This weekend, our adventure continued as we finally mastered the fine art of taking the train. I say "finally" because we have tried and failed before. One Saturday before our car or furniture arrived, we walked a few blocks to the train station (a concrete platform with a ticket machine and a couple benches) and stared at the ticket machine which is, of course, all in Dutch.

We actually managed to press all the right buttons to get tickets to Valkenburg, a touristy old town nearby, until we got to the part where we had to pay. The machine supposedly takes coins and Dutch bank cards. However, when we tried feeding it our coins, it absolutely, positively refused to take them. Hmm. Ben has a bank card, but had no money on it at that point, so that didn't work either. So we sighed, turned around, and walked back home to sit and stare at the walls and watch Dutch television all day.

But, like I said, our train adventure this weekend was a success! Again we made it through all the button pushing of the crazy Dutch ticket machine, and were ready with our bankcard. We put it in, the machine whirred and clicked, and then it spit out the card, but no ticket. Hmmm. So we tried again. And again. No ticket. Finally we went through our pockets and scraped together just enough in coins to buy our tickets and fed them to the machine, which happily ate them and spit out our tickets. Apparently our machine is a little finicky. Some days it likes coins, some days it likes cards. I hope it never loses its appetite completely, because then we'll be stuck.

We settled on to a bench to wait for our train, and within a few minutes it pulled up. Yay! So we went to get on, but as we stood in front of the doors, they did not open. Hmmm. We looked at each other, looked at the doors, poked the doors, looked at each other. Hmmm. Luckily, before the train pulled away I noticed a button a couple feet to right of the door that was labeled "Deuren Openen". Aha! Openen! So I pushed it and sure enough, the doors opened and let us on. Thankfully, the train was pretty empty and we don't think anyone noticed the two dumb Americans standing on the platform poking the doors and looking around confusedly. After that we found some seats and made it to Valkenburg without any further mishaps. Success!



Valkenburg was very nice, and probably would have been even better if it had not been very cold and a little rainy. It's a very touristy town because A) It's very old and pretty, B) It has caves and stuff, and C) It has ruins of a castle that was built around 1100, and destroyed at some point since then. Very cool.

Since it was Sunday, only about half the stores were open and it wasn't very busy or crowded so we just wandered up and down the streets, took some pictures, and looked at shops that sold things like postcards and wooden shoes. Finally, on our way back to the train station, we stopped at a little bakery and bought some apple turnovers and cookies. Mmmm. They were delicious.





The photos make it look warmer than it really was; we were getting pretty damp and frosty by the time we got on the train to go home. We definitely want to go back to Valkenburg and explore the castle ruins, but maybe when it's sunny, or at least not quite so chilly.

This sign is next to the school. And we've seen it a few other places, too. We'll let you figure it out.

Whew, it's been busy around here lately. Last week our car arrived safely in the Netherlands, so on the weekend we took advantage of it and did a little bit of adventuring. First, on Saturday we drove to Tongeren, Belgium. Tongeren is the oldest town in Belgium, has a big basilica, and has an antique market each weekend where we were told we could maybe find a nice bed. A friend told us that the market is on Saturday morning from 7 until 1, however, when we arrived we discovered that the market is on Sunday morning instead. Oops. So no furniture was purchased, but we did get to walk around a lovely Belgian town and take a few pictures. First, the one angle of the basilica that doesn't show any construction:


Then, across from the church, was...


Who knew Ben had a cafe in some old Belgian town? Not us.


On Sunday, we woke up to sunny skies so we quickly whispered to each other (lest the sun hear us and change its mind) and decided to head to the American WWII cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands. We both have great uncles buried there and were very interested in going to see it. Margraten is just a short drive from our house, but by the time we got there it had, of course, gotten cloudy and much colder than it had been when we left the house. But it wasn't raining yet, so we considered it still good weather and spent a little while walking around the cemetery.

There are 8,301 American soldiers buried at Margraten and many, many more in cemeteries throughout Europe. I don't think I grasped exactly how many men, real people with family and friends and lives outside of the military, died for our country in WWII until I visited the two graves and saw the thousands of white crosses surrounding them in a rural area of the Netherlands and realized that it was just a small fraction of the white crosses that are spread across Europe. It was really a humbling experience.




In other news, our household goods were delivered on Monday. Yay! We have boxes and boxes all over the house. Today I finished unpacking an organizing the kitchen which is, of course, the most important room of the house. Now we only have 3,384,297 boxes left to unpack. I hope to have it all done by next week. If we don't update the blog, it's because we're lying buried somewhere beneath packing paper and cardboard boxes.

And with that, back to work. But I'll leave you with one of my favorite parts of the Netherlands so far...


The fuzzy ponies. The world may be moving so fast, but the fuzzy ponies don't care. How can you not love them?

New Year's in Nederland

We didn't really have anything planned for New Year's Eve. We figured we'd sit around, drink some champagne, go to bed. We had heard that people here go crazy with fireworks since it is the only time they're allowed to set them off, and that a lot of people go outside at midnight to set them off and watch the neighbors fireworks. Whatever, we thought.

Then we happened to meet some American neighbors who invited us over New Year's Eve, so we went and ate drank and were merry. And then, it was quarter to twelve. Our neighbor handed out 12 grapes to each person, to be eaten 1 per second at midnight while making 12 wishes for the new year. We all took our handfuls of grapes and went outside to see the neighbors fireworks.

And you should have seen these fireworks! It was like the 4th of July! In every direction! It was absolutely amazing, and we stood there in awe of all the bright exlpoding colors until someone yelled "10 seconds!" and started counting down. And with all of us standing there stupefied by the fireworks, we had forgotten about our handfuls of grapes. So Ben and I stuffed them all in our mouths as quickly as possible, raised our glasses to the New Year, and gave each other a very grapey New Year's kiss.

We stood outside and watched fireworks for a long long time. It was cold and rainy, but these Nederlanders just don't seem to care, and the fireworks went on and on. We can't even tell you how incredible it was to watch. We hadn't yet been charmed by the all the rain and cold and dog poop on the sidewalk in the Netherlands, but this was definitely cooler than any New Year's Eve in the states. We can't wait until next year.