St. Maarten

Oh dear. Today is St. Martin’s Day. It’s times like this that curtains would be useful. Today is the day that kids in some areas go around house to house singing songs and receiving treats. Sort of like Halloween, but not as ghoulish or costume-y. That said, we don’t have any treats to give out.
Fortunately, [...]

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World Blog Surf Day Goes Orange

The theme of this third annual World Blog Surf Day is Holidays and Celebrations, in which expats from around the world write on the same theme, exploring some of the new holidays and traditions they (we) have been exposed to in our new countries. At first I was a bit lost on what to write [...]

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Fun Fourth

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans, no matter where you’re living.

OK, I had to add this. It’s beautiful!

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Paint and Pumpkins

There I was today, all ready to go to Pippos to buy some paint to finish up a project I’m working on in the bedroom. All I had to do was take Pippo out first. As we were walking around, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet it was, despite being almost 10 a.m. Surprisingly [...]

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Culture Shock

I took this picture on Wednesday, which was Koninginnenacht (Queen’s Night), when the festivities begin. They were setting up the stages — and beer stands — in the Dom Plein, the area by the Dom tower and cathedral. In fact, that’s the cathedral in the background. In fact, those trucks are parked where the nave [...]

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Koninginnedag ‘09

I’ll be posting, updating, uploading etc. more in the next few days, but I thought I’d add a quick post to express my sorrow over the deaths and injuries that happened today during the Queen’s Day festivities in Apeldoorn. I was watching the coverage this morning and saw it all happening and couldn’t believe my [...]

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Gefeliciteerd!

Yesterday was my birthday and my first one to be celebrated in the Netherlands. Since cake isn’t as popular here as pies and pastries, I figured I’d make my own — although I probably would have made my own, anyway. I’m not a huge fan of baking, but I do enjoy making the occasional cake.
I [...]

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Nieuwjaar

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
I hope everyone spent a pleasant evening saying goodbye to 2008 and welcoming 2009. So far, the year is going very well. Yesterday was a quiet, enjoyable day of doing little, finished off by a lucky meal of pork chops, hoppin’ john and sproutjes (I think they have collards or some sort of greens [...]

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Happy Hogmanay

The lasagna is made and ready to be cooked. The house is cleaned and the champagne is chilling. The firecrackers/fireworks have been going off all day — all week, really — and I’m sure at midnight it will be incredibly loud and noisy. We’ll be contributing to the noise, as we’re spending the evening at [...]

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A Few Photos

I’m glad I thought to take the camera with me today when we went out to run some errands. Despite the weather being cold and grey, I thought I might be able to get some interesting shots. Most of the shots do look cold and grey, but my persistence paid off when we were crossing [...]

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