Happy New Year! What?!

Here's a video I took with my digital camera at 7.30pm on New Year's Eve. I am walking along my street here in The Netherlands. Something I still can't wrap my head around is that people here are allowed to put off their own fireworks on New Year's Eve. I'm not talking about just sparklers either. Does this sound like sparklers?!

Keep in-mind when viewing this video that the microphone on my digital camera is really tiny so the sound is somewhat dulled. I took a video of the sidewalk as I walked down the street in front of my house. It is possible to make-out my shoes, the sound of my jeans, and my turning around to head back towards the house. I didn't try to capture anything else visually for a few reasons. Partly because the fireworks put off in the hours and days before and after midnight on New Year's Eve are mainly loud in nature and don't offer much to see. They just sound like what I imagine a bomb would sound like. I also didn't want to draw the attention of the people putting off the fireworks - in this case a group of five teenage boys a few doors down from our house, and two sets of boys 15-20 years old at both ends of our street. I've experienced fireworks being thrown at on-lookers or passerbys or having boys on bicycles ride down the street and throw fireworks at-random at pedestrians.

I can't decide whether it's best to just stay out of the country for New Year's Eve or to stay home and keep a protective eye on our house and car as fireworks are haphazardly detonated and fly under cars, out into the street, or hit the front door and window of our house. According to a 2001 article by "Voices of Holland", an estimated ten million kilos, worth around forty-five million euros, is exploded on January 1 each year by private citizens. And, amazingly, only one percent of the population, about twelve hundred people, is injured. I wish they'd take hearing lose into consideration or damage to private property.

The "Voices" article also explained that the origins of the Dutch fireworks tradition lies in the early trade contacts with China, where, about two thousand years ago, the explosive mixture of saltpeter, sulphide and charcoal dust was discovered. As early as the seventeenth century, Dutch merchant fleets brought home decorative fireworks from the Far East, which was popular among the well-to-do middle classes. But, until the beginning of the previous century in, for instance, Amsterdam, the New Year would be marked by firing a few small canons. Elsewhere, people would go no further than igniting carbide in milk cans in order to frighten evil spirits. The ‘democratization’ of luxury decorative fireworks did not start for real until after the Second World War.

Gratefully, my Dutch husband finds the letting off anything more than a sparkler to be a waste of money. And, to be honest, from the right vantage point, New Year's Eve can be pretty spectacular to watch. There is a countdown here televised on three of the major channels so fireworks are relatively synchronized. We rang in the new year with two friends at their house. From their third floor windows, we had a view for miles around against a backdrop of a canal lined with traditional Dutch houses. Our friend, Christiaan filmed this video with his webcam. I think the fireworks went on for about an hour like this. All and all, it was pretty amazing and I found myself running from window to window oohing and aahing. Good wine, a nice meal, and champagne helped.

Happy New Year!

Turkey & Sint

Thoughts from Sunday....our internet was on the fritz. Be forewarned: This post contains cultural bias.

Our Thanksgiving dinner went pretty well last weekend. Here is a picture of our table before anyone arrived. I really meant to take a picture with all of the food on the table, but we immediately dug into the food as soon as it hit the table.

In the end, we skipped the Camembert mashed potatoes and the sweet potatoes. I also couldn't find boneless turkey breast halves with their skin still on so we settled for quarter pound boneless, skinless turkey breasts stuffed with herbs that didn't quite hold their moisture as well with their skin.

And Art Smith's root vegetable gratin should have included a warning that not all roots were created equal. Rutabaga, for instance, is Earth's version of a brick shaped just smaller than a bowling ball. So, while the potatoes in the gratin turned out nicely, the oven time barely made a softening dent in the rutagaba. My husband, the good Dutch man he is, quickly announced that the dish was partly cooked, thus, relieving all of us of the need to choke them down.

The green beans with pesto sauce, the pear and sausage stuffing and gravy were really nice. The surprise of the night was how well the eggnog and mulled wine turned out. Here is the eggnog recipe. Just add a few more swigs of brandy...for luck, of course. One guest literally licked her mug clean.

Indulgent Eggnog Recipe

6 eggs

2 + ½ cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups whole milk

1 cup caster sugar

½ cup brandy

½ cup dark rum

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon nutmeg, ground or grated (fresh is best)

Begin with pre-chilled ingredients for the greatest end result.In a medium bowl, beat the eggs together hard until they're very frothy.Add sugar and continue beating.Sprinkle in nutmeg and vanilla.Continue beating.A little at a time, add in the whipping cream, continuing to beat.Again, only a little at a time, beat in the milk.Finally, beat in the rum and brandy.Give your arms a break from all that beating by putting the eggnog in the fridge to chill for 1 – 2 hours.

Serve cold.

Sinterklaas

Yesterday was Sinterklaas Avond (St. Nicholas Eve). Last night, St. Nick rode around on his big white horse so that his helpers, Zwarte (black) Piets, could shimmy down people's chimneys (thus somehow giving them black faces and blackening their tightly curled hair, but allowing them to keep their jester-like colorful outfits and tights spotlessly clean) to fill the shoes that had been left out by Dutch children. To this day, the story goes something like...The good Dutch boys and girls' shoes will be filled with gifts and candy while the naughtier ones' shoes will be filled with salt. And the naughtiest of the lot will be taken in a large, burlap sack and sail to St. Nick’s home in Spain. And they make fun of Thanksgiving! Forgive me for being in favor of the delusion of Native Americans sitting down for a meal with their colonial invaders over encouraging a country’s children to believe in an old, white Spanish man that sends his dark skinned, MC Hammer-panted ‘helpers’ down people’s chimneys to either put things into their shoes or kidnap them.

David Sedaris has written a great critique of the phenomenon that is much funnier than I could ever write so I will leave my description at that. One thing he didn’t realize that is mentioned in the Wikipedia link above is that, as the fairy tale goes, St. Nick originally threw gold coins down the chimney to poor girls so that they wouldn’t have to prostitute themselves out. No, I didn’t make that up. It brings a whole new cultural facet to the Red Light districts made famous here.

I have stopped trying to understand the various foods associated with the holidays and have just decided to try them all. For instance, marzipan in the shape of St. Nick or Zwarte Piet or fruit is a common candy given during the holidays. The most popular shape for marzipan, though, is a pig. Grocery stores sell a small, cartoon version of a pig’s face, but chocolatiers and bakeries here display nearly life sized two dimensional pigs. Customers are sawed off a slice of the pig to do what with I have yet to figure out.

By far, my favorite tradition is the giving of chocolate letters. Dutch chocolate is some of the best in the world. Imagine getting a solid 7x5 inch piece in the shape of the first letter of your name. It is also usually decorated with a hard chocolate frosting to which is affixed candied hazelnuts or a tiny replica of Zwarte Piet’s face in marzipan. They come in white, dark or milk chocolate and are sometimes filled with chocolate mousse. My husband’s mother brings us each one every December 5^th.

A close second is the roomboter amandel letter. It a buttery pastry filled with almond and sugar paste and shaped into an "M". The other things pictured here are kruidnoten (mini-gingerbread cookies), marzipan pieces,

Thanksgiving

Hi All! Because I am missing out on Thanksgiving in the U.S., my husband and I decided to invite some friends over the Saturday after Thanksgiving (since we don't get that Thursday and Friday off...oh and the pains I get every year on those days knowing that my U.S. friends and family are having time off and getting the shopping bargains of the year. My best attempts at keeping up via internet shopping just don't have the same satisfaction....I digress).

