Incorporate exercise into everyday life

I don't work out. Even with my back preventing me from cycling long distances, living in Amsterdam is exercise enough. Take for instance my third floor apartment in a building with no lift. Every day I scrupolously check that I have everything I need, in fear of having to go up the stairs again. Even taking the train raises the heart rate. Today my train got canceled. The metro also ran from this station and I decided to dash down the train platform stairs, over to the metro, and up those stairs to the metro. Then the news: a metro has gone bust. No metros for forseeable future.

But I knew there was another train that comes just after my normal train & from there I could transfer to another train/metro and get to work. I dashed back to the train platform only to just miss it. No worries, there was another train in ten minutes I thought I could also tranfer with. I walked back to the metro station in case the metro was up again to kill a few minutes. No metro, walk back over to train platform only to realize I was wrong about transfer possibilities - this train didn't stop anywhere near a stopover to work.

BACK to the metro platform. If you're keeping track, I've now been back and forth between the two elevated platforms five times. I am out of breath. The metro is still not showing any signs of rejuvenation. I spy from a distance that in fact the next normally scheduled train that would take me to work is not canceled like its predecessor. Finally! I run back over, and very happily sit down.

I am not sure if it's wholly a good thing, but this happens on a regular enough basis to keep me well enough to dash up a few flights of stairs. Fitness in every day life, sponsored by public transit.

Weekend Round Up!

This was a fattening weekend. On Friday in addition to eating burritos and watching a movie, I did some prep cooking for Folks Over for Dinner on Saturday. The film was surprisingly good, JCVD, even though it was set in Belgium & in French.

Saturday I was up early despite myself. I had been thinking about the menu for a while. Since moving in with FH in August, there has been a bumpy road as I got back into the rhythm of cooking on a regular basis. It was true for me that if I am just on my own, I will probably not bother to actually put ingredients together and apply heat (aka cook). With FH, who is also an appreciative eater and does dishes afterwards, I am cooking more and enjoying it far more. Though FH is starting to protest about the massively heavy Le Crueset pans, which are a pain especially as they are the only good pans I own.* Saturday was a triumph, though I think I still have to work on picking the right dishes for my audience. I tend to forget that not everyone likes every kind of dish. Still no one got poisoned and most folks seemed to enjoy the food.


Menu in short:

munchies : marinated mushrooms.

Starter: Indian-spiced spinach soup with homemake spinach wonton-dumpling thingers.

Main:  thrice-stuffed potatoes (celery root + sweet potato + potato) ; red snapper w/chermoula; awesome fennel

Dessert: English apple pie which was more like cake, with ice cream.

Sunday was sad weather, very gray and dismal. Still I am thankful it was not several feet of snow! FH and I went out for toasties for breakfast and then I did what most people do who feel like they are getting a bit heavy with the long winter: I made fudge. I made chocolate fudge (different recipe L!). I made caramel fudge, otherwise known as "Normal Fudge" in the UK. It turned out very good, mainly because I stood there and stirred for something like an hour. I think the recipe was very clever, because it basically said "stir until it looks like X", with no indication how long it would take to get to X. I also made cereal treats (they don't sell rice krispies at the regular super markets).


*gift idea?

Winter Blues

The weather I think is finally getting to me. That combined with one of those periodic dips in your life cycle is getting me down. I believe this may be a more commonly felt problem to  modern, western life, but I can't help myself from thinking/worrying about problems in the future. Certainly there is enough to worry about today (cough cough wedding cough cough). But I prefer to worry about things that will happen years down the line. Maybe it is just the weather.

The other seasonally afflicted woe is restlessness. A bit of cabin fever from staying in too many nights, and a sudden desire to get up and do something. The big changes have to wait a little. It's hard to feel ready to take on a challenge when you know the time for that must wait a little longer.

At least last night we finally went out last night, for what felt like the first time in a long while. We went to a crappy, trendy resto/bar called Brix in the 9 straatjes area. Actually all the bars and restos in this area are tiny and bordering obnoxiously trendy. We were joined by friends and went out for dinner afterwards. So if the big challenges must still wait a while, at least I am not shying from the wee winter challenge of getting off one's ass in poo weather!

"Back"* to regularly scheduled programming.

The back is already feeling much better. The weather still sucks. Some things change, some stay the same. This Tuesday we had our AWCA event for the committee I chair. I grumble about the work, but I find this form of volunteering where I get to be in contact with other expats in a very similar situation as mine, very rewarding. This was the first event of our calendar year and we had a lady who is a very popular speaker with the group. She spoke about how to find your passion and turn it into your career - how could you not love the topic. It was especially gratifying to see she really had the right audience. A lot, and I mean, a big number, of attendees approached her afterwards to hear more about her services (which are somewhat related to the topic of her presentation).

