Out on the Town

OH and I went out for dinner and drinks on Saturday. Weekend Round up to follow... er, eventually though I can't say when. This week is going to be nuts as today is a holiday which means I have three days to cram in all my work. Good fun.

Such a Busy Week

Sorry for the paucity of entries. Work is going to be intensely, drainingly busy for the next couple months as we toil through this one very exhausting project. Especially as this week is for me emotionally very tiring, I find myself completely exhausted at the end of each night. It's all I can do to not go to bed when Munchkin goes to sleep.

The most annoying thing is that I don't really feel I'm learning much from all this busyness This is not really accurate, and probably in a couple months with hindsight I will recognize and appreciate skills and experiences I've learned that only come through slogging through a big thing. If nothing else it's raised my professional profile and I suspect it's given me a big boost in self-confidence to handle these mega-projects.

One Year Ago Today

Today is a hard day for me. But it is so much harder for our dear, dear friends O and W. A year ago this day their amazing son came into the world. Three days later he left us and I still feel the loss. I was only able to write about it some days later. I cannot begin to imagine what my friends felt and that made me feel even worse, not being able to help.

Since then I've had my own sadness. It pales in comparison for the feelings I have when I think of my friends and their son. In just three short days he taught me amazing courage and strength. Every day since then I look at my little girl differently, with more appreciation for how the dance of life is a miraculous gift that I should not take for granted.

But today I want to think about them, and wish with all my might I could be there with them (they no longer live in the Netherlands).

Today in memory of an amazing boy and his wonderful parents. Happy birthday E - you would have been one today. I'd have been panicking trying to ship a present in time. Dear little boy, you were so loved and filled so many lives with love. We'll always remember you.

Ingaugaration of Our Entertaining Season

The new flat rocks for entertaining! It has a semi-open kitchen in the form of a window to the dining room. The dining room is really just the end of a big, long room that is dining room, living room, and front room, depending on where you stand. Previously the kitchen was a separate room and when we had guests I'd have to disappear for long moments at a time to bring through stuff. With the window you can chat as you cook and it's lovely. 

The other feature of our flat is that it has a great big cabinet where we are storing all our glasses and plates. We received many lovely gifts from our wedding (yes, oh so long ago) that we never, ever used in the old flat simply because they were stored away in boxes and there was nowhere to really store them where we could get at them. I was determined to have them somewhere we'd use them. OH's aunt had given us beautiful martini glasses so we started with cosmopolitans and munchies  - olives and nuts which adults like but little ones do not, so you don't need to worry about ruining their appetites. I'm not normally a cosmo girl but they were quite nice! 

Now I must give the blow by blow, because it's been such a long time since we were able to entertain and it's something we really like to do and hope to do in the future. After the kids where in bed, we started with a cucumber soup which was completely boring and I certainly won't make again. I try to make things as much as possible ahead of time so I can sit at the table with guests. For the main I had mashed potato with brown butter shallots, a white asparagus salad that was amazing! A ginger, orange dressing that was fantastic. And a big ole hunk of beef. Yes, beef. I do not really know anything about cooking meat. I don't really eat it, but I wanted something I could do easily and quickly. I figured if we went to a good butcher, got a good piece of beef, even I couldn't f it up. It was exciting to finally do something as simple as beef and believe me I did it really simply - browned in butter and a red wine reduction sauce with a blob of butter at the end. I am no judge of meat but I was told it was pretty good. For dessert, our friend brought this really great chocolate tart. Since I love cake and ice cream, I made ice cream to go with it. So good. And since most of the meal was done in advance, there was hardly any clean up.

I cannot wait to do it again.

Weekend Roundup

What a lovely, long weekend! We had a holiday here on Thursday and Friday was my normal mommy day. It's been incredible and we've taken advantage of it to really get the house in order. Thursday we did very little. In the morning we checked out a new (to us) playground at the Oosterpark. Good little person swing, good selection of slides, in all not bad. During our Munchkin nap/parent break, we tackled the kitchen and got all the last shelves and organized the small but very serviceable kitchen. In the afternoon we did a little shopping and then did a double Park day to visit our nearby playground.