So, this weekend is the ingredients shopping and cleaning weekend. I thought it might interest people to know what we are planning to make, how it turns out, and how our Dutch and Canadian friends react. Did you know they celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? Yes, it's celebrated in October to mark the fall harvest, but was originally celebrated as a homecoming feast for an explorer named Martin Frobisher after he returned from an exploration to try and find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean (thanks, wikipedia!). Oh, those Canadians...if America could have half the peaceful history of it's northern neighbors...we probably wouldn't have given birth to such greats as Rambo, The Sopranos, and Grand Theft Auto. Just kidding.

Yes, so onto the projected menu which is skipping food for appetizers because, honestly, I've never heard of that phase for Thanksgiving and why is it needed when the main course is traditionally SO huge? Instead, we are focusing on drinks - mulled wine cider from a mix we picked up in Margaret River, Australia that includes instructions to buy the biggest box of wine you can find (this could be interesting) and eggnog (a Dutch friend is curious about it and since we won't see them for Christmas when this is the more appropriate time for it, we are giving it a try).

The meal will include turkey breasts with herb gravy prepared from a Rachel Ray recipe. A whole turkey just doesn't fit into our timetable or our European combo microwave/oven. The side dishes include sourdough stuffing with pears and sausage, Camembert mashed potatoes, cinnamon sweet potatoes with vanilla (this is a 'maybe' at this phase because, as you will notice, we have a lot of root vegetables on the list), fast and fancy green beans (Yes, that is the actual name of the recipe. We'll see if it delivers.), cranberry sauce (that promises to only take five minutes to make), and Art Smith's recipe (and Oprah's favorite) for root vegetable gratin. Rolls will be thrown in there, but probably not the King's Hawaiian bread or Pillsbury crescent rolls I grew up with especially since I have been assured that, outside of the U.S., croissants are only served for breakfast.

For dessert, we are having a cheese tray, an assortment of chocolates from a local chocolatier, and my husband is making two types of ice cream - mint chocolate chip and cinnamon. I know, you are thinking, "Where are the pumpkin and pecan pies and cinnamon apples?" Well, they are in the U.S. I just can't be bothered to make a dessert or three. The liquid appetizers and main course are already a giant step forward from my first attempt at Thanksgiving dinner a few years back that included a turkey breast, stuffing, and steamed green beans followed by store bought sorbet for dessert. I really don't know how my mom has done it all of these years...and totally sober throughout the entire day. I would have cried (and probably will have to fight back tears) if anyone did anything less than lick their plates clean after such preparation.

So, I am headed out to do the shopping before my second go at Bikram yoga.

My New Grandma Bike

Against popular Dutch wisdom, I bought a new bike today. No, it's not just new to me. It's new. Whereas my previous Dutch bikes had been on the road longer than I had, I will be the first owner this time around. Instead of paying someone to fix my current bike's flat tire and probably bent rim, I decided I want to buy an omafiets. The name literally translates to "Grandma bike". I have only seen this bike in The Netherlands and I won't speculate as to why the bike has this name, but I will say that this type of bike is characterised by a lack of gears, a brake triggered by moving the pedals backwards, a diagonal piece of plastic that covers the top part of the back wheel to keep skirts catching in the spokes and a wide, high-set horseshoe curved handle bar that allows the rider to sit upright while cycling. I won't pretend to think that this will make me look as graceful on a bike as the tall, thin Dutch women with high heels, a skirt, and long blonde hair streaming in the wind balancing a child on the back in a car seat type chair, but at least I can sit upright like them as sweat runs down my forehead and my face turns red.

My husband and I decided to go against conventional wisdom mainly because the second hand stores are few and far between these days and their prices are ridiculously high for what you get compared to what you can pay for a cheap low-end bike (probably made in China instead of The Netherlands). Two years ago, I bought a three speed bike that turned out to only have one and a half speeds with handle bar brakes and a rusted kick stand that promptly broke off a few weeks later for about 80 euros and it wasn't the upright sitting omafiets I wanted. Today I got the exact bike in the picture above for 140 euros, a year warranty, and a free six month tune up. It also has working front and rear lights (that will be stolen shortly), a comfy seat (that will also probably be stolen shortly despite by efforts to tie it on with two zip ties) and a nice old fashioned wheel stand that folds down from the back wheel.

I switched out the rear wheel lock from my old bike and fastened it to the bike rack at the end of our street with my old chain lock and an additional new one. Hopefully, it will all be there in one piece tomorrow.

Sweating Bikram

Saturday...

My doctor advised me to try meditation or yoga and a work colleague has been raving about Bikram yoga. I saw a Bikram yoga center close to our house years ago and first heard about the 'sweaty yoga' while living in Chicago, but I have always chickened out from trying it....until today.

Bikram yoga is a 90 minute yoga class that takes place in a room heated to 105 F degrees with 30% humidity and always consists of 27 postures and two breathing exercises. Beginners and advanced students are purposely not separated to discourage any semblance of a caste system. It was also appealing because it is the only exercise class that I can find entirely in English. The yoga studio is a white room bare except for carpet lined with three duct tape marks demarcating where students should lay yoga mats, fluorescent lights, floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three two walls and a ballet bar on a third wall. There are three windows set high along the back wall that look out onto trees, but they are tightly closed. It's your basic exercise room except it feels immediately like someone has forgotten they've left the thermostat cranked up and the instructor, a tiny twenty-something woman welcomes us, identifies the first timers (me and what looks like a twenty year old Dutch woman) and then takes her position standing at the back of the room where she begins to call out poses. Instead of doing the poses with us, she continually talks us through what we should be doing, adjusting and how it should feel. In an authoritarian yet soothing and positive voice, she comes around occasionally to correct or praise students by name.

The front desk attendant told me, twice actually, to take a place at the back of the class so I could watch other students. Happy to follow those directions, I took a place in the back in the farthest corner from the door. When the other students, probably 30 in all, started silently filling in (silence is required in the studio) and I saw there trim bodies and muscular bodies complete with six pack abs (women too!) I thought, "Well, I've come to the right place. This yoga works!" Then they started 'stretching'. Have you ever seen a gymnast, ballerina, or contortionist warm-up? I mean, have you seen them in-person? Well, I saw all three today. It was beautiful and excruciating to watch. For my first class, I was only expected to stay in the room for the full 90 minutes. Perpetually cold, I wasn't worried about the heat and I have read about this kind of yoga, but when the instructor calmly explains the expectation and that, should I feel nauseous or dizzy, I should just take a position sitting on my knees and watch, I can't help, but wander to myself that, if I should get sick, sitting silently on my knees will be the farthest thing from my mind.

Very few of the students bring water with them so I am slightly embarrassed by my nearly liter sized water bottle, but, a few minutes into the stretches, I was so grateful for it. I was also the only person wearing a shirt and one of few wearing capri style yoga pants. Most women are in a sports bra and spandex hot pants like the ones I used to dread I'd have to wear in high school volleyball. It would look sexy or trashy except that most have so little body fat (and no cellulite visible from 10 feet away) that they lost any signs of cleavage or muffin tops long ago. I can dream! The men, thankfully, wear knee length swim trunks or mesh shorts. I have seen more than my share of gay men in spandex shorts and old men in threadbare, short tennis shorts at gyms.

