Day to Day Life

I know, I’m STILL going on about mosquitoes in February, but they are still causing me pain! See, here’s what happened.  It was early September and I was laying in bed in the wee hours of the morning when I felt a mosquito bite on my back.  It was about 3am – 4am and I was not ready to wake …

Last night on our way to the Film Festival I had to stop and just look at this for a moment.  It’s the square at Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam.  The photo doesn’t do it justice, but there were so many twinkling lights and on a cold winter night it looked really beautiful. The red things that look like cranes actually have …

This morning we woke up to a bit of snow in the Netherlands.  At 10am my husband and I hopped in the car and set off to Kinderdijk! I’ve been there a number of times, the first time back in 2007 with the girls, then in 2008 with my parents and also once or twice with my husband. I’ve been …

I got these eight books for only €27!  Not a bad deal at all! This past weekend I visited Het Boekenfestijn in Ahoy, which is a huge book festival that is held once a year to sell off books that were left over from the year’s stock.   I had never been and was curious about what it was like after …

I know I’m late to the party with the whole New Year ‘resolution’ thing, but I needed some time to think about it.  I don’t actually do resolutions, it’s really not my thing.  Mostly because I’m a big quitter and I never keep them.   There are some things I would really like to see happen during the new year though. …

Our other expat friends gathered together at our house for dinner on Christmas Day The hardest part about life as an expat is missing your family and friends, I don’t think there is an expat out there who can argue that… and in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and instant messengers, it’s impossible to isolate yourself in your own little …

The view from my balcony last night as my neighbours brought in the New Year with a bang! Every year on New Years Eve I am on my balcony in hopes of getting some good firework photos.  Back in 2007 I was bummed because it was raining on NYE so not as many people were out.  Also it made for …

That’s a lot of meat for only four people but in our defense, we did have veggies too! Last night Xander and I went down to Roosendaal to visit with our friends Penny & Yuri.  A few weeks ago when I went to visit Penny for the day we walked by a restaurant that sparked my interest.  Amigos is a …

  Today we went shopping in the city center.  While walking along Westblaak we saw this tree full of shoes.  When I asked a local shop owner about it they said that one day someone bought a new pair of shoes in their shop and threw their old ones in the tree.  Then for whatever reason, other people started throwing …

I would not want to be this guy! Seriously… Christmas trees aren’t THAT expensive here that you have to steal one.  Perhaps he feels the same as I do, that the Dutch Christmas trees are not worth buying.  They are Charlie Brown Christmas Trees! They don’t even deserve to be called trees, they are Christmas Shrubs!  With their big fat …

This little girl took great joy in pounding her father with giant snowballs yesterday.  He was a really good sport about it, and I thought that was really cool, because he looked like he was freezing his arse off.  It was nice to see all my neighbours out, not just the children but the parents too.  It appears that in …