Long Days

Literally. Being a good bit further north (See red line on map showing my latitude) than most of my readers (all 3 of you or so), the days here are quite a bit longer than where you are. Not as long as the 20-some hours of daylight in Alaska but it's after 10pm and it isn't completely dark yet. Morning twilight was at 0450 this morning (sunrise at 0533) and evening twilight ends at 2220 tonight (sunset was at 2137). And the days will continue to get longer until the Summer equinox (when twilight will be at 0437 and 2241). It messes with my sleep. I need dark curtains!

This also means that in winter, my days are much shorter. At the end of December/beginning of January the sun will rise around 0840 and set around 1640. That gets pretty rough in a different way.

An American and a Greek Walk the Dogs

My neighbors are Greek. The husband is in the Greek military and he's stationed at the NATO base here. They have two kids (girl 5 and boy 2). The girl is in kindergarten at a local Dutch school. Seems you can't go to the international school if you don't speak English but you can go to the Dutch school if you don't speak Dutch. Well, she speaks Dutch now. And I'm sure she would have learned English just as quickly.

She loves dogs and wanted to come with me yesterday to walk them. She talks to the dogs in Dutch; I guess because she talks to me in Dutch (who could have guessed that knowing Dutch would come in handy when talking to a little girl from Greece?!?!). I found that interesting, though. I pretty much talk to all dogs in English. The dogs didn't seem to have any trouble with the translation. Seems petting and brushing are pretty much the same in any language.

Happy Liberation Day

Today is Liberation Day in the Netherlands. May 5, 1945, Canadian forces (with some help from the Brits and Americans and French) liberated the Netherlands from Nazi German occupation.

Spring in South Limburg

South Limburg is the province where I live (similar to a county since the whole country is smaller than a lot of states). The weather has been absolutely beautiful for several weeks. I'm a little concerned that it portends a summer that's warmer than it should but I'll worry about that later. Right now, I'm too busy enjoying it!!

The sheep at a farm right around the corner had lambs.

Oh yes, we have pollen!!

Easter eggs. I never saw dye for sale. From what I can tell, you buy the eggs already colored. They're painted, rather than dyed.

I didn't even plant any dog seeds. It's always the weeds that grow the fastest :)

Amsterdam

It's a 2.5 hour train ride to Amsterdam. Not too bad. Amsterdam is a great old city with fabulous architecture and scenery. The main street between the train station and down town is now lined with tacky trinket and sweatshirt shops and trip/ticket sellers which, I suppose was inevitable but it's still a little sad to see them beneath such beautiful buildings. Then again, the sex museum has been there for ages so...

At the train station waiting to go.

Bikes and a canal...can't get more Amsterdam than that.

The infamous sex museum.

Mmmmm. Cheese! They had at least a dozen different cheeses out for sample and we sampled each one at least three times!!

Tall and skinny and all squished together. Each one different.

Sit. Stay.

House boats and row boats and kayaks all share the canal.

Even if you live on a boat you still need bikes!

And mail.

And why shouldn't you have a little outdoor breakfast nook?

Kids and groceries get a 1st class ride.

Something's Out There

There's a mole or a snake or a mouse or something that lives out back. The dogs, and Tex especially, are determined to get it. They are constantly pushing around the trash cans looking for it and digging holes (faster than I can fill them in). One day it must have gone under the neighbor's shed. Here's Tex trying to wait it out:

Tex, Whatcha Doin'?

Who, me? It's under there, I know it is. I'm gonna get it.

If I could just get a little further under there...

Thorn - The White Village

A few weeks ago I took a trip to the village of Thorn. It is known as The White Village because of the white-washed brick houses. Per wikipedia:

First, the region of Thorn was a swamp nearby the Roman road between Maastricht and Nijmegen. But the region had been drained and about 975, Bishop Ansfried of Utrecht founded an abbey for female Benedictines. This monastery developed since the 12th century into a secular stift or convent. The principal of the stift was the abbess. She was assisted by a chapter of at most twenty ladies of the highest nobility.

Previously the abbess and the chapter were endowed with religious tasks but, since the 12th century, they served secular matters and formed the government of a truly sovereign miniature principality, the smallest independent state in the German Holy Roman Empire. Besides Thorn, Ittervoort, Grathem, Baexem, Stramproy, Ell, Haler and Molenbeersel belonged to this principality. After the French invasion in the winter of 1794–95 and the formal abolition in 1797 made an end to the existence of the abbey and the principality of Thorn; Thorn was first part of the department of Meuse-Inférieure, and after the Vienna Congress it became a municipality of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

I tried finding out why the houses are white-washed but all I could find was a random mention of avoiding taxes or covering poverty scars. I don't know if either of those has any merit and I couldn't find anything else.

We started with a visit to the local pannekoeken house.

A majority of houses and buildings in the old part of town are white washed.

See the three cannonballs between the 2nd floor windows? They were built into the house. The story is that they were built in so that the house would withstand any cannon attack.

The old abbey.

Sculpture of a goat. Decorated for Carnaval.

Doggie Dental

The dog went for a major teeth cleaning. They had to be sedated (I needed sedation after they gave me the bill!!). When I picked them up Cheyenne was pretty alert but Tex seemed to be a little hungover. I felt bad for him but couldn't help laughing as he was having trouble walking straight.

In the car on the way home.

Cheyenne followed me around but Tex immediately went to a sunny spot and stayed there.

He was back to his old self before I got home as evidenced by the shredded food package I found in the kitchen.

Carnaval

Dutch Carnival is celebrated on the Saturday through Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday (per wikipedia). It's a little like halloween in that everyone gets dressed up and there are parades. There is no trick-or-treating, though. That's done on a holiday in November. Here are some pictures from a little parade that went past my neighborhood as I was out walking the dogs.

Me. At the Carnaval celebration at work.

The Centrum

There's a small shopping district down town. There are a few bakeries, a butcher shop, some clothing stores, some cafes and restaurants. That sort of thing. It's basically closed to traffic so everyone is walking or riding a bike. I usually walk down there Saturday mornings (nothing is open on Sundays). It's about a mile from my house. Everything closes at 6pm except on Thursdays, which is shopping night. Then I think it's open till 8.

In the morning before anything has opened.

The Turkish grocer. So many wonderful things in there!!