The stretching ends after what could have been 5 or 20 minutes and sweat is streaming down my forehead and shins. I am discouraged, but not dizzy, nauseous or in pain so I hang in there. Somewhere in the middle, we take a break to watch a sub-section of the class that will be participating in a country-wide yoga competition (Who would have thought?). The six of them simultaneously showed us their three minute demonstrations. I was gob smacked. As we were all clapping, a few of the yogis' smiles broadened as our eyes met and I realised I need to pick my chin up off the floor. One women had just managed to, with her fleet flat on the floor, bend in half frontwards and put not only her head through her legs, but also her arms enough so that she could wrap her elbows around the back of her knees to grab her ankles. Another woman did some sort of similar combination, but managed to be perched on her arms with her legs extending out parallel to the floor. It made me think of David Lettermen's segment "Stupid Human Tricks" and Cirque du Soleil.

I thought these six might be the exceptions, the superstars until we went to the mat portion of class. I was doing okay, not going nearly as deep into poses as others, but also not falling over or passing out. That was until we were instructed to sit on our knees with them spread so that our bottoms touched the floor. I couldn't quite do that. Then it started to get complicated. We were instructed to put our hands up on our lower back and begin to lean backwards until our heads and backs touched the ground. I started to get dizzy when I bent back just far enough to look at the ceiling so I went happily to the bent knee sit. To my surprise, 90% of the class folded themselves backwards! I stifled a "Wow!".

Before I knew it, the lights were turned off and we were told we could stay as long as we wanted, but that the class portion was over. Happy to continue laying down with my eyes closed making myself one with the floor, I decided I would follow class etiquette and left when the person closest to me left a few minutes later.

I've read on-line that the 90 minutes of yoga burns anywhere from 550-1,000 calories. Let me tell you, whatever I did burn went in the form of sweat to my clothing. It was as if I had jumped into a pool with my clothes on. And, before you dismiss me as nuts or just following the latest trend, know that it is a very low impact form of exercise and is the first exercise I've experienced where I felt so in-tune with my own body. There weren't any machines or equipment or even shoes helping me exercise. It was all me. I left feeling tired, but really good. The best way to describe it is purified. I felt nimbler and walked a little bit taller from improved posture.

Sunday...

I slept a solid ten hours last night and woke to a body retracting in on itself. The muscles in my lower back, hips, and hamstrings have snapped back to attention and I am left feeling like a hunched back old woman trying to straighten myself upright to walk. And my abs, my neck, and my shoulders are not to be ignored either. All of this from some stretching and heat. I think I might be hooked!

Bugs & Blahs

From Saturday....

My apologies that it has been so long since my last post and my continued apologies that this will be a short post. I have had the strangest stomach bug this past week or so. I was sure it was the flu and that I had finally kicked it today, but it reared it's ugly head at me today when I tried to get out for a walk. I know, I know. You are all thinking, "Oh my god, you've got the Mexican flu (or whatever it's called these days)!" I don't have the most worrying symptoms and, even so, they advise here in The Netherlands to just stay home and wait for it to pass (unless you are a baby or elderly).

On top of it, the rain and clouds have settled in here for the past several days giving the feeling that it is eternally 5.00 pm except for when is actually 5.00 pm and the dark suddenly envelops everything.

Today...

So I went back to work yesterday and was overcome and more than a bit scared by a stabbing pain in my rib cage. I decided it was time to go make what would probably be a futal attempt at a doctor's appointment. Thankfully, the pain reduced on my train ride from work to the office. Unfortunately, this convinced the doctor I was seeing that I wasn't really that sick. If I'd passed out on the train or was no longer able to walk, he assured me, he would have checked me into the hospital. He diagnosed me with intestinal inflammation (Well, duh!) and told me that if the pain got really bad to call him immediately. I told him that I had been in a lot of pain so that is why I called. He paused and said, "Trust me. You'll know." I asked him what I should eat to avoid the pain and he told me to avoid fatty foods. "I was eating broccoli and brown rice." He smiles and says, "To tell you the truth, there is no way to tell what will cause you pain. All food will probably cause you pain in the next few days. You just have to wait for the bacteria to leave your system."

I felt lucky to get anything. I think I got something to help stop stomach spasms and something else to help with the acid that I do not have, but have been guaranteed that I will get. All for less than two euros. The prescription information and warnings are in Dutch, but my husband assures me I'll feel better.

Lord, Julia, how did you do it?

I guess it's safe to finally reveal how we've been spending an inordinate amount of time on these past weeks....

Our appetizer and dessert entries for our annual competition with four other couples. I can only imagine what you were all thinking when you read that first sentence!

This contest started long before I met my husband and has evolved into a heated competition that he and his friends dreamed up to liven up our typical get togethers. A trophy of a mounted wooden spoon and secret ballot voting was even introduced last year. Last year our artichoke dip and pecan encrusted sweet potato pie didn't even come close to winning so we are determined this year and have spent several weeks trying out different recipes and testing the reactions of work colleagues. I know, it's a bit sad, but it's been fun. It gave Theo an excuse to get his parents' ice cream maker out of storage and gave me an excuse to go to the cooking store for a new ceramic tart pan. So, for the appetizer I'd made chicken liver pate with homemade rosemary focaccia bread. For dessert, we made a flourless chocolate tart with a chocolate crust and two flavors of ice cream: mint chocolate chip and white grape-lemon. We just couldn't come to an agreement on the ice cream flavor.

It's taken most of our Friday night and Saturday to make these dishes and I am exhausted before we even leave for the dinner party. On my ipod, I have been listening to Julia Child's autobiography about her and her husband Paul's years in France. God, that woman loved food! It was easily her obsession. She would spend days figuring out the exact amount of every ingredient that should go one recipe. My attention span wanes half way through a recipe that someone else has already figured out. And if I have to convert it from cups to grams, forget about it.

So, after having to chill my chocolate crust dough not once, but twice - first after kneading and then again after rolling it out and shaping it into the pie dish - I was not enthused about having to bake the crust twice before filling it with a chocolate mousse mixture to bake. The reason for the two rounds of baking of the crust is to use, in the first instance, uncooked beans or rice to weigh down the crust to keep it from rising. I accidentally skipped the step of placing baking paper between the crust and rice I was using and, thus, had rice baked nicely into my crust after ten minutes. With the time ticking away before we left for the competition and the air seeping out of the mousse mixture I had just beat the life out of, I started over on the dough. I luckily had just enough eggs and flour left and got the torte finished just in-time to wrap it in aluminum foil and get the next tram. In the ensuing hour or so of sitting on the counter in foil, not only did my torte not cool off, but it had turned into a fudgy pudding of sorts. All I could do was try to mask the mistake with chocolate powder. It still tasted good, but it just wasn't the same and everyone knew it.

Update: We got third place! Out of five... I can't help, but admit my disappointment. I will save you the post mortem except to say that all of the other entries were head and shoulders above last year's. We had a delicious meal and a great night. I guess that's what matters most.

Paradise Falls

We just got back from the movies...and I just have to write about it and tell everyone that they MUST go see "Up" in 3D. I know, I know, it's a cartoon...but it was the best movie we've seen in a long time. I won't ruin it for you. I will just say that the story is funny and sad and universal. Yes, I cried...more than once. And the animation into 3D really makes it a whole new experience. I wouldn't say that the 3D is riveting, but the story was definitely animated with it in-mind. Just when you forget you're wearing the big, clunky 3D glasses, a bird or dog seems to fly off the screen towards you.

