Merry Christmas!

or Prettige Kerstdagen! if you want it in Dutch.

We wish everyone a happy holiday with friends and family, and hope that the New Year brings you peace and happiness.

love,
Ellen, Ben, Bella + Spud

One of the perks of Ben's job here is that he occasionally need to travel to other places for a few days. And if this were a normal job in the U.S., he'd be traveling to places like Omaha and Nashville, but since we're here his business trips take him to places like Italy, Spain and England. Not too bad. And if I'm not busy, all we have to do is buy a plane ticket for me and I can go along. Even better!

Ben's latest trip took him to Northwood, England (not too far from London) for a half-day work thing of some sort. I couldn't fly there with him due to this pesky thing called "my job", but I met him the next day after his work obligations were over. We spent the night in the hotel near Northwood, explored a local department store, hung out. Then the next day we walked to the train station to begin our one day whirlwind tour of London.

We managed to get checked in to our London "hotel" by about 10 a.m. I put hotel in quotes because, it was no luxury. It was more than a hostel, less than a Holiday Inn. But it was clean, and quiet, and we didn't get mugged at the bus stop, so what more can you ask for at 59 pounds a night? And it was really clean. I know I mentioned that already, but from the looks of the place outside the extreme cleanliness inside was a nice surprise.

After we got settled, we set off to see London, armed with our one-day travel pass for the Underground and busses and about 3 different London guide books (don't want to miss anything, you know).

We started of with Big Ben

(and little Ben!)

Played around in those darn cute red telephone booths. I can only imagine how annoying we are to to people who actually live in London.


Saw Westminster Abbey


Buckingham Palace (We got there right in time for the changing of the guard and there was a band playing music and 500 million bajillion people and it was a little crazy. I had to sit on Ben's shoulders)



Then we wandered through St James Park


And over to St James palace where there was one lone guard pacing back and forth and pretending like he didn't want to kick the asian tourists who kept running up and taking pictures with him.


Then we finally, finally found a Starbucks so Ben could get his mug


And after that we wandered, did some shopping, wandered some more until it was time for... High Tea! We went to the Orangery next to Kensington Palace and had tea and cucumber sandwiches and a scone and cake and it was so fun. I've decided I may start instituting a high tea here at home, just so I can drink tea and eat little sandwiches and cakes in the middle of the afternoon.




Our last hurrah of the day was Tower Bridge, which was pretty impressive.


And then we hobbled back to the Underground station and made our way back to our hotel just in time to catch an episode of Ugly Betty while lying in bed and eating salads and stuff from the grocery store.

I'm not quite sure how we did everything we in a day (because we actually saw a few more things, like Picadilly Circus and Harrod's), but we had a great time. We decided that London isn't our favorite like Paris is, but it could make for a good friend to hang out and drink a couple of pints with and maybe get a little silly. We'd like to go back, but if we do, we'd prefer to do it with more money. London was fun, but expensive. But worth it for the day.

Cheers!

Where the heck have we been?!?

No, we didn't disappear. Just took a tiny bit of time off from the blogging. Okay, maybe more than a tiny bit, but we're back! And we've been doing things and going places! Exciting things! Fabulous places!

A while back we had decided that Thanksgiving was going to be no big deal here, so we found cheap cheap tickets to Barcelona for 2 days. And then we invited a couple of friends to join us, because we like them and because we figured if it's fun to go out to dinner with other people, it will be extra fun going out to dinner with people in a foreign country. And it was!

We arrived on Thanksgiving, hit one tapas bar,

made some Thanksgiving phone calls to family,

and the hit another tapas restaurant for dinner.


After that we went out dancing like the crazy young people we are until my feet hurt so much I thought they might die and/or fall off. It was an excellent Thanksgiving.

The next day we saw as many sights in Barcelona as we possibly could...





And of course, found a Starbucks so Ben could add to his mug collection.

And then we flew home the next day. Ay caramba. Muy tiring. But fun, and definitely worth the trip.

And then, a couple short weeks later, we did a one day only quick trip to London. Are we crazy or what? London photos to come soon. A quick fact before I go though - Did you know that London is so full of pollution it can turn a person's snot black? It can! It did! Gross. We won't mention that again.

