First Thursday Dinner

On the first Thursday of each month a group of people from my company get together for dinner. Meg and I went in December and I'm not sure if they had one in January due to the holidays, but I went to the February outing Thursday night.

We had dinner at Cafe Restaurant Amsterdam, which is a former water pumping station that was converted into offices and a restaurant. The room where the restaurant is used to the be the engine room of the pumping station and there were still pieces of machinery randomly throughout the place.



Quite a few people showed up... the food and conversation was nice. Luckily, Jonathan (the guy from Philly) and I sat by two other people that didn't mind speaking English most of the night. We found out some interesting facts about the Netherlands, their politics, foods... all sorts of stuff.


Group photo... I'm waaaay in the back.



I ordered the pasta with mushrooms, thinking it would be mostly pasta with a few mushrooms on top. Nope... it was mostly mushrooms, which I like, but not in that quantity. I couldn't finish it all, but lucky for me, Michiel is a human garbage disposal (kind of like Bryan) and he ate the rest of it. I could see him eye-ing it and finally I just said... here, you can have it! : )



For dessert, we had chocolate ice-cream with "advocaat", which is a Dutch brandy egg-nog. It was pretty strong stuff, but tasty.



At the table across from us, there were these guys with shirts that said "Help mijn man is klusser!"... which someone told us kind of translates to "Help, my husband is a handyman!" Apparently, there is a TV show based in Amsterdam where wives call in to ask for help for their husbands who try to do handy-man type projects around the house, but either fail miserably or just never finish them. So, teams of people (which we assumed these guys must be part of), come in and finish the project.

Good bye to Dennis

We had an impromptu happy hour in the office for someone who is leaving the company soon. I think it was a surprise for him because he didn't want any kind of to-do over his leaving. We had champagne and candy bars (great combo, by the way!) They also gave him some parting gifts and he gave a little speech... not sure what he said, but the crowd was listening very intently.

Menno is pouring the champagne... we had real glasses... fancy! The guy that's leaving is Dennis and he's in the third pic all the way to the right. He's kind of an odd duck... his desk is usually piled high with stacks of paper that defy gravity by not crashing to the ground. I think I missed my opportunity to get a pic of it, though, because he's now been cleaning it up and tossing everything into a big blue trash container that they moved specially into the room for him.

Holy Cow!

So, being in London this past weekend got me reminiscing about my time living there... and I remembered how totally addicted I became to Big Brother while I was there. It was ridiculous! They even had a channel that streamed live from the BB house 24-7. There was a Celebrity Big Brother going on then and everyone in the house was a celebrity except for one girl, Chantelle Houghton. She was actually a make-up counter girl/aspiring model/Paris Hilton look-a-like and her goal in the house was to convince everyone she was famous and in a band called Kandy Floss. BB even made a song for her "band". Other guests in the house at the time included Dennis Rodman and Traci Bingham (of Baywatch fame)... not sure how they are considered UK celebrities, but maybe BB was hard-up for people. Anyway, Chantelle ended up winning the whole thing!

I decided to google her to see what happened after BB... and WHOA! A lot has changed in the past two years for this girl! First off, she ended up marrying another of the contestants in the BB house (Preston from the band Ordinary Boys, who broke up with his fiance right after BB wrapped in Jan 2006 to start dating Chantelle)... they were married in August 2006... and announced they were divorcing by June 2007... it was official in November of 2007.

Now, I just saw a picture of her and she has totally hit the plastic surgeon's office. I hardly recognized her! In the UK, they are calling her the next Jordan (aka Katie Price)... who is another girl that started out as a model and was on reality tv and is famous for her plastic surgery enhancements as well.

I guess that Chantelle is a millionaire now and has already written an autobiograhpy (at the ripe old age of 23!)

Here she is in her Big Brother days... (you know, two years ago)...


Here she is now... geesh! She seriously doesn't even look like the same person! What is she thinking?!?!

