Day 207: Paris, France

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We traveled by train this morning from Amsterdam to Paris, with April and Steve and the kiddos.

We decided to rent a place through airbnb and picked a houseboat/barge right on the Seine, overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

It is magical to see and kind of peaceful being on the water. I’m hoping for a fun experience for our families to share together.

After getting settled into our new house for the next few days, we wandered around along the Seine, and up and around the Eiffel Tower, stopping for croissants and crepes and to take a ton of pictures.

From the Eiffel Tower, we walked over towards the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe.

We decided to climb all the way to the top and enjoyed views of the city from every angle. It was freezing outside, but we survived!

Everyone was hungry by then and we wandered around trying to find a restaurant. The one we were looking for was closed when we arrived, but we were lucky enough to find the Yuppies Cafe that was perfect for all 9 of us. They had a big booth, cool decorations, spoke English and served us delicious food quickly! We were satisfied!!

The boys found a grocery store and picked up a few thing for breakfast tomorrow. We hopped on a metro that dropped us off right by our house, and made it home in time to enjoy the sparkly lights from the tower.

Life is beautiful!!

16Feb2013

Day 206: Amsterdam Tourist

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The fun part of having guests in town is being a tourist again. It was fun to explore some familiar sites of Amsterdam again, even though we’ve already see them, but this time with a little more depth.

We went with April and Steve and the kids through Amsterdam today, walking down PC Hoofstraat, Museumplein, and Vondelpark. We were wandering around while we waited for our 1:00pm departure on the Blue boat canal ride. We had been on the cruise before and love it every time. It gives you a great view of the city.

We stopped for a warm up lunch at Wagamama!

Life is good! I hope you enjoyed seeing another bit of Amsterdam with me. What’s your favorite tourist place?

16Feb2013

Day 205: The Night Lights

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Finally the weather warmed up a bit to above freezing and walking around town was more enjoyable. I knew it was going to be cold in Holland, but it has been colder than I expected this week. The good news is my definition of cold has changed, and I think I’ve acquired a higher tolerance level to the cold weather!!

On our way up to the flower market area for dinner, we spontaneously decided to get off the tram so that we could start the evening with a quick viewing of the Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum. It was 5:30 pm and our reservation was for 6:30 pm. I checked the hours for the museum and we had 30 minutes before closing and no kids with us. We could do it! The security guard thought we were crazy, but I told him we only needed 10 minutes to see Rembrandt’s work with our museum passes. And we did just that…headed straight upstairs and through the gift shop to see the magical masterpiece from 371 years ago! It was great going there at the end of the day when there was no one else really there. It was like our own private party!

We still had five minutes to see my favorite exhibit, the simplest of all and one that makes me smile.

It’s this cool clock with a video projection of a man inside who controls the minute hands with a dry erase marker and eraser, literally changing the clock minute by minute. It makes you aware of time passing and I absolutely love it, because it looks like nothing but makes you think.

We were out of the museum and back on a tram exploring more of the city before dinner.

Coming into Amsterdam before dusk was beautiful. I loved watching the changing night sky and bright lights.

We were on our way to enjoy an Indonesian rijstaafel, or rice table in English. Indonesian food is my favorite type of cuisine. A rice table is an assortment of several different small dishes, that everyone at the table shares. We probably tried 15 different types of food, including chili eggs, shrimp and tofu, red curry green beans, rendang, gado gado, mango salad, satay skewers, cucumber salad and a couple chicken dishes.

The dinner was delicious and fun to share, although hard to tell from these dimly lit pictures.

Hope you have a great, light filled weekend!

14Feb2013

Day 204: I Choose Love

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I love the idea of love.

I love to love and I love to be loved.

I love to celebrate love and to be loving.

I love babies being born.

I love weddings and watching families unite in love.

I love old people and I love kids, and some peoples in between.

I love Jesus and all he represents.

I love Valentine’s day for what it represents, but I don’t love roses on Vday.

I love that there is a day to say I love you out loud and in loud colors and with chocolate.

I love life and living it minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day.

I love my family and I love my friends, and believe it or not, I even love those who hurt me.

I love you more than anything you can say or do. That’s a good motto to help forgive and choose love for anyone, but especially those closest to you. Love is powerful if you choose it.

I choose love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

14Feb2013

Day 203: Global Village

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Do you feel like you are part of a village? Do you look after your friends and neighbors and help one another and celebrate each other? I always say the expression, “It takes a village.” And today I felt like I belonged and was thankful for our diverse village.

At our international school, we celebrated Global Village Day. This is a day for celebrating the cultural diversity of our school. There was entertainment, a parade of nations, and “villages” set up by the parents of each community to help the younger children learn about some of the various traditions and foods and activities from each group.

The United States of America created a large village with multiple booths and was well-received. We had surfing from California, flower lei making from Hawaii, camping in the woods, baseball throwing, football throwing, popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, fair- like games, arm tattoos, flag making, butter making, etc.

Jen and I ran the California Surfing photo booth. We had a lot of fun with the kids, teaching them to hang 10, and to squat down low to catch a wave. They were smiling and laughing and gathering friends to take pics together. The day was a lot of work, but it sure was worth it to see their happy faces.

I took a break to check out the other villages and loved how much fun the adults and kids were having in Africa, Australia, South America, India, Japan, and France to just name a few.

One group that made me think was the Global Citizens group. What I’ve recently learned is that, some expat children don’t relate to one specific country. Teachers should not ask kids where they are from, because sometimes that can be stressful to them when they are not really from one home town. I can understand that.

