Looking Overseas for the American Dream

Number of days in Amsterdam – 496-500

Number of days without a bike theft – 492-496

A sickness has entered our house.

For those of you who would be worried about the Kitten, I’ll dissuade your fears right away, and let you know that it’s not her.

It’s me.

Perhaps a week of living fast while Bill was visiting has lead my body to want to finish up the phrase by dying young, only to realize that middle age doesn’t count as young no matter who you ask, so it instead has simply settled for making my body feel like crap.

Now, with a sickness such as this, the first response is to sort of lay low, rest, drink plenty of fluids and sleep the day away. This being my first real illness since becoming a parent (thanks to whichever deity you prefer right here), I’ve not had to deal with this before.

I have discovered that it’s as hard to be ill with a healthy baby as it is to have a baby that doesn’t feel well. You still have all the whining, moaning and melodrama, but this time it’s coming from me, while there is this little ball of chaos who has little regard for me feelings, only caring that I rally my senses long enough to build another city of block towers for her to lay devastation upon.

So I try, and I play halfheartedly, and we forge ahead.

It’s not easy.

But I got better.

And after a few days, I was actually feeling well enough to do something.

In celebration, the three of us packed up some bread and headed to the park to feed the ducks.

Now going to the park with the Kitten to feed the ducks is something I’d looked forward to for a long time, the sort of parental adventure that she would always have fond memories of, as we gave old bread to the grateful waterfowl as they quacked excitedly.

What happened was entirely different.

We had decided that for our first foray, we would keep the ducks from getting too close, so the Kitten wouldn’t get overwhelmed. We chose a small bridge to throw the bread from.

First of all, I don’t know if you’re aware, but bread is one of the Kitten’s favorite snacks. She loves to munch contentedly on bread, especially fresh warm bread. We often choose restaurants based on the fact that they give you bread when you first arrive, in order to have a happy baby.

So when we gave the Kitten a piece of bread to throw to the ducks, she chose to munch on it rather than throw it (fortunately, we didn’t have old or stale bread with us). She also gaped at us in disbelief when we started giving the rest to ducks in the water below.

Now, I’m no expert in ducks or waterfowl in general. I simply know that, aside from swans or the occasional ill-tempered goose, they’re fun, funny little things that make cute noises and waddle about happily. I don’t know if they have a language that allows them to communicate to one another, or if they are part of a collective hive mind that allows them to send messages to one another.

What I did learn this day was that they are capable of coordinated moves that would defeat some of the greatest strategists and military minds in history.

As we stood on the bridge, our attention directed at the ducks munching happily on bread below, the ducks coordinated a devious attack on us. As we stopped to glance about, we realized that the bulk of the flock had climbed the banks and were coming onto the bridge to the source of the food – from both directions.

And standing amidst each group of ducks were large geese, towering above their brethren like heavy infantry and stalwart generals.

We were pinned down by an aggressive army of webbed footed soldiers.

We stood there, unsure how we would emerge from this predicament alive, and we panicked. Fortunately, our panic was our salvation. Our only escape lay with the fact that ducks are like people – no matter where their loyalties rested, each duck had a price, and that price was a full slice of bread.

Our salvation lay in greed of the ducks, as throwing them a full slice of bread caused them to break ranks. As soon as a duck had a full slice of bread in his bill, much more than he could devour on the spot, he turned tail and tried to flee in order that he could finish it all in peace, bodily hurling himself into the birds behind him like linebacker, seeking to knock them out of the way. The other ducks, realizing what he was doing, latched onto the large pieces of bread which were thick and chewy, causing massive tugs of war.

As they squabbled over the spoils, we picked our way around them and across the bridge, hurling slices of bread into the masses as they arose.

We’ll be back, but first we need to rethink our strategies…

Number of days in Amsterdam – 487-495

Number of days without a bike theft – 483-491

You know that flap of skin under the center of your top lip that connects it to your gums? It’s called the frenulum. Now you know, and I’ll tell you how I know further in.

Longtime readers of this blog may remember when Bill came to visit about a year ago. Much fun was had. We got lost. I lost Bill.

