The coolest thing in the Red Light District...

Grandma and Grandpa are here! We've had a busy day today, spin around the canals on a boat, the Red Lights district!


Well actually me and Grandma sat down for a Heineken by the canal as grandpa walked down further by himself to check out the "action".


Grandma: ...you see, he just walks off and I have to sit and worry about him!


Me: oh, come on, he'll be right back, he just went to check out the naked ladies in the windows


Grandma: I know, what if he has a heart attack!???


My grandma is the worrier type. If someone is 5 minutes late to a family gathering she'll start calling the local hospitals.


Well 10 minutes later grandpa came back and super excited too!


Grandpa: Come on! I HAVE to show you something!!


Me: oh we don't care granpa, the ladies are not even naked, they're all wearing bras...


Grandpa: no, no, EVEN BETTER! Come here, come on, I've never seen anything like it!!

We had to walk down the street and see this:

(don't worry, he is only posing)

Grandma: well, since I'm up... show me the naked ladies...

After all the excitement we took a train to my town and now they're both safe and sound, away from drugs and prostitutes, snoring in the couches.

I want to be just like them when I'm 80!!!

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On a bike through Weerribben...

Vito: "SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

No it's not the way Vito speaks to me, it was just an honest advice in response to my: "ALL the bugs are going into my mouth...!!! Ptewww!!!"

We were speeding along on our bikes past the cows chewing grass on one side and past the evergreens and big bushes of flowers on the other.

What a lovely getaway we had. Thursday was a holiday so we decided to take advantage and booked two days over in the North East of Holland. Sounds far? Well it's just about 2 hours drive! (Oh, look on the picture, me making love to the camera and there is Vito trying his hardest not to laugh at me...) Btw, do you see the big orange sun on my t-shirt?? hehehe sunny all the time!

Thurday at noon we headed out and were there by 2pm. Within 30 minutes we were already on our rented bikes that were waiting for us outside the hotel. The area is known for neverending bike paths. The first day we decided to take it super easy and only biked 20 kms... And I realized I made a pretty big goof up and took my camera leaving the battery in the charger... No problem I still have my phone camera! BUT! That picture you see up there is basically one of the very few that I took before the battery on my phone died! Uffffffaaaaa! However, I remained reasonably calm since I knew I could click over to good ol' flickr.com and find pictures of the very things that I wished to take, taken by others! Hey, better then nothing, but good enough to tell the story...

The next day we headed out on a 50 km bike ride through about 4 towns and the Weerribben National Park area. In the park itself we rode by two gorgeous little towns: Kalenberg and Ossenzijl. The houses in those towns are straight out of story book! The towns itself are on tiny little islands conected by bridges. (What fun riding over them especially when some lady with two kids on her bike are riding right at you...)

Here is a great pick I found on flickr from some Japanese guy that was apparently in the area just 2 weeks before us... :)

More houses and more canals...

And look, how perfect! Someone was good enough to take a nice close up of one of the many COWS!!! Saved me the trouble of stopping and getting of my bike. Oh, and check out the house with the roof make of these stick thingis. Apparently very traditional, most houses had such roofs.

Super tired... and I still didn't finish telling about next day's visit to Giethoorn...! It'll have to wait, because my GRANDPARENTS are in AMSTERDAM! T'hat's right! I'll be hanging out with them tomorrow and we are going on a canal boat ride! I know, very toursity, but it's ok because I have my very OWN tourists to entertain!!! Wheeee!!!

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Intermission on the couch

So tired! But WOW! What a fabulous two days among the cows, pretty canals and the most story book style houses you've EVER SEEN!!! (Even on story book pages!) But... yes, now tired... we cycled 50km yesterday!

Also a shout out to mama Zuli :) it was her birthday yesterday, she turned 23!!!! Happy birthday mommy!!!!!! ;)

(hmm... this makes y mom younger then me... but whatever no one is counting!!!)

All kinds of stories tomorrow....

PS: I totally got away with wearing Vito's jeans... I literally put them back into the closed IN FRONT of him but he didn't realize what I was doing I guess (or why). Later though, I did tell him I wore them. "Hmm... Really?? How, when? I just took them out of the closet??" "Well, I super sneakily walked by you and put them back in there... while you were... watching..."

Tune in next week for another exciting episode when Alexandra wears Vito's shirt in a super clever attempt to execute the Layered Look...

haaaaaaahaaaa...ok too tired, must go relax....

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Dilemma...

Let's say you borrowed your guy's jeans...

Do you:

a) call him and tell him about it...
b) ask him if you can borrow his jeans and when he gives permission tell him that you are already wearing them...
c) DON'T tell him about it...
d) if he sees you wearing them, DENY everything anyway...
e) confess to wearing them, then turn around and show him how PERFECTLY they fit on the butt!!!!

f) blog about it and ask for advice...

Come on ladies, r ya with me??

AND they're branded... G Star

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Rachel Ray rocks my world!

