Arctic Blast 2008

After two weeks of trying to get around in the worst snowstorm Portland has had in 30 years, Brian and I are finally back in Amsterdam. We had a great time, but our trip was full of unexpected events. Let's just say the weather made things interesting...

We were lucky that my parents have a 4-wheel drive Volvo geared up with snow tires, so we didn't have to cancel all of our plans. We made it down to Eugene to see Molly and Mike, but had to leave early because of fears of freezing rain and snowy roads. We spent a lot of time with my family (which I loved), but sadly never got to see Brian's dad or many of our friends due to the crazy weather and terrible driving conditions.

Christmas itself was a blast - we were able to get all of my family up to my parents' treacherous driveway around midday, and had fun playing games, eating good food and playing in the snow. We even got to go sledding with the kids and build a gigantic snowman (it was around 8-10 feet tall I think, Todd had to get a ladder to get the head and shoulders on it), which was really fun. It was my first white Christmas!

Since I didn't want to bog down our blog with photos, I decided it would be better to put most of the pictures on our Picassa web album, so check that out if you're interested. Here are a few of the highlights below:

Our first night in Portland at Matt & Julia's Christmas party - were exhausted!

Early on in the trip - these were the days when we could still get the car up the hill

Brian and Wyatt having a snowball fight

The 8-foot tall snowman we built on Christmas Day - the picture doesn't do it justice, it was huge!

- Krista

Christmas in Amsterdam

In case you haven't noticed... it's officially the holidays. Yes, it's that time of year - the time of weird looking Santa Clauses everywhere, manic-crazed crowds in department stores, and terrible Portland traffic... oh and of course there's all the good stuff too, like family, the look on little kids' faces when they open their presents, and lots and lots of good food...

Well here in Holland, we seem to be missing out on all that good traditional Christmas stuff. In fact, if I didn't know what time of year it was, I would have no idea that Christmas is just less than two weeks away. Sure, there are some nice wintry scenes like this one around town:


How can you go wrong with a fake outdoor ice skating rink?

But the Dutch just don't seem to care much about Christmas. Maybe it's the whole Sinterklaas thing, but they put up a pretty sad looking Christmas tree:

Where's the decorations? The lights? And yes, that is Darth Vader standing by the tree. He could have at least put on a Santa hat!

And take a look at these trees that just appeared near our house:


Yes, that first tree is decorated with... clothes. Where are the Rudolfs and angels and Christmas ornaments decorated by first graders? Is this some sort of joke?

Fortunately, we did find a few "normal" looking decorations at our favorite library. Here's me getting giddy about Christmas below:


Basically... we are really excited to be coming home for the holidays, because as much as we like it here, it just doesn't feel like Christmas without friends and family (and sugar cookies, and Christmas lights, and stockings, and the Macy's Day parade downtown Portland, and apple cider, and...)

We can't wait to see (some of) you in the next few weeks!

Happy Holidays!

- Krista

We sold our car!!!

We sold our car!

Thanks to Brian's dad, who put in tons of time and effort to sell Brian's 2004 Acura after the wedding in this absolutely terrible economy, we are now officially a car-less family. Hurray!

Thanks Rick/Dad, for all your help. We appreciate it so much and we're so glad it all worked out!


- Krista & Brian

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you all had an enjoyable, relaxing time filled with good food and friends and family.

Although Amsterdam does not actually have a Thanksgiving holiday, there are enough ex-pats here that we were able to have our own little celebration.

We went over to our friends Andy and Elyse's apartment, where they had a gathering of around 15 people. We brought over homemade pumpkin pie, garlic mashed potatoes and our own little veggie-meat concoction - yes, that's right, I made a pie! For all of you out there who have ever doubted my cooking abilities, the pie and the mashed potatoes turned out great (my Mom tells me that at one point I told my brother I didn't know how to make a peanut butter sandwich... oops)!

Anyways, we ate a lot of really good food, played a few games and stayed till around midnight even though Brian had to work the next day. We had a great time, even though we really missed being with our families. It helps to think we'll be back in the States soon.

Here are a few photos from the night:

Food! And lots of it

Brian and Colin

Me eating... like I did all night

Brian and I being goofballs

Love you all!

- Krista

Snow!

It snowed here this weekend, much to our surprise. It was very picturesque to see snowflakes falling on all the old buildings and canals, although once it hit the ground it instantly became mush - the only things it actually stuck to were cars and rooftops (and our hats and jackets...).