Our trip to Ireland started out foggy and ended in Paris. With no stops in Dublin in between.

We got up early early in the morning to avoid rush hour traffic on our way to the airport and then battled some intense fog for an hour and a half on our drive to the airport. After we got to the airport, checked in, and sat for a long time, they announced that the flight to Dublin was canceled and to please collect our baggage and report to the ticket desk. Booooo.

As we stood in line with a bajillion other annoyed people, we weighed our options. "Well, maybe we'll get on a flight to Dublin later today. Or maybe not... there are a lot of people here"... "We could just go home, I guess"..."Well, we're only 2 and a half hours from Paris..."

And so Paris it was. They offered us a 10 p.m. flight to Dublin, but it was 10 a.m. when this took place, and the airport was seriously tiny. We didn't like the prospect of killing time by visiting the snack bar and newsstand 100 times, so we took a refund and hopped back in our car.

We stayed for only one night in Paris, but in a ritzy hotel with bonbons on the pillow and a fancy shower and a double bed that was NOT two twin beds pushed together! We did all our favorite things - drank wine, ate crêpes, ate baguettes, ate some other stuff, and wandered around. It was not what we had planned for the weekend, but you can never go wrong going to Paris. Unless you don't like Paris, in which case you might be dead to me.

So, no Dublin. No Shannon. No Cliffs of Moher. No pubs. No Guinness. But rest assured, there will be a trip to Ireland at some point. We have passes to the Guinness Storehouse that are good for a year and you better believe we're going to use them.

So, Istanbul. Or Constantinople. Byzantium if you're going way back.

We left for our trip early Tuesday morning, and after 3 and half hours in traffic, a few hours of delay in the airport because of fog:
and a 3 hour plane ride, we arrived in what would have been sunny Istanbul had we arrived at our original estimated time of 3:30 p.m. For us, however, it was dark out and we didn't get to see much on our shuttle from the airport to the hotel.

Our hotel, by the way, was a major disappointment. Our room overlooked a noisy cafe, and the alleged rooftop terrace? Not actually on the roof of our building. We had to walk to a different hotel owned by the same people. And then the terrace there left a little to be desired. Not like the very pretty pictures on their website. Our room ws clean though, and breakfast was good, and they had a computer where we could check e-mail, so it wasn't completely awful.

The first morning we were there, we set out and saw the sights. We hit the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia first, because they were just a few minutes from our hotel. Pretty cool. Big mosques. A nice change from all the big cathedrals all over the rest of Europe. I think our favorite part of the Blue Mosque was having to remove our shoes and walking inside the quiet, cool building with the plush carpet squishing beneath our toes. I could really pray there. You know, if I were muslim.




Next we hit the Grand Bazaar, built in the 15th century and a definite tourist trap. It was still fun though. We browsed, Ben bargained with shopkeepers, we wandered, we rested at a cafe, we bought a few more things. It was great. And really big. If you ever go, take a map or leave a trail of breadcrumbs or something. Seriously.




Another great place for buying stuff was the Egyptian Bazaar, or Spice Bazaar as everyone calls it since it's not so much Egyptian in any way. I thought the Spice Bazaar was way better than the Grand Bazaar because it was full of FOOD! There were mounds of colorful spices, teas, nuts, dried fruits, candy... it was fantastic.



We also spent time hanging out on the Galata Bridge, which connects the European part of the city to the Asian part AND has a bunch of restaurants tucked underneath it. It's a prime boat watching location and it's much quieter than a lot of other parts of the city. We took a few breaks there to just sit and have a beer and watch people and boats and stuff. Very nice.




