Lazy Saturday

They told us it would happen; we didn't believe them. They were right; we are in disbelief.

It was warmer in April than it is now - something about the rain and wind. Sometimes the wind is so bad I think our apartment is going to blow over; our apartment is a high rise made of concrete and steel.

Today we stayed in Delft to do a little exploring. We popped into the TU Delft Botanical Gardens for a quick look at their spring planting. I also took Matt to the tropical house and showed him the quails. I was excited to find baby quails in the garden!

Next we stopped by the market to pick-up some lunch. I meant to get some poffertjes since I saw them at the market on Thursday, but I guess I forgot. Bummer. More about poffertjes and my new favorite Dutch food later. After lunch we headed out to Delftse Hout to ride around the lake and visit the petting zoo.



More pictures can be found here.

Haarlem

We ventured out of our apartment on Saturday into a sea of dense fog to travel to Haarlem. The guidebooks tote Haarlem as a quieter version of Amsterdam. It was a nice city, but I think it lacks the excitement and sites of Amsterdam and the charm of a smaller Dutch town. It was just kinda in the middle. Although, their Saturday morning market did include much more fish than our similar market in Delft. I wanted to buy the fresh sardines, but thought our neighbors on the train back would not appreciate the air freshener.
The impressive church in town, the Grote Kerk van St. Bavo was an odd combination of white-washed walls, frescoes, modern stained-glass windows, and models. The most impressive thing in the church was its beautiful pipe organ.It seems every Dutch town has its master painter from the Gold Age of Holland, and Frans Hals is Haarlem's. The Frans Hals Museum included an interesting and informative history of Haarlem in the Golden Age through the paintings of Frans Hals. They took prints of his paintings, blew them up to wall size and explained the landmarks, people, and other properties of the paintings in the context of the history of Haarlem. We spent the rest of the tour learning about his new style of group portraits that eventually influenced Rembrant's style. His innovate group portraits were the first to break-out of the simple rows of patrons' heads. He added life, emotion, and a story to the expertly arranged compositions.After grabbing a bite to eat in the roof top cafeteria in the V&D department stop, we headed to Teyler's Museum - the oldest museum in the Netherlands. The display rooms, complete with their original descriptive labels punched out on a typewriter, are stuffed full of fossils, scientific instruments, and paintings from the Golden Age. The museum had an impressive collection of fossils, including quite a few dinosaur fossils. One of my favorite parts was pondering over one of the first batteries built of 25 Leiden Bottles.

We had planned to sit in the one of the cafes on the various squares and enjoy a glass of Jopen - the local beer, but the sun had left and it was a bit too chilly to enjoy a cold drink outside. Instead we grabbed a few bottles at the grocery store to try at home with dinner (Jopen Koyt, Jopen Hoppenbeir, Adriaan Rose, & Jopen Bokbeir).

Almost Tulip Time...

They say the tulips start blooming in mid-March. I can't wait!

Tulips Matt brought me home from the market.

Valentine's Day

While the holiday is known and celebrated over here (unlike Halloween), Valentine's Day is a much different affair. There is no monstrosity of candy, flowers, and over-priced fixed dinners, but rather subtle window displays and a few heart themed offerings.

Tonight we are not going off to a romantic dinner for two, but rather out with a group of Matt's lab mates. When Matt inquired as to the lack of Valentine's plans, most responded that their girlfriends/wives had no interest in the holiday. Even in strolling the market today, while references to Valentine's could be seen, there was no mark-up in the cost of flowers. Not even for a dozen, long-stemmed, red roses - they were still just €8.50 (compared with $50 to $100 in the US delivered).
Unfortunately, this also means there are no heart-shaped Reeses' in stores. I just hope they still have Cadbury eggs at Easter.

Flowers, Flowers, and MORE Flowers

We went to the market on Thursday in Delft. After picking up the usual assortment of produce, fish, and cheese, I took mom to paradise - I mean the flower market. Unable to contain herself (and aware of the fact that I only own one vase), she bought 7 bundles of flowers.

Did I mention we live in a 300 sq ft apartment and only own one vase? Since we own about as many dishes as vases, it was a good thing the recyclables had not been taken out lately. Our apartment is now filled with no less than 8 containers of flowers! Matt keeps walking around and exclaiming, "Did you know we have flowers in the storage closet?"

Just kidding - Mom, they are beautiful. And don't worry - I'll continue to fill all the containers with water. I can't wait 'til you come back in April and the tulips are in season!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

I LOVE chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins. Right about Halloween time, I realized I wouldn't be getting any chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins this year for several reasons:

1. I no longer work in the same building as Krisanne (who makes the most wonderful pumpkin muffins)
2. It is cost and time prohibitive for my mother-in-law to send us baked goods this year
3. There are no cans of pumpkin pie filling in the grocery stores here
4. There is no Halloween or Thanksgiving over here, and therefore, none of the requisite pumpkin desserts
5. I don't have an oven to bake my own muffins in

It was a sad, sad realization.

Today, however, I found a substitute. Mind you, it's not Krisanne's pumpkin muffins! In fact, it's not even pumpkin. But it will have to do.