Even though we were both really excited at the idea of snow (I still get like a little kid hoping for a snow day whenever I see a single flake), we froze while walking around in it! Apparently we need to get some warmer clothes for the winter here... puffy coats anyone?

Me braving the wind/cold

Brian and I covered in snowflakes

- Krista

Sinterklaas!

Sinterklaas has arrived!

For those of you who don't know who Sinterklaas is (most likely anyone without a Dutch or Belgian background...), here's a little history lesson for you.

Sinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus, although he delivers presents on St. Nicholas Day, December 6th, instead of December 25th. He looks like a cross between the pope and the American Santa Claus:


He brings presents and leaves them in wooden shoes that children leave out for him, which is why Holland is so famous for wooden shoes (I've never actually seen people wear these...).

Sinterklaas also has a helper, called Zwarte Piet (translation: Black Pete), and yes, if you're wondering, it's a very politically incorrect figure. The historic explanation is that he is an imported African servant - today's reasoning is that his face is black because "it's black from soot" from climbing up and down chimneys while delivering gifts. Apparently the Dutch government has been trying to change the image of Zwarte Piet for a while now - but you still see kids on the streets dressed up in Spanish colonial outfits (the traditional Zwarte Piet clothing) with their faces painted black. Brian thinks it's atrocious, and I'm not too fond of it either...

Anyway, the Dutch Sinterklaas is really the basis for the American Santa Claus (we had to Americanize the name like we always do). Apparently during the American War of Independence, New Yorkers living in the former Dutch colonial town of New Amsterdam took the old Dutch tradition and made it their own. So there you have it - that's where Santa Claus comes from!

Check out this Wikipedia article if you're interested in more of the story.

Here are a few pictures from this weekend (Sinterklaas comes a few weeks before St. Nicholas Day so he can see whether the kids have been good or bad, and everyone dresses up and runs out to see him):

This is a terrible picture, but Sinterklaas is at the very front of the boat

Everyone in their boats chasing Sinterklaas and people lined up along the canals to see him

- Krista

De Bazaar in Beverwijk

On Sunday we joined some friends from Brian's work and took a 40-minute train ride out to a town called Beverwijk to visit what is supposedly the largest market in Europe. It was huge - more like a village than a market - I guess there are somewhere around 2500 stalls, and at least 10 gigantic tents.

And you can buy anything you ever dreamed of; we saw everything from computers, to power tools, to old cameras and clothing items... the list goes on. In fact, a lot of the stalls in the tents we went in (3 out of 5 of us were tuckered out after the very first tent, so we only went in around 3 total I think) were filled with absolute junk. It literally looked like some of the people went in their attic and took out everything they didn't want and tried to sell it. And people were actually buying it!

There was also a stand where there were pre-wrapped presents, and for 10 Euros you could buy one and get a "surprise" gift out of it. €10 for something you have no idea what it could be? I have better things to spend my money on, thank you.

Anyway, here are a couple of photos from the day:

In order: Colin, Andy (hiding in the back with the hat on) Elyse, and Brian

Elyse, Andy and I in one of the massive tents

- Krista

Housewarming

After talking about it for about a month, Brian and I finally got organized enough to have a housewarming party last night. I was a bit nervous about it because I don't consider myself much of a hostess, but we had a lot of fun and I think everyone else enjoyed themselves as well. Our place isn't huge so we couldn't have a ton of people, but I think at one point there was somewhere around 20 guests - a mix match of Brian's co-workers, their significant others, neighbors, a few former Portlanders (friends-of-friends that happened to move to Amsterdam at the same time as us), and a hodgepodge of Finnish people we didn't know.

Unfortunately, despite my good intentions, my camera never made it out of my purse all night - meaning we have absolutely zero photos to post. But the good thing is that it was not as traumatizing of an experience as I thought it might be, so we may actually have another party again in the semi-near future - and I will be sure to post photos from that!

Also, we found out from our neighbors that we are actually living on a street that has been nominated for the past ten out of eleven years as the most beautiful street in Amsterdam - we knew it was pretty, but had no idea it was that pretty! So I thought I'd post a photo of Henri Polaklaan (our street's name, if you hadn't guessed) so you don't feel completely bogged down by text:

Pretty, right? The zoo is at the very end of the street.

Also, here's a pretty cute picture of Fishstick, if you're wondering what he's up to these days:

He's pretty happy, and yes, very warm and cozy.

