Croissants - here we come!

Today we go to the city of love, the country of croissants, the tower of the eiffel.... FRANCE!

Bonjour

we we

sava

vouz palais anglais

Yes we have been practicing.

It is today that we really feel like we're in Europe... "oh yeah we're just catching a train over to France for the week..."

We'll arrive in Paris at 8pm this evening and then need to get to another train station by 9pm to catch a train out to where my relatives live in Bretagne (Brittany).

I'll try to take lots of pictures of food so you can salivate along with me.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The most Dutch photo of them all

This picture was so Dutch it couldn't share a post with other pictures.

In case you forgot what we look like.

Nick got very excited running up this ancient "fortress". His medieval knight dreams were rekindled.

The markets.

Leiden

God bless Australia.

Mmm check out the sugary goods (and note Nick carefully considering his options inside)

Markets on the canal.

Unileva?

Today I had my first Dutch job interview. It was for a position as Senior Nutritionist at a company called Unilever. I like how I can change the company name to be MINE!

Anyway, let's not dwell on that because I don't have any fun photos to share with you about the experience. I DO however have photos of Leiden - a city close to The Hague that we visited on the weekend. Leiden has one of the oldest universities and about 1/6th of the population are students from all over the world, so it has a great vibrancy.

We roamed the streets and found an exhibition of Australian Indigenous culture! Yay it's the motherland. There were also great markets along the canal, and as much as we wanted to buy snacks we were just too full from lunch. But we DID have a good look (you might notice Nick in the corner of the picture of the sweets store).

Not much has been happening this week. It was ONE degree yesterday. ONE. UNO. YEK (that my Farsi with English letters). EIN. Okay you get the drift. Anyway I am proud to say that I went out not only without gloves, but also without a scarf. Thats right people, I have acclimatised. How do you spell that word.

Party fever

People who work at the ICC seem to host a lot of parties. Not that I am complaining or anything. Friday night was the OTP (Office of The Prosecutor) end of year party. It included interesting canape's - such as honey and cheese wraps (you get that a lot here), an unknown mixture of foodstuffs wrapped in prosciutto and of course, deep fried bits and pieces. We got to meet the very lovely and very important Chief Prosecutor (or 'da man' if you will) and have a chat, as well as learn samba moves from a Brazilian dance teacher that had been hired.

We did unfortunately miss the last tram and so walked most of the way home, enjoying the picturesque scenery as a coping mechanism for the freezing temperature.

Dutch poffertjes

The layer of icing sugar on these Dutch goodies is about an inch thick.

Candy garters are natural born killers

Okay, so last night we went to an intern Christmas party at an interns apartment. It was a great night, and had only a few slightly awkward moments - like when we had to quietly avoid trying the home made egg nog that the host had gone to a lot of trouble to make (unfortunately for us it included a bottle of rum) and really wanted to share with his guests. The party also included a 'Kris Kringle', that is, everyone brought a gift worth 5 euro's and put it in the designated present area. Later on, we were each assigned a number and when yours was called you could either go and choose a present OR decide to take someone elses present (that had already been opened... for instance, I was number 20 and so got to pick either one of the 19 presents before me or choose my own). People were getting great little goodies like chocolate and well, chocolate... Anyway, Nick was SO excited when it was his turn (he was eyeing the various sugary treats) and while he did still choose a sugary treat, it came in the form of a garter. Yes, that's right, a candy garter. Somehow I don't think it will fit around his thigh (though we haven't tried yet). Then I picked another great present for the team ... a small champagne bottle (I actually had no choice as it was the last present on the table). Anyway, I made a trade for a cool techno gadget pen radio device and a dvd of 'natural born killers', but Nick I'm afraid is stuck with the garter.

The Ice Palace

The town hall is also known as "The Ice Palace" - because, well, it's as cold as ice. Well, not literally, I mean, there's central heating and it's warm inside, but everything, and I mean everything, is white. When you step inside it feels like you are on the movie set of some futuristic sci-fi film and that you should be wearing a one-piece silver body suit.

The Dutch are huge but their cars are tiny

What is the point people, really.

A hearty Dutch breakfast

Sprinkles on toast. Chocolate or mixed. For breakfast.

I have discovered the dietitian's nightmare: a race of people who eat sprinkles on toast for breakfast. I tried it this morning, and while I was mildly horrified at the prospect I realised it's really not that different to nutella on toast (the chocolate sprinkles anyway).

Gorgeous Delft and daunting heights

The stairs up the tower... they were like this the entire way up

The smiles you see on our faces are actually frozen there

Snapped! Nick entertaining himself while I drool over shoes inside

Yesterday we went to a small town close to The Hague called Delft. You may have heard of or seen the famous 'Delftware' - blue and white pottery that comes from this region. The pottery is just the beginning of this gorgeous and bustling little town.


We wandered the Saturday ("Zaterdag") markets and made some delectable food purchases. When we came across the small Vietnamese food stall we pushed through the crowd in excitement of getting a spring roll (ok there wasn't really a crowd to push through). We also got some delicious cheese, some great nuts and dried fruit and plenty of lollies. Interestingly, it seems "lollies" here is pretty much synonymous with licorice... a Dutch favourite (called "Drop").


