Happy New Year... INSANE!!!!

Happy 2008!!!

It was absolutely insane here! (still is!) I can't even describe the craziness of it all! We were out in Dam Square with tens of thousands of other people counting down til midnight (I actually have no idea how many people were there... just know it was expected to be like 50,000 and it was packed in Dam Sqaure and down all the side streets... even all the way back to where my apartment is). Apparently, the theme of the evening was fireworks and pot! Everyone was smoking and throwing fireworks up in the air! Not a great combination, if you ask me!

We all went for dinner at a mexican restuarant not far from our apartment:



The crowd at Dam Sqaure:



Erin and I waiting for midnight!



Happy 2008:



Us at New Year's with the fireworks in the background:



Bryan, Erin and I:



Erin and I with some random guy with a chicken:



All the people hanging out on the monument in Dam Sqaure:



Here's a video from Dam Square... it really doesn't do the scene justice, though!



On our walk home we passed fires and tons of fireworks. I was scared that they would hit me! Across the street from my apartment, there is a famous London DJ playing all night. Still going on now! Crazy crowd of people over there! I'm waiting for someone to end up in the canal! : )

To see more pics from the night, CLICK HERE.

The countdown begins

There's a huge clock in Dam Square counting down the hours until midnight. We took this pic while walking to the grocery store yesterday.



I've seen these "party fiets" (party bike) before and thought they were awesome! Everyone sits around a table that has holes for their beers and pedals to make the thing go... it looks like so much fun!



We walked by Dam Square again today and they are bringing in the outdoor urinals in bunches!



Fireworks are going off like crazy here... it's worse than the 4th of July! One just hit a cable box because I no longer have any cable... no tv!! We're now watching the Law & Order SVU DVDs I got for Christmas.

John Cusack and Business Class

Erin and I made it to Amsterdam!

While waiting in line for security, this guy and girl got escorted right by us. I was looking at the guy walking by thinking that I knew him, but I just couldn't place him. After he walked by, Erin says, that's John Cusack! Then, it registered. He looks just like he does in the movies. I didn't take any pics of him... I didn't want to appear too stalker-ish.

Then, we got to travel in style! Erin and I had already upgraded to Economy Plus and had seats next to each other. My name got called to be bumped up to Business Class just as Erin was going in the gate (she was in seating 2 and I was in seating 4). Erin (who is not so keen on flying) gave me a look of death, which I knew was an indication that she did NOT want to have to sit by herself on the flight. So, I told the woman I would just keep my old seat since I was flying with my sister. I guess she thought that was really nice and bumped us both up to Business Class... row 9!

Here's us enjoying our champagne and mimosa we got before take-off:



Business Class is pretty awesome... recliners, footrests, socks, free alcohol, better food... we even got menus for our dinner and placed an order with the flight attendant. I slept much better in that recliner and actually don't feel too jet lag yet. I could get used to this! : )

Pack the bags... time to go back to the NL

I woke up early Saturday to finish packing up my bags... and also, I couldn't sleep because the fat cat was going insane and kept meowing. Max was sick and Zoe was freaking out... good combination!

Matt and I met up with his aunt, uncle and cousin for lunch at Grand Lux.

Friday - more shopping and taco night

Friday morning, I did some more shopping... in the worst weather ever! This is a pic of Matt's building.



Friday night, Erin and I had people over to our place for tacos and games.

Euchre... Gagan and Erin vs. Matt and Clint



Guitar hero... Tony rocks out



Matt's turn

Christmas Recap

Wow, what a busy couple of days! I'm back in Chicago now and trying to get everything organized for my trip back to Amsterdam on Saturday.

Here's a quick recap of the past couple of days...

Christmas Eve
Every year, we have dinner with some family friends of ours. We alternate houses and this year the dinner was at our house. My mom made a ton of food (as she has a tendency to do) and we all ate way too much! After dinner, we all went to 10pm Christmas mass at our church (St. Jude's). It's always a struggle to stay awake during church after all the food and wine from dinner. Then, we came home and went to sleep so Santa could come! : )

Christmas Day
We got up around 8am to open presents. As always, everyone was very generous and we all got tons of great gifts. I must have been really good this year, because I got everything I asked for plus some! : ) My parents scored with a new computer and my mom got a Garmin. Santa even found Matt in Rochester... he got the Wii Guitar Hero, which I can't wait to try out. After all the present opening at my house, we headed off to Quincy, IL to my aunt and uncle's for the Otte family xmas. More eating, drinking, and present opening!

Day after Christmas
The morning after xmas, it's a tradition for the women to all get together for brunch. This year, we changed it up a little and went to lunch instead at Tiramisu, an italian restaurant in Quincy. The food was very good!



The men all went to the Maid Rite (which is seriously one of my favorite places to eat!) A Maid Rite is kind of like a sloppy joe, but with no tomato sauce. Alton Brown of the Food Network did a show segment about this place. Any time I go home to Quincy, I always try to stop off and get one of those greasy sandwiches! Matt still hasn't tried one yet (he left on Christmas night to go back to Chicago)... it seems like every time we've been in Quincy, it hasn't worked out for him to eat there. Maybe next time.

