$4 a gallon?

Gas is about $8.70 a gallon here.

Happy girl

Yesterday we visited the childcare that Natalie will be attending. Natalie seemed at ease, for the most part. A little clingy, but she became interested in the sandwiches and playing outside.  She will be in a room of 14 children ranging in age from 2.5 years to 4 years. The ratio is larger than she is used to in Minnesota. It was strange to me that the nap room is a separate room. However only some of the children nap and this allows those who do nap to have quiet and those who do not nap to have more freedom.  This morning Mark and Natalie went back to visit for a couple hours to help her become accustomed to her new “school”.  Natalie did well, I guess.  Mark left her there and she had lots of fun and ate a snack of fruit. I think she was happy to see and play with other children. She has had much less exposure to other children since we left Minnesota. She has played almost every day with Ellie from our building, but not in a group setting.

She seems to be excited about going.  Since we left Minnesota, she has not had a familiar routine. Going to childcare provides a familiar routine for her and I think she will feel more settled when she goes. She will go all day tomorrow and then full time beginning next week.

Natalie is also happy to have more toys. We brought her favorite stuffed animals, all of her sofet cover and a few hard cover books and a few small toys. She was getting bored with them. Ellie and her mom, Laura, loaned us some toys and we found some toys in a storage locker downstairs. They were left by a former resident in another Medtronic apartment. Natalie is happy to have more toys than the few we brought.

 Speaking of play, a friend sent me this story from NPR about the value of play.  Thanks, Heather.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514&sc=emaf

I am also happier. Just feeling like I am getting my feet under me and beginning to understand what I am doing and how to manage. I am drinking a yummy cup of coffee, updating my blog while happy girl is sleeping upstairs.

Weather is spitty, damp, windy with temp in the upper 40s.

First adventure

Nicole, Natalie and I took our first adventure out of Maastricht. We went to Valkenburg, a beautiful little town east of Maastricht. Valkenburg is famous for its medieval castle that dates back to 1100 AD. It was a wonderful hike from the train station to the castle. The town is set on a hillside and the castle itself sites on top of the hill. So you walk up a slow grade on the narrow cobblestone streets lined with shops and restaurant’s. It was late morning and many of the restaurants were opening and were preparing for lunch, ah the smell of food and all we were going to have for lunch is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In the Netherlands eating out is treated like an event, so one can expect to sit for an hour or better for their meal. That just wouldn’t work with Natalie, so peanut butter sandwiches it was.

We made it to the castle by lunch time as you can see. We missed the entrance to the castle the first time and ended up on the wrong side of the hill and had to wind back up part of the hill to get to the castle entrance. There isn’t alot left of the castle mostly a foundation with some partial walls that are still standing. Most of the castle was destroyed in a fire back in 1600’s, and was pretty much left to vandals and time. Gee, we weren’t even a country, just a few outpost colony’s. It’s like that in all the small town around here, lots of historical remnant’s left to view.

The town itself was beautiful with the narrow winding streets full of restaurants and people out for lunch and window shopping. Before the hike up to the castle there was a narrow canal built for a large stream that flowed through the lower part of town, see pictures. The best way I can describe this town and Maastricht is that great care has been taken to add to the town but preserve and maintain what has already been built. It gives the cities and town such character that you just don’t find to much at home. Nicole and I would have loved to wonder more but our arms were growing tired carrying Natalie. Natalie wasn’t into walking that day she wanted to be held outside of a brief running stint at the castle it was pretty much carry me, please.

Monday, February 25

Here is a toilet in our apartment. There are two buttons on the wall above the toilet, a small one and a big one. They give you a small flush or a big one, depending on your needs.  The water does not swirl it comes from all around the rim.

Also typically in bathrooms with just toilet and sinks (washroom) there is only a cold water faucet, no hot water.  This is the case not just at home but also in public places.

Energy efficiency is very important here.  Besides the small and large flushes, many homes and apartments do not have clothes dryers. They dry their clothes on drying racks or clothes lines. It is very common to see clothes lines on apartment balconies. It is not considered an eye sore, it is just normal life. Many people walk or ride their bicycle to work or school. Their are bike lanes everywhere. They have their own little stop lights and everything here.  Cars are much smaller. A VW Golf is a family car. It is common to see one, or a similarly sized car, with 3-5 people in it. There are also a lot of diesel vehicles here. The fuel or engines must be different, though, because they are cleaner than Mark’s diesel Jetta. Mark’s Jetta or my Civic are on the larger end of most vehicles here. There are larger vehicles, but not a lot.

You also pay for grocery bags. Most people try to bring their own bags to the store so they do not have to buy them. Then they can carry the 1-2 bags home as they walk or the bags can be strapped onto the back of the bike with bungee cords or in the saddle bags on the back of some bikes. 

There are central recylcing drop-offs. There are brown boxes that look like the blue mailboxes in the US, but they lead to large underground bins of brown glass, white glass, paper or plastic. Trucks come and pick up the material from the underground bins.

We also have a green compost bin. Food waste goes in it. No protein or fat though, just fruit/veggie waste. The compost bin goes out with the garbage bag and it is picked up.  We have made it a week on one garbage bag even with a little one and disposable diapers. The garbage bags are about 4 gallons in size and you also have to buy them They are sold at the service desk at the grocery store and are about $1.60 each and sold in bundles of 12.

Ahhhh, the internet

Feb 23, 2008

It’s back!  Our neighbor Ryan and Mark were able to get the internet working today!  They reset everything, turned stuff off and turned it back on and it worked. Sweet!

