De Rusthoek

Last week was some fantastic spring weather in Amsterdam.  Sunny terraces.  Sparkling white wine.  Short skirts.  Unfortunately, we were slogging it out in the rain, sleet, and snow back in mountain-top Maryland.  Not that I'm complaining.  We actually had a great time putting our backs into building a new game room for the rental house and are really happy with the results.  Here are a few pics from the construction project.

We first cleared all of the hunting gear out of the pole barn and started hanging maps for wallpaper.

One of the biggest jobs was to get power down to the barn from the house.  This was going to take some serious horsepower.  So, I called up our local rental place and told them what I was trying to do.
 
They delivered this Ditch-Witch on Tuesday morning...just in time for a fresh coat of snow.  What a wicked machine!  It was a blast to operate, chunking through rocks and roots.   But the thick, snow saturated mud didn't flow through the extraction auger properly and I had to run the ditch three times...ripping the hell out of the yard in the process.

 

But once the snow melted and the mud dried up, we were able to bring it up to some level of acceptability.

We had lots of help from family and friends on the whole operation.  In Holland they bring their dogs on their bikes...in Western Maryland, they come on ATV's.
 

And the results turned out really well.  Based on the game room alone, we just secured an entire month-long rental in July - a family of four with two dogs.

 We named the game-room De Rusthoek after one of our favorite Dutch pubs in the nearby village of Bloemendaal.

It was an action packed week, full of hard work and satisfying results.  We didn't really even have time to kick back a bit until the last evening.  Now it's time to start planning a real, relaxing vacation.

Kupanaha Kona!

Aloha allemaal!  22 hours on planes, trains, and buses is not usually worth a short 7-day holiday.  But this time around was an exception!  Beth earned a spot in the 2010 Winners Circle, an annual celebration held for the top-of-the-top contributors in her company.  They pulled out all the stops, reminding us both of the free-wheeling dot-com bubble days back in Silicon Valley.   With 6 nights in a 5-star resort, free activities like whale watching, scuba diving, and helicopter rides, full open bars (too many Mai Tai's), loads of top-notch food, and a present waiting on our pillow every night (including an Apple I-Pad), we didn't think that it could get any better until they piled us into buses on the last night and we found ourselves at a private concert with Elton John which was followed by some excellent fireworks.  Whoa!  What an experience!  Here are a few pics from the trip.

The Mauna Launi resort was fantastic...













...nestled into a private bay...

...and built around an ancient set of lagoons created by the locals to trap and raise fish.

Even with the resort completely booked by the company (one of seven resorts fully sold-out to the company in the area), there was plenty of space to get away from it all for a romantic sunset....

...or lounge in the sun on a private little spot that the local dive shop recommended as the best snorkeling within 20 miles.  They were right!  It was loaded with coral and all of the accompanying fish, but the highlight was swimming with the sea turtles. We saw dozens of them, up close and personal!  Curious little buggers!

The humpback whales were also here on their annual migration.  We could see them breaching from our breakfast table.   When we got out on this boat, they were surrounding us.

 The land trips were just as good.  This little 6-wheeler got us up into the rain forest...

Where we hiked into some secluded waterfalls and went for a swim.

 There was also a nice little local hike through the bush...

...that led to an ancient sacred Hawaiian pilgrimage site loaded with petroglyphs.

Then it was up into the air for our first helicopter flight.

We were both surprised how smooth the helicopter was.  Our pilot maneuvered us within feet of these sheer cliff walls.

On the bus to the concert....the glasses that they handed out gave the surprise artist away!

Elton John, playing for a company audience of 3500.

Benny and the Jets

The evening was capped off by some great fireworks. 

Let's all cheer Beth on so that we can see what the 2011 logo looks like!  :-)

Gezellig

Even as I complain about the dismal Dutch winters, I've always liked the way that the culture embraces the long, dark evenings of January.  Sometimes in mid-summer, when it's still light at 10:00pm, I find myself looking forward to these cozy evenings by the fire with a nice bottle of wine, or bundling up for the brisk bike ride into town to chill out in the local pub.  Gezellig!













But the days are quickly getting longer and the annual construction of the beach bars is well underway.  The crocuses are poking through the brown grass and there are even a few blooming daffedills along the randweg, all building my anticipation for switch to summer.  The next beach pictures appearing on our  blog will be very, very different! ;-)

Revolution

All of Beth’s hard work over the past few years has finally paid off!  It was early December and we were talking about our winter vacation.   Skiing in the Alps is always a favorite, but after the crappy weather that we’ve had here in Holland in 2010 we decided to do something a little different.  The key criteria were sun, temperatures above 70, and more sun - throw in some cultural adventure and we were onto something.   We talked about several destinations like Croatia, Greece, or Portugal. But after a bit of research and a never ending drive to keep pushing boundaries, we settled on…you guessed it…Egypt!  A couple days in Cairo then a cruise up the Nile to Luxor and Aswan then a camel ride into desert oasis before flying back to Amsterdam.  Sounds great, right?  Airfares were pretty cheap and I even dug up a local guide to help us with our itinerary.  I was literally about to book the trip when I got an email from Beth at work with the good news – she was just awarded an all expense paid, first class trip to Hawaii!  There are only a handful of non-sales employees in the company (>40,000) to get the performance award.  It comes complete with whale-watching excursions, BBQ’s on the volcano at sunset, snorkeling/diving, waterfall hikes, and a helicopter tour of the island.  I’m having to be extra nice for the next couple of weeks so that she keeps me on the list as her guest.  Congratulations Beth…we’ll catch the revolution next time!