Friday was mamadag and I met up with two of the mommies in my birthing class, out to the Amsterdamse Bos. This is a long freakin' ride from our new place and of course I took a wrong turn which made it a little longer. Then there was another ride because our final destination was actually at the other end of the park to a playground/pannekoek house. I love meeting up with my birth class, but I do wish we'd thought to do a class in Amsterdam rather than Amstelveen because we are not living so close by and the Bos is as good a middle ground as any. The kids had a good time, marred only by the day being very windy and all the flights landing at Schiphol airport seeming to be flying very low and very directly over the playground. Being a bit cold and loud, we didn't linger as long as we might have, but tailed it back home. In the afternoon I finished the basement as much as can be. That is - reorganized the mess of empty boxes and baby clothes into a system where we can reach what we need. Afternoon we took advantage of the still dry weather to go to the park again. In the evening OH and I gave our new local burrito joint a chance. We had heard others say it was as good as Tomatillo but I found it not at all up to standard. In fact it tasted oddly like someone trying to replicate a frozen burrito with fresh ingredients. I don't know I can make the switch from pizza to burrito. I think our next experiment will be to see if Tomatillo delivered is as good as when we got it from across the street.

Saturday we shopped for food. This will soon become a weekend chore but now it is still partly an adventure as we figure out the best sources for various foodstuffs. The Albert Cuyp is now the nearest market and as a fruit and veg market it pretty much sucks since you have to walk through throngs of slow moving tourists and tourist crap to get to the food stalls located smack dab in the middle. Plus I'm not convinced yet about the price/quality ratio - we shall have to give it some more tries though before a final decision is made. In particular I'm told the fish mongers there have amazing quality for price so we'll go back if only for that. Certainly the variety is different than what was in our old neighborhood. It's funny to see the small differences just being a few neighborhoods away makes. We had lunch at a local sandwich place which not only had a high chair but everyone working there was sweet on Munchkin and the food was pretty okay. Being so close to the Albert Cuyp there were plenty of tourists which was a bit strange, but I guess we'll get used to it. Best part however, was passing a Vietnamese restaurant on the way home. Hurrah! Definitely will be trying that soon, though it's on a long list of restaurants we are keen to try in our new hood.

Saturday evening we broke in the flat with our first guests, T and D and their son J. T and D are also from our birth class. We've gone over to their place oodles of times and it was so nice to finally repay the favor. We usually feed the kids early then have adult meal, or all eat together and then stay up after the kids go to bed. We have an extra travel cot and the kids were so tired from playing together they both went down pretty easily. I will write a separate post about the meal but let's just say it was a total success. We LOVE the new flat for entertaining.

Sunday was of course Mother's day! I didn't want anything too fancy and I have never really enjoyed eating in bed. But I got a bit of a lie in and we had an awesome breakfast of raisin and nut bread we bought at the market. Then we took Munchkin out to a new playground and met some other parents. Fingers crossed, I hope we can make some local friends with kids. Otherwise it was a quiet and quite cool day. 

Short and sweet

Not much to say today, getting stuff unpacked, enjoying a bit of dry weather here. Happy Friday y'all!

Getting Stuff Done

The last two days were a whirlwind of work. Now I find myself a little dazed as we begin what will be for me a four day weekend. I am almost frenzy with the idea of getting our house in order. All the boxes, not being able to find anything, is starting to drive me nuts. First the kitchen, then the front room. Munchkin just went down for her nap and now we will go on the attack!

Spring Finally Frickin' Here

While I am in Luxemboogers for a long time, some pictures to tide you over.

Munchkin at the west side kinderboederij. She loves the rabbits, which you are allowed to pet

Our current favorite playground in the Vondelpark

Munchkin in action. This child is well nourished!

But one needs to be in order to lead papas around.

Shot of the two weeks of chaos that was us packing to move. 

Great, great sadness - the last burrito while we were close to  the burrito place.

This is about halfway through the packing

Queen's Day! Shop people, shop!

Do not ask me where that tee shirt came from, I'm not sure!

Strategically organizing the books

Weekend Round Up

A quick round up because I have to pack (two nights in Luxembourg, boo...) and fill out a form for customs (another blog post entry) this evening. Ironing has already fallen off the to do list, alas.