Other than that, our weekend is off to a good start. I volunteered yesterday, plowing my way through editing research papers other volunteers have written about Sierra Leone where the NGO plans to begin micro lending. It's interesting and, yet, depressing stuff. My husband and I kicked off the weekend by treating ourselves to a new (new to us) Japanese restaurant and an after dinner drink at the neighborhood bar we don't get to often enough.

This morning I tried out a new aerobics class, Body Vive....snoozer! Friday night I was just too tired and in a funk to haul myself to a Body Pump class so I tried to make up for it with a Saturday morning class. It wasn't the same. It was a bit like taking a tai chi class with a kickball from Jane Fonda. And, yes, I mean taking it from 72 year old Jane Fonda...except that we were taught by a blonde version of Jack McFarland from "Will and Grace". Imagine it...Have a look at the class at www.lesmills.com. It would make for a great tv episode, but it wasn't a great workout. Tomorrow, I will be back at Body Pump and it is sure to kick my butt.

Well, have a great weekend everyone!

National Parks Darwin

Today has been a downer. I refuse to talk about work, but let's just say I almost walked out...again. Stupid people, superfluous reports, meaningless conversation...blah, blah, blah. It doesn't help that I am listening to Jon Krakauer's account of his trip up Mt. Everest in "Into Thin Air". So many people fighting physical and mental walls to face a mountain and do the thing they love...climb. It's enough to get me out of bed in the morning to want to listen to it, but I spend the rest of the day feeling like I am wasting time. I am lucky in so many ways...one of which is a four day work week...it's just hard to keep perspective some days. I think the scientific term for my condition is called "Being in a rut".

I have traveling on my mind a lot these days. And so I open it up to everyone with a question: Where would you go if you could hop on a plane tomorrow? Why? Oh, and this is now a public blog so feel free to forward my blog on.

So, I pour myself a big glass of wine and crack open my journal and return to my trip to Australia...

Day 3: Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks south of Darwin

The national park safari out of Darwin is definitely and adventure all its own, but I am having an unexpected parallel experience. I am the only American in a group of 11 tourists with a female Australian guide. There are two German women in their 20's, my husband and eight French people. Two of the French are probably Germany, but the woman complains so much and I could have sworn they are from Paris. (It turns out they are, indeed, German. They are from a place in Germany I had actually visited and they were both chemists, a relatively close occupation to accountants in the types of people they draw, the salaries, and the social stereotypes others bring to them so I expected to be fast friends, but either their strange sense of humor or ours or both left for a few too many awkward silences and so we kept our distance.)

For starters, my husband and I are the biggest. We are easily the tallest of our respective genders and we are the only two in the group with a few pounds to lose...and I do mean a few. We are both on the top end of our healthy weight ranges, but it's also the European weight range which I find to be much narrower than the American (or Australian, for that matter).

Secondly, our fellow travellers seem disproportionately insistent on fresh vegetables for meals. (I mean, come on, we are on a wilderness safari in Australia. We are not on a wine tour of Bordeaux.) The first lunch of foot long hot dogs was met with looks of utter disdain. (Remember, this is our first meal together and we are but a few hours into the trip. Normally, people are still on their best behavior at this point.) The tour guide serving lunch asked, "What's the problem, vegetarian?"

Dinner went somewhat the same. The coleslaw and potato salad, what our guide termed "the veg", clumped together with eggs and mayo went basically to waste and I think I was the only female to eat two water buffalo sausages. It might have helped had I mentioned that buffalo is one of the leanest meats - leaner than both pork and beef - but I didn't say anything. Let the food snobs go hungry. The leftover sausages will be our lunch tomorrow along with the untouched chew toys masquerading as kangaroo meat. And if our Australian guide isn't touching them, neither am I.

Yesterday we went to Litchfield National Park and saw termite hills ten feel high. One type of termite lines its hills up like graveyard headstones through some genetically programmed directional device innate to that species. Hundreds of thousands of termites will inhabit each mound. There are over 60 breeds of termites and little is known about them except how they stave off ants, their nemesis. Each termite has the ability to let off a musty odor. Upon seeing a soldier ant entering their territory, a termite will spray the ant with the seemingly innocuous liquid. The scent, though, tricks the soldier's fellow ants into thinking he's a termite and so they spontaneously and brutally eat the ant alive.

My husband demonstrated the termite's power by sticking his finger into a hole in a termite's nest. One never to be out-done by a dare and always up for a laugh, he happily followed our cheeky guide's request. His finger smelled of Stetson cologne for days. The hills, though, were fascinating. One side of the mound was hot. The other side, cool. They are built high to withstand floods in the valley and yet a resistant to fires in the dry season.

It's hard to get enthusiastic about anything in +90 degree weather except for maybe the waterfalls we visited for a swim and the chocolate covered strawberry ice cream bar I found at a gas station. I also splurged and bought two bottles of Riesling wine to eat with meals. I was glad I did because the beer the guys bought was so bad they didn't even want to drink it. Dinner was definitely a quantity over quality experience.

To be continued...

Say goodnight grandma

Say goodnight grandma shoes. I just finished my first day at work with my new Earth Aspire shoes. They are great! The sole isn't as clunky as it looks in this picture and it SO much more stylish than the MBT's I normally wear to work. They are also a fraction of the price. The Aspires have elastic around the top of the shoe that keeps the shoes on my feet unlike most flats. They also have the negative heel technology that keeps my posture in-line and I can go all day without back soreness. They also have nice arch support and are a soft enough leather that they stretch to accommodate my crooked feet. The only downside is that the the elastic around the top can pinch the back of your foot. It was just a matter of putting band-aids on the back of my heels. It was a small adjustment to end the stares at work and on the train.

I know this sounds like a sales pitch, but I wish someone would have told me about Earth shoes years ago so I thought I'd pass along the tip. I bought my through Planet Shoes, but Zappos also has them.

Going down under

I wrote this journal entry after a stop over in a Singapore airport on the way to Perth, Australia. I have added my comments in parenthesis.

"There are so many people here, moreover types of people and clothing, the likes of which I have never seen before. The people filling the flat belts, people movers, that run down the center of the terminals are mostly short, around five feet tall, skinny, and olive brown. One type of Asian woman I saw with beautiful long black shiny hair literally had no forehead. Her hairline started half an inch or less above bushy black eyebrows.

Many here are wearing white linen. Head to toe robes with the women wearing head coverings and the men in what I can only describe as vanilla sailors' caps atop heavily bearded faces. I must find out what religion promotes such elegant and soothing attire. It looks quite comfortable too. The women in full black burka, only their eyes visible, stand out even more against the sea of ivory robes. Where is this Jeddah they are going to? Departures is a sea of ivory speckled with black. (I later find out that Jeddah, Saudia Arabia is the country's second largest city and the principal gateway to Mecca, Islam's holiest city. Jaddah is the Arabic word for grandmother. Eastern folklore states that its the location of the tomb of Eve, considered the grandmother of humanity. The men are wearing the prescribed attire for a pilgrimage, an ihram, and the women are wearing their normal hijab, but probably a cream colored version. The simple, white Ihram clothing is intended to unify the believers and make everyone appear the same since Muslims believe that in the eyes of Allah there is no difference between a prince and a pauper. Having seen my fair share of gold laden and jewel bedazzled holy men, I find the ritual righteous in the best sense of the word and can't help, but think that someone all those years ago had a great classic sense of fashion.)

