Golden jacket

how can you tell this in the US and not in the netherlands? 

first there is the ATM sign in the window and the ladies' barnes & nobles bag (but the latter of course doesnt mean anything, i still use american shopping bags here). most certainly the pavement. for pedestrians the pavement never looks like this in the netherlands (unless there is some construction going on), and it very often looks like this in the USA. also, the pavement will be more elevated from the remainder of the street (i guess at least twice as high as above). then the shoes; i guess she will exchange them for something more stylish once she arrives at her destination. this is something dutch people never do, but they also dont wear as high heels as americans tend to do (but they often do wear heels, and in general i think dutch women wear more stylish shoes than american women). i actually am seriously contemplating to do as the americans do; comfy shoes for the commute, fancy shoes for the office. i will be so much faster while trying to catch a train, and my nice shoes will stay nice much longer.... but i wouldnt want my colleagues to see that i am a shoe switcher.... hmmmm..... how to solve that problem! :)

and the jacket? i dont think many dutch women would wear one like this, but it was the reason for me to take this pic!

Dark cloud

ok, another picture from last saturday. this was the scene when we arrived at the balloon festival. despite the really dark cloud there, we were hopeful it would not be too bad.....

i guess it was just 5 minutes later when rain came pouring down and the entire event was cancelled.....  it is interesting though that hundreds of people can disappear in no time when its suddenly starts to rain... so why are people often so slow in supermarkets, or in train stations (on the stairs, not moving aside, etc etc).... ? :)

Concert beds

so... this is the inside of the famous amsterdam concert hall.... last month we went to a piano concert. as you can see, there are no chairs!! of course, normally there are chairs, but this was a special occasion. normally, the musicians are on the stage that you can see underneath the organ, but this time they were placed more or less between the audience. and yes, the audience brought their own mats, and some even brought blankets and pillows. the idea was to fully immerse yourself in the music. this was a piece for 4 pianos (and a little bit of organ, but they could have left that out for me personally). the piece is called "canto ostinato" by simeon ten holt, i guess here you can listen to some of the music (if you dont know it, i urge you to check it out!!). bluntly said, its repetitive piano music (4 pianos, as i said), and i really love it (although i know several people who cannot stand the repetitiveness of the music. i think its really wonderful, and lying down like that really fits this kind of music).

when i discovered about this concert, most tickets were sold out already. only places on a chair were still available!! luckily, they were quite a bit cheaper than the "sleeping" places (and no need to bring your own mat!) (20 euros vs 35, thats quite a difference). so.... me, tim and my sister got tickets and we went. we had great seats! not only could we see the musicians very well, we also had plenty opportunity to observe all those lying down. it was a great experience, and i think in the end we were a bit more comfortable on a chair than lying down... :) (listening to music like that at home is different from doing so in public..!!). it was fun to see some people (almost?) falling asleep, and others turning around seemingly uncomfortable.... :)

Staying here...

this is the museum square in amsterdam sometime last month on a beuatiful summer evening. i showed you some pics before from this square (as you can see here). in the back you see the rijksmuseum, but we were actually going to the building behind us, the concert hall.

anyways. yes. tim is in groningen and i am staying in amsterdam. because yes! finally, finally. finally!! i am working again. it has taken forever, with lots of frustrations, desperations, hope, lost hope, hours and hours in the gym, and even more hours of searching and applying for jobs. i did not enjoy this time, so i am extremely happy to be working again. 

in fact, i sent the application for the job i have now already end of february. was invited for an interview in may. did not get the job (this was painful as i made it to the last 2). was invited for another position at the same place, got it and started a few weeks later (mid-june). before i knew, i suddenly had to work again! and so, in this case, having work was more important than living together. its not ideal, but neither was the situation when i was without work while i so desperately wanted (and needed) to work!!

more about my work another time. now its about time i start working for today!!! :)) i can just tell you its science-related, but i am not working as a scientist in a lab anymore. and i am very happy about that too...... :)

Crazy clouds!

well hello!! i thought it was about time to post a new picture...... :)

i took this one a few weeks back, but only now i noticed the magnificent clouds... i didnt notice it when i took the picture, nor did i when i was looking at them at my computer.... only now, when i decided that the first of august was a good date to post again.....

so, this is amsterdam, and the weather has been good quite often the past few weeks. at times even hot. plenty opportunity to cruise the canals, as you can see here... we just came back from the theater, that you can see here to the left, on top it says "carre" in red letters.

well well well. lots has changed. other things have remained the same..... more on that in the coming posts? and yes, i most certainly am curious about the blogs i just to check regularly. i havent in a while... but i did think about you!! :) hope all is well!

