Foto Vrijdag 2.22

A slightly different shot from my usual stuff — more people! I went to another TweetUp last night and we started the evening off at Café Olivier, a Belgian beer bar located over by the Hoog Catharijne. I’d seen the outside of the café before, and even taken a few photos, but I had never been inside and didn’t realize it was actually a converted church. It’s lovely inside, as you can see, and they have a massive selection of Belgian beers from which to choose. I really must go back again soon and maybe have a bit more time to focus properly on the large menu of beers.

As it is, I had a great time catching up with people I’ve met before, while finally meeting others. Everyone was lovely and as always, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and look forward to seeing them all again.

Ribs, Glorious Ribs

Ribs, glorious ribs!
Hot french fries, and coleslaw …
I had another TweetUp (meet-up with friends from Twitter) last night, meeting with pinkypie, ROtotheD, Pamcakes, and Melissa, a friend of pinkypie’s. We’d gone to Stairway to Heaven last time we all got together, and this time we went to Broadway American Steakhouse Restaurant on the Oudegracht. Our goal? Ribs. Pammy had been before and said the ribs were actually quite good, so we were hopeful. That hope was not in vain. The ribs were surprisingly good! As good as the ones G and I used to make? No, but really, how could they be. 😉 They more than satisfied my rib craving — or maybe they’ve just inflamed my craving. Either way, we’ll definitely be going back, especially once the weather is warmer and drier and we can sit on the terrace right there on the canal.

We probably could have sat outside last night. The day was sunny and surprisingly warm, getting up to 17C! It seemed like all of Utrecht was outside last night, with every restaurant and café’s outdoor seating filled to the brim with people enjoying the warmer temperatures. It really was a gezellig evening — friends enjoying each other’s company, laughter ringing out, and the glow of table candles lighting the evening in a rainbow of colors.

We did eat indoors, but it was still fun and an interesting setting. The restaurant is in one of the canal-level/below street-level spaces where the interior is filled with curved walls creating a cave-like atmosphere, without the dampness or dreariness. They had the walls painted with scenes from Old Hollywood, including a mural of Laurel and Hardy.

The pictures aren’t that great, but that’s because they were a last-minute thought as we were getting ready to leave. The rest of the evening was taken up laughing, eating, and generally have a great time. Most of us also got “doggy bags”, since the portion sizes were also American. What you see in the top picture is the ribs that I had left and brought home for my lunch today. The dinner also came with patat/frites (French fries) and we got some cole slaw to go along with it all. Even the cole slaw was excellent, although we partly attributed that to the use of Dutch mayonnaise. All in all, it was a great night with great food and great company. Can’t wait to do it all again!

Hay-Zoos

Kitschy Jesus statues aren’t limited to US thrift stores or the front yard of that one weird neighbor. Nope. They show up in Dutch hairdresser shop windows, too. This one is in the window of a shop on Voorstraat. I pass it regularly and today I decided to get a shot of it to use in my Project 365.

I’m continuing to love this project, because it’s definitely making me look at my surroundings in a whole new way. I pass this statue all the time, but it never occurred to me to get a shot of it until today. I knew I would be dealing with window reflections, but it turned out to work in my favor. At first glance, when I was looking at the shots I got, I thought this one was going to end up deleted, because the reflections distorted the image too much. But with a simple adjustment of the contrast (ramp it up!), I ended up getting a fun, quirky, psychedelic image.

It almost looks like something that might be hanging in Stairway to Heaven, a local restaurant/bar/club here in Utrecht. I finally went to it on Thursday when I had a Tweetup (a meet up organized on Twitter) with some new friends, including a couple of fellow expat/immigrant bloggers I follow. The service might have been a bit slow, and the burger a bit cold, but it was very tasty and the company was excellent. I really enjoyed getting to meet some new people, especially such a fun and interesting group. I’m looking forward to future Tweetups with them!

Oh, and continuing my habit of injuring myself somehow while G is out of the country, I slipped on a small patch of ice as I was leaving the restaurant that night. I ended up going down hard onto my left knee. That would be the same knee that I injured last spring while trying to stop Lola from making a break for it over the garden wall. The one that had me laid up for three weeks. Fortunately, I was able to walk home and ultimately only suffered some tenderness, bruising and a bit of scraping. Still, I’m glad G’s arriving home this evening!