A stream of warm impermanence

I hope everyone is doing well back in the states with all the "crisis", "swine flu" and "re-structuring" going around right now.

Being nervous about having a job really makes you take stock, and I realized how lucky I have been not only in work, but in everything. Last June to this June has truly been the craziest, best, most stressful, incredible and unbelievable 12 months of my life.

We have experienced planning and having a huge wedding, moving across the world, 2 floods that destroyed the floor of our condo while it was on the market (one discovered while we were on our honeymoon, the other in the middle of escrow!!!!), Selling our cars, finally selling our condo, seeing more countries than we ever imagined we would, fighting the insurance company to cover the flood damage, getting a puppy and now a job change, and they have all turned out well. I said to myself, if you can just get through this layoff thing OK, then there will be nothing left that can happen. Let's hope I don't stand corrected too soon... ;)

I look at this month off as a reward for Krista and I surviving the year, and I plan on making the most of it.

- Brian

The summer of Brian

Today was my last day at Nike. For those of you who don't know what I did there, I was an art-director and graphic designer creating branding, marketing and communication for the Nike Sportswear and Nike Football brands in Europe, The Middle East and Africa. Nike has a small internal design firm in the EMEA Headquarters and I worked there for the past year and at Nike Headquarters for four years before that on Nike Basketball.

My job was mainly creating branding and communication around Nike products, and doing the packaging and promotion of them in partner retail stores. I also did strategic direction work for the brands, planning concepts and creating design language for upcoming promotions. In addition there has recently been a lot of work creating destination retail and coming up with ad campaigns. It has been really great there, but I am ready for a new challenge after working in the athletic industry for the past seven years.

I was not looking for a job at all when Nike announced a re-structuring a couple of months ago and a 5% job cut along with it. Krista and I talked a lot about what we wanted and decided that it was too early for us to move back to the US, and that if I did get laid off, it would be wonderful to have a back up job possibility so that we could stay.

When the Nike CEO announced that the company would no longer operate a headquarters in Europe, but a regional office instead, I kicked my search into high gear and started working with a headhunting team.

I was very lucky to quickly find a great position with Tommy Hilfiger at their Global headquarters here in Amsterdam. I will be able to bike 10 minutes to work now rather than an hour train ride to the suburbs. That's 2 hours more a day that I can enjoy being here with Krista, Fishstick, Rocket and our friends. I will be doing a very similar role at a higher level in my new job, but focusing much more on photographic art direction and advertising. Tommy has changed a lot since I was in high school and Notorious BIG was rapping about them, but see for yourself:

http://europe.tommy.com/#/collections/mens/sportswear

It ended up that I would have kept my job at Nike, but the search made me realize that I was ready for something new, and luckily this is a great opportunity, especially in these hard economic times.

The way everything turned out, I have the whole month of June off to have fun before I start the new job July 1st. I can't say I am not excited.

It was a hard decision, but I am sure it is the right one. Everyone who leaves Nike writes an email to all of their colleagues and says goodbye, but I swore to myself I would avoid the cliches when I left. So rather than wax about how much I would miss everyone, I made a list of cool stuff I got to do since I started back in April of 2004. I thought I could share it with you, see below if you are interested.

- Brian

____________________________________

The Coolest Things I Got To Do At Nike
By Brian Schmitt

*not in any particular order, and probably incomplete*

__________________________________________

Meet the ³Redeem Team² Olympic Basketball squad

Design a collection of shoes

Stay in really nice hotels

Make a cartoon about shoe monsters

Meet LeBron James

Get taken to design school by Michael Spoljaric

Make Nike Posters

Sell a marketing plan to Phil Knight with my college roommate

Take an inspiration trip to Canada with the Basketball group

Have lunch in the design library

Work on the athlete pitch for Kevin Durant

Go on photo-shoots with famous people

Make Nike logos

Travel all over the world

Design signature shoeboxes for LeBron James

Tell people I was a Nike Designer

Work and live in Europe

Meet Michael Doherty and significantly lowered my Bacon number

Make Nike Ads

Work on the Doernbecher charity project

Go to lake Tahoe and play golf with college basketball coaches

Make lots of bad jokes to a captive audience

Move to Amsterdam

Go to Berlin with all of Brand Design EMEA

Have dinner with Tinker Hatfield

Collect way too many shoes

Design Nike Stuff for 2 Olympics and 2 World Cups

Have a driver waiting for me at the airport with my name on a sign

Think up ideas for a living

__________________________________________

It¹s been an amazing 5 years!
Goodbye and thanks for the memories.

