The full set of photos are here.
All signs may be pointing towards global warming, and they may not make winters like they used to, but each of the last 4 winters have been remarkable in one way or another in terms of ice or snow. Last winter, we got probably the most accumulation of snow I’ve ever seen here, eventually up to about 8 inches (hey, it’s a lot for us), and December had the lowest average temperature in decades: an average high of -1.1C. It was an intense month, but then January and February were tame and snowless. The previous winter, 2009-2010, we were hit by frequent snowstorms. Between December and mid-February, it snowed more times than I could count and instead of melting away the next day, it usually stuck around for awhile due to cold temperatures. In 2008-2009, things froze up enough to allow a fair bit of natural ice skating for the first time since I’d moved here. Some kids didn’t know how to get around on the ice since they’d never had the chance to skate outdoors in their lifetimes. Unfortunately, I missed out on going to canals or lakes that were frozen enough to walk on and had to settle for looking at photos others had taken of walking or skating on the ice.
This winter was not promising to be anything but depressingly disappointing. For two months it was exactly the weather I hate most: wet and windy. Ok, it was also rather mild, but the short days that were so gray the sun may as well have not even bothered to try to shine on us were getting to me, and I’m from Oregon. I was also disappointed for B who just missed all the snow we got last winter and I thought it wasn’t fair that now, his first full winter here, it was being utterly not winter-like. But then there was a sign of change. It was going to get cold, quite a bit colder than we’d been used to these recent months, and it seemed like it might stay that way for awhile. This could be interesting.
In the end, it was the strongest cold snap I’ve experienced in the Netherlands. Nearly two weeks of sub-zero temperatures and low temperatures that were very low indeed. It was a hard adjustment, not only to the cold, but early on there was a strong east wind that bit at your face. In the five minutes it takes me to walk from the train station to my work, my legs went numb (I admit jeans are not the best clothing to wear in such weather). The Dutch meteorological bureau started posting, along with their usual map of current temperatures on their website, a map showing what the temps were with the wind chill. Colors used: deep blues and purples, like frostbitten fingers and toes.
But so far we were only freezing every time we stepped outside. Nothing interesting was going on. It hadn’t snowed. The canals didn’t seem to be freezing at all, perhaps because the wind was too strong and pushed around the water too much. But after a few days some snow finally arrived, along with the requisite freakout that happens as soon as you seen a flake fall here (as I heard a guy say to a friend on the train that morning, as a sprinkling of snowflakes came down that was so slow you could count them: “Oh no, a flake! We can’t go any further!”). By that afternoon, the trains stopped, the freeways turned to parking lots, people left work early knowing it would take hours to get home. But at least it looked pretty and provided some distraction on a Friday afternoon. The following day, bright and sunny, was perfect for some sledding on the hill of the Burcht in Leiden.
During the next week though, the ice dominated. The canals finally iced over and the ice grew. I saw a photo of people skating on the canals in Amsterdam, just like the good old days, an occurrence that people often said wasn’t possible any more in the warm inner city. It was exciting. And if people were on the ice in Amsterdam, could we do the same in Leiden? I’d seen the canals in the center of Leiden get mighty frosty, but never icy enough to hold a person. But skaters were being spotted around town. And by midweek, B and I decided we had to go out on the ice while we could. We didn’t have skates — finding skates anywhere was nearly impossible, they were being snatched up as soon as they arrived in stores — but no matter, we could go sliding around. We went out one evening after dinner, on a clear night with the full moon beaming down. We went to a canal not far from us and I slid off the canal edge onto the ice and shuffled out to the middle. It was awesome to be standing in the center of the canal.
We followed voices to where the center of the action was: the wide area where the Oude and Nieuwe Rijn meet. Around a dozen skaters were buzzing around, plus the cafe at that point, Annie’s, had put a few tables out on the ice.
