First Month in Norwich...

Veronica doesn’t seem to have her camera permanently attached to her hip anymore, but she still finds time to take some cool shots. Here is the main shopping district in Norwich...

....and the Royal Arcade.

This was her favorite street for fall colors...

...and here is the lake on campus in the fog.

Partying in England...

Veronica’s first month at uni was quite eventful. She took the Megabus down to London to celebrate Adelina’s 19th birthday. They met up with a few guys from the BSN that are also studying in London and partied until the wee hours of the morning. Veronica said the cycle ride back at 4:30 a.m. to Adelina’s school was both thrilling and scary.

She really enjoyed exploring the Shoreditch area of East London. She also thought it was very cool to go to a hidden bar that is accessed through an old refrigerator inside of a pub.

Back at school, the partying continued as documented here at this party for freshers (aka freshmen)...

...to partying with Jake, one of her flatmates,...

...and partying with the Ultimate Frisbee team.

Around the Lake at Vlietland...

On a beautiful fall day, Gillian and I took the dogs on a walk around the lake at Vlietland joined by Carlin with her friend and dog.

It was great that the dogs can run free for most of the path at this time of year. Kati was quite confident as she ran out onto the docks.

She was also very confident as she ran towards the swans.

Luckily they didn’t come after her.

A rare shot of Kati and her boyfriend Beauly.

Selfies at the Mauritshuis

I was really excited for Abbie when she got a full-time job as an art restorer at the Mauritshuis, my favorite art museum. And I was really honored when she invited me as her guest for the opening for employees and their guests of a new special exhibition. Best of all, I got a behind-the-scenes tour of the restoration lab (no pics allowed).

After the tour, we went to a reception in a room with this great view of the front of the museum. Although I couldn’t understand the speeches, it was cool getting to meet the director of the museum.

The exhibition was called Selfies of the Golden Age and featured lots of interesting self-portraits. It was so special walking around with Abbie as my personal tour guide.

The museum encouraged visitors to take selfies with the paintings. As I’m not actually a big fan of taking selfies, I had Abbie take this of me faking it...

...while this is how I actually usually take selfies.

Running...

For some crazy reason I told Jimmy that I was willing to try doing some running outside of hashing. So one Saturday in October we took Kati on a run to Leiden. As usual, I was incredibly slow, but unlike past runs, I actually managed to run the entire way without having to walk. Kati had a great time, but wasn’t so keen on cooperating for a selfie.

That Monday Ashlynn was fully in charge of Running Club since Andrew and the other Year 12 (11th grade) leaders couldn’t be there. She decided to take the kids past the nearby farm to see the emus, deer and sheep, which was a big hit with the younger runners.

The Fun Fair...

We walked around the fun fair and the market booths. We came back that evening and rode the Ferris wheel.

We watched a band along the main canal, but didn’t manage to do any dancing.

Seeing Double and Other Interesting Sights...

The weather was perfect! There was a large group of identical twins ranging from little kids to very tall men.

 Loved this version of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

This float featuring transvestites was also very colorful.

Another Fun Parade in Leiden...

The Leiden Liberation Festival on October 3 happened to fall on a Saturday this year, so Jimmy was able to join me for the parade. The theme this year was The World Turned Upside Down, so it was fitting that it opened with a giant upside down globe.

This fellow had a very interesting contraption that allowed him to start upright on stilts and then flip over as he walked.

 These girls rolled along the route with occasional breaks.

 These groovy dudes traveled in style.

FILTH 100th...

That evening we hosted the FILTH’s 100th at our house as a Lunar Eclipse Hash and Slumber Party. We started the evening with a chili dinner and then played some Cards Against Humanity, which I’d never played before and was completely rubbish at. Eventually the eight of us who were spending the night took short naps and woke back up in the middle of the night to get a look at the eclipse. It was beautiful! Even Ashlynn agreed that it was definitely worth waking up for. Jimmy set up the telescope in the field next to the house. Technically we didn’t really have a trail, but we did a few down-downs, so figured that could count as an official hash. Veronica also got up in the middle of the night and managed to capture this excellent shot from Norwich.

Hashing Outside Schiphol...

Eventually, we headed outdoors where Opee and his co-hare Boar Whore even managed to find a small amount of woods to lead us into.

We also had another drink stop. This time the front runners had to figure out where the booze was hidden, which happened to be in a bag tied to a rope in the retention pond.

The end was next to a parking garage not far from the airport. I enjoyed being Religious Adviser at my largest hash yet and Opee enjoyed goofing around with Excremental Earnings.

We had snacks during the circle, then hopped on the train back to our place where we would be hosting the final event of the weekend.

It was really great that Melissa and Pieter could join us. They strangely remind us of our younger selves.

Not Your Average Pub Crawl...

The first clue sent us to the lockers. The playing cards then directed us to Starbucks, where we were given either apple juice or hot chocolate and instructed to go outside where our drinks were topped off with some cinnamon liqueur.

In addition to playing cards with letters, we found letters on the bottoms of our drinking cups.

Other stops included liqueur-filled Belgium chocolates...

...and fruit smoothies.

People really seemed to enjoy this treasure hunt pub crawl. 

FILTH 100th Weekend...

Opee hared a most unusual hash the following day. The trail started on the observation deck of Schiphol Airport and even included a small beer before the run.

Here he is explaining that this would be unlike any hash ever done before. Just in case you’re curious, the plane shown here is parked on the roof as a play area for kids.

We had pretty good turn out, including our friends from Frankfurt and some folks from Brussels.

Opee contemplated several different methods of laying trail inside the airport (such as putting stickers on garbage cans), but I kept nixing his ideas as I was worried he’d end up getting arrested after causing the airport to be evacuated. The ideas he finally settled on were brilliant! After placing our belongings in lockers, he gave us playing cards with letters that gave the clue of our next stop.

We found several fun places for photo ops as we criss-crossed the airport.