Friday Munchkin and I went out to check out the new 'hood. Love, love, love. Best discovery: we are right around the corner from the best and only Polish grocery store in town. They have awesome perogi and a deli with meats from Poland. So excited about this! We also checked out the local play ground, and ten minutes into our play a whole creche of children emptied into the area with us from the local creche (Munchkin's not going to that one alas, too expensive). It was something like a popup play date for Munchkin. So far I really like our local playground. It seems to get great use from everyone in the community, of all ages. In the afternoon we rode out to check out the other outdoor nearby play activity, another kinderboederij, kid's farm. This one is less convenient to us and opens at weird hours but it does have the animals simply wandering around as a novelty, including a peacock! Munchkin was happy in any case.

Friday night we had a babysitter and went out for dinner at a place near our new 'hood, "Op de Tuin" which was very good indeed. I was especially impressed by the owner who was also serving the front house. He worked so hard all night and seemed to be deeply disappointed when we said we could not stay for dessert. But we had to go on, we were already very late for birthday drinks for our friends N and I, friends from our birth group. We had such a nice time and were very cross with ourselves when we realized we'd told the babysitter we'd be home way too early. Next time - we know to say we'll stay out later.

Saturday was a rough start from me (see Friday night) and a big shopping day. There are rooms where we need help organizing and storing stuff. The kitchen in particular we will really need to strategize about how to best get everything in there. In the morning we scoped everything out, then in the afternoon we went back and made all our purchases. In the interim we stopped at the local park twice for Munchkin to have a good play.

Saturday night started a little sad because there are no more burritos across the street now of course. Maybe I can convince the mosque that is across the street to start a side venture. In the meantime we are really close to our favorite pizza place, so we tried going there. I think it's a little far to walk and I still missed my burritos. We shall see!

Sunday I was going to make pancakes. Then I realized we had no eggs. So I ran out to the store. Except the super market near us wasn't open yet so I had to jump on the bike. While biking I realized I didn't really know where half the rest of the ingredients I needed were. Then I passed a nice looking boulangerie and decided to get us croissant instead. They were very nice indeed. I tell you I've eaten more prepared food in the last week than I have in the last year thanks to this move. But I simply don't have the energy to cook amidst the mess of unpacking.

We biked back to our old neighborhood, to the Vondelpark, to meet our friends E and M, which was lovely. Munchkin had a great play and then we naughtily stayed out for lunch. Why naughty? Because I knew we were meeting our friends from Cyprus in the afternoon and Munchkin wouldn't have time for a proper nap as a result. We ended up going pretty much straight from Vondelpark to meet up with our friends A and A. It was so great to see them! Munchkin managed to sleep a tiny bit but woke up crying. We suggested going back to our place - first guests! We sat in our back yard and drank the only bottle of wine I could find and chatted like they'd never moved away. It was so good to see them. They are coming back in August too, a silver lining to the end when they had to leave.

New Flat - first impressions

• It's so dark! Why is it so dark? The Pijp is known as such because the roads are all narrow like a pipe. We're on the ground floor now so of course there is not so much light that trickles down to us.
• We're on the ground floor! OMG it is better than I dreamed of. I walked through our door and set Munchkin down. No stairs, no double locking communal door.
• Why do we have so many doors? As with all flats in Amsterdam center, unless you have a lot of money (and we are already paying a lot for the rent) you have to put up with some loveable quirks in the flats. Ours is that the main bedroom has no windows at all. And there is a weird interconnecting line from bathroom - our room - Munckin's room. Both our room and Munckin's room also open onto the big communal room. Even the movers commented on it!
• Holy crap we have internet already. Has this EVER happened in the history of internet service that you get internet set up in your new house THE day you move in? UPC delivered the package at 6:00 pm no less. Incredible. Love it!
• Our internet is so fast! Yeah! So I guess there is an upside to the exclusive where you pay for all your utilities. Ask me again about that when we get our first gas bill in winter!
• Where are all the stairs? I went from Munchkin's room to our bedroom to the kitchen without going up any crazy, windy stairs. I had a bit of a head rush about that!
• The master bedroom is bigger than both of us remembered, whew.
• The landlord called the next day to introduce himself. Nice!
• The kitchen is smaller than we remember and the combi-oven is tiny, tiny. Sigh! Both of us are really sad about this sacrifice. But we looked for something like 8 months for a new rental, and we would have been looking for ages longer if we didn't simply accept some trade-offs.
• It is SO QUIET. After living years on busy streets it's almost eery to not hear trams and cars and street noise. We hear children playing. The leaking sink. Birds chirping. So strange!

