The Green Monster

Beth and I have grown pretty open minded over the years. It’s funny how much we’ve changed since that first road trip across America more than 20 years ago. The more we see of the world, the more accepting we are of it. We’re always looking for little bits and pieces to bring home with us and incorporate into our own daily lives. The results are kind of strange. From our favorite meal of Spanish tapas, French wine, Turkish bread and Japanese sushi to the diverse decorations in our house - contemporary orange Danish furniture, Indonesian stone sculptures, dark Chinese cabinets, and an American gourmet kitchen.

So it was a bit of a surprise when we both crinkled our noses as our friends Jonathon and Sandra told us about the flat that they renovated in the old wharf district of Amsterdam. The flat itself sounded pretty interesting, with a view out over the water and nothing but the lush scenery of the Artis zoo in the distance. But the way that they described the floor gave us both a bit of a shock.

“First we stripped the old floor down to concrete, then we had a new acrylic base poured over the entire flat. It’s poured about 4 centimeters thick and will take a couple of days to dry.”

I had never heard of this, but it sounded interesting. So I asked, “What color is the acrylic?”

“Green,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Green?!” I injected rudely. I was expecting brown, or crème, or some other neutral color that would bond a room together. I couldn’t quite get my head around green. I tried to recover and asked politely, “You mean like forest green, right?”

“No. No,” he said to my relief. Then he added, “More like a lime green. Except with a fluorescent quality.”

I’m sure that the expression on my face was pretty similar to Mikey in the old Life Cereal commercials. It just didn’t seem like anything that would even remotely appeal to me. Here are a few pictures so that you can judge for yourself.

WARNING: The use of sunglasses is highly recommended!

I’ll start you with the most startling one. This shot was taken straight down onto the floor with only Sage and George. It kind of makes it look like a photographer’s backdrop, doesn’t it?


But as you start to pan out, then the green begins to fall into context.

Throw in the other modern décor, and I think that it really works!

Even in the kitchen!

I’m not saying that I’m going to run out and order lime green acrylic to be poured over the floor in OUR house…but never say “never”.

Where did spring go?

We arrived back from our vacation to America to find springtime in Holland almost over. It was quite a shock to see how quickly everything exploded into green here after only two weeks away...and the differences between The Netherlands and the mountaintop of Maryland is dramatic. The trees in Deep Creek were barely budding.

Heavy with jetlag, we biked down to the center of Haarlem to enjoy Queen's day celebrations on Thursday. For those of you who don't know, Queen's day provides a great excuse to dress in wild orange costumes, sell your used junk on the street, and generally party the whole day through.

Check out this barge that someone converted to a museum castle and parked on the Spaarne river for the celebration...very cool!

If you look closely, you can see the knight on the real horse on the second story of the castle...it really wowed the kiddies! (ok, me too).

Then, after a much better rest during the weekend, we biked through the bulbfields of Lisse to catch the very last bits of the flowers...very few are still in bloom, but it was still spectacular to see.