- Krista

London x2

Brian and I went to London this past Wednesday - him for work, and me for, well, play. I wasn't planning on going - in fact, I got my plane ticket on Tuesday, the day before we left - but we both decided that since I got a free hotel out of it and the plane tickets were so cheap, there was no reason for me not to go.

It was a fun, quick trip - we stayed two nights, and left Friday morning (if I had actually thought about it I would have stayed until at least Friday afternoon or so, but for some reason I tried to fly out at the same time as Brian which made no sense since he had to go straight to work from the airport). We got to stay right in the center of London, by a cool shopping area called Oxford Circus (pictured below):


Even though Brian was at work most of the time, I had a really nice time just walking around and exploring the city. I've been to London somewhere around 5 or 6 times, and especially this time it really felt like I was going to the big city, since Amsterdam is so small and quaint. Plus, since I've been getting a bit homesick lately, it was strangely comforting to see familiar American sites like this one:


I also got really excited at the thought of Christmas, which is in full swing in London already, when I saw department store displays like this:


It was a nice reminder that we are headed home to the States for the holidays in just a little bit more than a month.

I also got to attend part of a photoshoot (Brian's reason for going) while I was there, which was pretty interesting since at one point I thought that's what I might want to do with my life. And, since Brian was there with some London-savvy eaters, we went to some great restaurants, which is always a plus.

We really miss you all at home, and would love to hear from any of you that we haven't heard from for a while!

- Krista

Museumnacht '08

Last weekend, Brian and I went to our first ever Amsterdam museumnacht (museum night) - a once a year event where all of the museums in Amsterdam stay open until two or so in the morning and have special attractions aside from their normal displays.

We met up with some friends from Brian's work (some former Portlanders, in fact) and walked around the city, trying our best to avoid long lines but still see interesting things. Our favorite was the Van Gosh Museum, where we saw a great jazz/soul band and had toured the exhibits with Andy and Elyse and their friend Kyle another former Portlander who now lives in Geneva.

Here are a few pictures from the night below:

Brian and I at a wierd alchohol museum


Brian, me, Kyle, Elyse and Andy (yes, we stole this picture from your blog guys! forgive us)

- Krista

Library!

Brian and I discovered the library yesterday, and it's amazing!

It's only a five-minute bike ride from our house, and it's huge - apparently it's the largest library in Europe and was designed by some famous architect (Jo Coenen & Co for any of you who are familiar with modern architecture).

On the nine floors there are comfy chairs, a huge restaurant, a cafe, wireless internet and computers everywhere, and lots of books and magazines - even some English ones!

It took us long enough to get there, but now that we've found it, both Brian and I agree we're going to want to spend a lot of time there, especially on the long, rainy winter days to come.

The front of the library (called bibliotheek in Dutch)

A bird's eye view of one of the floors

Brian enjoying Newsweek magazine in the cafe

- Krista

Our Amsterdam Apartment

Well I've been living in our new place in Amsterdam for just about a solid week and a half now (it feels like much longer!) and have been trying hard to get settled in.

While Brian has been at work, I've been busy organizing closets, cupboards, kitchens, etc., to try and make our apartment feel more like a home.

We even made an Ikea trip last weekend which of course turned out to be a bit of a nightmare (they refused to ship everything because they said "they would break it" so we had to take a gigantic plant and a huge bag full of glass items back with us on the subway - not fun).

So far, we both really like our new home - it's very spacious, light, and a bit quirky, but one can only expect that from an old European home. Plus, the location is fantastic, we can walk/bike to everything.

And even though it's not quite there yet - we only have two plants and we have tons of picture frames that we intend on filling with wedding photos and such but have no idea where to get them printed - I thought I'd put up a few photos to give you a taste of our new life.

Our living room/dining room (it's split level, so we can watch TV on the upper level under the skylight)

Our bathroom (you get used to the orange tiles after a while...)

Our bedroom - it's hard to tell from the picture, but it's way bigger than the one in Portland was, and very comfortable

Our kitchen - it's really nice to cook in, especially because we get to use all our fun new kitchen stuff from our wedding

Our European rooftop view (apparently most Dutch people prefer to be on the ground floor because then they can have a garden, but we much prefer the top floor, steep stairs and all)

And don't forget, if you're ever in the neighborhood we'd love to have you come visit...

Miss you all, can't wait to see some of you in December, it's not very far away!

- Krista

Relaxing in Santorini

Life got a bit more relaxing the moment we got off the plane from Athens and stepped out on the Greek island of Santorini. We stayed in two towns while we were there - one called Parissa and another called Oia (pronounced "ia").