My first experience with an Australian was one of the Quantas flight attendants on-board our flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Singapore. True to form, after he asked where we were headed in Australia, he launched in with tips to see a deadly, wild lizard that has a peacock like feature to it's neck that springs to life when he is threatened and a tough man's crooked walk. (We later saw him from a safe distance and from behind glass in the Sydney Wildlife World.) And then there was warning about the crocodiles in Litchfield National Park and, most emphatically of all, the warning about driving in southern Australia and watching out for kangaroos. He was quite graphic in explaining that some 'roos are taller than my husband and can jump eight to nine feet vertically from a standing position and are so fast they will be 'on your bonnet' and through your windshield continuing completely through the car before the driver can even react. Welcome to Australia! Just like author Bill Bryson said, these helpful tips were all delivered in a bright and eerily relaxed matter-of-fact tone. When my eyes widened, I guess larger than anticipated, the attendant admitted he'd never actually hit a kangaroo in his 38 years. My husband concluded that he must just like to f*&% with tourists, but I think it's something more benign and cultural."

I've added some pictures of the crocodiles and kangaroos. We did take a boat trip through a billabong (i.e. lake) in Litchfield National Park infested with approximately 8,000 fresh and saltwater crocodiles. We saw a few dozen crocodiles perched on the banks, but they both couldn't have been less interested in us and also were very aware of their status at the top of the food chain. The kangaroos, on the other hand, did jump across our path a few times while driving in Margaret River and there were several casualties lining the road, but they kept to the open pastures for the most part and were pretty shy.

Monkey Mia & Dolphins

As promised, more memories from Australia. I thought I'd work backwards...for no other reason than I can remember what we did most recently the best. For the earlier stuff from the trip, I will revert to my journal.

For the last few days of our vacation we went to the most touristy stop on our itinerary, Monkey Mia. The Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort was established for and subsists almost entirely on the dolphins that come ashore for daily feedings from the national park rangers. They come ashore because, starting about forty years ago, fisherman and later tourists fed the dolphins. Once a very remote fishing and pearl harvesting area was suddenly inundated with people feeding the dolphins all throughout the day, touching them and swimming with them. The tourists fed them everything from fish to french fries to steak. Despite the obvious problems that come from feeding an animal food they don't normally eat and touching a wild animal, the continual feeding actually endangered the breeding of the dolphins. Generations of dolphins were not learning how to hunt for food themselves and the mothers were not feeding their young. The female dolphins feed there young through an opening on the underside of their bodies in their midsection. If the mothers were constantly going to the shallow water to get fed by beachgoers, the babies no longer had an opportunity to have enough space to get under their mothers to feed. Eventually the babies would starve or get eaten by one of the thousand of sharks in the neighborhood because the dolphins had also stopped hunting in pods or groups, thus disabling their inherent protective hunting technique. All of this was explained by the rangers leading the feedings.

To improve the situation and also allow tourism to continue, the National Parks rangers are now the only people allowed to feed the dolphins and are only allowed to feed them the equivalent of 1/4 of their daily intake. They also only feed female dolphins that come from a line of dolphins that had been inappropriately fed in the past. This translates to the feeding of about five female dolphins. The also only feed before noon with the first feeding starting at 7.30 am, but I think this has more to do with getting tourists to stay overnight in the exorbitantly expensive hotel on the beach's shores instead of them driving the 25 kilometers from the nearest small town where the prices are much lower.

I was incredibly excited about seeing the dolphins up close and in what I thought would be a natural environment. I also thought I would get the opportunity to snorkel or dive with them so I was disappointed, but could understand. We had the beachouse closest to the dolphin feeding area and it had a great front porch so I wasn't too disappointed because it was a great way to end the vacation. I couldn't help, but feel a bit silly, though, for spending so much money to see the animal kingdom's equivalent to welfare recipients or, excuse the turn of phrase, but dolphin white trash. I mean, think about it. One of the mothers we took so many pictures of had lost something like five of seven children from malnutrition and we watched as the current child had to squeak and prod the mother to deeper water so he could eat. Instead, she played it up for the cameras and raced up and down the beach for the tourists and could have for an hour had the lead ranger not insisted on speeding up the feeding so that the mother would leave the shallows.

The main difference I noticed in going to a tourist trap was the high amount of Asian tourist...mostly Japanese. On the national parks tour outside of Darwin and in Cairns, I had heard tour operators comment that the biggest impact the recession was having was the decrease in Asian and mainly Japanese tourists. In the next breath, though, they would shrug and say that at least they didn't have to put up with their aggressive and sometimes ignorant behavior. One guide put it that they seem to ignore their normally obedient and group oriented culture and morph into aggressive photographers with selective hearing. I thought the comment funny albeit a bit stereotypical...until I got to Monkey Mia. For instance, some members of all Asian tour groups would just go out into the water to take pictures of the dolphins and remain their even after repeatedly being asked by the rangers to leave the water. I was secretly proud of my husband who leaned forward, probably somewhat enabled by his Dutch cultural stereotype towards directness, and said something like, "Hey lady in the plaid hat with the video camera, that means you too."

I should explain that, for the feedings, all tourists have to leave the water to cut down on some of the activity and 'noise' in the water because for the dolphins' incredibly sensitive 'hearing', the extra people in water has the effect of making them more nervous. It also eliminates the possibility of touching the dolphins which had started to trigger the dolphins to bite in the past. Volunteers are then picked from the audience to feed.

One Japanese woman was picked from the audience to feed a dolphin. She cheerily came forward and fed the dolphin and then bent down and pet the dolphin like you would a dog even after strict instruction not to touch the animals. The immediate admonishments from the staff and the gasps from the crowd didn't seem to dampen her cheerfulness as she sloshed her way back through the shallows to the beach to be received by the rest of her tour group with pats on the back, vigorous head nods and wide smiles.

I tried to upload a video of one of the baby dolphins trying to catch his own fish, but it must have been too large of a file because it just wouldn't load. Instead, I am posting one close up picture of one of the female dolphins and another of the crowd gathered for a 7.30 am feed.

Dutch lessons...again

I started taking Dutch lessons again last night. Before I go on, don't worry, I will write more about our trip to Australia this weekend, I just wanted to write this since I haven't written in awhile and, honestly, to relieve some guilt.

My friend, whom I met about two years ago on our previous attempt at Dutch classes, and I thought it was finally time to stop making excuses and start courses again. It could be our pending four year anniversary of living in the country and the ever mounting guilt at living in a country and not being fluent in the local language yet. That's not the guilt I mentioned before so hold on.

This time, we went for a Dutch for Expats class taught for English speakers. As the other members of our (coincidentally) all female class filed in, I felt like this class would be worth the slightly higher price tag. I was the first to arrive thanks to my husband doing me the big favor of driving me the ten kilometers across town and potentially giving up the last remaining parking spot on our always crowded street so that I didn't have to take public transport when my imminent jet lag kicked in.

The instructor greeted me in Dutch and, while surprised and having a bit of reversed culture shock after speaking only English for a month, I responded as best I could and took a seat. Just as I was thinking, "Okay, this is good. The teacher is speaking mainly Dutch. This is the best way to learn. I've been told that. I just need to be open to it"... the next student walked in and her eyes bulged and mouth dropped open in a nervous shock when greeted in Dutch, the typical expat reaction to Dutch and sported by me for my first two years here and still my default reaction if I don't consciously make an effort to relax my face and breath. As I watched and listened to the other members of the class excitedly chat to each other (they had all taken the previous class together) in English and recognized the English, Australian, and British accents of the women all roughly my age, I sighed in relief. This is going to be a fun class. My last class closer resembled the UN General Assembly and English was sporadic.

