A Week at a Time: Aug 6 - Aug 12, 2011

It's been a little over a month since we left the Netherlands. We've started to get over our reverse culture shock and settle into a routine. A few weeks ago, I started teaching an English composition class, and a few days later, I began my graduate classes at UNT. We're in the process of purchasing a house, living with my parents in the meantime, and trying to slowly reconnect with our friends. This weekend, I'm playing my first disc golf tournament back in the States. With so much going on, I haven't been too motivated to sit down and blog, although I would like to have some memories of this time documented. Right now, I'm thinking about changing the name of the blog and doing a bit of redesign to make it more applicable to our current situation.

For now, though, I plan on catching up on the Week at a Time posts. You'll notice that this post covers our final week in the Netherlands. Once we move back to the Texas pictures, I plan on letting the photographs speak more for themselves instead of giving a summary of each day. Hopefully, you'll enjoy reflecting on this final week in the Netherlands. I'll try not to be such a stranger in coming weeks.

Our final Saturday in Utrecht, Mr. Traveler played his last "honkbal" game with the Domstad Dodgers. They ended up winning by one run, and the rain held off just long enough for us to all gather under the porch for a post-game beer.

Aug 6 - Making a Run for It

Sunday, Mr. Traveler had to umpire a softball game, so I worked on final packing preparations. In the evening, we tried out a Chinese restaurant that had come highly recommended from multiple sources -- Paradijs. The food was interesting (I had chicken stuffed with prawns, which ended up consisting of a fried chicken skin stuffed with chopped up prawns), but pretty decent. The service, however, was a little slow (even for European standards). On the way home, we heard music coming from a nearby street, and dropped in on a music festival for a few minutes before heading back to our place.

Aug 7 - Strawberries

On Monday, I tried to wrap up last minute shopping, picking up a few souvenirs in the form of books and paper goods. Mr. Traveler and I decided to ride our bikes out to the pancake house in the afternoon. Even though the picture portrays a sunny day, you can see the steam rising off the grass from the recent downpour (right as we arrived at the restaurant).

Aug 8 - Donkeys

Tuesday, we finished sorting items for the movers and enjoyed lunch with one of Mr. Traveler's coworkers in Houten.

Aug 9 - Solid Sofa

On Wednesday, the movers arrived and quickly packed our things. The rest of the afternoon, I cleaned the house while Mr. Traveler ran up to the office.

Aug 10 - Moving Day

Thursday, we had a flurry of activity, finishing cleaning, running to the town hall to deregister, stopping by immigration, and trying to make sure we hadn't forgotten any key components of the move.

Aug 11 - Molengraaf

Finally, on Friday, I ran a load of laundry at a local laundromat, we checked out of our house, and we made the Hilton at the airport. Even though we were tired from all the pre-move activity, we decided to head into the city for one more night on the town before heading home. We found an authentic Italian restaurant and wine bar, wandered around the city, and snapped our final pictures of the country we'd called home for the last 10 months.

Aug 12 - Schiphol

Looking Back, Looking Forward

We are headed back to Texas today (I've scheduled this to post today, as I'm sure I won't have time to log on before our flight). In honor of our flight home, I thought I'd share a quick list of things I'll miss about the Netherlands and things I'm looking forward to in Texas. Of course there are things I can't wait to get away from here and things I'm dreading a bit about going home, but I thought I'd keep the list positive for now. Of course, neither list is all inclusive, as I keep thinking of more items to add, but as I mentioned before, blogs can't always be perfect, or they'd never get published (at least in my world). So here are my lists, in no particular order:

Things I'll Miss About The Netherlands

• Hearing church bells ring throughout the day
• Old buildings everywhere (i.e. a sense of history)
• Good public transportation that can get you almost anywhere
• Bike lanes and the bicycle culture (including seeing every segment of the population on a bike)
• Low crime rates
• Belgian beer
• Great park system and seeing people actively using all parks
• All the green (grass, trees, flowers, vines, bushes) everywhere
• Availability of amazing cheese and dairy products
• Seeing dogs in restaurants and shops
• Our neighborhood restaurant (Buurten), which has good service and quality food
• Markets (weekly markets and specialty ones -- such as boekenmarkten)
• Random festivals (which seem to happen almost every week and/or weekend in Utrecht)
• Weather cool enough for running in the summer
• Free time for sightseeing
• Museums
• Ease of traveling around Europe

I'm going to miss this!