Despite these misadventures, Bill made the decision to return.

I vowed that we wouldn’t get lost. I vowed that I wouldn’t lose him.

I was somewhat successful.

Bill is a big fan of football (soccer for the folks stateside), and really wanted to see a football match (soccer game for the folks stateside) in Europe (Europe for the folks stateside), so I decided to make this a mission.

It turned out that World Cup qualifiers were going on, and while Amsterdam Ajax was on a break for it, the Netherlands were playing Andorra in Rotterdam while he was here. So I went into Viagogo (Stub Hub for the folks stateside) and picked up a pair of tickets.

When the day arrived, we hopped on a train to Rotterdam.

Now Rotterdam has an entirely different feel from Amsterdam. It’s much more modern than Amsterdam, by virtue of the Germans coming over in the ’40s to help with the removal of all those old buildings to make space for shiny new ones. We hit the station and hopped in a taxi to the arena.

Now as we rolled into the arena, we were on familiar territory. Despite having never been to this particular space, we knew the rituals necessary in order to enjoy a sporting event. After entry, we needed a couple beers for the seats, then we needed to find our seats, and then we needed to sit in them and cheer.

This plan, while simple at first look, would present us with several issues.

First, we needed tokens for beer. We jumped that hurdle.

The we got our beers. Two each, to last the game. Done.

Then we made our way to the entrance for section J, where an arena employee informed us that we were not allowed to take the beers to our seats, due to FIFA regulations, wanting to project a family-friendly image and not capture fans holding beers on cameras. This is despite the fact that the arena has beer sponsorship and giant billboards inside the stadium. Evidently, they like to perpetuate a myth that these beer companies only fund the clubs out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than out of any desire to sell beer within the premises.

So we chugged our beers.

So fast we got the dreaded brain freeze – an affliction I haven’t suffered since I was a child and attempted to imbibe a Mountain Dew Slurpee a bit too fast.

Then, with the beer safely disposed of, we entered section J, and showed the usher our tickets – for Section J, Row 25. She gestured up. We climbed the steps, past rows 22, 23, 24, then… wall.

There was no row 25. The usher at the top couldn’t explain why our valid tickets were for seats that didn’t exist, and sent us back down.

The usher at the bottom insisted our seats were up there somewhere, and sent us back up.

The usher at the top told us to just sit down.

We got bumped once and moved to some other seats.

Then we watched the most one-sided of games, where the Netherlands beat Andorra something like 465,000 to 0. It was sort like when the NBA was allowed to send pro players to the Olympics, but instead of the other teams being allowed to send Olympic Athletes, they sent elementary school kids. (OK, it wasn’t quite that bad, but still thoroughly one-sided.)

After the game, we headed out, stopping to ask which way it was to the tram. We were told to go over this small rise, and to follow the tracks to the tram.

So we went over the rise, and fell in with everyone else. After walking about a kilometer in the rain, we started getting to where everyone was hopping in cars. Forgetting that this was a different city, we had assumed – incorrectly – that everyone was heading to the tram, when instead they were heading to the parking lot. We turned around, and hustled back, catching the last tram back to the train station.

All things concerned, no harm done. But as Bill said, “we are no longer allowed to go on adventures all by ourselves.” Because, like last time, we had managed to get lost.

There were other adventures this week as well, ones where we did not take the lead. Nicole and Bill went to the market they bought langoustines, which look sort of like a shrimp on steroids, or perhaps a lobster that could benefit from steroids. Either way, they were awesome cooked in the smoker, and the smoker makes the place smell like we have a fireplace. As Rachel Ray says, “Yummo!”

There was also a night where we hired a babysitter so we could all go out for drinks in a dive like the good old days in the D.

The babysitter arrived at 7 PM, but the Kitten had decided to go down for her nap very late, at about 6:30. My fear was that she would wake up from her nap to a stranger and freak out, so against my better judgment I woke her up to introduce her to the new babysitter.

She was not pleased with my choice.

In fact, she was quite furious.