 I was also impressed with her candor and professionalism. She admitted that her best form of marketing for her own businesses was getting in front of groups like ours. It did get me thinking about what I am passionate about. She had a very simple test for determining what your passions were (and more complex ones to test it out too). That was, what things do you lose track of the time passing when you do them? I thought about it a long while, and realized the last time I had really lost track of time was when I was reorganizing our travel-sized toiletries. How exciting and passionate am I! I do adore organizing things, but unfortunately I'm not sure this could be turned into a business. Mainly because half the time I reorganize things I can never find them again. Somehow I am not sure there is a niche out there for bizarre; anti-intuitive organizational services...


* pun TOTALLY intended.

Back is back

Fun, my back got ticked off again today! Sigh. I had a nice big post, but unfortunately lost it after the pain set off once more. So much for back being cured (I did not fall off my bike, FYI, the trigger was just pulling on my boots)

Ice Age

From where our apt is, I have to take my bike a short 10 min ride to the nearest connecting train station to work. The option that takes me to work without bike adds a good 15 min to my commute. So unless it truly is wholly impossible weather (think hurricane), I am riding a bike most days if only a short distance.

Lately it has been very snowy and cold, leading to a lot of ice on the ground. This makes all modes of locomotion trecherous but biking by far the worst. So long as you go slow, you'll be fine. Not because going slow prevents slippage, but because you'll be going slow enough to catch yourself when you fall.

Yesterday was not the iciest I've seen this winter, but it was surely the slipperiest. The ice, through cycles of wet, cold, and warm, had frozen into heavy sludge. When the ice is smooth, you can ride albeit carefully. The sludge however, has mass enough just to not want to budge out of the way immediately when your wheel is trying to slide through. This means your front wheel may blaze a path through, but your back wheel may possibly not follow, and be pushed out to one side or the other. Yesterday and this morning where the first times I have ever seen folks en masse descend from their bikes to walk through sludgey bits of path. Sure you can try to cycle through but you end up going so slow trying to keep your wheels going in the same direction that you might as well walk anyways.

Weekend Round up

We had a pretty quiet weekend... again! FH is not motivated so much to brave the elements when it is cold and more importantly, icy outside. I on the other hand am already in full cabin-fever and even the threat of slipping and breaking something probably important is no longer a deterrent. Friday however we stayed in and did our favorite - burritos from Best Burrito Joint in Amsterdam, and a film. This time we rented the Hangover, which I think thanks to massive hype from friends was unable to meet expectations. We are also on a Miyazaki brush up, starting with Totoro & me, a film I love even if it is for kids.

Saturday I made french toast in order to lure FH out of the house on errands. We then met up friends for what ended up being a lot of drinks and bar food, and a lot of weddin' talk. Things slowly but surely taking form, though most of the big planning should be done at Easter when we go down to France to source some things. Not that I suppose y'all in the States care - thanks to the poop economy there are not so many folks from your side of the Atlantic coming. I hope we'll be able to take our long trip in 2011 without a hitch to go see you!

Sunday was a day of reckoning. In the struggle of woman versus fudge, WOMAN WON! Thanks super much to Lauren  who sent the recipe for success. Not only did I finally (4's the charm!) succeed in making fudge that is nice and edible, but FH is already looking up recipes for English fudge. The only difference is in the US when we think of fudge most of us think of chocolate flavored, whereas in the UK it is traditionally caramel. I also managed to F-up dumplings (Chinese ones). Hint - bread machine flour : it's no good. The interesting lesson learned was that even not very good dumplings are still pretty damn good. They also take forever no matter if you make them correctly or not. But now that the fudge/bodge wars are won, I am ready to fight on - I shall not rest until I have a correct dumpling!

Pray for FH's waistline.

For the Foodies:

Oh yeah and as if I'd not already gone on and on about food. I also made a kick-ass soup, though it turned out quite different. Basically throw a bunch of cauliflower in a pot, throw boiling water after it (maybe comes up to 3/4th's the height of your veg) & boil away. You can kill the suckah for as long as you like but it will be done in 15 min max. I added halfway through as an afterthought dark soy sauce (maybe 2 T), then some hot Thai chili sauce (also around 2 T), and at the end a few dribbles of fish sauce & a boulion cube to give it salt. At the very end, I put in what was maybe a 3/4 cup of evaporated milk (thanks sister2!), and pureed. I was hoping all those Asian flavors would make it taste... Asian. Not at all! But it turned out really nice and very nuanced. You could not taste any of the individual flavors but they gave a beautiful color and deep flavor.

