Yesterday, while going through my Google Reader listings (handy for keeping track of lots of websites without having to remember to visit each and every one) I saw a news story with the title: Horse genome unlocked by science.

I know the word genome; I know how to pronounce it. However, now that I’m trying to learn Dutch, words that were once familiar take on a whole new life. In this case, I read the word genome as if it were a Dutch word, giving it the Dutch pronunciation. Not totally surprising since there are a number of Dutch words starting with the letters ge-. Of course, when you factor in the throat-clearing sound of the letter G in Dutch, things get even more silly. Even now, I can’t look at the word genome without wanting to pronounce it the Dutch way. I guess the language is slowly taking over my brain.

Now, if only I could pronounce the G as beautifully as the tour guide we had at the Nationaal Museum van Speelklok tot Pierement. His Gs were poetry!

This is a partial shot of a series of three sculptural figures over at the nearby Griftpark. The sculptures — Drei Grosse Figuren (Three Large Figures) — are by German artist Thomas Schütte. They’re one of the many bits of sculpture that seem to pop up in random places throughout the city. The Griftpark itself is a former industrial area that was transformed into a nice park. The three figures seem somehow appropriate.

I need to remember to finish doing the laundry before it gets dark. I forgot today and had to climb up the Stairs-of-Death (TM) this afternoon in the dark. Our laundry room is on the top floor, up these very steep and narrow stairs. There’s no light to illuminate them, unless I turn on the bathroom light or the office light for a bit of indirect light. I decided to not bother with the lights today, and instead turned to my spidey senses.

It’s a bit nerve-wracking to climb up these — or any — stairs in the dark. I pull myself up with the handrail and feel very carefully for the step underneath my foot. Thank goodness there’s carpeting at the top of both sets of stairs, so it’s easier to tell when you’ve reached solid ground.

There is some sort of wiring for a light up those stairs, although it’s only somewhat useful if you’re going up, not if you’re going down, although going down, you could always use the light from the rooms upstairs. I think I might look into getting a simple light for that area, just to make it more appealing for any visitors, and safer for me when I’ve left laundry until later in the day.

Ed. Note — I’m trying to take part in the National Blog Posting Month, where you try to blog every day for a month. Prepare yourself for more inane posts such as this.

Last night was Quiz Night again at the Potdeksel. As I’ve mentioned before, the quiz is in Dutch, unlike some of the other quiz night’s in town, although we’re fortunate that René is the quiz master, so he’s kind enough to translate when we don’t quite understand some of the questions. We can sometimes get the basic words, but lose the meaning due to the word order, so we’re making progress with understanding the language, but are a still quite a ways off from understanding properly.

There were seven teams competing last night and in the end, we came out sixth for the evening. Not too shabby, since we still beat some natives. Although I suspect that was due more to the fact that we’ve got at least four years on the two who lost, so we were able to do slightly better on the music round, which was songs from the 1980s last night. Despite my love of ’80s music, I still didn’t do too well on that round.

Today I was supposed to go clothes shopping with Merian, but unfortunately I was laid out with a severe headache today. I’m feeling better now; just a bit of a dull ache. Much better though than the piercing pain I had earlier today. I guess pride really does come before a fall.

It may be rainy today, but it still manages to be absolutely gorgeous. I loved the contrast of the orange leaves — both on the tree and the sea of leaves on the ground — against the grey cloudy sky.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s made the BBC news website, as well, so I figured I’d mention it again. Plus, it never fails to amuse me. The Netherlands has a shortage of criminals — or at least a shortage of ones who are caught and sent to prison — so we’re probably going to be renting out one of our prisons to the Belgians, who have more criminals than they have space to put them. If the deal is passed by both governments, Tilburg Prison will be getting 500 Belgian inmates for approximately three years. The NL will also be getting about €30m out of the deal. Yay!

Source

We’ve been here for almost a year and a half at this point, but it wasn’t until last month that I finally learned about the loud siren I hear occasionally. It’s an incredibly loud siren, and I remember being startled by it the first time I heard it. However, there was no screaming in the streets or lots of people running, so I figured I was safe. I’ve sort of ignored it ever since. Merian was visiting last month and happened to be here when the siren went off. I finally thought to ask what it was signifying.

It turns out that the siren is a test done on the first Monday of every month at noon. As long as that’s when you hear the clarion call, no worries. If you hear it any time other than that, well, duck and cover! Today is the first Monday of the month and I heard the siren go off 20 minutes ago, right on time. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to try to record it until it was too late. I gather it’s a nationwide test, not just Utrecht’s schedule. So, for my fellow expats who might have been as clueless as I was until recently, now you know what the sirens are for. Let’s just hope we never hear them at any other time.

Looking at my blog stats today, I saw that someone got here after doing a search for “utrecht living depressing”. How sad! I’m pretty sure they didn’t find what they were looking for here, at least I hope not. I love Utrecht and don’t find it depressing at all. Quite the opposite!

