Holidays in Holland

Never in all my life has time passed so quickly. I swear I went to sleep on Halloween and woke up just in time for Christmas! Absurd I tell you, absurd!! Of course the swiftly passing time is a not so much an indication of Groningen itself, but more so of my own happiness and livelihood here. It is true; I am quite pleased with my busy little existence here and often think how wonderful it is to be a part of such a suitable location. Charlie doesn’t care much for the winter rains, but to be honest, even that doesn’t bother me so much. It just makes me crave a cup of herbal tea and a very large down blanket!! Both of which I own and make use of daily. 

Groningen is a special place for sure. Now that the air is cold and brittle and the holidays are here, the streets are lit up in the evenings and the marketplace smells constantly of Glogg (recipe here). Also, as so often happens this time of year, people are merry. I find Dutchies to be quite merry in general, but it seems more so lately. It flows out of the stores and through classrooms and offices at school and makes me remember that yes, people are generally good and the world is generally beautiful. I’m such a sap this time of year, I know. I even find myself baking cookies just so the house smells nice. When the weather is bad Charlie and I hole up for hours of homework so we can rush outside when even a sliver of hope for sunshine presents itself. Yes yes, this is the stuff of a full life!

Thanksgiving was celebrated at my house this year in style. Seventeen of my colleagues (including myself) packed ourselves into my tiny studio apartment on the 27^th of November to eat, drink, enjoy each others company, and par-take in a tradition they knew nothing about haha. The festivities went well, and thanks to boyfriend I had set-up AND cleanup help, for which he was  compensated in leftovers…and kisses. Thank you so very much Gerben for all your help and patience while I was putting this all together!!! 

Also a big thanks to everyone who joined me on such a special occasion! It was a Thanksgiving for the books and I had a wonderful time! (Sorry the photos are so dark, the lighting in my apartment isn't ideal for picture taking! :( 

The week after Thanksgiving, I joined Holland in celebrating its own holiday tradition called Sinterklaas on the 5^th of December. It was my classmate’s turn to host (I was pooped!), and she surly did it in style!! She put together an extensive selection of meats and veggies to be roasted on the gourmet (This cool looking grill thingy, which I had never used before.) and we all had a ball roasting, eating, teasing, talking, remeniscing, and just being together. After we were all so full we could hardly walk, Miri rolled us into the living room to play a Secret Santa game in which I won a hand-held luggage scale!! So. Cool. Thanks Miri for having us all over for such a great time!!

Soon after the festivities, I was able to borrow a fake miniature Christmas tree from my landlady. I was skeptical at first about having a plastic tree, but I must say I find it completely adorable.

 I decorated it with a few scoured ornaments and I like to turn off all the other lights in my apartment in the evening to eat my dinner by the lit tree. Silly, I know but I can’t help it! As you all know, I am a Christmas nut, and that seems to be consistent no matter which country I am in. Thank you Gram for the wonderful presents which are under the tree!! You're the best! Also you should all be receiving your Christmas cards in the mail soon, so keep an eye out!

Let’s see, what else….Oh!! Miri and I went ice-skating together, which was a real blast, and last week I had my first ever squash lesson. Of course I shockingly sub-par but I must admit as far as racket sports are concerned, squash is the shit. Super fun. If you’ve never played, find a partner, do it, like today. Seriously.

Also on the good news front; it turns out the Dutch will no longer have to deport me! Yahoo!! My residence papers FINALLY came through a few weeks ago (only about 3 months late…). I have also been able to take a few fun little day trips around the country recently. I went to Amsterdam for a day and also to Gerben’s brothers house in Delfzil where he lives with his girlfriend. We played a board game, which I totally won (thanks to frequent boyfriend cheating) and just relaxed with them for the evening. It was quite nice. Thanks Nienke for all the great Indian recipes!!

Well, I think that’s all for now, but stay tuned for my next holiday adventure!! I’ll give you a hint: I’m leaving Holland for a bit! HAHA!! And don’t forget New Years Resolutions are just around the corner. YES!!! Also, for all of you out there wondering how Mr. Charlie Pants is doing, he is in excellent form as usual….clearly... ....he is well loved....I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and New Years this year, and please remember I am sending you all lots of love from Groningen!! xoxo

Sea, Sinter Clause, Running, Walking and More

         Well, to say the least things around here have been crazy. I forget how much school really take over a students life!!! Well, to be 100% truthful, school fills only part of my busy days. The rest of the time lately has been taken over by traveling, running, dating, festivals, and lots and lots of fun! I know poor me right?! Of course, I am still REALLY enjoying everything Holland has to offer and apologize for not posting in such a long time. I promise I will not punish you all by making this blog entry as long as I would like, but instead will include more photos than words this go around. Any objections? I thought not ;) 

          Quickly before I jump into it, I wanted to say WELCOME CLAIRE!!!!! I am so happy to have another beautiful baby cousin in the family. Congrats Sara and Steve and I cannot wait to see you all again and meet her!! In addition I wanted to include a word fro Mrs. Cousin Meghan, who had an accident not so long ago and hurt her leg. Just know I am sending you lots of happy and healing vibes Megs!! Hang in there and I miss you and Kalen immensely. if I were there I would make you chicken soup every day! xoxo

        Alright, without further ado, here is the past 5 weeks crammed into 1 blog. Enjoy!

