I'm puzzled

What the heck do people want with 'glasses' like this, and what are they supposed to be good for? When I asked the man selling them, he said "Uuh... they're for the sun" and shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Can anyone provide a better answer?



I found the glasses (which I do think I might've seen elsewhere a few times already) at yet another market I stumbled across today. Where they naturally sold lots of fabulous stuff that I can't buy because I have no money. And of course sometime in the distant future when I have some money again, there will be no fabulous stuff to buy. This top was also kinda funny, and I would've considered buying it for Boyfriend if it had come in a man's shirt (and I'd had any money), since he's a total Pizza Hut Slut.


I have also discovered that the Netherlands is more exotic than I thought, when I saw several houses with grapevines around their entrances, with actual, real, ripe grapes. I thought that only happened in countries like Italy, Greece, Spain etc. Cool.

Norway

Dear reader(s),

Sorry for my lengthy absence due partly to me being on holiday, and partly to me not feeling like writing anything.

I went on sort of a tour of Norway with Boyfriend earlier this month, to visit places I used to live, my friends and family and attend my dearest friend's wedding. It was a busy, emotional and lovely time.

First we went to visit my mother, her husband, my little sister and their new and super cute cat. That purrs as soon as you pick her up. I fell in love immediately...

We also went fishing and lost two pieces of bait and caught one minuscule little fish that we just let back into the water. And we had one sightseeing day in Oslo where we went to the Munch museum to which I've never been, something I enjoyed immensely. We also went to Vigelandsparken and had a look at sinnataggen...

... AND we went to the movies to see Mamma Mia! I'm totally going to buy that on DVD, so I can sing as loud as I want to while I watch it.. Apparently our whole row of seats were already moving because I was dancing around in my seat. If you want to believe Boyfriend, that is....

And here, a special treat - the royal residence aka. the big yellow block (I always thought it was disappointingly plain and ugly):

While we were in the south we went off for the weekend to celebrate Marte and Egil's wedding. Which also included Boyfriend's first time using a 'utedo' (out of house toilet). Exciting stuff. The wedding ceremony and celebration were absolutely beautiful (but kinda cold for summer), the happy couple looked really really happy, there were lots of nice speeches filled with love, and spirits were high throughout. Needless to say, I bawled like a baby.... Marte is my very dearest friend, and we hadn't had a chance to see each other since December last year. So meeting for the first time in so long and to such an occasion made me extremely emotional. But it was sooo good to be there. And if all goes well, Marte will be coming to visit this fall. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Me and Marte, very happy to see each other again.

The newlyweds.

Aaaaw!...

In my completely unbiased opinion, the most beautiful bride the world has ever seen.

After that the trip went on to Trondheim. In my completely unbiased opinion the most beautiful city in all of Norway. It's funny how you appreciate things so much more once you don't have regular access to them...

View of Trondheim from Lian, with horseys.

Horsey up close and personal.

Then again, I did always appreciate Trondheim, but I always cursed myself for not having moved every time winter and months of snow and cold and dark arrived, as they inevitably did every year. Still, it was lovely to see the place again, and to see my aunt and cousins if ever so briefly. As luck would have it, we also got the chance to meet some other VIPs:

Mikael in his office. After I had endured him and Boyfriend speaking about computers almost the entire time we saw each other.

Me trying on one of Mikael's Venetian masks. After seeing pictures from his trip there, Venice is even higher on my list of places I want to go.

For some reason in all the pictures I have of me and Øystein, we are drinking beer.... But of course, when you are at Mikrobryggeriet you have to drink beer. They brew it themselves, and it is go-oo-od. Especially the stout. We also had some lovely sushi and some pleasant conversation. :)

Meeting my dear Edith for yummy tapas and a lovely evening at Solsiden. Another one I'm hoping for a visit from soon. (Did you hear that Edith? Get your ass over here!...)

We also spent a day doing the obligatory tourist stuff. Seeing the cathedral, Bakklandet, the old town bridge, the fortress (that apparently at some point protected us from the Swedish..) and the radio tower at Tyholt with cafe on top. Even though I've seen all these places several times before, it was still nice to be able to show Boyfriend my old home town, that I still feel quite connected to.

