Occupy Zombie-Land

Hello again!  First month down - success!  Everything so far has been going great and I'm feeling more and more Dutch every day as I cycle to work keeping pace with the morning rush.  Romeo the cat has squeezed his way back into our home again (ground floor only) and become more and more a member of the family.  I'm pretty sure he'll be getting a kitty-bed for Christmas this year.  As long as he behaves himself. 

nap time

wakey time

The other night we got take-away from one of the many indonesian restaurants nearby.  That's the specialty here, the competition is high, so you really have to be good to survive in the business. 

Here's an eggplant parm I made in my efforts to spice up life as a veggie - yummy!  

The Netherlands is a really good place to be if you want to go veggie - in fact, there's even a vegetarian butcher in town.  Yes, a vegetarian BUTCHER.  They really have the texture down perfect, so you can't really tell the difference.  Check out their website (sorry it's in dutch - but i think the pictures are worth looking at):

http://www.devegetarischeslager.nl/shop/vegetarische-slager-lijn/vegetarische-slager-kipstukjes


Last weekend Ryan and I went to Amsterdam to enjoy Halloween and check out one of our favorite comedy acts - Boom Chicago.  They're an extension of Second City, but permanently in Amsterdam.  While I did some shopping Ryan took a stroll down memory lane past his old house / office where he lived and worked with 5 or so colleagues a few years back.  As he puts it,  it was like an episode of the Real World with coworkers.

Ry's old street

Old church with ringing bells.  These are the same churchbells that Anne Frank wrote about in her diary - her house is just a block away.

Later that night we ventured over to the Occupy Amsterdam site.  It was really cool to see how huge this movement has gotten.  It was really well organized, with lots of flyers, people discussing ideas, boards where people could post things they needed / things they could offer (like hugs), signs available to specify what language you needed things to be translated into, couches, tents, a tented kitchen area for large meals, and more.  There was even a band playing later in the night!  Almost felt like a festival - lots of energy, open minds, and courage.

stack of books = public library  :)

pretty sweet teepee

general assembly meeting - in dutch of course

and then just another local s&m shop around the corner  :)

After walking through the Occupy site, we hopped on a tram to make sure we would get to our show on time.  After sitting on the tram for a few minutes we got a little impatient, as it wasn't moving at all.  We could see flares and hear drums, so we decided to get off the tram to check out what all the commotion was about.  Turns out there was a random parade of 1000+ zombies marching through the city. All transportation was brought to a halt, and time pretty much stood still as the zombies crawled along...

where the heck does one get a tractor from in the middle of amsterdam??

these are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood,..

excuse me - i think you spilled a little something on your shirt.

And what better way to debrief from a zombie parade than to eat french fries with chopsticks while plotting out the plan for the night on the city gay-map?

It was a great night (besides the comedy show which could have been better), but you really can't go wrong in amsterdam. we caught a late night train home to the hague (they run 24-7), and biked home exhausted, and laughing at the few costumed stragglers who were still wandering around the city in outrageous attire.

This week I attempted to make a dutch staple dish - the stamppot.  It's supposed to be basically mashed potatoes with veggies mixed in (like kale, sourkraut, carrots, ).  But I was a bit careless with the measurements and just put all my bags of ingredients together, and ended up with a giant bowl of kale and sourkraut with a dash of potato.  whoops!

looks more like zombie brains.

That's all for now folks.  This weekend we're planning to head into amsterdam for the annual museum night - something like 45 museums are open till 2-3am, with dj's and what looks to be a really cool atmosphere.  Should be an experience!  

Pilgrimage to IKEA

First week of work = success!  One down, hopefully many more to go.  I'll be even happier when the catching up phase is over and I can actually contribute something.

A little about my team - we're very international.  The team is about 15-20 people (5 of which are actuaries).  The team includes people from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Iran, Israel, India, Singapore, Japan, the Philippines, and I'm the token American.  Looks like my first few assignments will include Italy, Spain, and Hungary - i'm looking forward to hopefully getting to do some on-site visits.  My door to door journey to work takes about 15 minutes.  However, add on an additional 5-10 minutes if there's heavy rain and winds (this includes time to park bike at work and sulk in my soaking-wet, dripping attire...)

my "car"

Ryan and I found a nice, hole-in-the wall Italian restaurant that does amazing mushroom risotto.  Tastes like it was made by someone's grandma and shipped over directly from Italy.

no pictures when my mouth's full!

On those nights when there's not enough time to cook a real meal or go out, we found something at the grocery store made just for our kind:  "Big Americans" pizza!

so big!

Our friend Romeo still religiously makes sure we give him attention:

We found a pretty good thai restaurant (it's no Elephant Trail, but the closest yet).  They do take-away, so when I was sick with a cold last week we did that for dinner.  The chilis definitely cleared up my sinuses!

there are little hearts carved into our steps - so cute!

Over the weekend we made our first pilgrimage to the Hague Market - apparently the "largest market of its kind in Europe."  It's pretty much crap followed by more crap, and just when you think you've had enough crap and want to go home, you get to the food section.  The food is something else!  TONS of produce stands with people yelling left and right, herbs, spices, meat, fish - you name it, they've got it!

one of several stands offering fresh fish

mmm...heads

Between the two of us, we did a pretty good job.  For only 30 euros, we got a pretty ridiculous amount of food (compared to what we'd get at the grocery store).  The size of our backpacks limited the quantity we could bring home, considering we had to bike our treasures home through pouring rain and knock-you-off-your-bike winds.

the prize

So that was Saturday.  Sunday we made the pilgrimage taken by all expats - to IKEA.  The land of home furnishings where you could easily spend a week and not get through the whole store.  Since we have no car, getting there involved taking a tram, a train, and a bus.  We went to the one in Delft which is actually the store headquarters (surprisingly it's not in Sweden).

eagerly awaiting the bus which will take us to the enchanted land...

the monolith of glory

Ryan and I both had never been inside one of these kingdoms, but had heard many tales.  We started off with lunch in the store restaurant.

princess cake is a must.

someone's excited about the free-refills on soda (the one place in Holland where you can get them!)

the legendary swedish meatballs.  I ordered the small plate (10), but unfortunately you only get a toothpick-flag if you order the larger plate (15).  I worked my charm and got a flag anyway...muah ha ha ha ha....

let the journey begin

a demo room - oh boy!

how do we get out???

We didn't do too much damage on this trip considering we have a fully-furnished apartment, but we got some ideas for a couple things we want to buy next time (a bookshelf and a dresser).  Those would have been difficult to carry home on a bus, train, and tram, so we'll  have to make friends with someone with a car to help us out.

That's it for now, more exciting news from Sarah van Konrad and Ryan van Hinchey to come!