Everything was still very cold and icy that weekend, but a thaw was in the forecast, so it was the perfect last chance to do as much skating as could be done and to enjoy this rare state while it was with us. On that Saturday, the usual 20 minute walk to the train station turned into a 2 hour dawdle as I took photos and we went out on the ice again, this time along the Galgewater. Once we got to the bridge over the water on the Prinsessekade, and we faced the scene below, looking like an old Dutch painting.
We shuffled out amongst the skaters and non-skaters enjoying the wintery day.
There was even a proper koek en zopie stand, the way it should be, keeping the people out there warm with hot chocolate, gluhwein, and soup.
The next day was meant to be the end of the two-week freeze. It was amazing how quickly I’d become ok with -8 degrees as a high. Far from being sick of the cold, I didn’t want to go back to rainy blehness. Though we didn’t originally plan to head out that afternoon, we needed to make a visit to the V&D and afterwards we could not pass up having a warm drink at one of the tables Einstein’s had set up on the frozen canal.
Sure, my bum was frozen numb thanks to the cold passing above and below me, and the tea I had barely made a dent in the cold I felt, but it was great to sit out there. A steady stream of people skated past. Some skaters stopped and had a break at the cafe, sitting at the table in their skates. A couple of guys at the table next to us smoked pipes. My amazement went from the poor girl who had to take orders out there, whose fingers were red from the cold, to the servers wearing only t-shirts who came out with the drinks.
Going to work the next day there was the sad discovery of the canals going wet and slushy thanks to some rain. Soon it was back to the mild and wet weather we’d already had so much, making the wintery interlude feel distant and unreal.
From the frozen middle of winter, I’m jumping back a few months to when summer finally showed up briefly during the first weekend in October. Following on somewhat from last Sunday’s post, today’s photos were taken the same weekend at the Sunday Market in the Westerpark in Amsterdam (this was the day we escaped the 3 October insanity). It was a lovely day, perfect for browsing the market and then plopping in the grass for awhile to soak up the sun.
A guy bringing a Caribbean feel to the market at a mojito stand. The bananas aren’t real bananas, but maracas.
A mom dancing with her daughter to the Caribbean music
B lounging on the grass
Amsterdam Centraal in the setting sun
Leidens Ontzet, aka 3 October, is Leiden’s big, annual city festival. It is to celebrate the end of a seige of the city by the Spanish in 1574 and is commemorated in a number of ways. It is rich with traditions: parades, reenactments, a hutspot meal, and, the top of them all, the handing out of haring en wittebrood (herring and white bread). Hutspot is served because some that was found abandoned in a kettle outside of Leiden was a sign that the seige was over, and the herring and bread was what was fed to the starving citizens who had been holed up within the city walls.
This was definitely the most I’ve experienced the festival since living in Leiden, due to living in the center now. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I got was a 4-day onslaught of drunken crowds, music, and general madness. Those things may apply to most 3 October celebrations, but I think it was all a bit ramped up this year. One thing was the timing. The 3rd was on a Monday, so most bars decided to get things started on Friday. The bar across the street from us was no exception and never seemed to close for those 4 days. Every night music was blasting till 5 or 6 in the morning. Our view was blocked by a temporary cover they put up spanning the street. When we came home, we had to squeeze past patrons of the bar who greeted us with helpful statements like “you live here? Hope you’ll be able to sleep tonight!” After a couple of evenings of putting up with the pounding music from across the street, we fled to Amsterdam for a day to get some peace and quiet.
Then there was the coinicidence of the weather. After the worst summer in decades, the sun decided to show itself all that weekend. Instead of the miserable, gray, wet fall weather that always seemed to be the curse of 3 October celebrations in the years I’ve lived here so far, this year we were treated to a taste of the summer we didn’t have. Everyone was out in t-shirts and shorts and skirts. People weren’t driven indoors by the rain. The party atmosphere only increased.
It was an… interesting time. Perhaps things will be a bit less insane this year, but we might want to look into a weekend away this time.