We eased into the course by introducing ourselves and explaining what we did on vacation. As I had just explained this the day before to my Dutch mother-in-law, I felt reasonably comfortable and was okay with being asked to go first. I was interrupted by the last student arriving to the class and asked to stop so I scanned the room to see expressions of mild shock and panic on the faces of my classmates. For the first time, I had actually impressed (actually intimidated) others with my Dutch! To their wowed comments, I impulsively spouted, "My mother-in-law only speaks Dutch with me"...somehow explaining that I must get a lot of practice.

Not only is that statement a bald faced lie, but I also failed to interject that not only do we only see her once every few months, but also that I had lived in The Netherlands for close to four years, much longer than most of them. Where did that outburst come from? And why did I feel the need to wrongly blame my mother-in-law to these strangers instead of admit that I am horrible with languages and more than a tad lazy? Thankfully, my friend didn't bust me on my lie, but she had all right to. Does anyone else have verbal diarrhea when meeting new people? I should have just blamed jet lag, but that would have be another lie.

Ningaloo and Margaret River

Hi All! It's been a few days...my apologies for that. We haven't really had much access to the internet lately.

Since I last wrote, we've been on a wild winery outing down in Margaret River in southeastern Australia. We went on a great, but a bit out there wine and beer tour and then followed it up by going off-roading the next day thanks to our navigational system. Our Tom Tom navigational equipment sent us down a road it swore was paved only to experience a bumpy mud road in our Mitsubishi Lancer rental that was flooded halfway through our 75 kilometer trip down it. We got to see some emus and kangaroos in the wild along with some great scenes of the countryside, but seeing wild kangaroos jump across the road is not exactly what you want to see as the sun drops over the road and you are in a rental car...as opposed to a rental SUV like the rest of the tourists had.

We then headed up north to Exmouth for a few days of diving. We've dove with probably a dozen sharks - white tip reef sharks and a nurse shark - along with more fish than I can mention here all the while hearing whales off in the distance on their annual migration. We finally saw a pod of dolphins up close (from a pier) yesterday on their nightly fishing of travallis. The travallis literally jump out of the water trying to get away from the five dolphins that were circling to round them up. And just the day before we saw a whale breech into the air off into the distance and do a back flop. That is as close as we've gotten so far, though. All and all, it has been a great time here. We head out tomorrow morning to hopefully swim with dolphins in the wild tomorrow at Monkey Mia before heading to Perth to fly home. It is going to be sad to leave this country!

Abyss Miss

I chickened out of the night dive in the end. I managed to get over how creeped out I was by all of the fish circling the boat lights, but gave up when I saw the dive couple in front of us disappear below us after getting just a few meters away. They looked like they had just gotten sucked into a black abyss and I just wasn't ready for that. I know, it sounds really silly...I can happily go in the same ocean during the day...oh well. Having only done one dive yesterday, I was sufficiently bored and ready to dive today. I had planned for 3 dives, but ended up with two after the second was a one hour dive and I was feeling my back. Just one more night on the boat, I think, and a day left of diving. I am completely losing track of the days out here.

Here are some more pictures...a gray reef shark that was swimming in about 5 meters of water; two hump nosed parrot fish...I think that is the name...they sure were big and angry looking or so I hear from my husband whom actually saw them. The variety of color combinations and types of fish and coral out here never cease to fascinate me. Like with the parrot fish, I wonder how those parts got put together and survived thousands of years of evolution. And there are some things out here in various neon colors that probably existed in that color before the word neon was even coined and, on top of that, how do they keep from getting eaten when their bodies are a giant neon sign asking to be eaten?

Back at Cod Hole

So...the sea sickness tablets did the trick for me. I kept my dinner - a nice piece of pork with cracklin' on a bed of sweet potatoes and a bowl of fruit and chocolate ice cream topped with a kind of sugar brittle - but we did not make it out the Ospry Reef in the end. The water was just too rough...something like 30 knots or something, but that doesn't really mean much to me.

Unfortunately, there were more than a few casualties last night. Thankfully, none were in our room. One poor guy, an Italian fellow that just joined us yesterday afternoon ended up running for the outdoor deck around midnight, with is hands squeezed over his mouth and cheeks puffed only to slip on the wet deck where all of the diving equipment is kept, hit is knees and then slide across the floor. He was finally stopped when his forehead hit the railing door that was closed to keep people from going down the back steps and off the boat. Just about that time, his stomach made it's way finally north and his dinner went everywhere. I heard this story from a luck crew member that witness it firsthand and had the lucky job of clean up.

So we went back to Cod Hole and most are out on a Cod feeding dive. I dove just before lunch and had the great luck to see both a white tipped reef shark and a gray reef shark. We have two more dives today including a night dive so I am sitting this one out.

On the boat

We are into day 4 of our 7 day liveaboard. It's been great so far. The boat was not full so I shared a 4 person bunk room with another woman for 3 days. The boat is now full, though, so it will be tighter quarters and a very busy diving area. I would have been fine getting off the boat and onto dry land complete with our own private room, but my husband is loving the boat and as many as 5 dives per day. Growing up near water and used to being out on a fishing boat with his dad, my husband is loving it here. Gratefully, the other guests, the staff and the food are great. The diving has been really nice. I have been keeping dives to 3 per day because my back just gets too tired otherwise.

We are now at Lizard Island and head out to Osprey Island tonight. We are crossing the open ocean tonight so a bumpy night is expected and I am already planning on my seasickness tablet after dinner tonight.

I am posting a picture from our Potato Cod feeding. We were joined by two massive potato cod whom obviously know of the feeding area that several dive operators use. The other picture is of a squid or cuddlefish that was about the size of my forearm. We've seen them before, but not this big.

Setting sail

In about 15 minutes we will be off for our liveaboard. I think we have everything...I am bit nervous about sleeping on a boat, but I am sure I can take seasickness pills if it's a problem. I also hope that they have internet available on-board. Everything here seems to be connected...so I hope to give updates on board. If not, you will hear from me in 7 days.

I found out on board our snorkeling trip that there is a shark feeding one night on the trip. My husband had been keeping that to himself so that I didn't freak out...I don't think I will be doing that, but I am sure he will take the camera along with him.

Daintree rainforest

We are in the Daintree Rainforest outside of Cairns today. We head back in the early evening to Cairns to spend the night and leave tomorrow for our 7 day liveaboard for diving.

Yesterday we went out on a boat called the rum runner to do some snorkelling on the inner reef of the Great Barrier Reef. We were the only boat out snorkelling so the group of 45 of us had the whole area to ourselves. We didn't take the underwater case for the camera, but we wish we had. We saw some of the largest clams I've ever seen...about the size of a two year old.

Last night, we went for an early dinner so my husband could go out on a night walk through the rainforest. I just took it easy at our hotel. I am not that hot on having wild animals approach me when I cannot see them.

This morning, we went tree surfing. I have included the link to the website, but I haven't figured out yet how to upload a video. I will give it a try tonight when we are back in Cairns.

One of the crew for the tree surfing mentioned a great look-out point to try along Cape Tribulation. When the water is still, he had seen turtles, dolphins, and even the rare whale. We didn't have that kind of luck, but it was still amazing and beautiful. I managed to work up a sweat during the walk though, and will sign off now so I can go for a swim in our hotel pool before we take the 1.5 hour shuttle back to Cairns.

