion, pinapple, ham and cheese with barbeque sauce squirted on top. It was delectable!

9. Appelgebak the apple pie that they have here is very different that the one I am used to back home. It's got a different texture and taste and doesn't have a heavy pastry crust like the American version. It's got a cakey crust filled with cinnamony apples and raisins and covered with whipped cream. I feel very European as I sit out in an outdoor cafe eating it and sipping my nice strong coffee.

10. Stamppot although it doesn't look very appealing to the eye at first, once you try it, you will forget all about that. Stamppot is boiled potatos mashed with onion and boiled kale (or endive or cabbage) and seasoned butter, salt, pepper and bits of bacon. This is usually served with rookworst (remember, my fav, #6 above) on the side. You can see a farmer sitting down to eat it after a hard days work on the farm. If this doesn't warm you up after you eat it, then nothing will.

Although I could go on and on, these are my top ten that I enjoy the most!

The Elderly Tower

2009-08-18T01:45:00.001-07:00

After my last entry, it got me thinking about something else I've neglected to share with you. You see, there is another interesting thing about where we live. For some reason, we are the only people under the age of about 70 in our block of flats. My brother has hilariously coined it, the "Elderly Tower".

Not sure why this is the Elderly Tower actually. It's not a retirement community that we lied our way into, I swear. For some reason, our block of flats is extremely enticing to those omas and opas looking for someplace to downsize in their twilight years. Yup, while our neighbor is mixing up her soluble fiber drink, we are mixing our margaritas...

If you think I am joking, come and see for yourself. All you need to do is stand by our elevator for a while. You will see the home nursing staff making their daily patient rounds, as well a high level of traffic from passing by mobility scooters. I nearly got plowed down by one driven by a lady easily pushing 90 recently!

The realization of this being the Elderly Tower happened when we moved in. One of our neighbors hobbled downstairs and told off our British movers for hogging the elevator while they were moving our stuff in. She went on a rant at one of the guys in Dutch for a couple of minutes and the poor guy obviously had no clue what she was saying. He told her "I don't understand what you are saying lady". And then she responded to him, in Dutch, "don't try to pretend you don't know what I am saying, you can understand me!" That was our great welcome to the Elderly Tower. But seriously, besides that old crab, there are very nice people here and they have been very welcoming to us.

And best the best thing about living here, the quiet! It's like living in convent. No loud club music blasting at 3am (as what happened in our place in London). No screaming babies waking you up at the crack of dawn (also something that happened at our flat in London). No drunken fights on the street after the pub has closed (also in London). And no overhearing the unmistakable sound of the neighbor having some woman as she moans like a porn star in the middle of the night (oh yes, something that also happened at our flat in London, so lucky weren't we?). Nope, don't need to worry about any of that here...at least I hope not!

The creepy discovery

2009-08-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

As I started my run in the forest behind our apartment yesterday, I was surprised to see a large sign nailed to a tree. It was one of those historical/archaeological signs that you see sometimes. As I am a big nerd and love reading stuff like this, I hit the pause on my stop watch and turned around to read the sign. And then, I made my creepy discovery:

The forest hills behind our flat used to be an ancient burial ground for the dead. Ahhhhh!

And no, I didn't read the sign incorrectly. My Dutch is good enough that I knew I hadn't misread it (though I made sure and verified it later when my husband came home from work and he said I had read it all correctly). This sign even explained that the hills are actually hills because they were "burial mounds". The hills grew higher with each body or urn that was buried in it. This is exactly the kind of image that someone with an imaginative mind like me does not need.

My husband had a good laugh at me when he heard me worrying about all this. Okay, so I may have seen the Poltergeist films more times than I'd like to admit, but a cemetery is a cemetery and I don't want to live next to one. Especially if it is linked to scary ancient tribal people that sacrificied things to the gods (usually humans mind you) to keep them happy! Eeeeck!