Photos below and more on Flickr.
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In an attempt to catch up on my backlog of photos, and to post more regularly, I am going to try to post photos every Sunday. We’ll see how successful I am…
Every September for one weekend, historic houses, castles, churches, windmills, warehouses, and much more open their doors to the public to share their past and show their architecture. I’ve gone 2-3 times in Leiden and there is never enough time to visit all the places that would be wonderful to see, especially since many of them are accessible by tour only and the tours fill up early.
Regardless, B and I managed to hit quite a few places: the Sint Elisabeth Ziekenhuis, the outside of the newly renovated observatory (the tours were full), an old warehouse, the former orphanage, and, top on my list, De Meelfabriek, a former flour mill that is in a state of decay. We got there too late on Saturday to join one of the tours, so we planned better for Sunday and got a spot for later that afternoon. It is fitting that the theme for 2011 was New Use – Old Building; many of the places we visited are used in different ways from what they were originally built for. Photos of many of the places we visited below, or the full set begins here.
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In June I went to the US for a bit more than two weeks. The main purpose of the trip was to attend a family reunion in Oklahoma. To make the trip more interesting, I also visited Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota and Austin, Texas. I posted about the Minnesota portion of the trip earlier. I’m jumping ahead here to part three: Oklahoma. Austin will come later. The full set of Oklahoma photos are here.
My grandpa grew up during the Depression in a large family in a rural part of Oklahoma. From the stories I’ve heard, it was a life I can barely imagine: learning self-sufficiency, spending days at nearby swimming holes, hunting for squirrels. All with one or more of his many siblings and friends from neighboring families. It was a tough life, but one they look back on fondly. Over the past couple of decades, all the brothers and sisters and their growing families had regular reunions. They were usually held in the SE part of the country though so my family was never able to make it. I normally wouldn’t go to middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma all the way from the Netherlands, but I wanted to attend this time since they would be remembering my grandpa who passed away a couple of years ago. I also felt I should take the chance to see a lot of family I haven’t seen in at least 15 years, plus my mom, aunt, and uncle were all coming out from Portland.
B and I drove up from Austin, which took us a good 7 hours. I grew up in the country, but it is nothing compared to the area where my grandpa grew up. It’s a tiny town not very close to any other decent-sized town. Once we turned off the main highway, which didn’t have much along it, it was almost another half hour to get to where the reunion was. The town had one main street lined with closed-up shops. There was a gas station, a store, a couple of restaurants, and… that was about it. The remoteness, coupled with the Southern attitudes, made it a very different world. But it was surprisingly green and hilly. In some ways it looked similar to Oregon. It was actually rather pretty.
The lake where the reunion was held. It was a lovely spot.
Sunset over the lake.
The weekend was filled with meeting a dizzying number of relatives and hearing my great-aunts and uncles tell (and retell) stories from their childhood. We visited the family plots in the local cemetery. I helped my aunt tape photos from my grandpa’s life onto boards to display at the reunion and she reminisced about earlier parts of his life, such as when he was a chef in Portland. I often felt like there was so much family history I didn’t know.
The reunion drew to a close and my aunt and uncle flew home. My mom stayed for a couple more days which gave us the chance to spend a day in Oklahoma City, a 3 hour drive away. It was a bustling city compared to where we just came from, but it still didn’t have many tourist draws. Regardless, we managed to fill the day visiting the couple of things it does have: the memorial museum of the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, and the National Cowboy Museum.
The bombing memorial museum was quite well done, giving a short history of the federal building before recreating events from the morning of the attack. They then covered the full timeline of events from rescuing people from the rubble to the capture and trial of Timothy McVeigh. Outside, a moving memorial park symbolizes the moment of the blast and the lives lost.
An empty chair for each person who died in the bombing.
The smaller chairs represent children (there was a daycare in the building).