After lunch, everyone met up and some people went to the gambling boat (Mark Twain Terribles Casino). Since I'm really not a big gambler, I went to my grandparents house and helped babysit for my cousin's baby, Colin. He's 3 and a total cutie! We played lots of ball, colored a picture, played on his new piano... basically, the kid wore me out!

Speaking of my grandparents house... my grandma has these cute little figurines that spell out N-O-E-L. Inevitably, each year one of my cousins rearranges the letters so that it spells L-E-O-N. This joke never gets old for some reason. This year, it wasn't one of the cousins that did the rearranging... it was my dad! Yep, he's the biggest kid around!



We drove back to Rochester in the rain on Wednesday night. When we got home, we watched Transformers and stayed inside where it was warm. I made my parents try some of the gluhwein I brought home from Amsterdam and like so much. Neither of them liked it. Oh, well... more for me. : )

It was so great to see everyone! The holidays went by way too fast!

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a happy holiday! Safe travels!

Stir Crazy in the Car

Matt and I headed back to Rochester... I was getting a little punchy in the car. Matt kept telling me to play library, but I really hate that game! : )

He doesn't like having his picture taken.

Zot

I brought home some Zot Belgian beer for Matt... this was a beer that he liked when we were in Brugges, Belgium last year. It has a picture of a jester on the bottle.

Merry Christmas from Max and Zoe

Merry Christmas from Zoe (aka the Fat One)!



She doesn't move too fast, so I was able to get a pic of her with the hat on. Max, on the other hand, is all over the place and would never sit still for his holiday picture. He's way too interested in helping out with the present-wrapping.

Internet shopping is not all it's cracked up to be!

Since I've been overseas and the Euro sucks, I decided to do most of my Christmas shopping online. I thought... this will be so nice and easy. I had everything delivered to Matt's place because he has a doorman and my house does not. Well, not everything came in... in fact, one order was canceled (no explanation!), one order put on hold, another said it shipped Dec 18th but it's no where to be found (I even paid for the expedited shipping on that one!) and yet another one said it was shipped and I even got a tracking number that said it was in transit... but it didn't show up yet. Needless to say, I am in kind of a bind because I really hate not giving someone a present to open on Christmas... it just doesn't seem right. So, this morning, Erin and I went shopping on Michigan Ave and I picked up quite a lot of stuff in the short 2 hours we were there. Not bad. I still have a few more things to pick up, but at least I've got most of it under control.

Speaking of this morning... my "morning" started at 3:30am. Yep, that whole trying not to fall asleep thing last night didn't work. I crashed watching tv around 7:30pm and slept until 3:30am. At that point, I was WIDE awake like it was noon or something! There isn't a lot going on at 3:30am and I tried to fall back asleep, but no luck. I even downed some more of my duty-free Baileys. Didn't help. Tonight, I am determined to keep myself awake until 9pm. It's going to be a long week if I can't get on some sort of decent sleep schedule while I'm home.

After the speed-shopping, I had a hair appointment with Duschan and got a manicure down the street from the salon. This manicure place was pretty cool... they actually gave me a neck, shoulder and back massage while my hands were wrapped up in warm towels. It was so nice!

Tomorrow, Matt comes back from Indiana (unfortunately, he's been there for a funeral the past three days). I can't wait to see him! : ) We're heading to Rochester on Monday morning for Christmas.

From Amsterdam... to Chicago

This morning, I woke up bright and early in Amsterdam to catch my flight and walked outside to see that it had snowed!!! I know it's been colder in Amsterdam than normal, but I didn't expect it to snow... and I'm guessing neither did the owner of this bike!



I made it to the airport 3 hours early for my flight and the check-in line was already crazy busy and backed up. I waited for 45 minutes... the only reason I know that is that I was selected for some survey of how I would rate the whole check-in process and the wait time. Fun. My bag was almost over the limit, but I was able to move a few things to my other bag so that I didn't have to pay the excess baggage charge. Good thing, because I wanted to use that money for the Economy Plus upgrade. I really like Economy Plus... I don't think I can go back to being smashed in those small seats again!

I was worried my flight would be delayed because the visibility at the airport was terrible due to the fog and snow.



But we made it out on time and now I'm back in Chicago. I busted out the Bailey's I bought at duty-free in Amsterdam and am enjoying a nice coffee and Baileys! : ) Now, hopefully, I can stay awake long enough to get back on US time and fight off the jetlag.

Christmas lunch at the office (Kerstlunch)

Today, the office had a Christmas lunch and decorated the lunchroom with lights and Christmas ornaments. It was very festive! They served some typical Dutch holiday treats... smoked salmon and eel, cheeses, meats and of course, bread.