Yes, that Rachel is really something! She really is not jocking when she says her meals are 30 minutes. I used her recipe to make a soup and it really did take less then 30 mins! I google all recipes. However I did cheat even on a 30 min meal. The recipe calls for home made pesto... well I skipped that part and got store bought (but only because we didn't get a food processor yet). For the sandwich I only used mozzarella and prosciutto and a doublette of pesto. Hmm... oops I skipped a few steps didn't I? Anyway I like it and it was a very fast recipe. Why there is no Foodnetwork on tv here! I miss Rachel's hysterical laughter! Oh did you happen to catch her "$40 a day" episode when she visits Amsterdam...? Well she did NOT stop laughing the ENTIRE TIME... hmm....

Ok, on a serious note, today after work is my first dutch class at the school. Very curious to see how it is.

Weather report: Brilliant SUNSHINE!!!

(As for the recipe, find it on foodnetwork.com under Rachel Ray, it's the Vegetable and Bean Soup with Pesto.)

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Weekend review...

I noticed that one of the interesting things about living in a new country is that you tend to want to do EVERYTHING! You're just in a very energetic mood that makes you act. I noticed that living "at home" makes you take it for granted and its so easy to get lazy to go out there and enjoy it. Maybe for that reason I made a mad dash to MOMA and the MET in nyc only after I realized I'd be leaving soon. Lesson learned: live your life as a tourist all the time!

This Saturday we went to the dunes behind the castle. Well not directly behind it, the dunes are huge and stretch along the coast for a few towns, but lets just say these were the dunes behind our town. Gorgeous! Well if you like nature, woods, fields and flowers and all that. I do! (Don't get me wrong, I love it to a point, especially the point that I'm only 30mins away from Amsterdam.) Anyway, the sun was shining, birds were singing flowers blooming and the SHEEP were Beehe-eehe-ing!.... Ahhhh... idylic...

Vito: um... honey, I believe these are goats actually...

Oh Goats, SHEEP, whatever, they're both cute and fuzzy and go- Beeehe! MEN, do they always have to be such know it alls!?

Look at this one, he was posing for me. SO cute!!

After roughing it in the wild... we decided to go completely cosmopolitan and went out for a dinner in Amsterdam. A Peruvian restaurant called Casa Peru on a pretty canal street. These pictures are from their website just to show the restaurant. In reality it was completely FULL! My cevice starter was delicious! The main course was yummy too, though we both agreed that the presentation could have been a bit more elaborate. The deserts of warm chocolate cake and caramel flan were really great! All in all the place is really gezellig ;) wait staff are super nice and the Argentinian red wine from Malbec that we had was mmm mmm good. Oh... and the walk back among the canals and lights reflecting in the water was double mm mm good...

Sunday apparently called for more rough action and I went indoor wall climbing with my new friends. It was a group of about 7 people leading the band were the guy from Colorado and one from Switzerland obviously two places where there are plenty of chances to climb some mountains. Anyway, it was really great fun and what a surprising feeling it is when you realize that you're climbing an inclined wall and you're resisting gravity.

I wonder what next weekend has in store... Well I kinda know. We are going to be roughing it some more in the forest! Unless it rains then we'll just have to rough at the indoor pool... Its a four day weekend, but what's more, MY GRANDPARENTS are going to be in TOWN! For now they are running around somwhere in Germany and Austria, ah those crazy kids!

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Gezellig - SIMPLE translation

Gezellig (in dutch) - cute, cozy, happy. Dutch language teachers always have a problem explaining this word to foreigners because there is no direct translation in the english language. It means a cozy atmosphere, but ALSO happy, warm, nice. They always struggle to try to explain what it means and why it's not JUST cozy, or JUST happy. They usually end up saying, well, there is just no good translation.... sorry....

Hmm... actually it's super EASY to translate this word! To all the Dutch teachers everywhere here is what you say: Well students, imagine this... it's RAINIG... not just the calm sprinkling rain, but STORMY rain, accompanied by WIND! DARK clouds moving fast in the SKY! ... it's COLD (never mind the fact that it's May) the tree tops are bending.... Now students, imagine that this has been going on for days... WEEKS!!! Now imagine calling up your favorite buds and getting together in town at a cute restaurant. Inside the candles are lit... nice hot food is served... some drinks... laughter! You actually feel happy and forget that outside the weather is re-enacting the War of the Worlds. That, students is the meaning of Gezellig.

Or if you're a lazy teacher, or get paid by the hour, you can simply say: Gezellig is a word used in Northern Europe and Scandinavia to describe the brief moments of ESCAPE you feel from the constant RAIN and COLD.

Here is a cute try from Wikipedia... again, trying to describe the feeling and not mentioning the fact that its a way to forget about the never ending rain and darkness.

You're welcome!

Now to illustrate my point. Here are a few pics taken in a SUPER gezellig restaurant nearby in town. It's inside a villa, the restaurant is on the second floor and has very funky interior, there is a lounge on the first floor featuring cozy sofas and cushy bar stools.

Coming from New York, supposed center of the world, I am very impressed with the restaurants here. First of all the food is really delicious, and every single detail is really executed with great care! I thought perhaps it would be necessary to go to Amsterdam for nice restaurants, but we have been to many right here in the area and they have been a hit every time! The interiors are always very interesting and lots of candles!

I managed to snap these photos right before the restaurant filled up and I would feel all embarrassed. Fear not people, I plan to do a lot more of such investigative reporting as I now have a handy camera phone that I can use sneakyly!

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