It took quite some time to calm her down, but eventually we had everything settled, and prepared to leave as the Kitten played with the babysitter and cruised about the flat.

In typical Kitten fashion (she’s still sorting out balance issues), she pulled herself to stand at a chair and did a prompt faceplant. Mama picked her up to console her, revealing that, in nontypical Kitten fashion, the front of her jammies were covered with blood.

It was pretty frightening.

So, as we sorted out what to do, trying to assess damage, wanting to see what she had done, I googled (yes, I parent by googling quite often) something akin to “baby fell, bleeding out mouth”) and checked out the results.

This is where I learned what the frenulum was.

Evidently, babies doing faceplants and tearing their frenulums is one of the most common injuries in the baby-face-to-floor category. And the good news is that, while it bleeds a ton due to the large amount of blood flow there, it generally stops right away with no serious harm.

Which is what happened.

So we got the bleeding stopped, put her in fresh, non-bloody jammies, gave her some baby drugs, and settled her in with the babysitter.

We went to the Soundgarden, a place that reminds me of most of our favorite Detroit bars. It’s a non-pretentious little space with beer, a pinball machine, a foosball table and a pool table. It was a little oasis.

And while it took a bit to shake off the shock of seeing our little daughter all bloodied, and our cell phones sat out in front of us all night, we had a great time, returning home to discover that there had been no further incidents, bloody or otherwise.

(Although Bill did decide to rush on ahead home in the rain, prompting fearful concern that he had been lost again, he was at the flat when we got there, so no foul.)

Aside from bloodied up babies and non-existent seats, the visit was really nice, hanging out like back in the D, getting food, and wandering about. The only difference was the addition of the Kitten, who is a fun little travel companion.

Even on that train to Rotterdam, Bill pointed out that, even after a few days, it was weird not having her with us.

So I’m glad that the Kitten gets along with our friends. It’s like when you make a new friend, and are really happy when they gel with the existing friends. And in this case, we really made this new friend, so it’s even better that everyone plays nice.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 480-486

Number of days without a bike theft – 476-482

It would seem that I’m running perpetually behind on this blog, keeping you all abreast of our Amsterdam adventures, but it’s time for another push.

When I fall behind, it’s when I get buried by work and parenthood. Well, parenthood isn’t going anywhere soon, but work has the tendency to dry up occasionally, and the hustle of the freelancer continues, where I find myself spending more time convincing folks to give me money than I spend making money. It’s a frightening aspect, but the thoughts of the needs of the Kitten are the sort of thing that leads me to continue the hustle and playing the game.

The rain count is going away for awhile. It rains a lot here – you know this. But I think the rain count loses its impact when the posts encompass a week or so at a time.

Now where were we?

Roodbaars came in the crate this week. AKA redfish.

It’s an innocuous name, something I was very familiar with, or so I thought. I’d had blackened redfish before, it’s a very common ingredient in Cajun cooking.

There’s but one problem – the redfish I had wasn’t this redfish. When you have a very common name like this, it turns out that lots of people have their own ideas of what is what.

So I started digging. And the more I dug, the less I knew what we had.

It turns out that almost every country with a coastline seems to have their own version of the redfish. In the US, it can refer to red snapper, red drum or ocean perch. In Europe it can refer to the ocean perch, Norwegian haddock, rosefish or any sort of a wide array of snappers.

Want to further confuse things? Ocean perch  and Norwegian haddock are the same thing.

We simply decided we had ocean perch and prepared it accordingly. It was good.

We also had salsify.

Now to me, salsify sounds like a verb, as in to say “it’s time to salsify,” thay may imply you are spicing things up, or somehow taking something and making it into a salsa, or into something salsa-like.

Instead, this is a root vegetable that tastes like artichokes.

Incorporating into the local food culture since 2011 – that’s us.

We also took part in another local tradition, visiting de Bijenkorf during their big sale, and while there were great deals to be had (including a special present for the Kitten’s upcoming birthday), I’ll just say – NEVER AGAIN!