Cheers,

Brian

Krista's parents visit: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Before my parents had to go back to their busy lives in the U.S., they took a few days to hang out in Amsterdam with us. It was really nice to get to show them a little bit about our lifestyle and a few of our favorite places in town, and it felt incredibly relaxing after the hustle and bustle of Venice. And since the days they were here happened to be Dutch holidays, Brian got to hang out with us too.

While they were here, we took them around town, showed them a few of our favorite cafes and hangouts, went for a bike ride, and made them a few homecooked meals (we were all a bit sick of eating out constantly after our travels). But the best thing we did by far was rent a boat.

Brian and I had never rented a boat here before, but it turned out to be the easiest thing ever. We took it out for about two hours, brought a bottle of wine and snacks, and toured the city's canals. It was really fun, and a great way to spend an afternoon. I think we will be renting boats all summer long!

A few pictures of the boat ride below:

Mom and I

Brian steering the boat before my Dad took over


Prost!

See the rest of our photos here.

We will miss you Mom and Dad - thank you so much for coming, I had a wonderful time with you and hope you come back soon!

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Venice, Italy

After Florence, we took the train to Venice for our last stop in Italy. We had a bit of an adventure getting there (we missed our first train, and got a lot of exercise running with our bags), but eventually made it.

The city was beautiful, although the canals weren't quite as amazing to me since I live in Amsterdam where there are also tons of canals (Amsterdam is sometimes described as "the Venice of the North"). But there is definitely a different feel to Venice than where I live, and you can tell that when the town was in its prime it must have been absolutely incredible.

We had a good time, and made the most of our two days there - we toured the palace, listened to dueling orchestras in St. Mark's square while eating amazing gelato, took a canal boat ride, and of course walked around and got plenty lost (this is actually recommended by Rick Steves, our lifelong travel guide).

The city was packed with tourists, and you could barely tell who lived there, but Venice is interesting because it has been a tourist town for over 400 years, so the crowds of spectators we encountered were nothing new. But there were funny little rules that made me glad that I live in Amsterdam instead of Venice - for example, picknicking is illegal in the city, and you are not allowed to sit in St. Mark's square, the main town gathering. Aside from that, the buildings are decaying and the city may not be there in the coming years... yes, I am glad I live in Amsterdam.

Here are a few pictures from the visit:

My mom and I on the Rialto Bridge

A view of the famous bridge from the water

St. Mark's square

My Dad looking out at the water

A view of the water from the bridge

Look at the rest of the pictures here.

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Florence, Italy

After Siena we stopped in Florence for a night on our way to Venice. It was a really interesting city and I definitely could have stayed longer.

There is so much history there, I think I was a little overwhelmed since we were staying such a short time. And since my favorite thing to do when I travel is walk around the city until my feet hurt and I feel like I've gotten a flavor of the culture, that's pretty much what I did. But next time I definitely want to go in some of the interesting historical places - especially the science museum to learn about Galileo!

Apparently I forgot to take any pictures of Florence... this one of the market will have to do until I can convince my Mom to send me some of hers:


See photos from the rest of the trip here.

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Siena, Italy

We left Cinque Terre in the afternoon and made our way to Siena, where we stayed for two nights.

My parents had been there eight years before, and remembered it being a small town with windy streets and quaint and interesting shops. So when we showed up and were greeted by crowds of people and designer stores they were a bit surprised.

We had a good time, despite the town's recent commercialization. We climbed the tower in the middle of the square (see photo below), and my parents did a walking tour while I explored on my own (my attention span is much too short for those things). And of course, we had lots of good food and plenty of gelato!

A few pictures below:

A view of Siena from the tower

My parents looking down at the square

Our entire Picassa album here.

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: The Cinque Terre, Italy

After Brian left us to go back to work (I did feel a bit guilty about this), my parents and I took a train to the Cinque Terre, Italy.

We stayed in Monterosso, the biggest of the five towns, but still very cute and small. We were there two nights, though we could have easily stayed longer. The area is absolutely beautiful, and we had a great time hanging out on the beach, hiking, and eating and drinking our share of local pesto, pizza and wine.

Since we only stayed two nights we only made it to one other town, Vernazza. We hiked there, which took about an hour (I pitied the out of shape tourists who tried to do this hike), and took a boat back. It was incredibly beautiful and very relaxing, and I plan on dragging Brian back soon so we can go to all five of the towns.

Here are a few highlights from the area:

My parents and I hiking between Monterosso and Vernazza

I was up ahead, but my parents got stuck on the tiny path when 100 schoolkids hiked the opposite way

My dad and I eating pesto pizza and waiting for the boat back to Monterosso

Look at our entire Picassa album here.

