A Royal Easter Egg Hunt...

Ok, technically the Chateau du Plessis-Fortia built in 1635 in the Loire Valley wasn't a royal castle, but we felt like royalty staying there. When we kicked around what we should do for our Easter break, we just couldn't resist the idea of dragging some new friends to the Chateau where we hosted Jimmy's 40th party in 2005. Amazingly, we ended up with 5 families joining us with kids outnumbering adults. The Easter Bunny had a good sense of humor as shown here with an egg high up in this topiary bush. Easter dinner was a gourmet feast for 28 in the formal dining room.

A Dutch April Fool's Day...

Here the girls are in the quaint fortified city of Brielle. Every April 1st the city celebrates the 1572 victory over the Spanish occupation with a giant street festival and this year we were lucky that it fell on a Saturday. It was a beautiful day to watch the locals dressed in medieval costumes re-enacting the rounding up of the Spaniards. We were reminded that we weren't in America anymore since the 8% microbrews were only $2 and the parade ended with the simulated hanging of the Spanish leader.

Life on the River...

Jimmy might not be able to read Dutch, but he managed to figure out the on-line classifieds enough to be able to find 2 used canoes--1 for us and 1 for friends. Despite the cold rain, he and Veronica couldn't resist paddling the 30 minutes into Leiden Centrum. We all went paddling on a dry Saturday into the market for veggies and flowers; seemed like a crazy way to go shopping. Now we're dreaming of warm summer nights that we can paddle into town for dinner.

Our Commute Has Really Changed...

In an attempt to truly experience life in the big city, we don't own a car and are using public transportation and bikes to get around. The commute to school takes about 40 minutes one way between walking, taking a train and transferring to a tram. When the weather's good, Jimmy can ride his bike the 9.5 miles to work in 37 minutes. It's definitely a huge change from how we lived in Cary. We're looking into a car co-op rental that'll allow us to rent a car by the hour--like when our friends visit and we need to help carry their luggage from the train station. The hardest part is that our schedule's no longer our own; although we've got our school commute down, it's still common for us to have to run to trains at other times of the day.

What Great Museums!

We truly love Dutch museums. Amazingly, this small country has over 1,000. It's no surprise that the art museums are first rate since they are full of Rembrandts, Vermeers, Eschers and Van Goghs. We've also thoroughly enjoyed museums featuring trains, mummies and ships. This photo was taken on the top floor of the Maritime Museum overlooking the Rotterdam port, one of the busiest in the world.

Speaking Dutch...

This poster on the train has given us many laughs. We thought it meant: KitKat Chunky White chokes train passengers. A Dutch woman overheard us laughing at it and said it actually meant: KitKat embarrasses train passengers. Then another jumped in and said it was actually French for: KitKat shocks train passengers. Just helps remind us that we're illiterate in multiple languages (and that advertisers aren't too bright either). Lucky for us, while we might not be able to communicate in Dutch, many folks here speak English. So far, my two most used Dutch words are "Pardon" and "Sorry." Since Dutch isn't a very popular language worldwide, US tv shows and movies are rarely translated and are shown with subtitles instead.

Our First Winter in Holland...

There's a saying here: If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes because it'll change. One thing has been consistent this winter--it's been cold. While the temperature actually isn't any colder than we were used to in North Carolina, it feels a lot colder because it's often wet & windy and we're outside so much. We had quite a few snowy days, but it always melted by the afternoon so we couldn't build any snowmen. There was ice on the canals, but it was never thick enough for ice skating. Hopefully next year.