They were playing Christmas music in the background and the overhead lights were dimmed so that the Christmas lights and candles looked nice. I tried the smoked salmon, but the smoked eel was a little too weird for me. I had some really tasty brie and bread and some of the salads they made. The desserts were various muffins and cake donuts with red and green icing. They also had tiramisu. It was all very good... and free! : )

Heineken Experience (Brewery Tour) Closed for Renovations

I can't believe it, but it's true... the tour is closed until June 2008! Sarvesh walked all the way there on Tuesday and found out it was closed. So, I checked the website and saw this message:



Sorry to anyone who's coming to visit and wanted to do the tour... maybe next time! : (

Greek Food and Belgian Beer

Tonight we went to eat at Zorba De Griek for a great Greek dinner in the Leidseplein.



The Leidseplein has a ton of restaurants and bars. There is an ice skating rink there now for the holidays.



After dinner, we headed to Gollem for a Belgian beer. There are two locations of this bar... one close to me and one in the Pijp area. They have over 200 Belgian beers. The one by me is a very tiny, cozy bar and perfect for enjoying a Belgian beer.



Here's a pic of the bar with the menus in the background. If you click on the pic, it will pop up larger and you can actually read what beers are sold here.



I had a Chimay White, which is a Trappist beer. The bar actually has 5 of the 7 beers brewed by the Trappist monks.

It figures

Remember Mika... he sings the song Big Girl You Are Beautiful (I posted the video a few weeks back).



His debut album is called Life in Cartoon Motion and I bought it from ITunes for $7.99. It is selling for like 20 Euros in the stores here in Amsterdam and for 10 Euros on the Dutch ITunes store (which I couldn't purchase it from there anyway... good thing, since it's almost twice as expensive!).

I don't know what it is, but I've become a big fan of his songs. Some of them are really catchy and fun... he also has some typical ballads. If you go out to a bar here, you are almost guaranteed to hear one of his songs. And I just read that he was nominated for a Grammy for best dance recording for his song Love Today. He's up against The Chemical Brothers, Justice, Rihanna and Justin Timberlake.

[On a complete sidenote, speaking of The Chemical Brothers... you should check out their song/video called The Salmon Dance sometime if you haven't already seen it. This is not the song that is nominated for a Grammy, but it's funny. It's some kid hallucinating that his fish are singing and dancing. I've seen this video on MTV here a few times. I'm not sure if they are playing it in the states, too.]

Since Mika's British and I'm in Europe, I looked to see if he would be playing anywhere near me in the next few months. It just figures that he's doing a US tour starting in January. He's going to be at the House of Blues in Chicago on Feb 5th. By the time I get back to the States, he's back in London doing shows.

In case you have a few minutes and want to hear something else from the album, here's another video. Enjoy! : )


Music Videos - Relax (Take It Easy)

Sunday in The Hague and Scheveningen

Sunday morning, we woke up and Bryan and Dan headed back to Rotterdam and Meg was sick, so the plans for the day were kind of up in the air. Sarvesh and I slept in a little and took our time getting ready. We decided to still do the Escher Museum in The Hague and go out to the beachy area of Scheveningen.

The Escher Museum is very cool and I recommend seeing it if you are ever here. M.C. Escher was a graphical artist that made prints that seem impossible... like optical illusions. You've probably seen some of his works before. Here are a few that I liked:

Reptiles



Hand with Reflecting Sphere



Drawing Hands



Waterfall



They used to have a virtual reality section where you wear a headset and watch videos of Escher's work "come to life", but they changed it into a theater type room with a wrap-around movie screen... it actually made me kind of motion sick to be in there, but it was very interesting.



After the museum, we took the tram to Scheveningen... which is a beachside resort area just outside of The Hague. We got there close to sunset.



Here is picture of the pier. There is a casino at the end and a bungy jump and game room.



We ate pannenkoeken (crepes) and poffiterjes at the Pannenkoekenhuis. Then, we stopped in at Crazy Pianos, a dueling pianos type place, for a quick beer. One of the guys on the two pianos was from Detriot, Michigan and noticed that Sarvesh had his Michigan sweatshirt on and played the Michigan fight song for us.



If you want to see more pics from the weekend, CLICK HERE.

Saturday in Delft

Saturday morning, we didn't get quite as an early start as we were hoping... probably due to the fact we didn't get in that early on Friday night. We went to Delft to check out the Delftware pottery and just walk around the city center.

Delftware is the blue pottery that is made in Deflt and other cities in the Netherlands. Every year they make a new design for the Christmas plate... this is the 2007 plate:



Here's the plate from the year I was born... yep, I'm old.



We got to walk through the actual factory where the pottery is made... there was this big cow there. So, of course, we all took pictures!



After the tour of the pottery factory, we went to the town center and walked through the Christmas market. We walked quickly through the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) because it was closing.



And then we had a stroopwafel... it's like a crunchy waffle with caramel syrup inside... it's so yummy! I'm bringing some of these home with me at Christmas time.



Saturday night, we went out to dinner at A-Fusion again for some sushi. Jonathan and his girlfriend, Becky, met us out as well. He's the one that's here from Philly for two years. We had a few drinks at a bar in the New Market area and some of us called it an early night. I did have this Belgian cherry beer at the bar, though. It's hard to see, but it says St. Louis Kriek. Gotta love those Belgian beers!