Things I'm Looking Forward To In Texas

• Marla and Elbow (our puppy dogs!)
• Seeing friends and family
• Our comfortable king size bed
• Our sectional couch (where Mr. Traveler, the dogs, and I can all sit at once)
• Starting school
• House hunting (although it makes me a little nervous, as well)
• Having a job (even if it is just teaching one section of English composition)
• Driving my car again (sometimes it's nice to be in control of your own transportation)
• High quality beef (I haven't adjusted to Netherlands beef at all)
• Mexican food and BBQ
• Large aisles at stores (like Target or the grocery store)
• Lower prices
• Having a dryer (and not having to hang up socks and underwear)
• Having a working dishwasher (and not having to hand wash utensils)
• No language barrier (people here speak English, but you don't really fit in until you learn Dutch)
• Being warm (although I'll probably get tired of 100F heat pretty fast)
• Disc golf courses everywhere

Can't wait to see these guys!

Like I said, these lists are in no way complete, but hopefully they give you a little glimpse of my feelings on returning to Texas (and on leaving Utrecht). I'll have to look back in a few months and see how the lists compare with my current outlook.

Inside Our Dutch House: A Look At Our Street

Now that you've seen our whole house (our kitchen, our living room, our bathrooms and stairs, our bedroom, and our garden), I thought it would be nice to give you a little context. Previously I didn't share too much about our street for privacy reasons, but since we are moving out today, I think it's time for you to see our neighborhood.

Our house is located in the neighborhood of Oudwijk (literally, "Old Quarter") in eastern Utrecht.

View UtrechtFotografie.nl Oudwijk, Sterrenwijk & Wittevrouwen in a larger map

The neighborhood is pretty quiet and I love our proximity to Wilhelmina Park. I'm definitely going to miss the lush green park and the old buildings when we move back. Our street, Beekstraat, is short and located in the middle of a residential area. We are only a two minute walk from the grocery store and many specialty shops, and yet our street feels relatively secluded. Of course, I'm sure you'd prefer to look at photos rather than listen to my descriptions.

Here is our street:

Beekstraat

It was really pretty when the flowers were in bloom:

Beekstraat (taken from our window)

Around the corner, there is a cute playground. It gets much more use now that it's not snow covered.

Playground

Here is the bump I trip over at least every other trip down our street:

Bump!

And finally, here is our house (at least until we turn in the keys):

Beekstraat 17

Inside Our Dutch House: Once Upon a Time

I'm in the middle of cleaning and getting our place ready for the move, but I thought I'd make time to post a few photos of what our place used to look like... in the late 70s/ early 80s. These photos all come from the Utrecht Archive. If you are interested, they have plenty more photos of the city (from all different periods in history). Just click here. The Dutch are very meticulous about collecting and keeping information!

The kitchen (for present day pictures see this post):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

The living room (see this post for present day pictures):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

 The downstairs toilet (read more here):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

The stairs (just as steep):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

 And the garden (which I showed you about here):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

I think some of the photos may have gotten flipped when they were scanned, but you can definitely tell the building has had some major renovations since the early 1980s.

Inside Our Dutch House: The Garden

In my post about our bedroom, I told you I was covering the last room in our house. What I didn't tell you is I still have a couple posts left to wrap up the Inside Our Dutch House series. This one is about our garden (otherwise known as the small patch of concrete tiles which play host to a fast growing vine).

When I first moved into our house in Utrecht, I found the small garden area charming. "In the summer," I thought, "I'll spend the days reading or writing at the cute patio dinner. We can have dinner outside or enjoy a glass of wine in the sun on a Saturday afternoon."

I soon put aside those thoughts, however, as the late fall and winter weather was not conducive to spending time relaxing outdoors. In the back of my mind I still thought of my plans for the summer, but as I shivered next to the radiator, I could hardly imagine a day it would get warm enough to spend time outside.

Winter Garden

During the winter, the snow started to pile up and soon the twine holding up the vine (pictured above on the left) broke. The vine started sagging and suddenly the garden's space seemed less inviting. "Maybe when it gets warmer, we can retie the vine," I thought. "Or maybe we can email or landlady to bring a ladder so we can fix the vine."

Eventually, the weather did improve. Spring brought numerous sunny days, and I actually started spending more time outside. Only, I spent most of this time at the park instead of in the garden. Going to the park satisfied my need to get out of the house in a way that our small garden space did not. Plus, the spring weather brought with it a new energizing force for every living thing.

Our vine went from the manageable plant you see in the winter photo to this...

April 12 - Garden

 ...by mid April. And less than a month later we had the following scene (note that the table had to be moved as it was being overtaken by the vine).

May 8 - Garden

Who knew pretty little flowers like the following one could spark such a change?

Spring Flower

At one point we did contact our landlady to see if the vine could be reattached, but we didn't get a response back for quite a while, and soon the vine was out of control.