G'day

Hi All,

My apologies for not getting up a blog sooner and my apologies in advance for this being on the short side. I have been writing almost everyday, though, in a little notebook I take everywhere with me and will get to posting those soon. So far we have been camping for two nights in Kakadu and Litchfield National parks and seen our share of wallabees and swam in three waterfall pools. We have also seen Aboriginal art and crocodiles in their natural environs. So stay tuned.

We are in Cairns today. The strangest thing happened today. Some guy walked off with my bag at the luggage carousel. When his suitcase was the only one left, it was obvious by how similar the bags looked, that he had made a mistake. Thank God for Quantas' policy of getting passenger's contact details. Unfortunately, the guy did not realise his mistake until getting to someone's house 2-3 hours away from the airport. I ended up getting my bad at 5 pm after an 10.30 am arrival. I was really worried that my diving gear would walk off, but all was intact. I am now going to put some obnoxious ribbon or tag on it.

Tomorrow we are off for two nights to the Daintree Rainforest to stay in a hotel at the Cape Tribulation beach. We plan to walk in the water and do some snorkelling on Day 2 after taking a tour through the rainforest on Day 1. We may also do a tree line adventure with a zip line from as much as 60 meters above the ground or we may just relax on the beach.

We've picked up a bit of a stomach bug that is working it's way out today so we are headed to get Chinese take away and eat it in our apartment style room while we wait do laundry.

Cairns is smaller than we expected, but very tropical looking...think Hawaii. It's a dramatic difference from Darwin...think a tropical Milwaukee, WI a bit like Crocodile Dundee. Well, more later...my time is running out at the internet cafe.

So many things

I am nearly packed. I am in the late night organizing phase right now where I try to sort my odds and ends into Ziploc bags. Am I the only one that does this? One bag for toiletries. Another for medicine. And a sandwich size bag for band-aids. Oh and there is the other small one with liquids for my carry on. We have a limit of 23 kilos for checked luggage and 7 kilos for a carry-on. I am not really worried about the carry-on except for the 20+ hours worth of reading material. I am already debating getting out my mother-of-all-luggage suitcase. I haven't used it since I moved all of my worldly possessions over here...just to give you an idea of how big it is.

We are taking most of our own diving equipment. A vest (bcd) and fins take up a lot of space. And there needs to be room free for souvenirs, of course. We'll see. I'd better get back to it.

UPDATE......
Yep, I had to go with the huge suitcase after all.

Trying new things

This past weekend was a filled with new favorite things.

We went to visit friends on Saturday night to celebrate the wife's birthday. Our present to her was a chocolate liquer, Mozart Gold. It tasted like chocolate milk with rum...it was fantastic! It was probably also one of the things that triggered the biggest gallbladder attack I've experienced in a year, but...I recommend it highly.

I also received the Earth sandals I ordered on-line with the promise of working just as well for my back as my grandma styled MBT's, but with much more up-to-date styling. I ordered the Exer fit and the Cabo styles. I was able to wear both all day without back pain of any kind. The only issue I had is with needing to break them in. They gave me the worst blisters on the tops of my feet! I am still taking them with me. I'd rather wear band-aids on my feet than have a sore back.





Sunday night we went to see friends for dinner. They made us one of their favorite meals from home, Chinese fondue. That's not what they call it, of course, but that is the easiest way for me to describe it. We had a pan of boiling water with a divider in the middle. It was kept on a hot plate to keep the water boiling. One side had water and spring onions in it. The other had a spicier combination. We could choose from two dipping sauces - either a garlic and oil or a peanut butter based sauce. Then we took turns boiling pieces of fresh lamb or beef or fish balls (shredded fish shaped into a ball...dirty minds) or shrimp or tofu or bok choy or noodles. It was SO good! They really went all out for us. We ended the night by trying out Guitar Hero and the Wii dancing game. We're hooked - me on Guitar Hero and my husband on the dancing game. I know, we are nerds. That might just be our next big purchase.

Three new other things I tripped over on-line - two music artists: David Berkeley and Anjulie - and an author: Paul Theroux. Maybe you've already heard of them, but, if not, give them a try. Enjoy!

Happy Weekend

Happy weekend, everybody! I haven't been very active on my blog so I thought I'd post an update. Nothing earth shattering has happened, but, like most people I imagine, I have felt busy.

Last Tuesday, I finally earned my deep diving SCUBA certification in a pond just outside Amsterdam. It has been in the making since March. It's great to get that under my belt before Australia because I will need it for diving on the Great Barrier Reef. The most complicated bit is learning how to release a balloon while you are diving that will buoy on the surface as a sign to other boats that you are below and a sign to your diving boat where to come get you. The first try wasn't great since I seem to be mechanically inept, but the second try was near perfect. It was nice to also hang out with our dive club who tried their hardest to explain inflating the balloon in the least sexual way possible, but still managed to laugh like school girls and make dirty comments in Dutch. They are all really great guys from literally all walks of life and it is little wonder why my husbands loves diving with them as much as twice a week.

We bought a new entertainment center for the living room. It was on sale for 50% off and we found out when putting in the dvd player that it was just shallow enough to not allow us to close the cupboard doors so we now need to buy a new, smaller dvd player. The drawers are also about half a centimeter too shallow so that we cannot put our dvds in the drawers so the binding (and title) side is up so they all have to be stacked, taking up much more room in the drawers. So much for 50% off. I've posted a picture. We are going to add floating shelves at the end farthest from the tv so we have a place for framed photos that keeps our already dark and narrow house from looking even darker and narrower.




We also bought a deck umbrella with an adjustable neck. The umbrella part cranks open and the neck part is adjustable to adjust the shade given depending on where the sun is at in the sky. This was one of my husband's entries on our buying wish list. We bought it and then realized that we forget the second box with the base so he is back at the DIY store as I write this trying to find one. Apparently, the store also didn't know it was a two box set and no other customer has come back to complain. I doubt that, but am not surprised by the inventive customer service tactic. It's a national phenomenon.

We are pretty much ready for our trip to Australia starting next Friday. My husband just needs to get an international driver's license today so he can drive the car we've rented for our Perth/Margaret River part of the trip. We've also started taking vitamin B because a colleague of his said it wards of insects and mosquitoes. Since hearing Bill Bryson's account of the shear number of insects, particularly in the Outback, I'll try anything to help keep them away from me. The insects are known to crawl into people's ears, nose and mouth. I've also bought insect nets for my bed as well as for my head to use on the excursions to the national parks. Our travel agent assures us they aren't needed, but the travel accounts I've heard and seen on tv say differently. My husband opted out for the nets. I bet he will be sorry.

I also have not been that impressed with our travel agent in the end. If someone can explain to me the way they make money, I would really appreciate it because what seemed like a great deal for us has ended up feeling like we are getting totally shafted and over charged. It's difficult for me to prove because they will not show us how much they have actually paid hotels and tour operators. I can only see what we are being charged and what information I can find on-line. We've also continually had to chase them up to get different details adjusted to our itinerary like a change in hotel or telling a dive operator that we will bring our own dive equipment for the most part so we don't need to pay for the dive operator to provide it. I am a self-proclaimed control freak and travel planning lover, but it has been nice for someone else to plan our Australia trip especially since I am juggling getting back to work full-time after being off for a sick leave. I can look past the mistakes. I just wish the agent was more up front and, thus, more ethical, about the price structure. My husband gets mad when I even mention it now and insists is a learning point. I am sure Australia will be great despite the seed of doubt this has planted in back of my mind.