It was more packed than usual, piled up on all floors with rude, shoving shoppers. I carried the Kitten in her stroller up and down the stairs rather than deal with the shoving masses at the lifts (most shoving into the lift “just because,” rather than having any need to avoid the escalator. Seriously, why force your way into a crowded smelly lift when there is an escalator RIGHT THERE! It takes more energy to pile into a lift like this than to step on the escalator and step off again a few moments later. Seriously. Just… seriously.

Never again.

We did manage to catch an image of what may be the lamest toy ever, though.

“Mom, I’m bored.”

“Why don’t you go play with your bread basket action play set?”

Number of days in Amsterdam – 473-479

Number of days without a bike theft – 469-475

Days since it last rained – 0

There are times I’ve discovered where, as a parent, I feel really guilty for doing things that I know are right for the Kitten, especially if she doesn’t know about it or would probably disagree. For example, even though there was a definite need for it for reasons you’d imagine, I felt strangely guilty feeding her prunes, like I was playing a mean prank on a school mate – “no, eat these, they’re good, heh heh…”

Another guilty feeling comes from taking her to the Consultatie Bureau on a day when I know she’s getting vaccinations.

Mama bundled her up and took her to the appointment while I waited for the delivery of this week’s krat, hoping that it would be here in time for me to join them. Fortunately it was, and I was able to hop on the bike and fly over there, getting there while she was sitting on the exam table, going through the motions of her check up.

It all went swimmingly, she is growing fine, developing fine, etc.

And then the nurse poked a needle in her leg.

And then again in the other leg.

As parents, we know that this is the right thing. It will prevent her from coming down with horrible and preventable illnesses. And it will help other parent’s children from the same. Vaccination is our responsibility as parents, both for the safety of our children and for the safety of everyone’s children. It’s a civic responsibility.

Try telling that to a little girl who just got jabbed in the leg with a needle – twice – while mom and dad just sat there.

You feel like a traitor to your child for a moment.

We brought the Kitten home, where she behaved as she does on a day she’s had shots – sleepy, grumpy and achy. I went through my day as normal, working, getting some extra stuff done while she snoozed extra long, and having a phone call with a coworker in the states.

While we were on the call, the Kitten started fussing a bit, so I picked her up.

Her skin felt like it was on fire.

I told my coworker I’d call her back and ran to take her temperature.

Kitten had what’s known as a “low-grade fever,” really just a few degrees above normal. As far as I was concerned, though, she was in flmes.

So I got a fever reducer in her, which worked within 15 minutes.

And in the scope of all things, it’s not serious, but in my head, this is the stuff that worries are made of.

With the Kitten on her way to recovery but still a bit sore and grumpy, we set out for a lazy Saturday in the ‘Dam, with one quest in mind – helping mama rediscover her creative spark.

As many of you who read this know, she is a talented and award winning photographer. She has done tons of live music, been in exhibitions, not just in our Detroit home, but on the East and West Coasts of the US. Her work has appeared in national publications, and she’s just really good.

Now, she’ll probably hit me for sharing this, but she was also feeling a creative block. Part of it was the move, part of it was becoming a mom, but the fact is that she hasn’t shot much in a long while, and she needed to get back to it.

It was time to go back to her roots.

That meant getting analog.

In the old days, during our old life in Detroit, but early on in that life, Nicole shot with film. We even had a dark room in our basement that I’d built by hanging heavy plastic sheeting up (because I lack the ability to do anything requiring real handiness) where she would develop and print her own film.

Then came the advent of the digital SLR which, after the initial investment, is much more cost-effective. But it loses something.

And I can understand why she’d feel that way. I brought thousands of songs with us on our hard drives, but I miss my record collection and a turntable was among my first purchases here. You lose some sort of connection when you go digital.

Now, with Nicole’s decision to return to analog, she decided to go back to the very basics. We went to the Lomography store, and she got a Diana.

A Diana is an all-plastic camera. Even the lenses are plastic. It was originally designed for photography students with no money, and to be honest, it’s not a very good camera. It’s prone to light leaks that will affect the images. It’s recommended that you tape it up to keep it from falling apart.