Sheriff Charlie and Deputy Madi for Halloween! You can't see it here, but there is a big white sheriff star on the back of his sweater. What fun!

Sinter Clause and his Zwarte Peten came to town!! The story behind this is too long to explain so I'll just say this: It's like Santa Clause, with black elves...it's a Dutch thing haha ;) 

Final Ecoliner presentation with the MIC group. We totally killed it in our matching shirts. Way to go guys! ;)

Also lately, I have been seeing this handsome Dutch gentalman.....

and he took me to the seaside!!! It was super cold but beautiful weather and although I caught a cold it was worth every minute!! Charlie on the other hand got the scolding of his life for chasing 20 head of sheep!! I couldn't believe the sheep actually ran from him, but if he didn't have an ego before, he certainly does now!! Ugh!

Did I mention I took a trip to Berlin to see this beautiful girl?! Well I did!! We put some serious miles on our legs walking around the city. We visited the Wall Memorial, The Jewish Museum, Checkpoint Charlie, did some shopping, some cooking, some coffee drinking and lots and lots chatting (as usual!). It was such a blast!! Congratulations Franzi on your new job in Berlin!!! Now I have a good excuse to come back and invade your life whenever I want!!! xoxo

Charlie also quite enjoyed Berlin because he had a permanent subway seat in Franzi's lap, whom he now is very fond of! What a rascal!

In addition to all that jazz, Franzi and I ran a half marathon! It was soooo much fun and we both finished under 2 hours 20 minutes, which was a personal record for us both! The weather that day was incredible and Franzi's parents came along to be our cheerleaders, which they did spectaularly!! What a great time! It's kind of hard to see in the photo above but it is a map of the lake we ran around.

Franzi's parents generously agreed to look after Charlie while I ran, so this is how he spent his afternoon....spoiled rotten and happy as a clam....as usual.

Lastly in case anyone is worried about Charlie being lonely, here is a photo of him in class with one of my colleagues. He has become somewhat of our group mascot and occasionally gets to come to university. What a life.... ;)

On a side note....apparently the Smurf's live in my back yard. Sadly the tiny blue family was not at home upon discovery. Will check back later.

         I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the impending holiday season! Happy Thanksgiving to all and please fill me in on your lives!! Love and miss you!! xoxox

Autumn Time in Groningen

            I am in love….with this place that is!!! Everything about it here seems to be right up my alley and contain a certain charm for which words escape me…it’s just, well, complete I suppose. I have no further explanation, just come visit and see for yourself! I have no complaints except biking in bad weather. It really just isn’t any fun. I see all these Dutch people just going for it with no raincoat or umbrella pedaling like mad people through the blowing rain and I don’t understand… Are they just wet the whole day afterwards at work and school? Because I know I am!! I need to learn their Dutch secret to staying dry…That being said I am learning adapt, albeit slowly.

            The past three weeks have flown by at warp speed and I cannot believe here we are mid-October. Scary really. I have made many friends, from Europe and beyond and successfully talked most of them into teaching me to cook a dish from their home country. Devious I know! I started with my Chinese classmate Han Yue, with whom I made Chinese steamed buns, then Mr. Levan from Georgia (the country not the state haha) who made a dish that I can’t remember the name of but was amazing, and lastly Miri from Austria schooled me in how to make pumpkin raviolis….does bliss come in another form? It was so much fun to learn and of course get to know my classmates better!

Weekends are consumed with brunch dates (homework too of course…) and my colleagues and I usually gather one night a week for dinner together. Also I may have gotten a bit carried away with my canning this year…I couldn’t help it because I had all these empty jars (just begging to be filled) and wild rose hips and hawthorn berries abound EVERYWHERE here! Of course I just couldn’t let them go to waste! They literally jumped off the vines into my pockets! So Charlie and I routinely went on nature walks and came home laden with berries from which we made jam, jelly, syrup, chutney, compote, and anything else we could imagine! It was fabulous. Sadly, the weather has changed drastically in the past week and now is quite cold so my berry season is over; that, plus I ran out of jars. Oops!