After the rather heavy experience at the museum, we went across town to the cowboy museum. Everything Old West was covered, from frontier days to rodeos and celebrity cowboys. Most rooms were just filled with cases of artifacts, but two parts were a bit more interesting: a replica Old West town you could wander around, and a rodeo ring.
After the excursion into the world of a Fly-Over State, it was time to say goodbye to my mom and head back south to Dallas before flying back to Amsterdam. I left B behind for a day before he followed with the hope of being allowed back into the country which, as we now know, fortunately had a happy ending.
I know technically it’s still sort of Christmas (Tweede Kerstdag or Boxing Day), but here’s a rundown on how I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day…
On the 24th, B and I decided to go out and see the 3 DJs be freed from the Glazen Huis. They had been locked in a glass box for 6 days and weren’t allowed to eat to raise money to help single African mothers who’d lost their husbands during wars or conflicts. We puttered around the square for over an hour, checking out the cafe where interviews were being held (the cafe being one of B’s usual hangouts when working during the week) and noting some of the crazy outfits people had. A trio of girls had on tinsely Christmas tree hats, but they were outdone by a woman dressed as a Christmas tree, complete with lights. We then joined the crowd around the house and were fairly near the front by the time the DJs were let out. We got caught in one fundraising effort, a kiss chain that was going around the square which raised 1 euro per kiss. An Indian woman was planning to pass the kiss on to B, but he got shy, so she kissed me and I passed it on to a woman next to me. B was glad I saved him, and the woman’s daughter laughed and said it was probably for the best, just in case her father sees her mom kissing another guy on tv. After bouncing around to songs and watching the DJs look wistful now that the end was here, the door was finally unlocked and they walked to a nearby stage to be reunited with their girlfriends and be given an apple, their first solid food all week. Then the final tally was revealed: over 8.6 million euros, which is just insane. We headed over to that stage ourselves just in time to see some fireworks going off. Everyone was in good spirits and dancing to the music that was playing from the stage.
We wandered back home, but on the way we decided to pop our head into the church that’s near our house. B was curious if they had a Christmas Eve service and we wondered what the church might look like when it’s in use. We followed some people in, turned a corner, and found an entire congregation facing the entry, all quiet and waiting for the choir to start, which we were standing right next to. So much for sneaking in at the back… We felt obligated to stay then and also we couldn’t just stand at the back, everyone was sitting down. So we grabbed a couple of chairs and hid in the corner. We’d been given sheets with the program, so I could at least see what was coming up. I’d never really thought about going to a church for Christmas, but it was nice, especially in such a grand, old church with the organ playing. The hour even struck while we were there, so we could hear the bell tolling the hour from inside the church, the same bell we can hear from our apartment, which I found pretty great. We stayed for a couple of songs and heard the preacher read the Christmas story and talk about the importance of children before we snuck out during a song.
On Christmas morning we first opened our presents. It was nicely filled under the tree, especially thanks to B’s parents sending things over.
Pre-present madness. Never mind the killer rabbit to the right, he just wanted in on the festivities (and our BLOOD….)
I got some nice kitchen items from B and a book I had asked for, De Zachte Atlas van Nederland. He also got me a bottle of Westvleteren 8. The bottle was wrapped thusly:
Monsterish present
From B’s parents, I had a gift bag that was very heavy. It turned out to be filled with not just one, but two bottles of maple syrup. One was shaped like a Santa penguin. We’d better get making pancakes.
Roughly one-third of the more than 750 ml of maple syrup I now have…
After a bit of relaxing with the presents, I got started on making dinner which took way longer than I thought it would. I’m so slow or inefficient or something… Anyway, instead of cooking turkey this year, I decided to roast a guinea fowl. It was a suggestion from a coworker as an alternative to turkey. I found a recipe online that seemed easy enough and it was easy to get a bird at a poelier in town. It wasn’t even that expensive. It was a free-range bird from France that had a bit of rusticness to it: there were a few feathers that still needed some plucking before it went in the oven. Not a step I’m used to doing. But it looked pretty good before getting roasted (photo taken by B):
Thank you, bird, for being so tasty…
I don’t have a photo of it post-roasting, but I can attest that it looked pretty good and tasted even better. Along with it I made an apple and Italian sausage stuffing, glazed sweet potatoes, and cranberry-orange sauce. For dessert, I baked a panettone bread pudding with amaretto cream sauce which was utterly decadent.