Blimey!

As I mentioned in a post earlier this year, Beth and I have been putting off exploring the UK until we're a bit older.  We've always considered it an "easy" destination reserved for later-in-life.  What a mistake that has been!  We just got back from an extended weekend in London...Blimey!  What a pleasant surprise!  This is my kind of city.  Minus the crappy weather, I could easily live here and will put it on our annual travel rotation right up there with the German Christmas markets.   Here are a few pics from the trip.  Happy New Year to all!

The Tower Bridge - the only tourist sight that we took in.  While the weather was a bit dreary and bleak, it stayed dry which kept us on our feet and in streets instead of the museums and castles and churches and palaces.

The city is loaded with open-air markets, many of which were still decorated beautifully for Christmas.

Those sneaky bastards!  We chose our restaurant in Chinatown based upon the amount of Asians who were dining there.  More than 80% of the customers in this restaurant were Asian, so we walked in...only to be led upstairs with the rest of the pasty-whites, out of sight of the street.  It was obviously deceptive...but the food was excellent, so we didn't complain.

 Cozying up in a West End theater for Blood Brothers.  Man, those guys can act AND sing!  Incredible!

 Beth, always a sucker for Hugh Grant, dragged me to Knotting Hill market.  How much mileage can you get out of one lousy movie?

Contemporary art in the very bohemian Brick Lane.

 More Brick Lane surprises...excellent street food!  One of our favorite parts of the city.

Not my "cup-o-tea", but you've gotta love this sign.

 Soho - makes the New York version look like a ghost town.

Scooter seating at Camden Locks...

 ...and of course the famous Camden Markets.

We took the long way back into the city along the Regent's canal....

...and then into Hyde Park where we stumbled across this massive mirror sculpture.  That's us in the reflection.  Very cool!

 London, like New York, has a Starbucks about every thirty yards or so.  But since we are Starbucks deprived in Amsterdam, we had to stop in to warm up after a long day on our feet.

Trier

Beth and I kicked off the holiday season with an evening at the sauna then a long weekend down in Trier, Germany for the annual Christmas market.  Here are a few pics from the trip.

Trier is a bustling little market town with an interesting Roman history.  The streets were crowded with shoppers, with the ancient Roman gates in the background.

Porta Nigra  (The Black Gate - 200 AD)

The third largest baths in the Roman empire are in Trier - it was an important city on a very hostile edge of the empire.

So important in fact, that emperor Constantine spent much time here (probably planning his actions that would lead to the eventual fall of the empire - IMHO).  This massive, yet innocuous looking building is his original throne room - once part of a vast complex.

This part of Germany is all about wine.  The hillsides were covered with highly improbable vineyards.  Some of the hills were so steep that there were little cog train lifts to service the vines.

 We then took a nice drive up the Mosel river to discover many class German villages and hundreds of vineyards.  

And finally, a little video of the market for my mom...including cheesy animatrons...gotta love the goats at the end.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Hobbits?

Living in the country with the tallest people in the world, Beth had to stop and make a pose when we came across this itty-bitty door on our last trip into Amsterdam - it isn't often that she has an opportunity to feel tall around here...

 
 ...and even less often than to feel like a tall, Dutch sexpot!  

Where's the kick?

I’m growing restless… again.   I wish that it were a simple midlife crisis.  You know the cliché – big boobed coed’s.  Fast cars.  Hair transplants.   But it’s not.  This restlessness has happened many times before.   I think that it’s time to just admit that it’s an integral part of who I am. 

A good but-not-seen-often-enough friend put it in context for me a few weeks ago when Beth and I went into Amsterdam to meet her for drinks.  She’s from Macedonia and has experienced the same feeling.  Between us, we could finally articulate it.

We’ll call it The Expat Addiction, although for me it started very domestically.  The cross country adventure right out of college.  The move to Boise.  The move to Virginia/Pennsylvania/Maryland (10 in total).  All for the same restless reasons.   And with each step, just like with any self respecting addiction, the dose had to be more extreme to get the same feeling.  

It’s the kick that you get walking along a canal in a far-away city that you now find yourself living in.  Taking in the architecture.  Talking with the different people and learning their culture.  Discovering the hidden places and discovering more each day about yourself.  Pushing your limits.  Testing your boundaries.  It’s an experiential addiction that thrives on newness and uncertainty.  It's the possibility to reinvent yourself, again and again and again.

But as you become more shore footed, and the newness wears off, and the views become “ordinary” and life becomes easy and you slip back into being you, then for me at least, it loses its appeal.  It loses its kick. And for anyone who knows me, I need “kick” to survive.

So what the hell am I going to do about it?  I need some serious therapy to help me figure out how to revive the kick in my life without moving another 3000 miles.   And more importantly,how do we nominate Beth for canonization for putting up with this crap?  Even though it has nothing to do with big-boobed coeds, she’s still a saint in my book!