Moved! Work nuts

Paid for the entire move with what we earned on Queen's Day! 

Queen's Day recap: moving stuff, keeping memories

Koninginnedag: mega-successful. Way more than I thought it would be. I can't say it was loads of fun to sit outside our flat all day or that it'd be my first choice on what to do on Queen's day. But we got rid of a LOT of stuff. We had 7 big bags of books: art books, old school books, novels. I had 2 bags left when I had to pack up around 3pm, and I probably could have moved more if I'd stayed out longer. We had one giant bag of DVDs and I think I had about 10 left at the end of the day. Stuff went too. In total we made enough on the sale of our stuff to pay for the movers tomorrow (well, hopefully, depends how long it takes them!).

The hardest part for me was parting with my grandmother's art books. I really hadn't looked at them much. I took them when I went to visit my grandfather not so long after my grandmother had passed away. She was something of a force of nature, the nucleus of the extended family. She was also generally a really cool person. She taught French in university. When she retired finally she became a volunteer docent at the Wadsworth Art Museum. She loved theatre and music. And it being so soon after her passing away, I took boxes and boxes of books that reminded me of her and who she was, as if I could hold on to her through these mere things

As time passed I realized what I had done. I love art but I wasn't really looking at the books. They were very big, and very heavy. Since this move was about really purging the among of stuff we have in general I could not say I'd looked at some of these books in years. That was the litmus test, so I set them out for sale, not really expecting much. I thought maybe we'd sell some of the novels and I'd be reduced to leaving the rest out to give away or worse - recycle.

People flocked to the art books! As I was trying to move stuff rather than maximize profit, I had a very simple pricing structure - all books 1 EUR. This motivated a lot of people to take lots of books (yeah!) but it was special with the people who bought the art books. They would see an art book and they would make a gesture or a noise of pleasure. I'd tell them the price (I had a sign out but I guess they couldn't believe it), and their faces would in some cases light up in pleasure. I had all sorts of nationalities picking up the art books. Each time I felt like this was really someone who was going to enjoy the book a lot. They were connoisseurs  and let me tell you, these were not just your standard collection of famous paintings. These were quite apart.

I told people about my grandmother. I told them about her passions. I told them I wanted the books to go to good homes. I had purposefully kept the price very low. I know I could have sold plenty for more, but I wanted people to have that delightful experience of finding that one special thing you've been fond of or thinking of for ages, and then on top of it, it's an incredible bargain. I had an experience like that ages and ages ago when I used to live in the US and I STILL remember it. I think it makes me enjoy the book even more - and I read that book over and over. I get a lot of pleasure from it. I hope those people will get a similar pleasure. I like to imagine them telling their family and friends about the amazing find they made.

In a couple of the art books I found some of my grandmother's old notes.She had had to take copious notes in order to be able to perform her duties as a docent at the time. They were always so precise and neat. I enjoyed seeing how she would take notes on old emails which she recycled as note paper. I found one book covering an exhibit that Isuddenly remembered I had had the chance to see with her and my father. I found all the notes in there.

That one I kept.

The LAST Koninginnedag

Like most foreigners I am against it. It's taken me years to be able to pronounce "koninginnedag", let alone spell it and now here they go and change it! This year is the very last Queen's Day. Henceforth it will be King's Day. If you've not heard the news, the queen is abdicating and her son Willem will assume the throne. It's something of a tradition in the Dutch monarchy to step down, the last three queens have done so in order to allow "new blood" to take over. It's also the first king in I think 109 years or something. I believe however it will be the only king's day in our lifetimes because the king-to-be has three daughters himself. 