May 20 - Garden

Notice how the vine has stretched all the way across the garden and onto the ground in the picture above. It even started to wrap around the handles on the door. I felt like I was living in a horror movie with the plant as the antagonist.

I finally got fed up with the situation and decided what the vine needed was a good haircut. I would turn this hippy garden into a respectable spot to enjoy a cup of tea. I bought a pair of loppers and started chopping. I think I threw away at least 3 garbage bags full of leaves.

May 24 - Garden

Maybe it didn't turn out that respectable (apparently I couldn't even take the time to set up the table and chairs properly), but I think the "haircut" did help improve the space. Once again, I felt like I might use the space.

Only, it turns out that spring was the warmest season this year. Since then, we've had the rare sunny and warm day, but in general the weather has been much chillier and rainier this summer. So even with the time and effort that went in to making the space livable, we've never eaten dinner or even enjoyed a drink in the garden. With only 2 days left at the house, I think it's safe to say that this was and is the least used space of our house (although it does provide a semi-nice view from both the living room (where all the above photos were taken) and from the kitchen (view pictured below).

May 24 - View of Garden from the Kitchen

Inside Our Dutch House: The Bedroom

The last room inside our Dutch home is the bedroom. One major issue we had when we first moved in was storage space (at least after our shipment arrived) since the room has no closets. It did have one wardrobe, but that had to hold all of our clothes, the extra linens that came with the house, the extra linens we shipped when we originally planned on a 2 bedroom, the vacuum, extra computer parts, etc.

We quickly invested in an extra wardrobe, which we will donate to the house when we leave. This one extra piece of furniture saved the bedroom from looking like we were in the process of moving for the whole year.

In the picture below you can see our new white wardrobe, the old wood colored wardrobe with mirror, the drying rack, and the corner of our bed.

Bedroom Looking Toward Back of House

Here is a photo looking at the room from the opposite side. You can see the bed (in all it's lumpy glory) and some built in shelves in the corner (mainly used for shoe storage).

Bedroom Looking Toward Front of House

Other than the storage issue and a very lumpy bed, the room is adequate with some interesting idiosyncrasies. The shape of the room (with the sloping wall), the placement of the radiators, a built in shelf that blocks the door from opening all the way, and a shortage of outlets, all combine to make the rearrangement of furniture a bit of a challenge. 

During the winter, I actually spent quite a bit of time in the bedroom during the day because it was the warmest room in the house. I cuddled up under the covers with my laptop or a book and often ended up taking an accidental nap. Now that it is summer and the bedroom is still the warmest room in the house, I prefer to spend more of my time in the living room, since it is not quite as stuffy. Of course, we always have the option of opening windows, but storms can pop up without warning and the Dutch don't believe in window screens, so open windows mean lots of visitors of the insect variety.

Oh, and in case you are still wondering about the fish-eye photos, here are some pictures taken with a regular lens.

The Wardrobe

Part of Our Bed

Do you see how you can't really get an idea of the layout of the room with the regular photos?

Inside Our Dutch House: The Bathrooms

Inside our house, we have two bathrooms (at least according to the American use of the word). We actually have a toilet downstairs and full bathroom upstairs.

Downstairs Toilet

As you can see this downstairs W.C. is pretty basic - a toilet and a sink. I've often wondered how you go about fixing the toilet if the flushing doesn't stop since there is no access to the pipes/water tank. In the winter this room got very little use as it is drafty (being right beside the front door), has a cold tile floor, and doesn't contain a radiator. It was great, though, to have this extra 1/2-bath downstairs when company visited.

Upstairs, we have... Oh, first I should show you the stairs!

Stairs, Looking Down

Pretty steep, huh? These are typical Dutch stairs. Even in buildings with more space, the stairs normally remain at this steepness. The picture below gives you a better idea of the layout of upstairs.

Upstairs

Upstairs, we have the full bathroom (well, sort of... it has a shower and no bathtub, but I think that's pretty typical for a smaller European house).We have a shower, washing machine, toilet and sink all crammed into the tiny space. I actually think the use of space is really good.

Upstairs Bathroom

I also like that there is no step up to get into the shower. It seems like it's easier to clean the long drain if it gets clogged than the normal bathtub-type drains.

Shower and Washing Machine

In the picture above you can see our washing machine, next to the shower. Unfortunately, we don't have a dryer... and with good reason, where would you put it?... so once I wash clothes, I have to hang everything to dry. I don't mind so much for shirts and slacks, but the towels don't ever seem to dry and socks are a pain to line up on the drying rack.

Washing Machine Close-Up

On a side note, neither of our toilets are typically Dutch, because they don't have the standard shelf in place. Want to know what I'm talking about? Check out Tiffany's comments on Dutch toilets here and here.