One evening we took a ferry ride to Kadakoy, which was about 20 minutes away by boat. We went so we could enjoy the view of Istanbul at night from the water, and we weren't disappointed. But the most eventful part of the mini-journey was when we were wandering around Kadakoy before heading back. We had found an area with benches that was right on the water and we were just sitting and watching, when all of the sudden Ben jumped and looked behind us. There was a stray dog, licking Ben's arm. We weren't too surprised because there were stray dogs everywhere, probably about 10-20 just lounging around this particular area. But this one came up and licked Ben. We said hello and informed him we were not going to feed him. He came and hopped up on the bench with me and licked my face. We named him Mustafa. We tried not to encourage him because, as much as we love dogs, this one wasn't coming home with us. Mustafa, however, had other plans. We got up from our bench and started walking away and Mustafa ran up and trotted along next to us. Cute, huh? And then we came to other people walking toward us and the benches. Mustafa valiantly protected us by running up to each person and barking, guarding us from every passerby. We were slightly amused, although the people getting "attacked" by a stray dog didn't really see the humor in it. Luckily, after a while Mustafa figured that we really meant it when we said we weren't going to feed him or take him home and he went back to hang out with the other dogs.


The rest of our time in Istanbul we wandered, and ate. And ate, and wandered. The food was great. The wandering was tiring.

Next up, Ireland. We leave tomorrow and stay our first night in Dublin. That's all we have planned, so wish us luck!

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I started working in September and spent my spare time swearing at French textbooks and program coordinators, and Ben is deathly scared of blogging.

Coming soon (hopefully tomorrow), tales of our trip to Istanbul last week and how we conquered the city. And next week, our Irish road trip (we leave on Thursday!).

Did you know that prostitution is legal in Germany? We knew it was here in the Netherlands, you know with the red light district in Amsterdam and everything. But outside of that, we never saw much evidence of it anywhere else.

Until Sunday, that is. We go to Aachen every weekend to hang out at Starbucks for a little while. We drink coffee and tea, read books, and then head out and wander around Aachen for a bit, just window shopping and enjoying the city. We've walked around Aachen enough that we are pretty familiar with the area, and generally know where we are going.

This past Sunday, we wanted to find an outdoor café to sit at and people watch after going to Starbucks. We walked a bit and then decided to go back to a café we had seen earlier. We decided to cut down a sidestreet as a shortcut back to the little square we were looking for. The street we chose to cut down, however, was apparently Aachen's very own "red light district". At first we glanced in a window and thought, Uhhh, okay., and the as we were walking, we realized that all the windows had scantily clad women sitting in windows. Watching us. Because we were the only people walking down the street. Ever been on a silent, empty street full of hookers in the middle of a Sunday afternoon? Hello, awkward!

We were sufficiently uncomfortable by the time we were halfway down the street, and trying hard to continue the conversation we had been having about Ben's triathlons. But it was hard because all we could really think was, Keep walking, no eye contact, keep walking. Once we got past the woman standing on the sidewalk in underwear and high heels, though, we were in the clear. And apparently one block over from the shortcut we should have taken.

I guess you learn something new every day.

Ben's first HIM

What is a HIM? It is Half-Ironman. So you are sitting there thinking, "Ha, Ben is only half a man." Well, think again. This past weekend, Ellen and I went to Antwerp, Belgium (about 90 miles from our house). The race itself consisted of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run.

Let me set the picture for you. I started training for this race in January. However, in that time I have gone through some set backs in my training. I spent a week in Italy (no training), I had that whole hands falling asleep thing, and I sliced my thumb open. All in all I lost about two months of quality training. Oh and the whole time I have been training it has been cool and overcast. Not this weekend though. It was 85 and not a cloud in the sky. Let's just say I was not 100% ready for it, but I did it.


This is Ellen and I before the race started. Notice me squinting because of the sun and I do not look exhausted.

So the race started with the swim event at 1100 am.

The swim is kind of chaos. I am the one in the red swim cap. "What you can't see me?" Well I am one of the 900 in that small area of water. So we start all floating and smiling and telling each other good luck. And then as soon as the gun goes off it is fight time. I got kicked in the face, the gut and had people holding on to my feet, all in the first 2 minutes. I finally got into my grove half way through the swim and finished in a respectable 35 minutes (my goal was 30)

Now it is on to my 3 hour bike ride.


Not much to say about the bike ride. It was very long and tiring. I had some minor mechanical problems. And my back started to feel as if Greg had been jumping on it for 2 hours but I finished the 56 miles with no major incident and only sore muscles.