And we even managed to go for a walk in the forest, something I miss living in this flat and 'natureless' country (which has other joys to make up for that, but still...). I picked some blueberries, and Boyfriend refused to kiss me when I had smeared them all over my lips. What's that all about??...

Boyfriend being a 'Gumby' in front of the Lian lake.

Our last stop was Tromsø, where we only spent a short weekend. It was kind of strange to go back to the city where I spent all my teenage years, and where I haven't been in 2 1/2 years, for such a short time. Part of me feels like we were never really there. I also fell ill on Saturday night, which means we spent our last holiday night eating take-out from Burger King in our hotel room... (I got sick with a fever last time I visited Tromsø as well... Joincidence?..). Nevertheless, it was nice to see the city again, even though we didn't get to see as much of it as I had hoped. We did have time for a cable car ride:

I'm a little afraid of heights, so going up on one of these things is not my favourite activity ever, but it was kinda cool too. And I have done it before, and fared a lot better than my grandmother, who was so terrified she insisted on walking back down. Poor thing!...

And the view is pretty amazing.

We also had the chance to meet my old friend Ingrid, whom I haven't seen in years. Boyfriend would like me to emphasise that we are not talking about him in this picture... (Though as to what we are talking about, I have no clue..). :P

Homeward bound.

All this and more in 12 days, so you can imagine we were busy. But it was all good.

Since last time we've also attended Boyfriend's aunt's wedding in Leiden, which was nice, and included a boat tour (with champagne) through the canals in Leiden - of which I have no pictures. I also had a visit from my Italian pen pal Walter, which was also nice. He now wants me to come visit him in Milan. I could combine that with Venice, I suppose... :)

I'll try to update my blog more regularly in the weeks and months to come. However I am also really starting to look for a job now, and trying to get some more Dutch studies done, so my life might become less 'postable'.. Time will tell. =)

Gay Pride 2008

Earlier today the annual gay pride parade went through Amsterdam, by boat (of course). They went through the Prinsegracht and the Amstel, and people were plentiful along the edges and on the bridges and houseboats everywhere in this area. If I'd been smart I would've brought a stepladder, like we saw some other guy with. And if I'd been less lazy I'd have shown up earlier, but apparently it was already pretty crowded over an hour before the parade started. Anyhoo, as I am 'blessed' with tallness I could mostly look over peoples shoulders. And it was an enjoyable sight. They really seem to have worked hard to decorate their boats and make costumes, and they seemed to have a lot of fun dancing around and throwing confetti and flowers and such. So much fun indeed, that I was wondering if being gay is a requirement for being on one of those boats, because I wouldn't mind.....

Here are some pictures from the colourful event:

Say 'cheese'

Cheesy title to have on a post about a cheese market, I know.....

Yesterday Victor and I went to visit the kaasmarkt in Gouda. We both like the cheese, and it's mentioned as an attraction to be seen in the Netherlands, so why not check it out?

Well, it's not really much to see, as it turns out. There are wheels of cheese lying around on the ground in front of the town hall, and there are women dressed up as milk maids, or something like that, wearing clogs (OMG!), carrying around wheels of cheese in their arms and posing for photos. There were also horse drawn carts standing around, which I suspect also had wheels of cheese lying around in the back. At some point two men were haggling over the price of the cheese, and they didn't seem to come to an agreement. And, that was pretty much that.

Now, you may say, "but Sarah, what did you expect of a cheese market, other than cheese?". Well, seeing as it's supposed to be this tourist attraction, I had imagined they might've created more of an event around the whole thing. There were other market stalls all around, selling clothes and fish and whatnot, but I can find more interesting markets here in Amsterdam anyway. And I had expected that maybe people would be allowed to sample different varieties of cheese. but not so much. Well, at least I can cross that off my list. And Gouda seems to be quite a charming town, though we didn't see all that much of it during our short stay.

"Decorative" cheeses hanging above the street

Cheese!

Girls carrying cheese!

Cheese chair (children sold separately)

People weighing cheese!