DIY

This weekend we did a little D.I.Y. and put up wallpaper in the stairway up to our top floor. And, when I say 'we', I mean the 'royal we', meaning that I had the idea, but before I could even get the first piece hung, I gave up. Not agreeing with my idea to take down the piece of wallpaper, sand the walls and then just paint it, my husband pregrudgingly took over wallpapering.

For the record, I would just like to state that whomever invented wallpaper is a masochist. And, secondly, wallpaper should be rated for the levels of experience required by the hanger. I dumbly bought a large patterned paper that required not only matching up each piece precisely, but straight walls and ceilings which 100+ year old Dutch houses do not have. I have included a picture so you can have a look.

After two rolls of wallpaper, it turned out really well, I must say. Needless to say, it will be the last wallpapering we do in this house.

Swearing to Learn

So...I am learning to swear...in Dutch.

I got picked on by a group of twelve year olds today on the tram. No, this was not a dream and I am not joking. I was jeered, poked, and not so casually pushed by a group of five twelve year olds today on my way home from work...at six o'clock surrounded by a tram full of other adults.

I boarded the tram at the central train station and sat a row behind an Indian woman about my age. She noticed a male friend on the platform and, as the doors to the tram were shutting, she yelled to him something like, "I will send you an e-mail" or "Check your e-mail".

Once the doors shut and the tram was moving, a high pitched playback of the woman's words began repeating over and over accompanied by laughter from behind me. The sound persisted and I don't know what got in to me, but I turned around and stared down each of the five sets of eyes I found behind me, the source of the screeching and laughing. I managed to hide my surprise at their age. I had expected them to be teenagers and rough looking. They were quite the opposite - short, probably twelve, and rather well dressed.

The screeching didn't stop. I felt someone start to tap, rather jab me with a finger, on the back of my shoulder. After two or three times, I turned around and stared down the cute, terrified boy and said in my angriest voice, "Stop it. Stop it now." I couldn't remember the basic phrase in Dutch or any other words for that matter at the moment. I was so enraged to be touched and to be so disrespected. Before I could get the words out, he was pleading that it wasn't him. So I flashed a narrowed looked at all of them before turning around again.

The next stop was approaching so they began to get up and were now pushing my shoulder with an entire hand. One boy, now standing next to me, pointed at my shoes and gave a thumbs up with a face completely devoid of a smile. I was, of course, wearing my grandma MBT shoes. I had never seen such skillful sarcasm in an adolescent nor in most adults. I had my ipod headphones on so I am guessing they thought I was trying not to hear them, but I heard every word. With a blatantly obvious rub by one of the boy's bags and arm across my shoulder and arm, they exited the tram.

I got off at the next stop and tried to brush the whole thing off on my short walk home. My first thought was, "I need to find out how to say 'I know your parents are worthless, but the least you could do is shut up and sit down while in public.'"

I went home and explained what happened to my husband and he basically concluded that, while I don't need to be afraid in these situations, I shouldn't say anything until I can stand my ground in Dutch. So...I am learning to swear...in Dutch. Instead of exchanging pleasantries in Dutch, now my husband and I exchange swear words so I can practice.

Etsy

I just wanted to share a website I tripped over on-line: Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/). The website is for the buying and selling of homemade and vintage products. One great thing is that it hosts artists from literally across the globe. Another feature is that you can search for artists local to you. Have a look...

Microeconomics

Once in awhile people will ask me my views on the differences in the U.S. and Dutch economies. When they ask, I will tell them about today.

I have two credit cards - one American card tied to my U.S. bank account for U.S. purchases like presents for my family and big purchases. I also like it's reward points program. Due to the Patriot Act, it has to be tied to both an American bank account and address so I use my parents' home address. The other card is my Dutch credit card.

As coincidence would have it, my American card expires this month and I have yet to receive a new one so I called them today to follow-up. While on-hold, they inform you of the latest statistics on your card - outstanding current balance, due date, credit limit, etc. I had heard of how U.S. credit card companies were upping their technology, for better or worse, to improve both customer service and target their marketing so I was not surprised, but impressed. I was prompted to provide my security code which I, of course, had no memory of so I was forwarded to an agent that proceeded to ask me the zip codes of my previous addresses along with the addresses. I couldn't tell you my mobile phone number off the top of my head so there is no way I am able to remember my address from three or six years ago. The agent, not satisfied, goes into the second phase of questioning - the intricate details of the cars registered to my address. I explained that I don't have a car so I was asked to give not only the make of both of my parents' cars, but also the model and the year. When I got the year of my Dad's truck incorrect, she moved into information she called 'public record' meaning, "Lady, any idiot should know this about themselves and, by the way, you are so dumb you would lose your head if it wasn't screwed on tight." I finally got enough questions about my birthday and immediate kin right to get my password reset and, thus, enable a new card to get sent my way. All of this interrogation for them to send out a card they either forgot to send to me or was somehow lost so I can potentially spend enough money to pay them interest on. Oh, and additionally, my limit was sky high - in the tens of thousands range. What happened to the credit crisis? Needless to say, I was sufficiently creeped out and impressed by the amount of information at the fingertips of a customer service agent across the ocean.

Next, I called my Dutch credit card company - also the company I work for and the bank in which I keep my savings - to get a temporary limit increase on my credit card for our upcoming Australia vacation. Their security code is my mother's birthday, including year, and I always mess that up so I get sent to the second line questioning again and, this time, they are much more reasonable questions like my bank account number and address. My credit limit is 1,000 euros and is on an automatic monthly direct debit, a limit reserved for miscreants and toddlers in the U.S. I ask to get my credit limit raised for two months to 4,000 euros and not only do I have to provide my monthly net income (although they could see my savings balance in my bank account), but a reason as to why I want the increase. I refrained from the impulses to gush that I had just seen a Louis Vuitton bag that I just had to have or to tell her "none of your damn business" and explained that we were going on a one month vacation to Australia. She asked me a few more somewhat intrusive questions to fill in a credit increase form on my behalf and informed that the request would have to go to another department for approval and I would be informed my mail if my increase was granted. If not, an alternative limit would be suggested for which I will probably have to call again and repeat the entire process. Lovely.

In the U.S., at least while I was living there, I could increase my credit limit on-line or by phone, I think. And, with this particular credit card, I think my credit limit was increased without my knowledge seemingly in an attempt to find a limit I could not possibly pay off in a month and, thus, have to pay interest. I think they had the "if you give, they will spend" motto in the past. The Dutch system is dramatically different. The credit card companies seem to live by the "we know better than you how much you can afford to spend and we'll just make it a little lower just in case you are really stupid" motto. While I applaud the Dutch's more socially moral approach, it also seems to be missing a revenue opportunity. I don't promote the hunt the weak mentality prevalent in the U.S. in the past decade, but I get that companies that take the risk and provide a line of credit to consumers do so to make a profit.

It is also just another example of how the Dutch can, in one institution, be both incredibly technologically advanced and also archaic. The bank, for instance, does not provide customers with checkbooks and charges stupidly high fees to deposit checks into customer accounts choosing, instead, to pretend all is possible domestically and internationally via bank transfer. But, for a credit limit increase, they choose to go the less environmentally friendly and more costly route of informing you of a credit increase approval or rejection via snail mail when seemingly everyone has at least one e-mail account. Not to mention all of the freakishly impressive data mining they are missing out on. Weird.

In terms of credit, amongst other things, the U.S. and The Netherlands seem to me to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. There must be some happy medium.