But it’s a camera for artists who want to reconnect with their equipment and make it create art that can’t be replicated. It’s a camera they learn to love. It reminds me of a janky bicycle that nobody can understand why you ride, nor can you other than love. It’s also a bit like my first car, a 1976 Monte Carlo with white leather interiors, that could only be started by first popping the hood and shoving a screwdriver in the right place.

There is also an economy that needs to be enforced when going back into film shooting. Unlike with digital, you can’t shoot 500 shots of one subject, checking later to see how it works out. And you also don’t know how the shot has turned out when you take it.

It’s a whole new game.

But really it’s an old game.

A lot of the photos I post here are from an iPhone app called Hipstamatic, which attempts to replicate these cameras, but really, it’s like the difference between an MP3 and a record.

So Nicole is getting ready to move into a new era of creativity, by looking back.

I’ll post shots here soon.

We finished up the weekend with a family outing, where the three Amsterdam expat babies and their parents took a train out into the country to go to De Bazaar – the largest flea market in Europe.

I’m not sure what we expected to find, but what we found was… the largest flea market in Europe.

It was like any flea market anywhere, except it went on forever. Other than that, it was filled with all of the crap any flea market should have, but on a massive scale.

Like there was a part that had lawn gnomes and lawn ornaments, but the scale was incredible, including eight-foot robots, along with more things for your lawns than you can imagine.

There was a toy store that took out all of the guess work for parents who are shopping, clearly splitting the boys’ toys and girls’ toys, you know, so you don’t actually get your daughter interested in science.

The food court was incredible as well, loaded with all kinds of food from all kinds of culture. And we had Afghani food, which was awesome! Now, Afghani food is not highly prevalent in the States, for obvious reasons (because much of the US won’t serve food from a country that our armies occupy, unless they can figure out a way to inject “freedom” into its name.

But it was like really tasty kabobs, with a different spice profile. I’m a big fan.

But I came up with a theory, or an idea, about war. If the US were unjustified by going to war with any country that has good food, then the only country the US has ever been justified going to war with has been England. Ever.

Also, countries should have cooking competitions instead of wars. Again, though, I think that Britain might find themselves on the bottom.

Our last stop at the flea market before making our way back to the city was the Asian food market, where you can buy things that you can’t find anywhere else – which for us meant brownie mix, pancake mix and Canadian maple syrup.

That’s right, if you want to get the stuff from North America you can’t find here, sometimes an Asian grocery is your best bet.

Elated and a bit exhausted, we made our way back to the train, where we sat in the bike carrying area so the babies could sit in their strollers by one another. We drank some beers as the train rolled back into Amsterdam, and I realized that these are the weekends I live for here – finding new experiences and new ways to be creative, as well as spending time with the people who’ve become our circle here. These are the weekends that make me love Amsterdam and surrounding areas, and the things that remind me how to make sure we’re really living here.

These are also the weekends that supply us with the means to make pancakes.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 470-472

Number of days without a bike theft – 466-468

Days since it last rained – 0

I still really in love with the stuff we’re getting weekly in De Krat, and how it forces us to flex our culinary wings a bit in order to use ingredients that we’ve never used before, but that we don’t want to waste.

This week, we had trout. Undressed, meaning the head was there.

I’ve never cooked a whole undressed fish before, but I stuffed them with lemon, parsley and garlic and grilled them a bit.

It was quite amazing.

We have long been fans of all kinds of cooking shows, and here I found another one on the BBC that I love. It’s The Little Paris Kitchen, hosted by Rachel Khoo. It’s a show that’s very relatable, encompassing things I love.

A British chef, Rachel is living in Paris, in a little apartment with a tiny kitchen. On her show, she shows you around Paris, talks about French cooking, and then shows one how to prepare it in a minimal amount of space.

Nicole likes to say that she’s my girlfriend, but the truth is I love what her show is about. The fact that she is very easy on the eyes is just an added bonus. There may be a crush there, but it’s just as much a food crush as anything else.