Also, the couple from whom I rent my room are superb. The woman and I are like long lost sisters as we share a devout interest in all things culinary and natural. The constant exchange of goodies and recipes that occurs in the hallway between our two houses reminds me of an old west trading post and is constantly filled with yummy baked goods and cooking utensils we are borrowing/returning to/from one another. Not only that, but her dog Woek and Charlie run around together like old chums. A few weekends ago I went to a church concert featuring a friend of theirs who had the deepest most southern style voice I have ever heard. I felt like I was in New Orleans all over again! She had this full resonating voice that seemed to resound off the walls of the building. It was the kind of sound that bypassed my ears and seeped straight into my soul instead. It was captivating.

I realize this blog is bit more food based than usual and according to these photos it looks like all I do is cook and eat with other people, which of course isn’t all that untrue….BUT I do manage to be productive in other areas of my life as well ;)

            For starters, my masters colleagues and I have been assigned the task of creating a corporate story for a shipping company who has designed an emissions free cargo tanker (true life!) here in the north of Holland. It is really a fascinating company and the although there is a lot of work involved the case is super engaging and I am really learning a lot about the inner workings of the corporate world. I know it sounds like not my area, and at the beginning I didn’t think so either, but maybe I am more interested in such things than I initially thought because I love it!

Anyway, in the name of creating the story we have had to take a few “educational” field trips one of which was to see this boat….No, in fact it is NOT the Black Pearl, but this was the basis of the idea for the cargo ship. I won’t dive into too much detail but this boat carries fair trade rum, chocolate, and coffee to and from the Caribbean eight months out of the year. We had a wonderful visit talking with the proprietors and watching them do their thing…and buying rum and chocolate….;) After the trip our advisor asked me to write a blog for the department newsletter about the excursion, so if you are interested in reading more about it, here is the link:

http://www.masterinternationalcommunication.eu/news-and-blogs/news/visit-to-tres-hombres/

            To be honest that typically seems to be the theme of my studies here: lots of work but so interesting it that it doesn’t appear that way. Everything we do is practical and we explore a lot about inter and cross cultural communication and how it affects business practices. We discuss things I never thought of and it grips me to my very core! I am also taking a Chinese class one night a week in a desperate effort to not loose all Chinese language ability I gained while living there and am planning to take the HSK3 test in December! Wish me luck!

            Thanks again to Mom and Caroline for my wonderful care packages!!! AS for Charlie, well he is doing just fine as you might imagine and is also adapting to life here in the Netherlands. Love and miss you all!! xoxo

And So It Begins...

            I must admit it was strange buying notebooks and No.2 pencils again…I realized when I was in the supplies store, “Oh yeah, this whole school thing like requires…stuff!!” Haha It’s all coming back to me now…homework, study groups, presentations, research, office hours etc.. Ok so here we go!

            The first two weeks of introduction to my courses, professors, classmates, the city, and the country was an exhausting 9am-5pm daily schedule of complete and total information overload. I found myself dog-tired at the end of each 8 hour day and wanting my warm cozy bed straight after dinner. Luckily they were all fascinating activities and the Dutch make great coffee to keep me going! My classes are completely engaging, my collegues interested in learning, and the city of Groningen is right up my alley! I realize I am still in the throes of the “honeymoon phase” of my culture shock both with this area and my education, but hey, for now, I’ll take it!! We also took a few group field trips over the past two weeks including a canal city tour and a trip to the largest flower auction house in the world, which were both really interesting and quite lovely!

            Outside of school, as you all know, my free time was swallowed up by house hunting for Charlie and I. We had been staying in an Airbnb apartment with a wonderful couple for the time and finding another place was turning out to be quite a challenge! Thanks Linda and Wessel for your spectacular hospitality!! BUT as always, patience prevails and Charlie and I have found ourselves living in the most wonderful studio just outside the city and very close to the university! And wouldn't you know it, in typical Dutch fashion; there is an enormous wind mill right outside my window haha. It is too much really...The place is located slightly in the countryside and there is a big yard for Charlie as well as other dogs to befriend. I think he is in doggie heaven because he runs hot-laps in the yard and rolls in the dirt until all his white fur is replaced with brown….and then he gets a bath! Here are some photos of the new place!

            I broke in the new digs by having a few friends over for Sunday brunch. We drank mimosas and munched on sandwiches, cakes, croissants and everything else a lovey high tea needs while chatting about school and how we thought everything was going. I must say, it really made my little space feel warm and cozy just like a home should! Thanks Miriam and Julia for your wonderful company!!

Also on a side note, this is my new bike!! I have to say I was sad to leave Stella behind and considered changing the name of this blog (to omit the car part), but now am happy to report Louraine (name of bike) will be temporarily filling in for Stella as the 3^rd member of “the crowd” while she is in Idaho warm and cozy in the hangar. So I suppose now the blog title should be Three’s a Crowd: Adventures of a Girl, her Dog, and her Bike!!! And what adventures they shall be!! Stay tuned for more to come and please fill me in on all your own adventures as well!! Love and miss you all! xoxo