And apparently someone just got married.... :)

Stephen Fry agrees

Yesterday I came across a section in Moab is my Washpot, Stephen Fry's autobiography, which made me think of my last post here:

"I had a terror of insects, moths in particular, horrible scaly moths which flew through open bedroom windows and fluttered about the light bulb as I tried to read. I could not rest or relax in a room which contained a moth. Butterflies were fine during the day, but moths disgusted and terrified me."

I'm not the only one..... ;)

Moth menace

I've never been a great fan of any insects other than butterflies and ladybirds, and I also have a problem with spiders as long as they're not very tiny. It doesn't matter that I know they can't hurt me (in this country anyway) - rationality doesn't factor into it.

Then, last night, as I was sitting comfortably on the couch watching Gordon Ramsay yell at some poor sod whose restaurant was going to shit, I saw something moving up near the lamp, out of the corner of my eye. "It's probably nothing" I thought, as I turned my head and my eyes were confronted with the largest moth I've ever seen. I imagine it to have been the size of my fist, but I am most likely exaggerating. I almost froze up with fear, but had enough presence of mind to call for Boyfriend to come rescue me from the winged menace.

Thank goodness for Boyfriend. If I'd had to handle it on my own I'm almost positive I would've thrown up all over the place. Instead I hid bravely under the blanket whilst yelling "take it away, take it away!!".

After Boyfriend captured the fiend in a glass with a magazine over, there was a moment where you could very audibly hear it flapping it's wings inside the glass (involuntary spasms are going down my back as I recollect it). This is the part of the movie that would be made in slow motion, and with every flap of the wings of the moth it would sound like a thousand birds taking flight.


Boyfriend just let it out of the bedroom window and closed the curtain, which naturally left me somewhat apprehensive in regards to whether or not it would manage/want to find it's way back into our home. Thankfully it did not.

Moths are nice, Boyfriend said, they're like butterflies. But they're NOT! They're like the anti-butterfly! Yes, I know technically they are from the same family, but where butterflies are colourful, beautiful, delicate and fragile, moths are fat, hairy, hideously ugly, disgusting, flying lumps.

And I'm damn well going to make sure the curtain is drawn at night from now on!

Eating dos and don'ts

The last week or so has been pretty busy over here, with visits both from the in laws and from old daddy longlegs (my father, that is..), whose legs are not working terribly well anymore. Apart from a social overdose - for someone like me who usually prefers keeping to herself most of the time - there was also a lot of eating out. I was thinking of creating a sort of list of my favourite places to eat here, and also places not to go (of which I only have two yet), but this'll do for a start.

On Tuesday 'Man With Boat' (a friend of Boyfriend's, who doesn't really have a boat, but I believed he did for a long time, so now he is nevertheless 'man with boat') came over, and him, Boyfriend and me all went out to a Mexican restaurant called Cafe Pacifico. They are located in what I like to call the 'gay street' since it has lots of gay bars and gay sex shops. On their web page they claim to make the best Margarita's in town, and even though I've not had a Margarita in every bar/restaurant in Amsterdam (yet...) I do believe they're not far from the truth. In other words, they do make a damn good Margarita! The food is also yummy (though the menu carries little variation), served fast, and relatively inexpensive. And the music playing always has me dancing in my seat.... The combination of all these factors means I can even happily sit through a dinner where Boyfriend and Man With Boat are discussing programming. ;)

On Wednesday the in laws came over for a late birthday celebration for Boyfriend (who's birthday was the 7th, an occasion we incidentally celebrated at a lovely - and slightly pricey - Italian restaurant along the Singel called Casa di David). They were very pleasant and very Dutch. Which is to say they spoke a lot of Dutch, and by the end of the evening my head was spinning from having tried to keep up with all of it. I've no doubt I must've learned something new in the course of the evening though. Aaanyway. For dinner we went to a nice Thai restaurant near here, on the Staalstraat, called Krua Thai. We've been there a few times, but only for special occasions, since it's on the expensive side. They have this really nice white fish in garlic and lemon sauce that I always order, and that I've recently tried to replicate at home with moderate success. I'm also a sucker for the deep fried banana dessert. NOT a good idea if you're on a diet....

