Heaven & Hell

We're in the middle of what can only be described as a morass of Dutch religious holidays, the most recent of which was "Hemelvaartdag", or Ascension Day.  We spent the day off making bibimbop and moving our golf clubs from the basement to the attic.

In reality, we could have used the carpenter version of Jesus over the weekend, since we started working in earnest on our home improvement list for the apartment.  

You know that image you have in your head of moving to the Netherlands and sitting around in cafes and riding your bike everywhere and going to Prague for the weekend and drinking cheap but delicious wine and eating fancy cheese?  Try massaging "installing clothing rods in the closet" into that list.

As much as I would like to expound on our two trips to the neighborhood "Doe Het Zelf" store, our three scary Dutch conversations with DHZ men about clothing-rod hardware, and the resulting bonanza of spiffing up the closets, I offer instead a holiday-appropriate distillation of our weekend adventures: 

Hell

- Spending an entire afternoon trying to decipher Dutch telephone wiring in general, and in particular, the circuitous path of our only functional phone line from the basement to the third story of the house.

- Going on our fifth shopping trip in two days to buy more power strips.

- Hearing myself utter the words: "You know, it's too bad we can't just go to Home Depot...".

- Not directly related to home improvement, but hellish enough to make the list: after finally finding a microwave and buying microwave popcorn at the grocery store, realizing that we bought ZOET (sweet) popcorn, not ZOUT (salty) popcorn.  Whose idea was it to tell the Dutch about kettle corn?  

- Putting the finishing touches on our computer closet (a lovely, out-of-the-way spot for printers, routers, and our server), only to plug in our printer and discover that it is not, in fact, compatible with 220-volt electricity.

Heaven

- Figuring out how to use anchors in plaster walls that turn to dust as soon as one starts probing them.  (On second thought, maybe that's more like purgatory.) 

- Buying an espresso machine and then making it all the way home with it bungee-corded to the back of my bike.

- Having our downstairs neighbor come home while John was WD-40-ing our lock and cleaning the front of the door, causing her to exclaim that he must be a "goede huisman" — a.k.a. a good house-husband!

- Finding the hidden phone line after hours of searching, then successfully installing — hallelujah! — high-speed internet. 

Polka Choir

I couldn't resist riding downtown this afternoon to attend Paasmarkt (i.e., Easter Market), with its glittering promises of Eastern / Indian products and live music. 

After checking out the wares here and at the market in Beverwijk, I've come to the conclusion that "Eastern / Indian products" does not mean what I think it means.   

To me, it means exciting new spices and exotic utensils for the Asian kitchen.  In the Netherlands, it appears to mean imported linens, wallets, perfumes, and t-shirts...in other words, something between a flea market and a row of vendors from the streets of New York.  

Not really my kind of stuff, though I was sorely tempted by a t-shirt that said (in Dutch): "I'm blond, so you'll have to speak slowly."  Which would be a perfect introduction to my Dutch conversation skills.

All was not lost, however, because I joyfully discovered what can only be described as a series of Dutch Polka Choirs: groups of 15-20 middle-aged Nederlanders in matching outfits lustily singing Dutch polka-style folks tunes. Oh, yes.  Yes, yes, yes.

The first group was the most charming, if not the most in tune.  Apparently sponsored by a fruit drink (note the underaged worker with his promotional sign to the right of the stage), they sang spirited ballads that went something like this to my ears:

Nederland...mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm

Fiesten (bicycles) mmm mmm mmm mooi (lovely) 

Hmmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm 

Mmmm mmm mmm Vaderland (fatherland)! 

The second group I saw took it up a notch with their Netherlands flag scarves, the talents of a soloist, and their heartfelt ballad dedicated to Amstel (the beer). 

And the third group proved once again that you can always count on women in leopard print to draw a crowd.  Even if they're on the cougar side of leopard. 

20 x 8 x 8

It would be a grave understatement to say that I am happy to be back in the Netherlands after nearly three weeks of purging more stuff, closing on our house, packing things up, visiting my parents and shopping for hard-to-find essentials.  

I briefly contemplated posting updates from our journey to Madison, WI and Fulton, NY, but somehow, weekly dispatches on the desperate act of cleaning out a basement just don't have the same intrigue as our Dutch adventures.  