Sitting lady

this statue is along the main street close to our apartment. it is a war monument, called the sitting lady, but i do not exactly know why it is associated with WWII (it was placed may 4th 1957. not at exactly this location, but somewhere close). in the back a woman just finished hanging laundry from the balcony. i was afraid she would think i was taking pictures of her, but i think she didnt notice. i actually was sort of taking pictures of her, i thought it was interesting together with this sitting lady.

many people around here hang their laundry from the balcony like this. until recently i only hung it on the balcony, but this week i tried the above method. as it hangs more freely, it dries faster. buuuttt... i am always afraid that i drop some of the laundry in the nieghbors garden (not freely accessible), or that the wind will blow it off the rack... if you look downstairs, you do see several pieces of laundry in various gardens..... some people hang out entire blankets and mattress covers, so they partially hang in front of their downstairs neighbors balcony, isnt that weird?!

Sample field

while most of the tulip fields were without tulips, at least the sample field still had quite some tulips (although i think also here about half was gone already). here we walked along many, many differently colored tulips. different shapes, leaves and sizes too. some hardly looked like a tulip anymore. some with simple names, fitting their looks, others with crazy names i cannot even remember. but all of them were labeled, a really nice display! it was a bit wet from the rain and i was wearing fancy shoes, but well....  above you see a coupld with their grand children. the girls kept asking question after question "but why....?" "and why do you think that...?" until their grandfather said: "well, not its enough with all these questions!"

today we had crazy rain too. nearly the entire day it rained without a break. some schoolkids were catching snails in the little greenery downstairs to our apartment and didnt seem to mind the rain. they all had little jars and when one showed us how many snails they got in there, they suddenly all got the urge to show how many they had. for some reason they were moving them to the next green spot across the street.... i hope the snails were as happy about that as they were... (i also wonder whether this project would have made me happy as a kid.... :D a few weeks ago some kids were cleaning the streets, they all got a tool to pick up trash and a bag to put it in. they were running like crazy when they saw a piece of garbage on the street, and very happy when they were the first to get it....)

Adult magnet

in the comments yesterday i read a far better title; adult & child magnet! and yes indeed, as much as it is a childrens magnet, these water sprayers are an adult magnet too. this man (and i assume) his son spent a good 5 minutes biking through it. we were not sure who enjoyed it most. they would bike through the water, then around the square, and suddenly they would be back again. both of them were completely soaked at one point.... me and tim made up the story that he had had a fight with his wife, took out the kid for a ride, and would come back soaked, just to make her even more angry. the other possibility was that they were already divorced, and that she was coming to pick up their son. for fun he was arriving completely wet.... most likely; they were just having fun!! (i do hope they didnt have to bike back home too far, as it was not that warm, especially not when wet).

Water play

the past week we had very mixed weather. sometimes sunny, then windy, then cold again.... here it was so-so. but that didnt bother the boys playing here! i guess every city has such a waterplay, where water comes out of the ground at random times, and kids are always attracted by it.... at first they run careful, trying not to get wet, but in the end they are usually soaked. the days are getting longer and longer. the sun goes down after 9 by now! thats something i did miss when living in boston.

i wrote about the entrance gate in the background once before. you can see that here.

Another impression

some trouble with my slow laptop prevented me from posting yesterday. but here, one last photo of kings day (i keep thinking queensday!). as you can see, quite a lot of people were dressed in orange. and like someone said, its indeed comparable to an american yard sale (but a gigantic one!). people put their stuff out on blankets; i think most of the stuff was baby/childrens clothes and toys. while we were walking around, one mother discovered that her child had just put his current shoes between the shoes for sale... whahahahaha, that was so funny. maybe he didnt like his shoes..?

too bad we dont have some yard sales every weekend, like in the US. i really enjoyed driving/walking around on our way to somewhere, anywhere. and then suddenly seeing a yard sale with lots of interesting stuff for nearly nothing... thats how we got part of our furniture.... :) i dont think i ever saw a yard sale in the netherlands, and i am not sure whether they are allowed (although doing it in your own yard should be ok, no...?).