Utrecht eats

Last night we trekked out to Utrecht for the first time to have dinner with friends I and K. Utrecht is really lovely and every time I go there I feel I am seeing it again for the first time. Weather can have a big impact in your enjoyment in wintertime of course and we were lucky it was not too chilly & clear as well. I & K live in Utrecht and took us on the scenic route to our destination, De Goed Heyd. A-ma-zing. We forget that bad service is localized particularly in Amsterdam and not all over the Netherlands.

We had the 4-course surprise menu, and it was not too much food and all delicious. I think we were very pleased to get out of town and Utrecht is just a half hour away from Amsterdam by train. Though I am not as smitten as FH, who said he could see himself living there...

I am healed!

Today I went to the PT who pronounced my back "healed", as almost an afterthought really, when I asked. This after months and months. I suspect I still need to take it easy, and indeed am now enjoying a related irritation on my right hip, but it was shocking to hear. I reflect on younger days when I had not experienced any serious/annoying long term pain. We are all aware of how experience changes that, makes you more cautious. I think I will be much, much more aware of how I am moving and sitting with regards to its impact on my back.

Luckily I am in good company as lower back pain is very common in adults in western countries. I am slightly annoyed by the fact that at 30 I have already racked up way older-folk sorts of complaints, such as a bum knee and sore back. What on earth will it be when I am 40??

By bike is best

Who is most frustrated by the daily commute?

this from the Economist of course!

Boo, travel

Thursday I left the office early to catch the 15:31 train from Amsterdam to long end destination Luxembourg City. For whatever reasons (PMS?) the train had decided it was leaving actually from Rotterdam. So we all first had to get on a train to Rotterdam, which is I believe not a stop normally in the first place, including the staff.

From there the train had some kind of technical issue. In these cases I am grateful just to get to my end destination, but indeed this added a 1 hour delay. Get into Brussel and see my connection is also delayed though, so I have time just to buy a tuna sandwich and stuff in in my laptop/overnighter bag. Unfortunately while the delay has been posted on signage, the change in platform was not, so I and pretty much everyone else missed this train anyways.

Get on the next train, and am very tired. I am sick in a violent, sharing way: sneezing, coughing, and continuous nose blowing. Even when things are on time the train to Luxembourg is painful, stopping something like seven times and then really *pausing* for a good 5-10 minutes at each stop. Plus there is a group of giddy university girls sitting right behind me, disturbing my self-pity pout with their peppiness. They get off piecemeal, so there is just one left when we finally arrive in Luxembourg at about 9:20pm. I am excited to get to the hotel and eat my sandwich in peace, so I get all my stuff together and go to reach for my laptop bag sitting above me....

...only it is not there.

Many swear words and panic! My change of clean clothes, not to mention all my work stuff is now gone. I ask the remaining gal if she has not seen someone take a black bag from above me (how could I have missed that??); and I get a strange look from here, which morphs into awful embarassment.

"Oh, was that your bag?" she says.

Evidently her friends thought the bag must belong to one of theirs', and at the last stop before Luxembourg, one of them dashed on the train and took it off to ostensibly return it to their friend. We exchange telephone numbers to arrange a pick up the next day, and a request on my part to remove the tuna sandwich perhaps before then on account of smelliness. I manage to get a much nastier sandwich from the gas station 5 minutes before it closes at 10pm, and spend the evening washing my clothes in the sink and wishing I'd at least taken the nose decongestant out of the laptop bag before I completely missed it being whisked out from above my head.

The next day we arrange things brilliantly. The girl is very embarassed about the mix up but with a very tight turn around and 5 minutes before I have to catch my train home, I only have time to say many thanks and no problem before I am literally running to catch the long train home.

The only golden lining to the whole story is my trip back was only moderately delayed and also consisted of a 45 layover in Brussels. This having never happened before, I thought I'd deserved it and took a lunch of a cone of frites with mayo while walking around the Grote Markt.

Weekend Round up

So let us not dwell too long on Friday/Thursday travel fun - I will save that for  tomorrow. Instead I have a rare treat of having actually uploaded a picture from this weekend. There was another one but I have no idea where it went.

Friday I got home in time for a lovely but way too short catch up with a friend who was visiting, having moved a half year ago back to the US. Then we went for dinner with friends at a Indian resto, Balti House which is quite good I guess. I think I am spoiled for life, having visited India and eaten like a queen there. Even the memories of Delhi belly don't sour it for me.