So now it will be Koningsdag, and from next year it will be on the 27th, which is the future king's birthday. I will be celebrating it in a brand new way - I'm gonna be out there selling crap. Yes, I know, I've been here too long. But we have a lot of crap to get rid of, so we're taking advantage of the one day of the year it's allowed here. If you're on Overtoom, stop by. 

Expect after Weds however to see a little silence here, because we'll be moving after that and god knows when we will have internet.

Weekend Roundup

Weekend round up: packing. As I write this now I am surrounded by half finished boxes and piles of crap. We are doing very well, on schedule to have everything done well before moving day, although there always seems to be some small item or task you forget. We're drinking up the last bits of a good whiskey and we had a lovely cake au thon from the freezer - everything's gotta go!

Friday Munchkin and I went to our last local play group. I'll miss it's convenient location and the friendly people I met. I baked an apple spice cake that got huge raves. Maybe we will keep going, but I'm hoping there will be cool things in our new neighborhood as well. During her nap I packed my entire closet of clothes. When she woke it was like a totally different Munchkin awoke. She was very unhappy, and super, mega-clingy. She had some sort of flu we think combined with what appears to be teething. It's hard to tell because the incisor teeth have looked like they're gonna pop through any minute for the last six months. But this may be the real deal because our kiddo was miserable. So instead of packing I held my miserable child all afternoon and OH came home mercifully on time. We put her to bed early and had our last Friday night burritos across the street. I am sure we'll order burritos, but they won't be so damn convenient. We watches The Untouchables. I think it is the funniest film I have seen in a long time - definitely see it.  I had actually started watching it during the week but I had to stop because it was so funny I wasn't getting any packing done.

Saturday we went to Toasty! for a final neighborhood toasti breakfast. You'd think we're leaving the country but we just know ourselves. We tend to stay in our neighborhood. We're pretty dull that way, but I think it's because we both enjoy walking so we don't end up biking further afield to other locations. It also distracted our unhappy Munchkin from her illness. I did some very challenging one-handed packing while holding a miserable kiddo in the other arm. It's really the first time since she was very tiny that she's been this clingy and unhappy, so I took it at face value and gave her the snuggles I could while trying to get stuff in boxes. When OH nipped out just before lunch to do some errands, I decided to give her some serious snuggle time in our rocking chair while we were waiting for OH to return so we could all eat together. Instead she fell asleep on me within five minutes of sitting down. This NEVER happens, so I knew for certain something was up. I put her down and she slept for nearly 4 hours. In the meantime we had an open house. I know, you're supposed to do that on the other side of the move. But we had so many books and films we wanted to get rid of, as well as booze, we thought it'd be a good chance to see friends and give them first pick. We got rid of some of everything and even some baby clothes and we got to catch up with a lot of friends we'd not seen in a while. It was sort of the reward for starting early that we were able to have a break in the middle of it to hang with friends. Our friends also tolerated our very whiny and unhappy sick kiddo who just wanted to be held and moan when she did wake up. We had pizza for dinner after putting sick kiddo to sleep very early.

Sunday I woke up early and on a mission. I had two rooms to finish and I was determined to get them done before lunch. OH wasn't feeling great and both of us terrified he'd picked up what Munchkin had, he slept in. Munchkin slept in pretty late as well, and then it was more packing and holding clingy child, though she seemed much improved. OH awoke feeling restored and they went to the park while I finished my goal mostly.  I took no less than 4 garbage bags full of baby clothes to the donation bin. OH and I both had two bags each as well. I told you, we are clearing house! It felt good to take them somewhere where they'd be used again. Munchkin awoke from her nap looking also much restored and since we were doing well on the packing we decided to have a break, get a coffee and go to the park to meet up with a friend from out of town for a very short chat before the child schedule had us heading back home.

I cannot wait for the move to be over, but moreover I am looking forward to our new flat and new neighborhood!

Had a post but must have packed it away

I can't believe the number of nice dresses I never get to wear. The Netherlands just is not a dress up place. They always dress neatly, but unless it's a wedding, you're not going to be wearing any formal dresses.

Anyone who knows tricks for making this sort of wear business appropriate, I'm all ears! I feel sad watching them waning away in the closet.