King's day!

since last year we have a king, and so the traditional queen's day is now renamed king's day (the dutch havent had a king since 1890...!). its also moved from april 30 to april 27 (the birthday of our current king). but... since april 27 is on a sunday this year, we had kings day today; the 26th... complicated, no?

but the day itself isnt complicated at all. you should wear at least something orange (as this is the dutch royal color. the royals are named "van oranje", which literally means "from orange"), you go out and have fun! if it falls on a weekday, it means the day is off (for most people; shops are also mostly closed or only open half days). the day is spent outside; kids (mostly, but some adults too) put all the stuff they dont want anymore on a blanket in the park, and other dutch in need of this crap buy it for not too much money (mostly). many kids do tricks, or play an instrument, or sing songs like you see above, and hope to get some money. its all fun when the weather is nice.... :)

well, the weather wasnt bad at all! and this was my first kings day since a loooong time. we bought some crap from people who didnt want it anymore, walked around a lot, were dressed in orange, and saw the fireworks ending all the festivities!

Flower ladies

i just couldnt resist..... 

many of the tourists (especially the ladies) were almost diving into the tulips, and wanted to be photographed like you see above, surrounded by an ocean of tulips. somehow i didnt have this desire myself..... i also wouldnt know what to do with such a photo of myself.... :P

others had cameras on long sticks and were swirling around between the flowers, while taking pictures of themselves.... yep, at some point i was more fascinated by the people than the flowers.

Dutch tulips!!

ever since we are back in the netherlands, i have been wanting to go to the flower fields. as we hardly had any winter, and quite some warm days in march and april, the flowers are blooming a bit sooner than planned. to see flowers, you can of course visit the "keukenhof", the largest flower garden in the world. i guess thats something most dutch never did (at least i didnt). each year its only open for 8 weeks, and about 100.000 people visit it each week (!!). we are still dutch, so an entrance fee of 15 euros (about 21 dollars) is too much if you can just walk along a sea of flowers for free.....

here, we probably were the only dutch, and also the only ones that did not enter the flower beds. the sign was so cute, how could you disobey that?! there were so many fields, and just this one tiny sign at the start....

Another race!

as i had recently done the 7.5 km race, i thought tim should do one as well. so... i signed him up for a 10K this sunday, also in our neighborhood. the weather was less perfect than when i had to run, but it all started out fine. there were quite a bit more contestants, and i didnt really know the route they were running, so i decided to just wait at the fnish to take some pictures. at the start i already couldnt find him, but later on tim at least recognized his black cap in a few of the pics, whahahaha. a 5K and 10K run started at the same time, and before i knew, the first had finished (in under 20 minutes!!). there was a group of young people in pink shirts from an amsterdam high school. these 2 5K runners had ran together, but right at the finish the one in red trousers decided to pick up the pace. it was so funny to see! they looked at each other and then ran the last few metres like crazy, i think the red trousered boy was first!

just around the time i was expecting tim, it started to rain. and real hard. even some hail came down. beeehhh. so i almost missed him again... and he didnt see me at all, too focused on running. he did it in 49 minutes, 11 minutes faster than his practice time!! (and more than 15 minutes faster than i would...). i thought it really was a nice race, with a 5K, 10K and a half marathon, as well as a 1K kids run (that was the cutest to see). here are some more pictures.

today obama is visiting the rijksmuseum in amsterdam. apparently, the entire museum square is off limits because of that. as the dutch are also hosting the nuclear security summit, the hague is impossible to reach as well, and its forbidden to take pictures at our airport, even at the panorama deck for the time being. i guess its the best time to leave the country for a bit!

Pedestrian crossing

someone put a sticker on the headless man.... i must say i dont know who that guy might be...

after the crazy sunny day on the first official day of spring, we had 2 cold, rainy and windy days. beeeehhhh. and i think tomorrow wont be any better. i do hope we didnt get all the great weather on that one day, that would be really sad....

