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?

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

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!!

7Feb2013

Day 197: 3 More Sleeps and Nesting

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After 3 more sleeps, I’ll get to hug S & J again! I can’t believe it’s been more than 6 months since we’ve played together. Luckily they’re bringing their parents too! I can’t believe it’s finally time for them to get here. We’ve been waiting forever!! I’m so excited that they are coming for a long visit, since it’s been waaay tooo long. The hardest part of being an expat is missing family and friends from home.

I’ve been nesting the last few days, getting the house ready and planning fun activities, and thinking about what we’ll eat! I always get a little anxious, even though there is no reason to be – I think it’s just the excitement and anticipation that makes me nervous. The good thing about anxiety, is that it motivates me to dust and vacuum, and hang pictures and actually put the laundry away. The house repair guy came today to hang a kitchen light and fix the patio light too. Wow, I wish company could come every month! Who’s coming next to visit? 😉

Juliana and Charlie and I baked cookies tonight — hopefully there will still be some left and they’ll still be fresh when they arrive.

I borrowed a booster seat from Patti Beth for J, am going to charge up the OV chip cards for each of them, and have the museum cards ready. Jeff and I collected touristy brochures for them to look at and find ideas of what they might want to see and friends have been giving me ideas of fun things for kids to experience in the city. I know for sure we’ll take a canal boat ride, see a museum or two and visit the goat farm and the cheese and clog place. Efteling is also on the list too. What’s your favorite thing to see or do in Amsterdam? What I’m most looking forward to is just sitting on the couch together and hanging out and listening to the kids run up and down the stairs together. And cooking with April and drinking with Steve. Really, it’s the simple things that make me happy.

I wonder what the weather will be like when they arrive. If it’s anything like this week, it’ll be sunny, rainy, gray, hailing, cold, wet, and snowy. Watching the weather change is an event in itself. Just check out the picture collage of the trees out front of our house this week that Juliana created for me – I see Holland and America and all their beauty tied together. Namaste.

6Feb2013

Day 196: A Baby Shower

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Today was a beautiful day. We woke up to a surprise snow fall overnight.

This was our view as we were getting into our van to go to school. I was so thankful that we have a vehicle and don’t have to ride our bikes, like the locals.

After drop off, I was busy getting ready for Amy’s baby shower. In America, we celebrate the upcoming birth of a child by gathering women friends and bringing gifts for the new mom and baby. Food and drinks are served and everyone tends to dress up. Sometimes games are played. The mother-to-be opens her gifts in front of her guests. We had such a great time celebrating her new baby girl who should be joining us very soon. I love celebrating together with women and sharing stories.

We also included some Dutch traditions such as Beschuit and Muesjes that are seved after the baby is born, and Dutch congratulatory banners.

Here are more pictures of our hostess flowers.

After the girl time, it was time to pick up the kids and the weather had changed again! What a gorgeous day.

Hope you have a great afternoon too!

3Feb2013

Day 193: Rainy Day and Homesick

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It was sunny this morning and then the rain came. A typical Holland day. The weather forecast predicts daily rain and cold weather. Thank goodness April and Steve and the girls are coming this week to bring some sunshine to this house, because there is a case of home sickness here today.

Even trying to make rotisserie chickens in our oven for the first time didn’t chase away the blues.

They sure were tasty, although we kept missing our Costco rotisserie chickens! Aren’t they good??

For me, my symptoms we’re caused by missing all the Superbowl buzz!

It’s not that I’m even a huge fan of the Superbowl, it’s just that I love the camaraderie that it brings. I like hearing about the pools, the appetizers people are making, where they are going to watch the game and more importantly, the commercials and half time show! The entire process and experience is so American, and people dress up in their team colors and fly their team flags. People gather for the fun of it and I love it! And being here,we’re missing all of it, and it makes me home sick. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still happy being here, I’m just more aware I’m not there. The same thing happened at Halloween time. Luckily the feeling doesn’t last too long, but it was and is definitely there. There usually is some “medicine” to fix the blues. Tonight my family is already asleep, so that they can wake up at midnight to enjoy the game here. We bought just a little bit of party food to celebrate, even though it won’t be the same as being in the States! Hopefully I’ll get to follow along with people’s Facebook status updates, play by play!

Juliana also has homesickness. She is ready to move back home and is struggling the most with our decision to stay longer than one year here. This surprised me as she was one of the most eager to take on this experience. Right now we are considering staying until the end of 2013 and possibly until next summer. This is hard for her to imagine, as she longs to be back in California. (If anyone has expat kids and has experienced this, I’d love to hear from you.) As she tells me her thoughts, I truly listen and try not to shine over her feelings. She is a very bright girl and her feelings are valid and real. I do not argue with her, yet I listen to and support her and hope that she’ll continue to see the good and not wish this time and experience away too quickly, even though she really misses her friends and the California way of life. It’s hard to look into the future to try and decide what is best for everyone, yet we are doing our best.

Speaking of best, Go Niners!! I’m feeling better now!

31Jan2013

Day 189: The Dutch Resistance Museum

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Patty and I went to the Dutch Resistance Museum today in Amsterdam. It was supposed to be a Girls’ Day in the city, but several of the girlfriends had to stay home because there is a nasty bug going around and several of the kids stayed home from school. I hope everyone is feeling better and staying healthy.

As part of my Wanderlust Wednesdays, today I wanted to learn a bit more about history. I have to say I still feel overwhelmed and intrigued and curious about World War 2, especially now that I’m living in Europe. I was trying to make sense of the timeline and to make personal connections between the German occupation of the Netherlands and how my mom’s family was affected by it and how they chose to leave the Netherlands for a better life in America, 15 years after the war ended. Some of the connections I was pondering included 9/11 and gay marriage and bullying in schools. Of course, I’ll have to think a bit more and for a longer period of time to address these connections more deeply, and develop my own thesis… perhaps another blog post when it’s not after midnight!

I have to admit, my making sense of it didn’t quite make much sense just yet, but left me thirsting for more knowledge. I still have more questions than answers. I’m sure I could study this subject for years and still not know everything! I know I feel compassion for the Jewish people and for all who lived during the Hitler days. It must have been very difficult to be who you were and to be proud of your identity. I feel compassion for the people who did not know any better or didn’t know how to best help those who were discriminated against without fearing for their own safety. If you have any resources to share to help me learn more in an easily, digestible way, please let me know!

My biggest take away is that so many people and groups of people were affected by hate and discrimination and oppression. I can’t say that I understand evil and evil motives, but I know they exist. I just hope that I can live my daily life in such a way that I can stay positive and share the light of love and hope and faith with all whom I associate. And when I make a mistake or hurt someone, I hope that I have the power to apologize and make things right.

I hope we all continue to bring sunshine out into this world the best we know how and spread love, not hate. Namaste.