Certainly there were no pornographic gummi candies to be found in the upstanding city of Madison.  Although we did find a certain amount of intrigue in fielding questions along the lines of "Netherlands...is that near Amsterdam?!"

Some quick logistical updates, for those of you playing along at home: 

We sold our house without any breakdown-inducing last-minute issues from the buyer, so we are no longer members of the landed gentry: 

We did not manage to escape the shackles of home ownership and long-distance mortgage payment, however, without one last opportunity to shovel snow.  At the very end of March.  

With the help of four diligent movers, our earthly belongings are now packed like sardines into a 20-foot shipping container (insert two sleepless nights about whether everything would fit into a 20 x 8 x 8 metal box) and are happily positioned atop the MSC Davos.  Which, thankfully, will not be taking the Gulf of Aden route to the Netherlands! 

If/when the container arrives in Rotterdam at the end of April, we'll move from our IKEA dream flat into the upper two stories of a house that (we hope) will feel more like home for the next two to three years:

The apartment is a short walk to shops, restaurants and the center of Nijmegen, which we're excited about after living squarely (and I do mean squarely) in the middle of campus for 8 weeks.  

It also has two bedrooms and a closet-sized room called a third bedroom, which we hope will encourage a steady stream of pilgrims to the cultural riches Nijmegen has to offer.  

As a side note, have I mentioned that we're living in the oldest city in the Netherlands?  We saw recently that Nijmegen's city slogan has changed from "Nijmegen: up to date since 2000 years!" to the less grammatically thrilling "Always Nijmegen".  Who knew what marketing genius we would discover in this part of the world?!

Since returning to Nijmegen, we've been mostly trying to remember our paltry Dutch and reacquaint ourselves with our hobbit-sized refrigerator.  After our snow-filled excursion to the Upper Midwest, we're also relishing spring weather lovely enough for bike riding in jeans and a t-shirt.  

We have also been enjoying the endless long weekend of Easter, which has brought with it the handy realization that the Easter egg dye of my childhood, PAAS, comes from the Dutch word for Easter: Pasen.  

I really don't think that anyone other than PAAS makes Easter egg dye, which makes me wonder how this small Pennsylvania Dutch company has managed to skirt antitrust laws for all these years.

And, we've discovered that bowling is a popular Easter pastime for the Dutch.  

Or perhaps it's just that the citizens of Nijmegen couldn't resist the clever rhyming poetry at the Ol' Round:

"Ga u met Pasen naar het strand / of nemen we een bowlingbal ter hand" translates roughly to "For Easter, go to the beach or go bowling!" 

  

Of Beer and Oil Balls (Are You Sure We're Not in Wisconsin?)

We spent this past weekend in Maastricht, which deserves its esteemed reputation as the most lovely city in the Netherlands.  Despite this somewhat sad-and-rainy snapshot from the bridge over the River Maas, it was sunny for the better part of the weekend, too.  

Among other things, our time in Maastricht was a bonanza of eating out. This was a nice change of pace, if a little on the painfully slow and expensive side.  

But, like most of the European countries I've ever visited, tap water isn't on the menu and one (in this case, me) gets the sense that it would be tacky to ask for it.  Since the bottled water is more expensive than local beers, I've concluded that the only smart thing to do is drink beer instead.  

Beer also helps one feel less reserved about slide-tackling a waiter, which is sometimes what it comes down to if one wants to place an order or get the check.  

Though it was not exactly the culinary height of our time in Maastricht, the architectural height was our lunch in a cafe in a cathedral-turned-bookstore called Selexyz Dominicanen.  Also known as The. Coolest. Bookstore. Ever. 

Although we could have spent all weekend in this particular bookstore, we found all kinds of treasures in Maastricht's maze of charming, narrow streets: an olive store, a cheese shop, a violin maker, a waffel maker, and art galleries and bakeries galore.  

We also spotted a donut truck, whose Dutch translation prompted some deep soul-searching about the future of my donut eating.  

Even as I politely declined the opportunity to hork down an "oil ball", we did, in a moment of twist-my-arm desperation, eat pie with our coffee for breakfast on Saturday morning.  