Work went well this week. I don’t remember everyone’s names, but they are understanding about that. I learned a new Dutch word “miereneuker”. The polite description of this derogatory term is someone who picks at the details.  It was not used to describe me. 

The food here is very fresh. There are fewer/ no preservatives in the food so you typically only buy 1-2 days of food at a time. So far my favorite coffee has been from Coffee Lovers by the Crowne Plaza. They also have wonderful croissants and cappucino. Many places serve their coffee or tea with a piece of nugat and/or a stroopwafel. The sweetness of the nugat or stroopwafel is a wonderful complement to the bitterness of the tea or coffee.

A stroopwafel is typically carmel or honey between two very thin waffels. Kind of like a cookie. MMMMmmmmm.

The broccoli we had the other night was wonderful. It was dense, fresh and had more flavor than what we get in MN. Natalie loved it.

I had my first croquette for lunch on Wednesday. A croquette is the size and shape of a hockey puck and it is made of various ingredients. For example I had a vietnamese croquette which had rice, bits of sweet red pepper and a spicy sauce.  A croquette is breaded and deep fried, it would be a great state fair food.  The one I had was not bad. The sweet sour sauce went quite well with it.

Laura showed us a great place for waffels- Pinky’s.  They serve them fresh from the iron with a bit of powdered sugar on top. They are kind of like the Belgian waffels in the states, but a bit more doughy inside.  They are street food here. Little shops sell them from a window and you walk down the street eating your waffel.

The grass in the courtyard is green and the trees are really budding out. It was easily in the 50s today and we saw the sun for a couple of hours. It has been sunny for maybe 3 hours since we arrived 5 days ago. 

Sun rise: 7:35 am

Sun set: 6:07 pm 

Day 2

No internet at the apartment. More accurately, there seems to be internet, but we cannot figure out how to get on the internet.  But Mark got the DVD player kind of working. I couldn’t even tease him about looking at the directions because they were all in Dutch. I have an inkling of what it is like to be illiterate.

He showed his mechanical prowess and hooked up the cords, pressed some buttons and when none of it seemed to work, he played his ace in the hole-he shook the DVD player and it worked.  Yup, he’s handy.

We finished unpacking and made another run to the grocery store and to the coffee store.  Yeah, we were so tired we had forgotten to buy coffee.  About noon our neighbor, Laura, and her daughter stopped by to introduce herself.  They are also from Minneapolis and little Ellie is a few months older than Natalie.  We made plans to have pizza for dinner and visit.

It is amazing what a nap, a visit from a friendly neighbor and cup of coffee will do to one’s outlook.

After Natalie’s nap, we walked down to Laura’s apartment and she an Ellie took us on another walk around. Laura and her husband Ryan are so nice and welcoming.  Natalie and Ellie played well together. Natalie seems a little preoccupied with going to bed recently and Ellie shared her bed very nicely. No, Natalie didn’t actually fall asleep, but she was interested.

Mark and Laura and Ellie and Natalie will visit Wednesday while I am at work. Oh yeah, work, that’s why we are here! Tomorrow is my first day.

Here is Natalie on the plane “calling” Grandpa. That’s the remote for screen in front of her. You can use it to choose movies, music, games, etc for entertainment during the flight.

Here is the couch Natalie fell through. She fell through the middle the center of the couch where the back and seat come together. Her nose met her knees and she slipped through the back.

We made it

25 hours before take off: The little one turned to me and barfed. On me, on the couch, on herself.  The next 6 hours were pretty rough and we were not finished with this charming episode until 7 hours before take off.   Natalie and I had maybe 5 hours of sleep that night.  Mark and I had our fingers crossed the whole flight and for a day afterwards. No one else caught the bug Natalie had. Thank goodness!

 3 hours before take off: As we were putting the luggage in the car for the trip to the airport I had a moderate attack of the “Oh my gosh, what have I done? What are we doing? Are we crazy? How could I uproot my family and move them to a foreign country?”

 2 Hours before take off: Whew, we are checked in, through security and now we wait for boarding and take off.  I relaxed a bit. Mark took his Xanax and it helped him relax. Natalie watched the planes, took a walk with Dad, watched people get off planes, played with play-doh, drew, whined, watched more planes, had a small tantrum, climbed all over me and then got in line to board at bout 1 hour before take off.

 Our flight was uneventful.  Natalie fell asleep about 70 min into the flight (about 10:30 PM Central Time) She layed on me most of the way, so I moved very little and became very uncomfortable and could not sleep.  Every move she made, I would jump to be sure she would not roll off my lap. She seemed most restful when her upper body was on the seat and her lower body was hanging off.  Go figure.

 In Amsterdam the driver picked us up and he drove us to Maastricht. Much better than the train, I think. Natalie and I caught a few winks while Mark chatted with the driver. 

 The apartment was ready for us and we settled in. Natalie fell through the couch. When I get a picture posted you’ll understand.

Kathy, who I am following in this assignment, stopped by to show us where to get cash. We forgot to get cash at the airport-doh! Kathy took us to the trainstation to get cash, showed us to the grocery store and around the area a bit. We finally made it “home” and made some quick spaghetti.  It was 7 pm local time and I had slept less than 8 hours total in the past 2 days.  I was tired of poking both Mark and Natalie to stay awake and we all went up to bed about 9:30 local time (2:30 PM Minneapolis time) I slept well for about and hour and then had to wake Mark to talk. I was having part 2 of the “Oh my gosh, what have I done”.  I finally fell asleep about midnight local time and slept through the rest of the night. So did Mark and Natalie.