Mar's Great Adventure

Orange-ish Red and White Room
Originally uploaded by marfish8.

This comes from the third floor section of the NAI in Rotterdam, the exhibit with different interior room decor.

I have posted a couple more new pictures. If I get some other pictures from my parents from their visit here, I will hopefully post some more.

The birthday party on Friday was fun in Scheveningen. We went to a place called Topkati. It snowed in parts of the Netherlands and there was an accident or two on the train tracks so there were delays. Luckily, my train to Den Haag wasn’t that delayed and all I had to do was stop in Delft and catch another train after waiting for five or ten minutes. I know it could have been a lot worse judging from my previous experiences with train delays.

Saturday evening, I attended a show at Rotown. The opening band was from the Netherlands; Anderson was their name. It was a duo and a quite entertaining duo. One guy was adorned in a red shirt and a black baseball cap. The other guy had the hipster combination down to a tee adorning a scarf that captivated the essence of his hipster dress. Red t-shirt guy enthusiastically bobbed his head the entire time while performing and hipster essence guy flailed his arm in the air from time to time. To complete the evening, Anderson shared the stage with John Vanderslice for his last song gracing the audience with and intense bout of hand clapping. It was quite enjoyable.

Sunday, I went to the Netherlands Architecture Institute, NAI. It was interesting; I enjoyed the room decors set out on the third floor. I took a couple of pictures that I will upload during the next coming days. After visiting the NAI, I went for a walk around the Centrum and Blaak area where a markt was set-up. It wasn’t the Saturday markt, but still enjoyable to walk through.

In true Mar fashion, I didn’t bother to read the manual for Arizona girls living in a wet weather climate handbook. The first rule includes:

Be aware of your surroundings when it is raining. Always carry an umbrella, but an umbrella will be useless if you are not careful where you walk. Watch moving traffic and pay special attention to standing water. Cars traveling at low speeds have the tendency to splash standing water in the street onto the curb. The bigger the puddle of standing water and the faster a car is moving, the greater the amount of water is sprayed onto the curb. Therefore, do not stand too close to the curb.

Needless to say, I was splashed yesterday evening after departing work. I was on my way to the Albert Heijn to purchase some brown sugar to celebrate my Thanksgiving by baking chocolate chip cookies. I had purchased all the other required ingredients the evening before but managed to forget brown sugar. My arrival to Albert Heijn included a soaked pair of jeans, coat, and bag.

The chocolate chip cookies were a success. But, I ran into one problem along the way. What would a day be for me without running into a problem caused by a needless mistake? While mixing all the ingredients together in the kitchen, I kept viewing two different recipes. This resulted in mixing a double batch amount of brown sugar with a single batch amount of white sugar. So, I ended up fixing my problem by making a double batch and adding more white sugar. (Luckily, my parents had brought me the super size package of chocolate chips so lack of chocolate chips was not a problem.)

Now, I have a whole batch worth of cookie dough sitting in my refrigerator. I brought in several cookies to work today and may have to bring more cookies in on Monday to help rid myself of the excess amount of cookie dough in my apartment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

**addition

I just wanted to add that my wind enhanced umbrella doesn't hold up here. I'm a bit wet after going to purchase a card for the birthday party I am going to this evening...

Agnes and I were just informed that the interns are changing locations. Currently, we sit in the wing of silence and in the very back. The other wing is a lot more active and lively. Thinking that we sit in the worst possible location of the company, we discovered there is one worse place than my current location. Where, might you ask? None other than the room where the vending machines are located.

Beginning tomorrow, Agnes and I will sit with the soda and candy machine. I’m going to stop showering because no one will see me for the next month. Hey, at least I will be able to test my hypothesis of which button is pushed the most on the coke machine...

I slid and fell on the steps of the escalator down to the metro this morning. I have been changing my routine varying from taking the metro and the tram. It was a bit slippery, so I slid and grasped the sides as I fell. Yes, people saw me. What’s new? I was amused.

I saw where my mom lived and took some pictures and video. I saw where she went to school...it is a school no more. I went on the Roondvaart again. I went to the Rijksmuseum. I went to the maarkt. My mom asked where Night Watch was at the Rijksmuseum. Don't ask me how you could miss it... :)

I went to the Zwarte Maarkt on Sunday followed by tea and later an extravagant and utterly delicious meal. That was my weekend in a whirlwind.

My parents depart home tomorrow but I won't be able to send them off so we executed our goodbyes at the train station in Beverwijk as I caught the train to Rotterdam. (Next, I missed the train I had to catch in Haarlem so had to wait a half hour for the next one to arrive; I will review that experience later.)

Will someone please send me a turkey before Thursday?

My weekend is about to start again. This weekend I am leaving Rotterdam...again. I am catching the train to Beverwijk and will later go to Heemskerk. Tomorrow morning at 9:00 am sharp when my korting kaart goes into effect on the train, my parents and I are heading to Amsterdam. Here, we will spend time FINALLY seeing where my mom lived. I hope to visit the Anne Frank House since I also finally read the diary and have just about completed the biography. (Something I want to finish reading prior to visiting the Anne Frank House)

I also hope to see a museum or two including the Rijksmuseum. I have a picture of the outside but I wouldn’t mind getting lost inside for a couple of hours. For anyone who has ever been to a museum with me, you know I tend to stay for a long time. Saturday evening, I am headed back to Den Helder for Wilco’s 40th birthday party. I am excited to partake in a Dutch birthday party.