The New Church ("Nieuw Kerk") built in the 1500's (yes, it is actually the newer church) has a tall clock tower that you can walk up. And while the skinny spiral stairs brought painful flashbacks of my trip down the stairs at home the view at the top of the tower was definitely worth it. This country is seriously flat and seriously built up - buildings as far as the eye can see! We could even see The Hague, and another city, Rotterdam.


We also went on a historical "walk" (you buy a map and then go wandering around), but I don't think we followed anything on the specified walk and I have no idea whether we passed any historical landmarks. I DO know that there are some great shoe shops in the city centre.


If anyone comes to visit us here - we will definitely take you to Delft!

Christmas parties and sore bums have more in common than you think

Everyone breaking it down on the dance floor

As I went sliding down approximately 15 stairs (inside the house) on my bum this afternoon, I was reminded of the awkward moments in life, such as dancing in a room full of people you don't know at a Christmas party you weren't invited to (ie. me 2 nights ago).


The ICC Christmas party bash was held on Wednesday night (till early Thursday morning I might add), but was only for staff members. Of course, being an Australian, I don't pay much attention to rules and sauntered in any way, totally pulling off the 'I'm one of them' look (I don't know why I consider that Australian... I just consider everything I do these days as being the "Australian" thing to do). It was great fun (as you can see from the pictures above it included a whitney lookalike drag queen) and stunningly multicultural. I met people from Uganda, Azerbayjan (spelling?!), Hungary, Australia (oi oi oi!), Canada, Zimbabwe, Mexico, and Macedonia just to name a few. The music was pumping all night and it was great to see that everywhere you go, all over the world, even people that seem to be "VIP", are all the same and can't dance.


Since Wednesday the weather has seemed to get progressively worse. My definition of worse is colder, greyer, and wetter. No worries for me as I have successfully achieved another working week sitting mainly on the couch. I have however, discovered the wonder of an entirely new country full of shopping (there are so many pairs of gloves and shoes I want to buy already), and may have even found us a home to live in.


My bum is sore.

Maybe these retailers should just stick to Dutch - take 2

Mmm, I wonder what type of people frequent this cafe.

When I saw this I basically fell into a fit of laughter thinking it was another one of those funny Dutch things where something is lost in the translation. But then I found out this actually IS pointing to a monument for homosexuals (who were persecuted during WW2)! Oh... aha, ahem, sorry... hopefully nobody was watching as I pointed and laughed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AFROOZ!

What a wonderful day to be turning 27

Hope you are having a good and merry time celebrating the day of your birth.

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear afrooooooooooooooooz
Happy birthday to you!

Or as the Dutch like to say:

Hartelijk gefeliciteerd metje verjaardag

What? What kind of language is this! I think I'll stick to English.

Happy Sinterklaus sleepy head!

Do you think I'm talking about Santa? No, I'm not. This is about Sinterklaus. The Dutch tradition. Sinterklaus is a merry old soul very similar to "Santa" but apparently less commercial and more the original Saint Nicholas. And today, 6th of December, is Sinterklaus day! So happy Sinterklaus. This is like the traditional Dutch Christmas and giving-of-presents day. I would actually never have realised because people are still at work and everything seems to be happening as per usual. The Dutch are probably having a big party somewhere and the joke is on foreigners like us.

Anyway, Sinterklaus is a major issue here because he is being slowly overtaken by Santa Claus. Shock horror. There is even an association dedicated to saving Sinterklaus! Yes, believe it.

Moving on, I'm never drinking coffee again. I don't even know why I drunk it in the first place yesterday. I thought, because it was 5 in the afternoon, it wouldn't affect my sleep later in the evening. But no, it did. Perhaps the 3 choc-coated coffee beans I also had sealed the no-sleep deal (but they were so good!). Anyway, I couldn't sleep and Nick somehow set his morning alarm for 4am instead of 8am (I also blame that on the coffee). So, today I am somewhat sleepy but still cheery for it is Sinterklaus!

More on Amsterdam

"Bigjenhof" or something similar. House and courtyard area where widows used to live and look after elderly people. Beats me why it's so famous, and why I am perpetuating the famous-ness by posting this photo.
Random photo of Amsterdam.

Nick exploring the depths of the city.

Anne Frank's house. This was a 12 year old girl who hid with her family in an attic during WW2 (though they were eventually found). She wrote a diary during their time there. Unfortunately she died in a concentration camp. This is the house where they hid. Obviously the house didn't look this modern back in 1939.

Anyway, I have spent about 10 hours walking in Amsterdam. Not sitting, hanging out, eating food. Just walking. I am exhausted just thinking about it. Thus the pictures suffice to tell the story.

Azadi's in Amsterdam

The narrowest house in Europe. And my brother. Okay, you got me, it's the second narrowest house (2.44m wide to be exact).

Brother and I