Perhaps we should do a food show, calling it “Our ‘Dam Tiny Kitchen,” and we could do episodes about grilling trout, accompanied by rants about the fact that it’s impossible to find bacon like in the States here, and that Mexican food is almost nonexistent accompanied with our recipes for tacos.

Would you watch it?

The weekend was one all about laziness, as we met with friends for a long walk around Waterlooplein Markt, followed by a sleepover where the Kitten’s boyfriend and his mom stayed over for the night, followed by more comfort food.

On this particular Sunday, we made galumpkis – or cabbage rolls stuffed with meat and rice, slathered in a sweet tomato sauce.

There’s something so homy about listening to music, making a dish that takes forever to prep and even longer to cook, finishing up with lazily sitting around the table consuming the fruits of ones labors. It’s what Sundays are about, really.

Now, if we were to make a show about that, a show shot with subpar equipment (or no equipment right now, which could put a real damper on production values) and bad lighting about cooking in a tiny kitchen where the two cooks are elbowing each other out of the way and stepping over a baby crawling underfoot, would anyone watch it? And if they tried, would they make their way through the first few minutes and realize that what we lacked in personality was by no means made up for in the quality of the information we provided?

I thought so.

I think we’re not quite ready for prime time yet, so we’ll keep our cooking to ourselves.

It was good though.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 466-469

Number of days without a bike theft – 462-465

Days since it last rained – 0

Autumn has arrived in the ‘Dam with chilly rainy mornings that lull you into a deeper sleep even when you know you should be getting up, along with cool days and evenings, where you feel snug in a jeans and hoodie.

It’s really my favorite weather here. Sure, the park bbq’s are a thing of the past, but it’s weather made for leisurely strolls about town, or just staying in, which is what we did for much of this week.

We did make two new discoveries, though.

For one, the Kitten has new source of entertainment.

I’m not sure if she thinks it’s a show about her clothes, but she likes it.

She also likes to get inside, where the glass goes in, and rears back when the water sprays or the clothes spin.

For our second, we had a visitor.

On the 4th story balcony.

Now, balcony visitors are nothing new. Almost daily there are pigeons and the occasional wild parakeet out there. Slugs and snails sometimes trek up the building to see what’s going on, and on warm nights we watch the bats swoop and wheel about the courtyard.

Today’s visitor was a new one, though.

And when he saw me through the window, I think he was just as surprised to see me as I was him.

I’m not sure if he’s a new neighbor, or perhaps part of the neighborhood watch, as mouse season is starting to come on. I hope the latter is the case, because if he’s on patrol, we might not have to deal with mice like we did last year.

After he scoped things out, he left the way he came, along a narrow ledge along the side of the building, not worried at all about being four stories up.

I hope we see him again.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 459-465

Number of days without a bike theft – 455-461

Days since it last rained – 1

This week I failed as a father.

I’m not talking about the random bruises the Kitten picks up as she begins to recklessly explore her world, pulling herself to stand up or trying to crawl from point A to point B faster than her little body is ready for, I’m instead talking about a failure as described by the wise American scholar Chris Rock.

He said that, above all else, it was a father’s responsibility to keep his daughter from becoming a pole dancer, and yet, at a going away party, right under my nose… failure.

I will try harder.

This week also found us missing another event back home, one that was a ritual to end the summer.

It was the weekend of the DIY festival.

The DIY festival was a festival put on by the local businesses, artists and musicians in our town. Formed in response to an art fair that wasn’t very responsive to helping out the locals, everyone decided to do it themselves, and have a bigger better festival than the pros could. Our neighborhood has a solid creative base and a lot of independent businesses, and so it just came together.

Every year we gathered with all our friends at a particular spot on a particular sidewalk for three days of food, drink and music. We would be there the entire time, just catching up, seeing people we hadn’t seen in forever, and getting into some really great music and just a bit of trouble.

This year, like last year, we missed it.

But we weren’t going to let it bother us.

Saturday, we took the train to Utrecht, another town here we’d not visited before.