Saturday we had a busy day, walking around doing chores during the day, then meeting up for friends at a Belgian place on Overtoom that is the third location of this local chain, Gollem. Every time we have been there we've had a weird experience. First time they still didn't have a kitchen open, but er, it's supposed to be a bar/resto. Second we happened to have the bad fortune of coming on musical pub quiz night which is really distracting if you just want to chat. This weekend half the resto had been reserved and there was no place to sit. It's just too hip for the likes of us. So we went down the street to Simple (there is also a Simpel, don't get them confused). We like this bar/resto very much - it is big and spacious and the service is good. Food is also decent. A friend was celebrating another successful year being alive and FH took the opportunity to try out his new low-light lens:

Sunday FH got my cold but worse. I ended up going to a Swap Meet organized by a very cool friend and it was an awesome experience! About 10 ladies in total attended I think. Everyone did their best to bring books, clothes, odds & ends, etc, that were in good shape that they no longer wanted. We then all basically "shopped" around. Not only did each lady find something nice, but we managed to get rid of everything by dropping the remaining clothes to a donation drop point. It was also an excellent exercise to make me clean out my closet and those things I didn't think would be ok to swap are packed up to also drop off. The books are are also going to a donation center.  Ended by making what I thought would be a blazing hot pot of green chile stew but was only mild. Boo! We are going to NM in just over a month, so I am profitting from this trip to indulge in our usually very rationed pace of eating NM chile products.

On the road again

I have never travelled to Belgium or Luxembourg via train with without issue. Today I am taking the 15:31 from Amsterdam Schiphol, except it's not leaving at 15:31 or from Amsterdam.

Today there is some sort of special arrangement wherein the trains all depart from an entirely different city. The good news is so far it's only 15 minutes delayed so there is still a vague chance I will make my connection in Brussel zuid - I have still perhaps 11 minutes to spare. Who knows, maybe the connection will be delayed.

Travel from Amsterdam to Luxembourg is at best a 5 hour affair by train. Flying is also possible but at 800 eur a pop something I don't really consider. Theoretically taking a car might be faster. In reality this is only true late at night when there are no other cars on the road. Otherwise it can be as slow going as the train, between the traffic and the rigorously enforced speed limits.

These are the realities of living in a country reclaimed from swamps. They are trying to build a speed train track but when they tested it the train caused such vibrations in the wet, loose earth they worried it would upset the tracks. (Disclaimer: this last reported to me third hand).

Date night!

I have been feeling very stressed and had to take a half day off yesterday for annoying things. So FH said, "let's go out tonight for dinner", even though it is not traditional festive weekend evening (also because he didn't want to do the previous night's dishes but I only learned that later).

We both came straight from work, FH having made a reservation at a place that looks like it is under new management, De Italiaan. It felt exactly like a date! I was leery as I was getting pretentious-vibes from cycling by & the place always seeming to be jam-packed full 'o' folks. But I was totally off the mark! The place is very tiny, granted, and we were seated near the open kitchen. I might have been annoyed if FH had not taken the aisle seat as there was a lot of coming and going by waiters (he is very nonchalant about these things whereas I...). Our waiter was informed, polite, attentive but not overbearing. We had a bottle of wine chosen and poured into glasses in an unheard-of 5 minutes of being seated. Service of food then came in Standard Amsterdam time, that is to say, maybe a bit more of a pause than Americans might enjoy but which I prefer as this gives me time to enjoy a starter and a main by gaining my appetite back.

Starter was an excellent antipasta, followed by oven pizzas for both of us. Everything was delicious and it was fun to watch the kitchen working very hard. I would absolutely come back in a heart-beat, it was a truly (and very rare) Lovely Dining Experience. You can get nice food just fine in Amsterdam, but actual pleasant experience is very rare indeed.

Weekend Round Up!

We had a relatively quiet weekend. My brain was completely fried when I got home at 10:30 from Cologne after one nice beer before I sat in the train for several hours. It seems someone threw themselves in front of the train in front of ours and we waited an hour or so before they could resume service. Evidently this is not as uncommon as I thought. What a shame for the train conductors!

Saturday we did very little indeed. The snow is melting but it was still chilly under foot. We checked out a pharmacy that comes from the UK (it sucks alas) to see if they had a certain product FH is looking for. As our route back passed the Japanese shop, we had to stop to get nice things from there. The rest of the day was spent catching up on small tasks I've been too busy to do over the week. In the evening I had a four-month-in-the-planning girls' night with just a few of my oldest friends here. So funny to think we used to go to this particular restaurant back in the day when we were all single and gossip about men! Now we are all paired up, two of us engaged to marry. Even the resto has undergone a change in management and aquired a new coat of paint. It was not a late evening, we were all pretty tired.

Sunday we took a walk and I tried to make dumpling but pooped out again. Yes, exciting life!