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Nice, France

Our next stop on the trip was the French Riviera. We stayed in Nice only one night but left early that morning from Provence so we had a pretty good amount of time there.

The city was beautiful, albeit a bit touristy (especially the prices). Brian and I chose to spend most of our time on the beach since the weather was so nice and we felt like we hadn't been out in the sun for a while.

We definitely could have spent more time in the city and exploring the entire French Riviera, but Brian had to get back to work so we'll leave that to another vacation.

A few pictures from Nice below, check out our full Picassa album here.

Me on the promenade

The beach was rocky but beautiful

Brian laying on the beach

- Krista

Krista's parents visit: Provence, France

My parents came to see us in the middle of May, our third visitors in just about a month. We had planned the visit for a while and both Brian and I were really excited about it. When they first came, they stayed at our place for one night and then the four of us took off on a little adventure around Europe.

Our first stopover was Provence, France. We stayed in a small town called Arles and used our rental car to explore the other small towns in the area. We got a little lost (note for next time: splurge and get the GPS!) but were able to see many cute little towns and a couple of interesting historical sites.

The area was really pretty and had a lot of great food, olive oil and wine. But I am pretty sure Brian and I were some of the youngest people there - we tried to stay out semi-late on a Saturday night in Arles and were kicked out of a sports bar by 11:00!

Below are a few pictures from Provence - check out the entire Picassa album of our trip here.

My mom and I at the Roman aqueduct Pont du Gard

Walking around Castle Les Baux

This is not just a cheesy tourist picture - these are the real things!

- Krista

Sushi!

As a grand gesture to myself, I decided to make vegetarian sushi tonight. I chronicled the process, if you want to see it, the full album is on our picassa site.

Everything must be done with precision, the Japanese way.

The art of the Samurai

Not so bad!

Thanks to Larry and Jill for bringing soy sauce all the way from Portland!!

- Brian

Happy birthday Fishstick!

Fishstick turned two years old yesterday! It's hard to believe we've had him that long. Our lives have definitely changed since we first got him!


- Krista

Queen's Day

The Netherlands has a holiday every year on April 30th called Queen's Day (or Koninginnedag in Dutch) to celebrate the Queen's birthday. We'd heard stories from locals and other ex-pats, but this was our first one.

Here's a brief summary of what you can expect on a typical Queen's Day in Amsterdam:

It's the one day of the year where it's allowed to sell anything anywhere, so all of the locals are out selling any piece of junk they want to get rid of, meaning the streets are full of vendors and food and street musicians that may or may not be so good.

Everybody wears orange (the color of the royal family here) and tries to look as ridiculous as possible. You see plenty of orange-died hair, boas, and gigantic sunglasses (yes, I had some of these).

Locals and the one million plus tourists that flood the town for Queen's Day and Queen's night pack the streets and canals. The big thing is to be on a boat and spend the whole day cruising the canals blasting music and drinking beer while everybody else watches from the side of the canal.

It's pretty entertaining, and the people watching is amazing. But if you're worried you'll be claustrophobic this probably isn't the day for you!

To read more about Koninginnedag, check out this Wikipedia page.

Brian and I had a great time although we weren't able to get on a boat this year - next year!

Some pictures from the day below:

Brian dressed in orange eating orange Asian food

Orange sunglasses are a must

Prinsengracht, one of the most popular canals

Getting off our feet briefly to sit at an outdoor cafe

Boats packed the Amstel River

- Krista

The Heineken Experience

On Lindsay and Kathy's last day in town the four of us went to the Heineken Brewery. I was happy to get to go since I'd never been (it was closed for renovation for the first six months we were here), but thought it was funny they wanted to go since I found out neither Lindsay or Kathy actually like beer!

Anyway, we had fun though it was definitely a little cheesy:

Lindsay, Kathy and I posing for a photograph

- Krista

Lindsay and Kathy come to visit

Somehow the timing worked out this spring so that all of our visitors decided to come at basically the same time. So the week after Brian's dad left, my Aunt Kathy and cousin Lindsay came to visit us!

They got here a little later than expected (it's hard to fly standby these days), but stayed until yesterday and (I think) had a really good time. We were lucky once again in that they got amazing weather aside from one day, so they were able to see the city at its best.

Although we weren't able to hang out with them the entire time they were here since we had prior plans for Queen's Day (more on that later) and Brian had to work a bit, it was really great to see them and we had a lot of fun while they were here.

Some pictures below:

Aunt Kathy, Lindsay and I all sporting our Queen's Day glasses

Enjoying an outdoor cafe in the sun

Walking along the Amstel River

We love visitors!

- Krista