So...this rules out twilight walks through the forest. And I definitely won't be taking the shortcut home through the forest cycling path come the end of daylight savings time! Now that I am thinking about it, maybe next time I run through there, I should run with a string of garlic around my neck. Oh wait, no, that is how you keep vampires away.... anyone else have any ideas? Think I might go do some Google research.

The ingenious Dutch dumpster

2009-08-17T00:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I don't normally marvel at the coolness of dumpsters (skips for all my UK buddies). I got to thinking about Dutch dumpsters as I brought my trash outside of our flat this morning. You see, Dutch dumpsters are really quite ingenious. I've included an example of what one looks like. Ours looks much more space age and smaller than the one pictured. I am just too lazy to take a photo of ours at the moment. :-)

You see in NL, you rarely see those typical huge steel dumpsters that breed rodents and horrid smells like they have in both America and the UK (and trust me about the rodent thing! In Atlanta, I saw a rat near a dumpster once that was the size of a fat cat). I think one reason Dutch garbage receptacles are the way they are is because the Dutch have such a tiny country and land is at a premium. They aren't going to waste space with such a mammoth piece of equipment as a dumpster. And second reason, the Dutch love cleanliness and order. They know that a typical dumpster is extremely unhygenic and looks nasty and ugly.

When I take out our garbage here, it is so simple. All I do is walk downstairs to our communal parking lot, wave an electronic swipe card over the little lid and place the bag into the mouth of the little box. Then I close the lid and my garbage bag disappears below into an unseen underground compartment. The same deal goes for your recycling too. So cool! Quite a difference compared to my American dumpster experiences which sounded something like this: walked into a scary dark back alleyway, scanned for scurrying rodents, then shot put my ginormous garbage bag over the very very tall dumpster wall as I held my breathe so I didn't gag over the odor of dirty diapers and fermenting cabbage sitting for weeks inside it.

The Dutch dumpster...an incredible invention. Why haven't we imported these over to America yet? I think I am going to have to write Obama about that one.

Klompen spotted!

2009-08-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

Do you want to know one of the most exciting parts of my weekend (besides of course my gezellige girls evening on Saturday night)? Nope, I didn't find 20 euros sitting on the ground somewhere -- it was much simpler than that...I saw a guy at the supermarket walking around casually in klompen (wood clogs) -- for real! :-) And he wasn't wearing some funny costume either, he was just wearing normal clothes as he picked out his pindakaas.

It doesn't take much for me to get excited! But if you know how rare this occasion is, you can realize how exciting it is. It's almost like spotting a rare bread of animal in the jungle. Contrary to all those stereotypical images you might have of Holland, Dutch people don't all have a pair of wooden clogs that they enjoy hanging out in in their free time.

And, believe it or not, this wasn't my first spotting of klompen on a person before, it was actually my second. The first time I made a klompen spotting was 3 years ago when we were at a gas station in the south of the Netherlands taking a pit stop. I saw one of the truck drivers hop out of his truck to take a little walk, and there on his feet were a pair of klompen! The way I reacted, you would have thought I had made a Brad Pit spotting...

Dutch toilets

2009-08-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

Have you used a traditional Dutch toilet before? If not, buy yourself a train or plane ticket to the Netherlands ASAP people! You haven't seen anything until you've seen this! (warning, this is not for the faint hearted)

Why, you may ask yourself, are these things so unique? Let me tell you, there is nothing like them. And trust me, I've used a lot of different toilets. From the squatting type in China, to outhouses in the woods, to plain ole dug holes in the ground. But this is something all together very different...

You see, well, how do you explain this...a dutch toilet has a shelf. Something I like to call the inspection area. That's right, your stuff doesn't go into water, it drops onto a shelf. So, if you fancy, you can have a look how your body processed what you put into it 6-12 hours ago. In layman's terms, a poo viewing platform.

And it is not just the Dutch that has this fetish, Germans I guess also enjoy these "viewing" toilets.

So, if you are in a Dutch home for the first time and this is sounds all too much for you to handle, remember to keep reminding yourself as did at first, as you are sitting there (like you would if you are afraid of heights), "You can do this, you can do this! Just don't look down"