Beach weather

when the weather was crazy sunny and rather warm, we drove by the beach. its still early enough in the seaon for the parking to still be free (jaaajj!). the little beach cottages are still in storage and not yet lined up on the beach, and dogs can still roam around without restriction.

i thought this woman was taking a selfie with her phone, but it turned out she was taking a picture of a sign on the beach, haha. 

we just had a walk. i didnt even check how cold the water was, but we saw some kids playing in their shorts!!

DInosaur egg

even though we could not find a signature, we recognized this baby dinosaur as most likely made by ROA, whose murals we also saw in miami and a deserted place in california (a picture i still have to post). ROA is originally from belgium, but he has been all around the world to paint the most amazing murals... i like the mom with the 2 kids in the "bakfiets", all 3 looking at it...

yesterday they announced obama will visit amsterdam while he is in the netherlands for the nuclear security summit in the hague. just now we watched some program where they interviewed some american tourists in amsterdam. one lady mentioned that perhaps obama would be disturbed by all the graffiti we have here (indeed, we have a lot more graffiti, lots of ugly graffiti too, than boston for example). and 2 young girls said that they didnt like they have to pay for everything, even for a glass of water (thats true, and i also miss the glass of water you immediately get in an american restaurant).

Purple field

i can never ignore purple... when im in a shop, i automatically pick out the purple clothes, socks, bags... anything! so i defenitely didnt miss this purple field when biking past it. but we had to go back another time, with camera, to get some pictures. we havent had much of a winter here in the netherlands. and no snow. buuuhh (so i was very jealous to see the snow in boston!). it even has been unseasonably warm at times, and so i read these crocuses are out a month early... 

i took this picture last weekend. while having breakfast, the sun was shining like crazy. behind glass it seemed like a wonderful day that needed to be spent outside. so we got our bikes and as soon as we were out, i wanted to go back inside. it was cold!!! so we did just a short bike tour around our neighborhood. at the purple field someone else was already taking pictures, as you can see, but i didnt want to wait until he was done (cold!), and just included him in my picture...

today, on the other hand, it really felt like...well.. almost summer! everyone was out and about, the news mentioned it has never been warmer on this day in the netherlands before (at least since people started measuring it), and we sat in the sun on the balcony with bare arms!! tomorrow its supposed to be even warmer....

Free flowers!!

yesterday, there were free (!!) tulips available on the dam square in amsterdam. last year, while still in boston, i had seen the pictures on biebkriebels blog (here), so when i read this event was coming up again, i wanted to see it for myself! it marks the start of the tulip season; tulips are now available everywhere again, and it is a way for the florists to promote the tulip (and flowers in general). the girl with the orange jacket was with the organization of the event. her jacket says; "its time for tulips again!"

when we arrived, the event had been going on for 2 hours or so. i was a bit surprised and disappointed that the flower-pick-area was fenced off (but maybe without the fences it would be totally uncontrollable?), and i also didnt see the "artwork"; the tulips were placed in a pattern so that from above it looked like a particular painting. i think we were too late; many tulips had been plucked already! in total there were some 200,000 free to pick for anyone who was willing to stand in line a little. thats what we did; we both got a plastic bag and were free to pick as many tulips as we liked! we both filled our bags and that was more than enough (now at home we have 2 full vases, its so pretty!!), but some asked for a second bag or brought big bags themselves; i really wondered what those people were going to do with SO many flowers... they came with the bulbs still attached to them, so i am now in the process of drying the bulbs. then i have to wash them and get all the green and roots off and then they can be planted later this year (i had to look all that up, i had no clue!). so... i hope my mom wants some bulbs, as we dont have a garden. apparently, most tulips need to be taken out of the ground each year after flowering, dried, cleaned and kept till its time to plant them again...

Most popular

apparently, google maps panoramio (I had never heard of that before), knows that in Amsterdam, this sculpture is one of the most photographed places. also the museum behind it, and the dam square are popular locations to photograph. the red light district not so much, because you are not allowed to take pictures there (i didnt know that that was not allowed, wonder how they enforce that? and can they really ban photography in an entire section of the city?).

on January 1st, the I Amsterdam was indeed rather busy. mostly with people climbing onto it, posing for pictures. the guy on the "T" remained there for quite a while, just standing still like that, which was quite funny to watch...