Things We Learn at the Potdeksel

Who says you can’t learn anything in a bar! We headed over to the Potdeksel last evening for an aperitif before dinner, since Merian and René were there (and we had no St. Maarten’s candy). While there, the subject of tongue-twisters seemed to come up and Kris suggested that if we can learn the following, [...]

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A Horse Is A HHHorse

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 [...]

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And Seven Ran …

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 [...]

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Taking Up Space

Eddie Izzard has a joke about the Dutch, saying it’s impossible for them to speak four languages: How do they fit them all in their head? Nobody can speak four languages!
Tonight, I felt almost Dutch. We were watching an English-language film, but it was taking place in Italy. One character was speaking Italian, so the [...]

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Bits and Pieces

Straight and Round
Originally uploaded by indigo_jones

I’ve been meaning to blog bits and pieces of the past week or so, but keep getting distracted. None of this is particularly exciting, rather just little observations and amusements.
The thing of most interest for us has been the fact that we FINALLY bought a light for the living room. [...]

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… Is Ingewilligd.

… is granted.
Those were the important words I was looking for just now when I saw that a letter had arrived for me from IND (immigration). My request for legal residency here has been granted. Yay! I still have to go get the stamp/document, but that will come at some date in the future. They’ll [...]

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Fabric and Flowers

This morning, despite the drizzling rain, Pippo and I went out to explore the stoffenmarkt (fabric market) on Broodstraat and the flower market at Janskerkhof. Both are Saturday institutions that I’ve been wanting to see since we’ve been here, but somehow have missed until now.
First we headed over to Broodstraat (the other house we came [...]

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Exploration

Pippo and I took a walk today down Nobelstraat, past Janskerkhof, and then back home via Voorstraat. Despite the constant pulling on his part, he was actually quite the good boy and put up with me stopping constantly to take photos. He even let me have a bit of fun with him. I didn’t mean [...]

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Success!

I just took Pippo out for a walk and as we were coming back and reached the area where all the cafés/bars are, a woman across the street from me was obviously looking at me and speaking to me. The usual moment of panic set in, but then it clicked as to what she was [...]

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