Today I felt like a global citizen. I cheered for Holland and Italy and USA and all the countries with only one or two students representing their home towns. I chatted with the Caucasian mom next to me observing the parade, who cheered for Japan, saying that her baby was born there. She was from Germany and her husband was from France. She speaks German to her baby at home and her husband speaks French, and their friends speak English to the baby, who will be starting school at a local Dutch school in the next couple of years!

I missed home and our own International Night and potluck dinner, celebrating the 26 different languages spoken in our little Silicon Valley school. And I appreciated being where I was, in my new global village with my new friends, while my husband and April and Steve were in Germany for the day exploring Dusseldorf. Life is amazing…. exploring, learning and sharing, playing and laughing in our small world, together!

Namaste.

12Feb2013

Day 202: Doors & Entry Ways

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It’s still so cold out today. Luckily the sun was shining, which makes me smile.

While April and Steve were exploring the Anne Frank house, I wandered around nearby since I’ve enjoyed Anne’s house twice before. I enjoyed admiring all the entry ways to the canal houses and imagined who lived there and what life would be like living along the canals. Here are some pictures from the day.

Hope you are having a good day, exploring and learning and enjoying the moment. xo

11Feb2013

Day 201: Clara Maria Cheese Farm and Clog Factory Tour

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It is below zero out today! And it feels like it really is freezing! I was standing outside in the parking lot, trying to chat with friends with my boots, scarf, and down coat on but I couldn’t stay outside for long. It was that cold! So when we were looking for something to do today, we weren’t all that excited to be touring the streets of Amsterdam. Luckily it wasn’t raining, because that would have been even worse.

I took April and Steve to our local cheese and clog farm because I could easily park and go inside with them. Luckily the farmer was available today and chose S to help with the clog making demo. I got a kick out of watching her learn and helping the farmer. She got to take home a souvenir, a hollowed out clog trophy with their family name on it.

We learned about the cheese making process and they bought some gifts to take home.

The cheese is made from the dairy cows on the farm.

It was our lucky day as two new calves were born today and yesterday and we got to see the farm animals too.

Cheese, clogs and cows – not a bad way to fight jet lag!

10Feb2013

Day 200: Happy Chinese New Year

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Happy Chinese New Year! Over 1.3 billion people in China and millions of people around the world, including us, celebrated the first day of the Chinese New Year today. Gong Xi Fa Cai is a traditional Chinese New Year greeting that means “wishing you prosperity” in Mandarin. This is the year of the snake, and is meant for steady progress and attention to detail. Might be a challenge for me!

April and Steve arrived today with their girls and we wandered thru Amsterdam’s small Chinatown and then towards the Bijenkorf to catch the tale end of the dragon dance.

I can’t believe we’ve been living in Holland for 200 days already! I’m very happy to have our family friends with us for two weeks. They came with all kinds of goodies from home and with gifts and greetings from our friends and neighbors. Thank you Brenda for all the Valentine’s day candies. Thank you Val for the beautifully, handmade scarves and warm socks for the kids, and shirt for Christian. You all are so thoughtful! And thanks A&S for coming all this way to enjoy Europe with us! We’re so glad you’re here and are going to enjoy every (freezing cold) minute with you!

Happy Chinese New Year, friends!!

9Feb2013

Day 199: Date Day

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I’ve been wanting to go on a date with my husband, and today the stars aligned. Each of the kids went with a friend for a sleepover. Thank God, for friends.

We got up early and got the house ready for April and Steve to arrive tomorrow and then we headed out to Amsterdam. As soon as we were ready to go, it started to snow!!

I am still fascinated by the snow and am awestruck by it. It also makes me want to stay inside when it snows so I can stay warm and hibernate. But today, I fought past my desire to stay indoors and walked to the tram stop with my honey, wondering what the heck I was doing. It took awhile for me to actually be happy being outdoors, but in the end, I was glad to have ventured out.

We enjoyed exploring a new part of the city and finding a wonderful place for a slow paced, 5 course dinner. It sure was nice to have time alone together without any interruptions. And dinner was fabulous!! I loved the artistic presentation of the food and enjoyed every bite.

Thanks to our friends who kept out kids tonight! I’m sure they are happy and so are we! Goodnight, y’all!

8Feb2013

Day 198: Amsterdam Half Marathon 2013

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I love having a goal and something to look forward to. So when Barbara asked me if I wanted to run a half marathon with her in October, I immediately said yes, not worrying that the last race I ran was 20 years ago and only a 5K.

I started running with Jeff a few months ago, but just for exercise and to do something together. I never dreamed of a half marathon. So many of my friends are runners and I never saw myself as one. I didn’t think I could do it. But last year, Michele inspired me to run more than my typical 3 miles on the treadmill, and I surprised myself when I was able to run 5 miles, and the next day 7. The secret she taught me was to run and then walk if I had to and then to run again. For some reason, I never thought of that as an option. I always thought when I slowed to walk, that I must be done because I was tired. Not true. It’s possible to slow down and then go again. Thanks Michele – this tip should come in handy on the 13 miler!

Bob told me of a cool app called Runtastic. He’s running the full marathon and he uses it on his runs. I tried it out today for the first time and was able to run 4 miles at a 10 minute per mile pace with my music and GPS tracking my distance. It called out the mile markers, which kept me motivated. Thanks, Bob!

I ran out to the Oudekerk, my favorite town in Holland and even slowed to snap a few pictures while running to show you why this is one of the prettiest towns. The sun is out today and it is cold and crisp and gorgeous outside. Hope you have a great weekend.
– Adriana