On Thursday I saw my dear old dad for the first time in 4 years (WAY too long!). And as is the custom with all our guests, we took him out to Kantijl & de Tijger, as mentioned in a previous post, for Indonesian food. Once again it was a great success. Later in the evening dad and I drank too much wine (something of a theme for his stay here... Irishman, you know. ;)) and reminisced about old times. It was good!...

On Friday we were planning to go for Sushi, since it's one of mine and Boyfriend's favourite things and dad had never tried it. However, our usual sushi restaurant is quite small and it was completely full. We decided to try an "Italian" place nearby. We soon came to regret that decision.... You know it doesn't bode well when you see a dessert menu on the table with the most tacky pictures and descriptions you can imagine, including a pic of grass green ice cream combined with some sort of weird candied ice cream that I'm sorry to say I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of. The dessert menu also tried to tempt us with real orange ice cream with real orange bits, inside a real orange... Same with lemon and coconut... We had a good laugh about that. Funnily enough, me and dad stopped by an other "Italian" (which in most cases apparently translates to Lebanese, as far as staff/owner is concerned) place on the Damrak on our way to the station. It had the same real lemon and real orange in the dessert menu. I'm happy to report that the pizza at this other place was actually quite nice though.

Real lemon ice cream in real lemon. Quite the rage at "Italian" "restaurants" in Amsterdam, it would seem. I bet you I wouldn't find this on the menu at Casa di David.

A picture of the exterior of the "Italian" place on the Rokin, so you are fairly warned:

Well, when we got our food, it for the most part did leave something to be desired, though some of it was also perfectly adequate. I had some rubbery and tasteless snails for an appetizer, even the garlic butter didn't taste anything. I should've known better than to order snails in a place like that of course, since they're not the easiest thing to prepare. I did however imagine it would be safe to order a pizza - how can an "Italian" place screw up that, right? Well, it was edible, but with a faint and unpleasant aftertaste of mould. The low point of the evening however (which caused much amusement and disbelief) was when we opened a single serving ketchup portion and discovered the ketchup to be dark brown, rather than its usual red. We subsequently opened the second package on the table, with the same result.. Boyfriend dared go where I did not, and tasted a tiny bit of it, saying it tasted old - not surprisingly. On the bright side, it did give us something to laugh about. And I will give them a plus point for having a cat. Some people may not like having cats walking around in the dining room of an eatery, but as mentioned previously I happen to be extremely fond of these little creatures.

Yes, the ketchup was actually this colour...

We had a similar bad eating experience at an "Italian" place in the "gay street" when we wanted to take my friend Marte to Cafe Pacifico but had to make other plans quickly when we discovered that most things on the menu there were incompatible with Marte's lactose intolerance. Which goes to show that nothing good comes of improvising when hungry. At least when you end up in an "Italian" "restaurant".....

After our dining disaster on Friday we decided to have dessert at Häagen-Dazs on the Rembrandtplein, and for the first time we went to sit in the restaurant section in the back. GOOD choice. They had the most mouthwatering selection of combinations of ice creams, pancakes, sauces and fruit you could imagine. And when the food arrived it was at least as good as expected. Obviously not somewhere to go every day, seeing as it must contain about a million calories,but if you love ice cream and want a real treat, then this is the place to go. Although I don't recommend going right after dinner, since I had great trouble getting down the last few bites of the dish below, even though it was delicious:

On Saturday we had been wise enough to make a reservation, and we finally got our sushi. This restaurant is a small and cosy place, in the beginning of an alley leading up from the Rokin, just opposite where the tour boats leave. And for being sushi the prices aren't bad. I also had Unagi (the eel kind, not the state of total awareness) for the first time ever, and it was yummy. I've been daydreaming about it several times since... After our sushi we went across the street to take a candlelight boat tour with (copious amounts of) wine and cheese. Boyfriend and I took a similar tour last year for my birthday, and it has been lovely both times. Particularly recommended for couples.

Dad on the boat

Magere brug by night (and through the glass window of a moving boat).

This post may make it seem like I am a little food obsessed. Apart from that not being terribly far from the truth, I do also hope it may help anyone who comes across it in their search for decent place to eat in Amsterdam...