Limburg, the province where Maastricht is located, is famous for a fantastically delicious concoction called vlaai.  It's hard to describe how it's different from regular pie; a rough approximation is that the crust is soft and almost cake-like, and the apricot filling has a custard-like consistency.  

Whatever it is, it sure beats the hell out of muesli.

If you thought we could escape the bookstore without adding some weight to our luggage, you might be delusional...but we did keep the damage to a minimum.  

First, we found an enormous children's book called Beesten Boek. This is full of essential Dutch vocabulary, such as vogelspin (tarantula), moerasschilpad (swamp turtle), oehoe (owl), and stinkdier (skunk).

Frankly, I'm not sure how we've made it this far without knowing the Dutch word for giant clam. (Doopvontschelp, for the record.)

We also found a book called 501 Must-Visit Islands.  (Also known as, How to Go Bankrupt in Only Six Months!)  

This purchase nearly brought John to tears and led to his own personal version of nirvana:

An afternoon snack of olives (from the aforementioned olijvenwinkel) and washed rind, raw milk Pont-l'Eveque (which isn't available in the U.S. due to pesky pasteurization laws), all in the company of a lushly illustrated book about 501 far-flung, only marginally inhabited atolls.

Food and books aside (though what else is there, really?), we also had fun exploring the city's churches and buildings, some of the remaining Carnaval decorations, and the Roman ruins on the outskirts of the city.  

 

 

Scoor Ze Allemaal

You may have noticed that grocery shopping is a persistent theme here.  Maybe it's the only theme.  

Some days, I feel like I'm measuring my progress in the world with my collection of Voetbal Plaatjes, which are the soccer player stickers one gets in the checkout line at Albert Heijn.  

These silver packets — one gets five stickers for every 10 Euros spent — are a nice reward for a job well done, even if the job was limited to saying in Dutch that no, you do not have an Albert Heijn Bonus Card. 

Plus there's a Willy Wonka-like air of mystery to each packet: 

Will I get a shiny team sticker?  

Will my players have alarmingly Dutch names, like Jelle ten Rouwelaar or Koen van de Laak or Piet Velthuizen? 

Will I get a grumpy coach sticker? Which is, for purposes of the Albert Heijn stickers, the sign of a really good day.  

  

Speaking of Albert Heijn, I nearly cried with happiness (if only I were joking) last week when I was able to secure postage stamps and a Bonus Card, all in Dutch, at the service desk. 

It could have been that the woman at the service desk was ultra-friendly and didn't make me fill out a form to get my bonus card once I squeaked out my question.  

It could have been that I was very nervous about asking the check-out person about stamps and bonus cards when there were 19 Dutch people behind me in line.  

It could have been that it was 50 degrees outside and sunny and the only thing on my to-do list was to buy groceries and stamps. 

It could have been that I got THREE grumpy coach stickers. 

Or maybe it was just the Bonus Card. 

Nothing Says Friday Night Like Chicken Stock

Thank God for the Discovery Channel, which has recently brought us up to speed on the Netherlands' long and storied history of engineering genius.  This newfound knowledge should come in handy the next time we're at a Dutch cocktail party.

Oddly, the Discovery Channel didn't highlight a Dutch invention just as revolutionary as the windmill or the sea wall: de ijsblok zakje.  Instead, we were left to discover it on our own at our neighborhood mega-mart, Albert Heijn XL.

Last week, we had a very nesty moment  in which we used our luxury hotplate to make a pot of chicken stock.  Our plan was to freeze the stock in ice cube trays, just like we do at home, and then use it a cube or two at a time in later cooking.  

But, as we discovered after making a giant pot of stock, ice cube trays are a rare commodity in the Netherlands.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is related to the fact that our freezer is roughly the same size as our Dutch-English dictionary. 

After a fruitless search for trays, John wandered into the saran wrap section of Albert Heijn and stumbled upon the ijsblok zakje.  As it turns out, one pours water (or in our case, chicken stock) into a long, segmented plastic baggie, ties it at the top, and lays it flat in the freezer. 

Four hours later? Lekker ijsbloks.

Peanut Cheese?

On our first day in Nijmegen, we were delighted and horrified to learn that the literal translation of the Dutch word for peanut butter — pindakaas — is peanut cheese.  In this Monday morning blog, I'll share similar highlights from our adventures in the Netherlands.