Sunday, I will say farewell to my parents and watch my mom try to choke back some tears. Yes, I know she will do this although I will be back in Arizona less than a month after they leave on Tuesday. How quickly my internship is coming to a close already!

Happy Weekend to All!

Yesterday evening while waiting for the laundry to finish, I decided to cure my new coffeepot. This morning, I enjoyed my first two cups of coffee from my new coffeepot. It was fantastic. Now, I need to have a coffee cup to take with me on the way to work so I can enjoy my coffee at work. I have quite a few of these in Arizona but unfortunately do not own a portable insulated coffee cup here in the Netherlands. I may have to search for and purchase one.

My holiday began Friday morning when I took a train to Den Helder. From the Den Helder Zuid train station, my dad picked me up with Eppie in the car my parents rented for about two weeks. We drove to Wilco’s home where I met his kids and my dad and I played a place your hands on your head game. Jellie and my mom were there as well. I spent the remainder of the day in Den Helder where we visited a museum which included my laying in a bunk on a Russian submarine. (confined quarters…I will post pictures as soon as I get them from my dad; perhaps, I will burn them to a cd this evening so I can upload them tomorrow.)

From Den Helder, we drove to Friesland and stayed in bed and breakfast outside of Harlingen. My grandpa is from Harlingen and the first thing I looked for when I arrived was the red rooftops and shown in a picture of the city he had hanging in his room. We visited the town historian and I learned some history pertaining to Harlingen and WWII while looking at some very intriguing artifacts and pictures. Pictures of Harlingen included pictures of my Grandpa when he was a young boy and a young man. We spent the following day visiting more family. This included one indulgence after the other. Let’s just say those Frisians know how to make a delicious suikerbrood and the art of feeding and milking a Frisian cow should be taught all over the world! There are some very good cooks in my family as well.

Other time spent in Friesland included visits to more relatives and learning a lot more about my family roots. Part of a day spent in Friesland included visiting the Scaatsmuseum in Hindelopen. (Skate Museum) Here, pictures of my beppe are displayed as she was a very good speed skater. My mom was able to see pictures of her mother/my beppe she had never seen before and after talking to the man who completed research for the museum, he said he would look for more information on my Beppe to send to my mom; this includes pictures. We also visited Sneek where my mom was born as well as several other dorps of Friesland. We made our way through quite a few of the eleven stads and the next time the ice freezes over, you can bet I will try to be there to watch the skaters.

Complementing all the fantastic Frisian food, I had the best coffee in the world while visiting Tante Oppie. She had a very old percolator coffer pot and it brews fantastic coffee. Out of luck, my dad managed to find one when randomly going into a Douwe and Egberts coffee winkel in Joure. It works on stoves so I will be able to use it both in the U.S. and in the Netherlands. A lucky girl I surely am.  The Frisian coffee milk adds to the flavor as well. Lekker. Heel lekker.

After zigzagging from house to house and dorp to dorp and stad to stad throughout Friesland, we went the other way - South. Here we were able to spend a day in Maastricht and caught the opening of the Carnival. People were dressed in elaborated costumes, music was played, and beer was rampant. My parents and I had a good time watching the crowd. My mom and I did a bit of swaying with the music. At our hotel in Roermond, the carnival was also going on in our hotel. It wasn’t as elaborate as Maastricht but nice to watch.

Drielandenpunt. I went there. Where is there? Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. I was in all three places at once. Tante Rees, Caroline, my parents, and I walked to a cafe in Germany. I tried the German beer on tap there, Bitte Bier. It was quite tasty. Mijn ouders, Caroline, and Tante Rees had coffee. It was a pretty tasty coffee met slagroom.

I ended my holiday with the arrival of Sinterklaas. Boy, did I enjoy this. We have been celebrating Sinterklaas in Arizona since I was born. Although I partake in the elaborate poems and goofy gift giving on Christmas Eve with my family in Arizona, I always place out my shoes for Sinterklaas on the 5th of December. (I even place out my wooden Ajax shoes…I don’t think Rink would appreciate them considering his loyalty to Feyenoord.) I sang what words I knew to the songs with the kinderen and have been humming them in head ever since. Dank u Sinkerklaas!

Starting with Den Helder, zig-zagging through Friesland, and ending in Roermond with the arrival of Sinterklaas, my holiday has come to a close. (hence the lack of email response) An update about my journey through the Netherlands by car with my parents will come later.

I am going to Den Helder this weekend as well as Harlingen to see where my Grandpa grew up as well as visit some more family.  Initially, I planned take the train after work this evening, but since work has been busier I have some things to take care of meaning…I might not visit until tomorrow morning.

I am also going to be on a holiday next week.  This means I am traveling with my parents to wherever they have a plan for us to travel.