You, and my arteries, don’t want to know what this contains.
Today we are being lazy, I, at least, am still in my pajamas, and at most we might go to see Sherlock 2 later on. A good start to a chill week away from work so hopefully I start off 2012 well.
Last weekend, B and I went to Cologne to visit the Christmas markets. We had a wonderful time and overdosed on winter spirit and Glühwein. Sunday evening we got on the train home and had a quiet trip back, the sausages and booze making us sleepy. At some point on the way back I either left my camera behind or had it stolen. I’m not sure what happened or when. There was only about one place I might have forgotten it and only about one chance for someone to have taken it, so it seems so baffling that when I got home it wasn’t in my backpack. But it does seem to be gone, along with all of the photos I took during the weekend. And unfortunately I hadn’t downloaded the photos that were already on the card, so I also lost the photos I took while visiting friends for Thanksgiving, and photos taken after we put our Christmas tree up (a big lesson learned there to always clear the card before I go on a trip). I’m not feeling so horrible about the camera being gone (I bought it secondhand for not that much money), but I’m pretty gutted when I think about the photos that I’ve lost.
The Deutsche Bahn has a great lost and found database, so I entered my camera into it the same night we got home. It hasn’t turned up so far though, so my hopes for getting it back have dwindled greatly.
A bright spot after that was to find out this week that my kerstpakket from work was an iPad. It was quite a surprise. My company is small and doesn’t usually give us many nice perks like that. At most, we’ve gotten a USB stick and a mug. So I almost couldn’t believe that they’d bought everyone iPads. I wasn’t too thrilled either since I had no desire to have one, so almost immediately I decided that I would sell mine. I was going to put it up on Marktplaats, but before I could, I was asked by a colleague if she could buy it, strangely enough, since she’d just received one herself. She wanted it as a Christmas present for her boyfriend.
My temporary possession of an iPad.
It was all taken care of quicker than I could have hoped. For now I still have the box, and I admit I am tempted to take it out and see what it’s like, but it’s not like I don’t know where to find one if I want to give it a try. Selling it though will give me more than enough to buy a replacement camera, which works out quite nicely.
One cold and rainy day at the end of August, B and I decided to go to Apenheul, a place that’s like a zoo with only monkeys and apes, some of which are roaming around freely. We went despite the bad weather because we had a train discount ticket to use, so we wanted to head somewhere a good distance away to get the most out of the ticket. Besides, the forecast had not been that bad, there were going to be sun breaks later, but in reality it was a rainy day with the occasional dry break. Still, we had fun seeing so many monkeys and apes, some very closeup.
Taking photos was a challenge for me. I had bought my new (used) camera only about a week beforehand and this was the first time I really took it out and properly used it. And then it was to take photos of difficult subjects that didn’t often sit still. Straight away I felt I didn’t know what I was doing with the camera, but by the end of the day I was more comfortable with it. I was definitely happy with its incredible zoom ability and I got some great closeup shots taken from yards away. Some photos from the day below, more are on Flickr…
These were the first monkeys we encountered, scampering around and begging for some food. There’s a reason they make you either put your bags in a locker or carry them in a monkey-proof bag… These are called “doodhoofdsapen” in Dutch — “skull monkeys” because the markings around their face resemble a skull. I think they are called squirrel monkeys in English, probably because they’re so squirrely.
A rather tired-looking orangutan mom who looks like she’s done with her baby’s antics… One of the photos where I was quite pleased with my camera’s zoom.