Meg has gone back to Chicago

Today, Meg left for Chicago... my lunchtime will not be the same... and most likely not in English! A lot of times when I'm the only American at lunch, Dutch is spoken the whole time (it is the native language... what do I expect?!?!) But it makes for a boring lunch.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before how lunch works at our office here, but it's interesting... since there are no restaurants nearby, everyone eats in the cafeteria every day. People go in shifts - either 12:00 or 12:30 - because there isn't enough room for everyone to sit at the same time.

What they eat is quite a trip... it's all about the bread... typical lunch is about 4 pieces of bread, a slice of cheese, some mushy meat in a tube, an egg, a pear, and maybe fruit salad or something. Each piece of bread is eaten individually with a knife and fork and one of the other items on top of it... so, like one piece of bread will have a slice of cheese on it and they'll eat that with a knife and fork, then they'll move onto the next slice of bread and squish out the meat substance and spread it on the bread and eat that with a knife and fork, next comes the pear... that gets sliced up and eaten on bread, same with the egg. It's quite a process. And by the way, one of those mushy meat things is called Cafe Americain and is like a bright red steak tartar, I guess. They were surprised to hear that we don't eat Cafe Amercain in the States. They must think we are strange because we make sandwiches and eat them with our hands.

Here's the cafeteria...



Close-up of the mushy meat tubes... I haven't tried them and don't plan on it.



Typical day's menu... the prices are pretty good.



And what do good Dutch people wash down their lunches with??? Yep, milk. Sometimes, they gulp the stuff down in one big swig like they just finished a marathon and they are parched or something. They also have this stuff called Karnemelk... don't even try it. It's like thick sour buttermilk or something. Not good.

For dessert, more bread... but this time with butter and sprinkles on top... also eaten with a knife and fork, of course.



ANYWAY... I just checked and looks like Meg's flight got in on time. We were worried considering how the weather has been in Chicago lately. It's going to be quiet around here now. I'm not planning any big weekend trips for the rest of my time overseas, but I'm going to try to see some nearby cities here in Holland that I can get to by train and some of the museums in Amsterdam.

Tonight, I went for a walk and found a gym that has a "tourist" month pass, so I signed up. It's still pretty expensive (75 Euros!), but now that I'm staying in town on the weekends, I'll have more time and it will be more worth my money... or my company's money! : ) Plus, I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle and haven't run since summer.

Happy Birthday Dad!

58 years young today!!!

Here's a favorite pic of mine...

My dad was taking pictures of us at a German restaurant on our family trip to Arkansas and didn't realize he was standing right in front of some big antlers on the wall... classic!

This is after we told him...



I have more wonderful pics, but as a birthday present to my dad, I'll spare him the embarassment! Just kidding, dad! : )

I love London!

(Note: You can click on the pictures below to see larger versions of them. )

This weekend, we went to London... I hadn't been back to London since I lived there for a few months for work back in late 2005/early 2006. The city is so much fun and has so many awesome things to see and do. I do not love the exchange rate for the pound (it's like $2 for every 1 pound... ridiculous!).

A coworker of ours recently transferred from the Chicago office to the London office and has an apartment in London near the Arsenal stadium and let us crash at her place for the weekend. We thought we'd be sleeping on the floor, but she had three AeroBed air mattresses... those things are pretty cool.

It was just Meg, Dan and I going to London because Bryan was heading back to Chicago on Saturday. Our flight Friday night was delayed due to the strong winds and we got into London late. By the time we took the Tube from Heathrow to Orla's place (which took about an hour), it was almost midnight, so we just hung out at her place for the night.

Saturday morning, we got up early to do some sightseeing. I've seen a lot of the major touristy sights already, but I still wanted to walk around and see the city again. While Meg and Dan were in Westminster Abbey, I walked around that area and took some pictures.

Big Ben and the London Eye



Westminster Abbey



Big Ben and Houses of Parliament



The traditional red phone booth



Big Ben at noon
(I also got a video of Big Ben striking noon if you want to check it out)



After they finished in Westminster Abbey, we went to check out the lines for the London Eye ferris wheel... long lines and really expensive... almost $30USD. We decided to pass on that.

The London Eye ferris wheel



We headed towards Trafalgar Square instead. On the way, we stopped off for lunch in a pub called Princess of Wales. Meg had the fish-n-chips.



