Sinterklaas Day

The start of the holiday season began this weekend in the Netherlands and Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, made his annual trek through the streets and canals of Amsterdam (more about Sinterklaas and and his helper Zwarte Piet on my side blog).

I don't know how many of you saw the Daily Show this week, but there was a segment about white people dressing up in blackface and how there's just no excuse for it anymore. As the commentator, Larry Willmore said, "here's when blackface is okay: when you have a black face!"

Yet every year, thousands of Dutch children and adults dress up in blackface on the third weekend in November as part of the Sinterklaas holiday. Dutch people claim Zwarte Piet is black because he fell down a chimney and that it's not racist at all - but of course most of the expats don't buy this.

I took a few pictures so you could get some idea of how big of a deal this holiday is to Dutch people. I honestly wish I could have sent these to the Daily Show before their segment (they ran it the week before so of course this wouldn't have been possible), because I'm amazed at how unknown this holiday is throughout the world.

These are all white people:







A bit shocking, right?

- Krista

Museum night #2

It's hard to believe we've been here over a year already, but we actually made it to our second Museumnacht this weekend.

If you don't remember from last year - and trust me, I don't expect you to - Museum night happens one time a year in November and is where over 40 of the city's museums open their doors until 2 a.m. with special exhibits and events. It's a really cool thing, and I'm glad we got to go again even though we missed our friends Andy and Elyse, who we went with last year (see last year's post here).

Even though it was just us, we ended up having a really good time. We went to four museums, the science museum NEMO (the Dutch equivalent to OMSI), a replica of a Dutch East India Company ship from the 14th century (complete with pirates and everything!), the Hortus botanical gardens, and the Hermitage Museum, the newest museum in Amsterdam showing Russian Tsars from the 19th century.

All in all it was a great night, and everything was interesting, but I think my favorites were NEMO (I'm definitely going back - I love science stuff!) and the ship.

Here are a few highlights from the night:

Brian holding some foaming cocktails at the science museum

Brian making a weird robot face in front of Elektra, who is supposedly the largest humanoid robot in Europe

Together on the ship replica

Brian laying on the crew's beds - that guy in the background was surprised to be in the photo!

- Krista

Cousin Nick comes to visit

We had a pleasant surprise this weekend - my cousin Nick took a detour to Amsterdam to see us while visiting his friend in Germany. It was really nice to see him, and Brian and I had a great time showing him around the town for a night.

Plus, it was nice to have our first visitor, even though our house was still filled with boxes! We can't wait to have more people visit soon.

Here's a photo of the cousins:

At the bagel shop before his train left Saturday morning

- Krista

New house pictures x3

Ok, I promised some pictures, and here they are (well, a few rooms at least). I don't really feel like the pictures do the house justice though... maybe I'll post some more once we actually get a sunny day around here!

This is a view of our dining/living room (the kitchen is on the left)

A closeup of our living area


The light is terrible in this picture, but you can see our kitchen on the back right

Our bedroom - it's small, but not as small as it looks here with all the boxes and Rocket's crate in the photo

- Krista

New house pictures x2

One of the things that really sold us on our new place was that it had a private, completely enclosed and reasonably large park. It's absolutely gorgeous out there, and Rocket has been really enjoying our walks and soccer games in it this past week. And the best thing is that there's hardly anyone else out there!

We anticipate spending a lot of time there, especially next summer!

A few photos below:

The grassy area is great for games of fetch and soccer with Rocket

The other side of the park, it goes back for a little bit with nice paths and scattered benches


Rocket found an abandoned football in the bushes today - she was so happy about it!

- Krista

New house pictures x1

I've gotten a few complaints that we haven't put any pictures up of our new house yet, so I'm sorry I've been so slow about it. We've had a few more moving complications than we'd hoped to have, and as a result our place is not yet fully put together, although it's starting to look more and more like a home. We're going to give it a final push this weekend and then I promise I will get more photos up!

For now, here are a few pictures of our tiny little yard:

Rocket loves it out there! We can't wait to get the fence all built and a little doghouse for her so she can spend more time outside.


The yard looks slightly bigger in this photo - once we actually spruce it up a little bit, it's going to be a great spot for summer BBQs!

Fishstick likes to watch us from our bedroom window - sometimes he joins us outside too, though of course it makes me a little nervous since he's always been an indoor cat.

We've been trying hard to build a fence this week to keep Rocket inside - hopefully it will be finished this weekend.

Gardening tips, anyone? I want to make this place nice so we can spend a lot of time outside next summer!

- Krista

Sara the dog

I wanted to take a quick break from European-related activities and pay a quick tribute to my dog Sara, who died last week at almost 13 years old.

I got Sara when I was in third grade and she was a big part of my life. She was also just about the sweetest, most polite dog I've ever met. She will be missed.


- Krista