And then it is onto the 13.1 mile run.
Now let me just say, "This sucked" I think my exact words to Ellen on lap 3 of 4 were "F*%$ this SH%$" It took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to finish which was 45 minutes slower than I had hoped for but hey I made it to the finish line.


So now you might be asking yourself "What could Ellen have possibly done for 6hours while Ben was punishing his body? Don't worry she found stuff to do. It usually had something to do with her and her friend Carol sitting in cafes and always involved shade.


So now I have finished my first big distance race and seen the other side. Not the other side as in I am never doing this again but the side where I realize I really need to train better for this stuff. Especially before next year where I try to tackle the full Ironman (2.4m swim, 112m bike, 26.2m run).

Oh, in case you were wondering this is what I look like after baking in the sun for 6 hours and doing 70.3 miles of endurance sports.

Notice the blank stare and the appearance of race suit still on hours after my race.


"I AM A HIM FINISHER!"

Off to Antwerpen!

This will be our second weekend in a row traveling to Belgium. We leave in just a few hours to go to Antwerp for Ben's half ironman triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) and last weekend we went to Bruges (or Brugge for all you Dutch speakers) for a marriage retreat sponsored by the chaplain. It was a pretty good deal - free hotel and meals, and all we had to do was sit through hours of pretty awful exercises in communication.

I wanted to blog more about Bruges, but my computer decided to take it's own little vacation this week and wouldn't start up, so I had a few problems with the blogging. But don't worry, I'm back and my computer is once again happy and healthy after getting a stern talking to and some pounding on the keyboard. Unfortunately, I'm short on time though, so all I can do is give you a few highlights from last weekend...

Lots of canals



Old buildings (The city center of Bruges has remained largely unchanged since the Middle Ages)



And swans


And baby swans!


There were also more chocolate boutiques than you can possibly imagine. I would have taken pictures of those too, but I was too busy eating.

So now we head to Antwerp, Ben with all his triathlon gear, and me with my friend Carol to keep me company. Ben's race is tomorrow, so think victorious thoughts for him!

It has come to my attention recently that I am apparently a lazy blogger. I tried explaining that, well, we're boring. I doubt anyone really wants to know about how I walked the dogs this morning again or that we want to rent a carpet cleaner from the shoppette on post, but the people who rented the two that they have are never ever bringing them back. Or that I vacuum every day and Ben is still training for a triathlon. This is boring stuff.

But as much as I know that I am, in fact, boring, I would hate for people to be bored with the blog due to lack of updates.

So for those of you who may be accusing me of slacking in the blog department, let me take you on a virtual tour of some things I love about the Netherlands. This episode of "Why I love the Netherlands" comes to you straight from my refrigerator. One of the most exciting things about being in a foreign country, at least in my opinion, is exploring foreign grocery stores. I never cease to be amazed by all the cookies, pasta, frozen meals, and types of bread that I have never seen before. If I could, I would spend our entire time here eating. And then traveling and eating some more.

So let me share with you some of the exciting things that we keep in our kitchen now.


Okay, yes, I know that everybody has fruit. We are not special. But I wanted to show you the fruit first because it is fresh and declicious and cheap from our local market. Every Saturday we go and load up on all sorts of yummy produce for mere pennies (or euros, whatever).

And also at the market you stumble sometimes on something unexpected and wonderful, like mini bell peppers

I knew they existed because Martha Stewart has used them in recipes, but Martha uses a lot of things that normal people don't even know exist, so the mini peppers seem ridiculous to me, in a tasty sort of way. They're delicious stuffed with feta, tomatoes, and a few herbs. Yummy.

And next we have the Smoeltjes, or "Smilies" as I call them.

They taste kind of like Fig Newtons and come in several different flavors. And they really are assorted little faces, some smiling, some screaming "No no no! Don't eat me!". Fantastic.

Next, you knew it was coming, the chocolate.


Just a few of the kinds that are currently living in our refrigerator. How can you not love a candy bar called "Wunderbar"?

And finally, the pièce de résistance... poffertjes!

They're like miniature pancakes!

I sprinkled mine with cinnamon and sugar like the bag suggested

And they are delicious!!!

Mmmmm.