Off to Trafalgar Sqaure... we went through the National Gallery (which is free!) and saw a few of the highlights. The place is huge, but the brochure map was really good and we were able to navigate through to the rooms we wanted to see and skip the other stuff.

The National Gallery at Trafalgar Square



Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square



After that, we went to the Tower of London... but it was closing in an hour and the cost was over $30USD, so Meg and Dan decided to skip that. We just walked around the Tower and saw the Tower Bridge.

Meg, Dan and I in front of the Tower Bridge



The London Underground subway system is also called the "Tube", which we took quite often. At some stops the gap between the train and the platform is pretty significant, so they have signs saying "Mind the gap" and recordings say it at most stops... which is why it's such a popular phrase and is on lots of t-shirts and souvenirs in London.



We hopped on the tube and went to Buckingham Palace. Then, it was back to Orla's to rest and get ready for dinner. We went to the Angel/Islington area of London and ate at an Indian restaurant called Masala Zone. Indian food is really big in London and this place was delicious! I had the chicken thali, with butter chicken.

After dinner, we went to this bar called The View Lounge in Leicester Square. It was on the 6th floor in a building and had a nice view of the square and you could also see Big Ben, Parliament and the London Eye from the window. Very cool place. I had emailed Neil and Ritesh & Catherine earlier in the week (some people I had worked with in London) to see if they wanted to meet up for drinks while I was in town. Ritesh was sick and Catherine was out of town, but Neil was free and he's the one that suggested the View Lounge... he was able to get us all on the guest list (which is important in London to get into some of the clubs... you can skip the queue).

Anyway, we met up with Neil and his friends and went into the bar. 10 pounds for the cover charge and 2 pounds for the coat check... this was already starting off expensive and we even got a "deal" on the cover charge! We dropped our coats off and took the elevator up to the bar. The place was already really crowded and the DJ was playing some cool music, people were dancing, good times. We got a round of drinks for the 5 of us = 30 pounds! This city is crazy expensive!

The bar was a ton of fun, though... mainly for the people-watching. The fashion in London amazed us... girls were showing a lot of skin for it being freezing cold and February! Short skirts/shorts, tank tops, stilettos... and some guys were dressed like Justin Timberlake wanna-be's. We laughed because one of the songs the DJ played was "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston and the crowd went nuts. Meg thought it was funny because some of the kids at the bar would've been barely born when that song came out, but they knew every word... pretty random song to play at a London club. But, then again, he mixed in "Whoomp, There It Is" at one point, too.

Me, Meg and Orla at the View Lounge



The next morning, we went to Camden, an area in London with a market where you can find practically everything. It was full of people... tourists, locals, freaks... you name it, they were there!



There were rows and rows like this of clothes, jewelry, etc. for sale.



Whatever you wanted... they had it. Leather studded belts along side belly dancer skirts...



Some really strange purses...



We finished off the walk through the area with lunch at the Buck's Head Pub.



After that, we got back on the tube to the airport to catch our flight to Amsterdam. It was a really quick weekend and we packed in a lot of fun stuff in a short amount of time. We were so tired! I'm looking forward to next weekend and staying home for a change!

For more pics from the London trip, CLICK HERE.

"Smoked" ribs

Last night, Meg and I went to Rotterdam for Bryan's going-away dinner at Brutus Beer (Brutus Bear)... it's a ribs place and on Thursday nights they have all-u-can-eat ribs. We had a few drinks and some bread, ordered our food... and the place starting filling up with smoke. They tried to fix it and it seemed to get a little better, but no such luck. We were sitting right by the kitchen, so we could see that something was really wrong. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the waitress comes out and tells us we have to evacuate and the fire brigade is on the way.





These guys have some very reflective suits!





They even went up on the roof...



Here we are waiting for word on whether or not they were going to let us back in... turns out the answer was "no".



Luckily, there was a nice Italian restaurant not far away that had room for us.



Paul told us later that Brutus Beer had already burned down less than two years ago and was rebuilt... when we walked back by later, no one was there, but it seemed that the place was ok. I think Bryan was disappointed... he had been looking forward to scarfing down a few plates of ribs before he left Rotterdam.