Utrecht has a really cool vibe, like Amsterdam without so many tourists but much better shopping, with two-level streets along the canals, with bars and cafes along the lower levels.

We met up with a Detroit/Dutch couple friends of ours who were back in the Netherlands for a visit, and they took us to some of their favorite old haunts.

In my defense toward something that may or may not have happened at a particular place on a particular day, I’ll just say that if you have a bar, and you insist on putting your bar’s name on the glassware, it becomes a tempting souvenir that begs for liberation. This is, however, just a casual observation.

As we made our way back to train for our ride back into the ‘Dam, past a two-level bike parking lot, we already felt that we’d had a full weekend, and it was only Saturday.

Sunday was even better. Sunday found us at Gerard Doustraat for the annual food festival. In this particular corner of the Pijp that happens to just be a few blocks away from us, there are a ton of great restaurants on one street, and each year they come together for a mini food fair with live music.

It has a sense of community, even if it’s a new community for us. We had Sangria, paella, risotto and a bunch of other dishes as we sampled the fare offered from Spanish, Italian, Turkish and Surinamese restaurants on one of the best food streets in the city.

Now I’ll admit that as of late, this blog has fallen a bit to the wayside. The rigors of parenting along with the stress of hustling for new work all the time wears on me for sure, but I was just starting to not feel much for this blog anymore. Sure, it was a way to let the folks at home know we’re still alive, and share some photos of the baby and such, but what great impact does it have on the world? I honestly was starting to think that I just didn’t feel much for it anymore, like it was just one remote corner of the web that had not much bearing on much of anything.

I think things changed for me at the fair a bit.

As we sat, sipping Sangria and listening to the music, watching the Kitten while she ate rice with her fingers for the first time, a couple with a young daughter came up to us.

“I saw you over here and just had to say hi,” the woman said. “I read your blog. And your story is our story.”

It was a couple who’d moved to the ‘Dam by way of the States, like us, and she had been following our story here, relating as they went through the same things we did.

I felt, if not like a celebrity, like somebody recognized what I do.

Nobody ever came up to me and said “you’re the guy who wrote that mission statement for that marketing company,” or “I really loved the article you wrote for that trade magazine,” or even “when I read that catalog copy and saw that there were no spelling errors, I knew the proofreading had to have been your handiwork.”

But somebody saw me and recognized me from my blog.

And that’s all it takes sometimes.

So, we missed out on DIY.

But I really feel like, here, we’re actually starting to do it ourselves.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 458

Number of days without a bike theft – 454

Days since it last rained – 11

So what does one do when the friends have left, and you’re feeling a bit homesick?

Go do what you might do if you were back at the old home. Go to a barbecue!

But because this is Amsterdam and not Detroit, the barbecue must have distinctly different feel, so instead of the backyard, it happened on a roof overlooking the Pijp. And despite the difference in location, and the presence of strong Serbian rakia being sipped out of small glasses, it felt like home.

Anywhere can be home, even after the people we love most are on their way back to the places they call home.

It’s nice.

I don’t know if home is where the heart is, or home is where the booze is, but as long as there are good people having good times, we can be happy.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 449-457

Number of days without a bike theft – 445-453

Days since it last rained – 10

It was a big week here, as this was the week where we had another visit from Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman!

Visits from Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman are always fun, and that’s all that needs to be said about that, and they’re also important.

They’re important because they give Kat a chance to meet real-live celebrities that she knows from her weekly Skype chats, and they give her a chance to catch up and reminisce as well.

“Hey, remember that time I pooped my pants at Notre Dame?”

“Hey, remember that time I pooped my pants in the car in Germany?”

You know, important stories like that.

It also feels like progress report time for mom and dad, because we get to show them all the new places we’ve discovered in the ‘Dam since our last visit and a chance to share new adventures.

First up for this trip was a canal cruise.

But we didn’t want to give them the standard canal cruise, so we enlisted the help of Kat’s boyfriend’s parents, who knew a guy with a boat, etc.

So, with the knowledge of knowing some people who know a person with a boat, we loaded up and went to an undisclosed location along a canal and waited. Eventually, a big boat pulled up, and we were ushered away.