Gorilla mom and baby.
A proboscis monkey (with some unfortunate window reflection). They were as weird as they look. A couple of the males had no problem showing another appendage of theirs to the crowd…
I can’t remember what these monkeys were called. As the day went on, they all blurred together and I took less photos. Partly that was due to the rain. Sometimes I felt rather foolish walking around in the rain while all the monkeys stared at us from underneath little shelters they had.
The silverback gorilla. He was a rather young silverback and still looked like he lacked confidence or experience. Especially compared to the male gorilla I saw at the Melbourne Zoo.
Right around the first of November, the winter lights started coming on around Leiden. They’d already been hung for a week or two, but now that it was post-turning-the-clocks-back, some extra light in the evening was needed.
In addition to the shopping streets spanned by lit garlands and banners of lights with the crossed keys of Leiden in the center, the trees along the Nieuwe Rijn are all hung with strings of little white lights. The row of trees in front of the old canal houses and reflected in the water is so simple, but incredibly beautiful.
Just wait until there is snow as well.
A funny story that happened the day after I took these photos: I was making a little video for my family to show them a bit of what it is like in the area where I live. I was standing on a bridge over the canal and doing a little introduction. In the background, some people took advantage of the dry, sunny (though cold) day to boat around town. They were in the video until they went under the bridge I was on. Later that evening I was watching the video again and happened to look at the name of the boat as it came near. Coincidentally, it was named Marie. What are the chances…
In June I went to the US for a bit more than two weeks. The main purpose of the trip was to attend a family reunion in Oklahoma, but since I didn’t want to go all that way and only see tiny, rural towns and a lot of family I barely know, I looked into additional places I could visit. In the end, the trip contained two other parts: a visit to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, to see a college friend I hadn’t seen in 8 years, and a stay in Austin, Texas, which I was just interested in seeing. The photos below are from the first part in Minnesota. The full set of photos are here.
I’d had stopovers in Minneapolis once or twice in the past, but I didn’t know until rather recently that one of my college friends, M, had moved to the area. It wasn’t hard to fly there, so I stayed with her, her husband, and her various pets in their cozy house in St. Paul. The 4- (and 3-) legged inhabitants:
Nacoma
Not technically M’s dog, but they were dogsitting him the first couple of days I was there. I was sad when he had to go back to his owner’s house; he was such a sweet boy.
Whiskey
M’s energetic, mischievous, sweet, 3-legged dog
Whiskey in one of her favorite poses
Teryx
Massively fluffy and incredibly friendly
She has a second cat too, Caspian, but he was less people-friendly and usually hid out in the basement, thus I didn’t get a photo of him.
M and me
This was taken from the top of a bluff in the city of Red Wing. The stranger who took our photo took 3 shots and my eyes were closed in all of them. Oh well, at least M looks normal.
View of the Mississippi River from the Red Wing bluff
I was surprised to learn that the Mississippi ran through Minneapolis and St. Paul. It just didn’t connect with my idea of the river as belonging to the South. But such a long river has to start somewhere.
One day I went to downtown Minneapolis and took a walk along the river. There is an area with some of the old mills that once thrived there. I didn’t realize that companies like Pillsbury and Gold Medal Flour started in Minneapolis.
Stone Arch Bridge
A former railroad bridge now in use by cyclists and pedestrians. It is right next to the old mill area, as well as next to a large lock on the river.
Gold Medal Flour mill
Part was destroyed by a fire. Now it houses a museum dedicated to the history of the mills.
M took me to a national cemetery where Tom Burnett is buried, one of the people who helped bring down flight 93 on September 11.
My friend and her husband are passionate rock climbers. One of their favorite spots, aside from the Red Wing bluff, is Willow Creek, just across the border in Wisconsin. We drove there one day to enjoy the park and the water. Quite a few people were also climbing the cliffs next to the falls.
St. Paul skyline and the Mississippi River