I know some people who move here (the Netherlands in general, not just Utrecht) have trouble adjusting and end up sad and frustrated and unhappy. So far, I’m not one of those people. I suspect that someone who hates it here isn’t truly hating Utrecht or the Netherlands; they’re just unhappy with something in their personal life and taking out their unhappiness on the city/country. I’m lucky, in that I had a say in which country we moved to when we moved. (Although I didn’t actually visit and took G at his word when he said it was a great place.) Maybe I’m just very easy going. I’ve ultimately settled in well no matter where I’ve moved, even when the move wasn’t something I wanted or was expecting.

So to anyone who might be thinking of moving to Utrecht or the Netherlands, I want to be an alternative, optimistic, happy voice, a different perspective to what I see so many of my fellow expat/immigrants expressing. Some of us are quite happy here and have no regrets! That said, everyone is going to have their own reactions and experiences and I’m not trying to belittle the unhappiness of those who aren’t happy here. Just don’t blame it all on the country.

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 about, since the Netherlands isn’t exactly drastically different from the US. Sure, I could write about Sinterklaas on December 5, but I felt like I would have to address the whole issue of Zwarte Piet, but I’ve yet to be able to put my thoughts on it into words without contradicting myself somewhere along the line. Fortunately, Giovanni came to the rescue with the quite obvious and fantastic suggestion of writing about Koninginnedag, otherwise known as Queen’s Day.

Koninginnedag is held April 30 each year and has become a national holiday. The origins of the day, however, go back to August 31, 1885. It started as a celebration of the birthday of Princess Wilhelmina, and was known as Prinsessedag until her coronation in 1890. When Queen Wilhelmina’s daughter, Queen Juliana, took the thrown, the date of the celebration changed to her birthday, April 30. When our current queen, Queen Beatrix, took the throne, she decided to keep Koninginnedag celebrations on April 30, both as a tribute to her mother and as a sensible move since the weather is much better than on her own birthday of January 31.

Besides the sea of orange that overtakes the country — the Dutch royal family comes from the House of Orange — the most traditional form of celebration is the vrijmarkt, essentially citywide flea markets. Whole sections of towns are taken over by stalls of all sorts, ranging from full set-ups to blankets on the ground, as people sell their various odds and ends. Most are normal household items, although a few people take the opportunity to sell various arts and crafts. There are also food stalls of all sorts set up amid all of the household bits and pieces. Here in the Utrecht city center, the whole northern section of the city was given over to the vrijmarkt.

The whole day is one of festivities and fun, with many people taking their boats out to sail along the canals with friends, often greeting and meeting up with other boaters along the way. Some of the boats themselves take on new forms as adventurous people strap together multiple boats and pile on sofas and stereos to make the most of the outing!

This was my first Koninginnedag, as we moved here last year just after the celebration. We had heard all about it — including the Koninginnenacht celebrations at the bars the night before — and were looking forward to taking part in the festivities. A friend of mine from the US happened to be in town, as well, so things were looking to be quite exciting. In fact, it was all quite exciting, but not always in such a good way. Koninginnedag 2009 was sadly marred by an attempted attack on the royal family as they were heading to the palace in Apeldorn. After a morning spent meeting people and taking part in various fun and games, as is the family’s tradition, they were headed by bus to the Het Loo palace when suddenly a car came out of nowhere, running over people in the crowd, before crashing into a nearby monument. The royal family was unharmed, but sadly eight people lost their life. My friend and I happened to be watching the tv coverage of the royal family’s outing that morning before heading out — it has been broadcast since the 1950s — and so we saw the attack in real time and were left confused and then horrified by it.

Many of the public festivities were cancelled, obviously, although the vrijmarkt continued, as did many private celebrations. In fact, many people didn’t know about the tragedy until much later in the day. My friend and I did visit the vrijmarkt that afternoon and enjoyed the experience; I even bought a few odds and ends, including a Queen Wilhelmina mints tin. Still, the tragedy of the morning lingered in my mind. Hardly an auspicious introduction to what should be a joyful day of fun and friends.

When I decided to write about Queen’s Day, I couldn’t decide if I should mention the dark side of this year’s event. Yet, considering it’s been my only Queen’s Day, I suppose it’s almost impossible for me to write about this new holiday without mentioning it. Ultimately, I still had a wonderful time, meeting up with lots of friends the night before, making fond memories that help to counteract the not-so-fond memories. There was also a lot of happiness and friendliness as we wandered the vrijmarkt that afternoon. Fortunately, I also have many more Queen’s Days to come. Who knows, within a few years I might be selling some of our odds and ends on a blanket some April 30! But not my peppermints tin. I’m keeping that one.

Don’t forget to visit Lily over at Fat Bride Slim for the next installment of the Expat World Blog Surf Day!

The event is also being covered on Twitter by Karen of Empty Nest Expat. Karen is an American expat blogger last seen in Prague. The Wall Street Journal said, “Her blog makes a fun read for anyone looking for reassurance that change can be a wonderful thing–and also for anyone interested in visiting the Czech Republic.”

I’ve been a bit slack on sorting through all my Kasteel De Haar photos, but I figured I’d post a couple here in honor of tomorrow being Halloween. The fantastic clouds and light we experienced Sunday, along with the castle setting, made some of the photos look like they were scenes from old horror films.

One of the strangest and oddly creepy sights we saw that day, though, was this little Pinocchio-type doll sitting in a cobwebby window. The golf ball, however, saves it from being nightmare-inducing.