Parissa was a really cute, tiny town right on the coast of the island. There were great black sand beaches (the island was produced by a volcano) and cute little bakeries and yummy places to eat. The town itself was pretty quiet because we came during the very end of the high season, so basically all we did the entire time we were there was lay on the beach (we got in the water a couple of times, but it was so much colder than the water in Costa Rica!!), which is exactly what we needed.

Oia is a little tourist town nestled on a cliff known for having the best sunsets in the world (see below). It was a beautiful little town, full of white Spanish-style buildings and cute little pathways, but it was a little bit too touristy for me. The second we got there we heard all these American voices, and we hadn't met any other Americans our entire time in Greece. It also was not a very young crowd. And compared to Parissa, it was packed - I'm just thankful we didn't go during the high season, I was claustraphobic enough as it was! We had a great time though, and yes, we saw the sunset, and it was very pretty, although I almost prefer the one at my parents' house...

Below are a few pictures from the trip:

Sitting on a black sand beach in Parissa

The town of Oia

A little fishing village down from Oia - we walked down a road to get here and then walked up a really long, steep staircase to get back to the town - trust me, it was a lot of stairs


The sunset at Oia

- Krista

Chaos in Athens

After Oktoberfest, Ann and I let Brian go back to work in Amsterdam while we traveled on to Athens, Greece. We had made the decision to go there about three weeks before the wedding, and I found out later it was all based on Ann's recent viewing of the movie Mama Mia. Well we got there, and... well, we definitely had an adventure, that's for sure.

We had decided before the trip that we would go back to our college days and stay in youth hostels to be cheap and to meet other travelers. We booked the hostels online and relied on the reviews of previous travelers to decide where to stay. This was mistake number one. When we arrived at the hostel, it was unclean, had no outlets in the room, and was far away from all the cool and interesting neighborhoods. Luckily we coughed up the extra 10 euros each to stay in a private room (for those of you who have never stayed in one, most hostel rooms consist of around 6 to 40 people staying in bunk beds), but it still wasn't great.

Well both of us were fine than the less-than-luxurious lodging, although I think that we are convinced that neither of us will ever stay in a youth hostel ever again (as Brian kept reminding us, we're not in college anymore). So we tried to make the most of our stay, and do the touristy thing, although the only real sightseeing thing we did was go see the Acropolis, which was interesting and very pretty, pictures of which are below. Other than that we basically just walked miles and miles each day to try and people watch and get a sense of the city.

We had an okay time - although we discovered that hummus is not in fact Greek food (don't ever ask for hummus in Greece - it's a sore subject for them), and we had a hard time getting away from the ultra-touristy restaurants because we didn't quite understand the neighborhoods or how to find anything.

Our opinion of the city really started to go downhill though when on the second day I put my Amsterdam debit card into an ATM machine and it decided to eat my card and none of the bank employees would help me. Luckily I had a few other cards with me, but it was a pain and I am now incredibly paranoid about putting my card into an ATM machine in Greece ever again - apparently this is not a rare occurrence there.

Then, on the day we were supposed to leave for the Greek Island of Santorini, we had an absolutely terrible time getting to the airport, an experience which has forever tainted my view of Greek public transportation.

Our flight was at 10:30, and the airport isn't close - it took us about an hour from the metro on the way to the city. Well, we had read that the metro system starts at 5:30 a.m., so we were planning to get up a bit early so we wouldn't cut it close.

The trouble started when I set the alarm an hour late (it was still set on Amsterdam time). Then, we ran with our suitcases to the metro station only to discover that the metro wasn't opening until 9:00 that day (what?!? with no notice or anything? I still don't understand how a major metropolitan city can do this). After that, we were a little frazzled but remembered reading that we could also take a bus to the airport. So we asked some people which bus went all the way out there, and the response was that "there was no bus going to the airport that day."

Okay... by this time, we were getting pretty nervous, because it would be a pain to miss our flight and frankly both of us wanted to get out of that hectic city. Since we had no other option, we decided to catch a taxi. But... there were no taxis. Or they were all full. We stood by the curb by a sign marked "taxi" with about 10 other people and watched taxis zoom past without stopping. We waved and waved but no taxi came for us. A few stopped, but when we said "airport" they had no idea what we were referring to so they left abruptly. Finally, about 45 minutes later, an empty taxi actually stopped and we ran up to it, flapping our arms like wings and pointing to our bags, saying "airport, airport!" The guy didn't speak English, but he got the point.