We cruised along the canals, chatting, drinking and watching the world roll by.

Then, we were shanghai’d.

You see, we floated up to Hannekes Boom, this sort of beach bar on the canals, where more than 70 other boats had gathered. We had been recruited for Plastic Fishing.

Like most cities, litter is a problem in Amsterdam, but plastic bottles bobbing down the canals are a real unsightly problem. In order to help raise awareness and combat it a bit, Plastic Whale has started a project to gather 100,000 plastic bottles from the canal, which they will make into a boat. And Plastic Fishing was a big event for it.

It felt really good to take part in cleaning up the city we now call home.

But it also felt like we had railroaded Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman into something, like “Oh, I know you signed on for a pleasure cruise, but we couldn’t afford it, so we got you hired on as galley slaves instead. NOW START ROWING!”

Fortunately, they didn’t feel that way, and we actually had a lot of fun cruising and scooping up bottles in nets.

We didn’t find a single body, though.

We did meet a real-live mermaid, though, swimming in the canals.

The photos of this day are a bit limited, but I shot a good amount of video, currently trapped in my broken video camera.

While they were here, I took them out to Zaanse Schans as well, so they could see the Dutch countryside, and also climb up in Kat’s windmill. I couldn’t let Miss Kat miss out in seeing the inside of her windmill, either, so with her in the carrier, I ascended the ladder to the top. Windmills are impressive, and seeing a windmill up close on a windy day is pretty mind-boggling. They get some serious speed.
Like all the windmills at Zaanse Schans, Kat’s windmill is in operation. Hers is used to grind pigments for paint.

And we rode bikes. Because that’s what you do.

And Aunt Jen was very leery every time we settled the Kitten into her bike seat, looking at it like she didn’t quite trust it, and voicing her concerns so that we were all aware that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. Until one day, as we rode through the city, we came to a stop where Aunt Jen got to see the Kitten sleeping peacefully in her chair.

And then I think she realized that this little one is being raised so that bikes are second nature to her, and that mom and dad won’t do anything with her that isn’t safe.

I’m looking forward to her learning more about bikes as she gets bigger. I’m looking forward to teaching her to ride bikes, and I’m looking forward to teaching her to fix bikes. I am seriously not the type that one would call handy in any way, shape or from, but bike repair is the one thing I can do, so I want to show her that the old man can do something with his hands!

Aside from the other usual things we took Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman to (our favorite pubs, restaurants and breweries), we also made time to leave the country and head to Antwerp – just to, you know, check Belgium off the list of places we’ve been to. Honestly, how awesome is that, to be able to just hop on a train to Belgium?

Antwerp’s train station is massive, old and impressive. And tall. Many big train stations have platform after platform stretched out flat, but Antwerp actually has the train platforms on multiple floors, so trains roll by over your head and under your feet.

The city itself is old and pretty, and having done no homework, we strolled, shopped, ate, drank and strolled in one big circle that eventually got us back to the station for a leisurely roll home.

Seriously, oh we just went to Belgium for the day!

And then, wow, a week was over and Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman went home. And that was hard. It seems like we blinked and it was over. There were hours of playing on the floor with the Kitten, and picnics in the park, and Indian takeaway and nights that went on way to late around the dining room table, but it all ended way too soon.

The night they left, we spent hours on the Skype, calling up all our friends in the States we could reach. It was a way to chase off the sads for a little while, to hold onto our connections in the States, catch up, and hide from the fact that Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman had left.

Which is why we have decided that Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman should move here. In fact, all our friends should move here. And all our families. We’ll buy a windmill in the countryside and raise goats and have a little farm where we all live and we’ll sell cheese at the markets and people will start to think of us a creepy little American commune especially once we all start wearing matching outfits and… alright, let me rethink this one a bit.

But Aunt Jen and Uncle Kolman do need to come back soon, at the very least.

Number of days in Amsterdam – 448

Number of days without a bike theft – 444

Days since it last rained – 0 1

Big package of TP. I wonder if it will last until she’s potty trained…