Today I visited the muffin man, who kindly sold me 6 chocolate, chocolate-chip muffins and 6 gingerbread muffins. When I got home, I halved the muffins and recombined them to make chocolate, chocolate-chip/gingerbread muffins.

Mmmm! Mmmm!

Jugs & Jewels

After spending Tuesday morning exploring science at the Deutsches Museum, we headed to the Viktualienmarkt in old town Munich. The Viktualienmarkt is outdoor beer garden surrounded by brat stands, gourmet food shops, fish venders, produce stalls, and butcher shops.

A fruit stand at Viktualienmarkt.

Many of the stands had interesting food items on display, like pig heads or this fish.

We quickly assembled a picnic of stuffed, whole squids, feta and spinach salad, a pickled herring sandwich, and bratwurst and headed over to the beer garden. Beer gardens in Bavaria are BYOF and picnicing is encouraged as long as you buy a jug of their beer. In the Viktualienmarkt the six beers of Munich are rotated weekly and the beer garden serves up whatever is on tap that week in liter and half liter mugs. Since we had a lot of sightseeing left for the day, I tried a Radler with my lunch. I was surprised how much I like the half beer, half lemon-lime soda drink.

Laura with her bratwurst and Radler.

After our lunch fit for kings, we visited the Bavaria treasury, which was full of the king's jewels. It was a ten room display of all the friends a girl could ever want. Our favorite jeweled piece was the Statue of St. George, a beautiful jeweled relicuary box with a knight slaying a dragon on top. We also enjoyed crucifxes made out of sea toroise shell, cups made of rhinosaurous horns, and jewel encrusted swords. Of course, I would have been happy to take home any of the jeweled tiaras :)

Statue of St. George

Bloemen

One of the most wonderful things about Holland is the flowers. The polder soil makes it very easy for them to grow beautiful flowers here year around. Because they are so easy to grow and abundant, flowers are very cheap at the weekly markets and in the train stations. Imagine picking up 20 long-stem roses from the florist for about €7 or 10 sunflower stems for €5 or 10 gerber daisies in vibrant colors for €3...and because the stems were cut that morning or the late the afternoon before, the flowers last for 2-3 weeks in a vase!

Why does this make me so happy? Because it means Matt often brings me home flowers!

Oh do you know the muffin man?

Me: (Spying some wonderful, huge, fluffy muffins at the market) Are these 6 for two dollars?

Muffin Man: Yes. What would you like?

Me: Twee (pointing to the blueberry). Twee (pointing to the chocolate chip). En twee (pointing to the chocolate chocolate chip).

Muffin Man: I'm the cheapest in town right?

Me: Jaa.

Muffin Man: And they are the best muffins, jaa?

Me: Jaa, especially since I don't have an oven to make my own muffins in.

(I start reaching in my purse to pay him.)

Muffin Man: Not two dollars - two EUROS.

Me: Oh, but I thought you were the cheapest in town.

Muffin Man: (hilarious laughter)

Market Day

Today is market day in Delft, one of my favorite things about our new town. It isn't just a typical farmers market; it has pretty much everything you would possible need during the week. My favorite things to buy are fresh fried fish and cheese. I try to get a new kind of cheese every week to try.

Today I order what I thought was Swiss cheese - it had holes in it and the label had a mouse on it. After asking the cheese man for "250 grams of Swiss Cheese", he indignantly replied "That is NOT Swiss Cheese. It is DUTCH cheese!" Well whatever kind of cheese it is, it is delicious with with fresh baked brown bread I bought today.

I was even able to buy a pair of tights (they are crazy about tights and leggings over here) and a few more plug adapters at the market. The one things I won't be buying at the market is Crocs, even if they are 75% off. Crocs are cute on little kids and the flip flops are okay, but brightly colored plastic clogs on adults should be a fashion no in every country.

For more pictures of the market and our life in Delft, click here.


Our schedules have gotten busier now that we are settled in. Matt goes to work at TUDelft during the day and spends most nights (and downtime during our travels) working on things for his lab at UF. School started for me this week and has definitely put an end to me watching reruns of 90210 during the day. I am taking a digital photography class (hopefully you will see an improvement in my photography over the next few weeks) and an instructional design class.

Well, I must be off now to test out my super cool new Frisbee turf shoes...

Friday Night

On Friday night we attended Proms Concert, a free opera concert in the market square. It was wonderful; we sat in a patio cafe and had a few drinks while listening to Dutch opera music. The cafe we picked happened to have a fabulous strawberry beer on tap and I am sure we will be back just for that!

Halfway through the show it started raining pretty hard, but the locals just put up their umbrellas and the show went on. I hope they have more of these events regularly in the market, because it sure is an inexpensive, enjoyable way to spend the evening.

I think I bought raw bread...

Thursday is market day in Delft and vendors come to hawk everything from $5 shoes to expensive kaas to produce to fresh fried fish (my favorite) to cut that morning flowers. I tried my hand at grocery shopping there this afternoon and am pretty sure I brought home raw bread. The insides look like they need to be "toasted" for 10 minutes or so; maybe that is what he kept saying about 200 something or another...too bad I don't have oven. Perhaps I can saute it on my cooking rings :)