We made our flight - despite the fact that we were stuck in traffic the whole time and we arrived at the airport barely 45 minutes before it was scheduled to leave.

The moral of the story it that if you ever have a desire to go to Athens, make sure and stay in a decent hotel in a nice neighborhood, hold on to your credit cards, and triple check the transportation situation so you'll be able to make it to the airport!

The Parthenon (See all that construction? In 1975 the Greek government decided it was time to restore the monument, and more than 30 years later, it's still not finished...)

Beautiful views from the top of the Acropolis

And another view

Ann and I standing in front of one of the Acropolis monuments (I have no idea which one)

- Krista

Rockin' Oktoberfest

The day after I flew into Amsterdam from Portland, I met Brian and my friend Ann in Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest. Ann and I were both jetlegged and exhausted, and we all were sharing one tiny hotel room that was three times the usual rate (everyone hikes up the prices because they know people will come anyway) and far away from town, but we had a blast.

The city was beautiful, and everything was incredibly festive. All the different beer tents had their own themes (one looked surprisingly like Hogwarts from Harry Potter), the people were all dressed up in lederhosen and dirndls (traditional Bavarian wear) and we drank liters - yes liters - of great beer.

We had a great time exploring the city, and talking with the locals. Surprisingly, we barely saw any other Americans - there were lots of Germans and Italians, but very few people from the U.S. Here are a few highlights below:

Ann and I modeling the dorky beer hats people wear - no, we didn't actually buy them

Brian and I trying to finish our beers

Ann and I on the second day of Oktoberfest

Prost! (that means cheers in German)

- Krista

Wedding photos - finally!

So it's almost a month after the wedding and I'm finally getting some wedding photos up online. It's a work in process - our photographer gave us over 900 photos so I've been busy sorting through them all - but keep checking periodically for updates.

Click here to go to my Picassa page to view the photos.

And I've put a few below in case you don't have time to check out the whole bunch.




Thanks again for everyone's love and support! We had an amazing time!

- Krista

Wedding video

For any of you who missed it or just couldn't hear it at the wedding due to the terrible speakers, here's the video we made to show during the reception:

(It's about eight minutes long, but you don't have to watch the whole thing!)



We'll get some pictures from the night up soon - we are supposed to get a cd from our photographer tomorrow!

- Krista

Palm trees, monkeys & public transportation

Well, it’s over. After nine months of work (and some stress…) Brian and I are officially a married couple. It was an amazing wedding, although it went by way too fast and both of us wished we had much more time to talk to our friends and family who made such an effort to be there on our special night. We are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives, and appreciate all your love and support.

After a whirlwind wedding week and eleven nights in Costa Rica on our honeymoon, we are officially back to reality. It was quite a trip – we had a great time, but I think it was a little more than we both bargained for.

I had been to the Pacific coast of C.R. a year or so ago with my parents and loved it, but I don’t think Brian had much of an idea of what we were getting ourselves into. I forgot that he’d never even really been to Mexico before, and I think he was a bit shocked by the slightly third world nature of the country with its unpaved roads and shack houses… Plus, neither of us really did the best job planning for the trip since we were so busy moving to Amsterdam and making sure the wedding was put together by the 13th.

As a result, we took way too many public busses lacking air conditioning and a sufficient number of seats for the outrageous number of passengers on them, stayed in a few less-than-honeymoon-like hotels, did some unnecessary zigzagging around the country because we didn’t have our route totally planned before we left, and got a little sunburned along the way.

But despite our unplanned adventures, we both had a great time. We had some great weather (although it did rain quite a bit, as it tends to in rainforests), and our days were filled with activities like relaxing on beautiful beaches, attempting to surf, biking the dusty roads, hiking in the jungle, hanging out with monkeys, eating great food (I think we’re both sick of rice and beans for a while), ziplining in the rainforest canopy and exploring several tiny towns.

We had never been on a long vacation together before, and it was nice to get to spend some time together after being apart for a month and then having the chaos of the wedding to deal with. Plus, we both agreed when we originally planned the trip that we didn’t want a purely tourist experience – and we definitely got our adventure!

I’ve posted a couple photos from the trip below, but I’ve also put the majority on a Picassa web album so feel free to check those out as well. The link is here.

Brian surfing on the Caribbean coast of C.R.

At a reggae bar in a town called Cahuita

On the beach

Ziplining in our dorky outfits

- Krista