Guess what?! The Tour de France started in Rotterdam this year! It has been 20 years since the Tour has made it’s way through the Netherlands, but lo-and-behold the year we move here it starts in a city we can ride our bikes to.  Unbelievable. 

The first view of the peleton - smaller than we thought!

I’ve done a lot of cycling in my training days, so the Tour was always interesting.  I would watch most summers and be amazed at the speeds and climbing abilities of the riders.  I always heard of people taking trips over seas to watch the Tour in person and I definitely saw all those crazy fans on tv, running beside the cyclists on steep inclines.  I never thought that I would be one of those flanking the streets of some city in Europe. 

the second time past - we got a little closer

The people of the Netherlands flocked to the city of Rotterdam last weekend.  It was a 45-60 minute bike ride along a canal to get to the city for us (no fancy road bikes, just the good old grandma bikes here).  We lined up and watch the cyclists go by.  We actually got to see the peleton twice since we were at an intersection of a loop.  We found out that the part we saw was called the “city tour”, which means that they do a small tour around the city for warmup/for the crowd and then the real start is a bit further on. 

We got free yellow Tour de France hats and walked around a little afterwards.  There were beer gardens and some other stuff for the fans set up.  This poster with the face cut out was pretty hilarious!

Kerry "Cavendish" Dankers wins the stage!

Hi!  How are you?  I am in the midst of the World Cup soccer craze in the Netherlands.  Back in Canada, the soccer world cup was never really that popular.  It is a shame that Canada rarely has a team in the mix and I think that is the reason that there are few followers.  The Dutch have a different view of it.  They wait for it, just like we wait for the Olympics.  The Dutch team is often a contender and this year is no different.  The Oranje have won their first two games!

In the weeks leading up to the start, there slowly grew an abundance of orange streamers, flags and basically anything orange hanging in the streets.  The grocery store began giving out special world cup trinkets and selling anything orange to celebrate.  I have seen oranje cakes and donuts and even oranje wine! 

The first Netherlands game was on a weekday mid afternoon.  We don’t own a tv (gasp!) so I was out of the loop or so I thought.  I was sitting at home doing something or other while Arne was at work.  And that is when I heard it.  It was a ripple of cheers increasing in strenght thoughtout the city of Delft.  The game had begun!

With each of the 2 goals scored an ear piercing whoop was heard thoughout the city.  I am not just talking yelling.  I am talking whistles, clapping and of course the dreaded horn.  Yes, the exact horn that the world cup tried to get banned from the stadium.  They are the favorite accesory here at the moment and can be heard at anytime of the day, game or not.  When the game finished there was a chorus of singers belting out the national anthem.  Oh I love the national pride in all of this.

The second game we got to take in with real Dutch fans - Arne’s cousins!  It was a great experience and I was even given an oranje “farmer’s shirt” to wear.  There was yelling at the tv, beer drinking and horn blowing in the house no less.  We are now Dutch “football” fans and are looking forward to the next game tomorrow!

Dutch Appeltaart

Ya, ya, I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been so busy posting on my other site!  You should come over and check it out.  It’s all about cooking, recipes and my life over in the Netherlands.  I even have tried some special Dutch culinary concoctions!  Chick here www.foodlovas.wordpress.com to check it out.

picture used from www.ijvl.nl

Skeelers is Dutch for inlining.  I guess you could compare it to us calling it Rollerblading.  It’s the summer training of choice for skaters over here.  A little different from what I did for summer training.  Arne and I went to watch a practice session over in Leiden yesterday.  We are interesting in getting involved with skating again and were invited to watch the kids in action.  There were skater of all levels.  The top could really get the “double push” going.  I am fascinated by that technique!  I was dying to try it.  I’m no big fan of inlining, but I am a fan of a challenge :)  And a technical challenge at that - really got me curious!

Most of the skaters from the club did the regular technique.  I instantly picked out the ones I thought had a good grasp and those with natural talent.  It is a habit I learned from living in an oval for the past 10 years.  We would all line our stationary bikes up along the edge of the ice and discuss everyone’s technique who passed on the ice.  We were training our eyes to pick out the mistakes and praise the perfect.  Skating is a sport of fitness and power, but where technique is the difference maker.  If the technique was right and the timing was there, you felt like you were easily gliding over the ice with little effort. 

Inline is not really any different.  The technique for going fast is definitely different, but when you master it the speed comes easily.  The outdoor skeelers oval got rained out just at the end of practice.  The kids were disappointed because they were having fun and making training progress.  It really felt easy to be there and we both felt in our comfort zone with skating.  The rain soon passed and we hopped on our granny bikes and rode back to Delft. 

Just as a side bar - the ride to Leiden is about 1.5 hours, so combined there and back was 3 hours.  It was kind of hilarious because we didn’t bring any food and we are out of “the shape”!  We experienced a little bonking (read exhaustion from lack of fuel) and likened it to the first long ride of the season.  How times have changed, but not really

Well, it’s been a long while since my last post.  Although we are in a whirlwind here, it seems as if not much has happened.  Although, one thing that has come to mind might be of interest to some.

Last week, I had a friend visit from Canada.  She is a political science major at the U of C.  I have somehow avoided taking any poli sci courses during my school days (I don’t know how - I’ve taken one class of almost everything!), but politics were never really at the top of my list.  The first thing she wanted to do here was go to the Hague.  Why?  Because of the Peace Palace.  This is where I lost her.  I think I have heard of the Peace Palace, but didn’t really know what went on there.  Pretty embarrassing, but true. 

The Peace Palace

We embarked on our first tram experience into Den Haag (as they call it here).  If anyone’s been on a tram here in the Netherlands, then you know what a strippenkaard is.  It is a long ticket that has boxes on it to be stamped.  One box = one zone.  Too bad we had no idea how many zones we were travelling.  It was pretty funny and we may have taken a tram illegally, but we got there! 

The Queen's Garden

We started in the centrum (downtown) and saw a historical museum, the houses of parliament, the Queen’s Palace Gardens and did some shopping in the shopping district.  Finally we made our trek to the Peace Palace.  We had a small map and getting there was a little hairy, but soon we were upon it.  The building is large and grand and gated by an exquisite fence. 

Nice fence!

We could not enter the garden, so we looked on from afar.  Tobey was very taken with the whole thing.  She explained how her studies touched on this very building so many times and to see it in person was very overwhelming.  The part that I thought was touching was a small monument off to the side.  A marble column containing the Peace Flame. 

The Peace Flame Monument

Around the column was a path and along the path were the names of 197 coutries of the world.  On the stone marking the entrance to the path was an inscription asking one to pray for peace as you make your way around the small path. 

Canada along the Peace Flame path

The Peace Flame in Den Haag is the first one of it’s kind in the world.  It is also the first time all the independent countries of the world (recognized by the UN) have collectively joined in a commitment to peace.

Netherlands along the Peace Flame path

Now that is heavy stuff.  I felt like a person who was part of a bigger plan.  Since I have been here in the Netherlands, I often am reminded that I am Canadian.  I am a very proud Canadian, but now I feel a connection to the Netherlands as well.  I’m sure that feeling will grow in the next 4 years.  But as I walked around the path of the Peace Flame, I truly felt like a citizen of the world - part of a global community.  With global communication, business and travel it does seem like our world is going that way.  What do you think?

Well, that little phrase could get used very often in jokes or puns.  I have even heard a clever joke using the phrase about the Dutch oven.  “How could I possibly not have an oven if the Dutch are so famous for their ovens?”  Nice one Andrew! 

Since I last wrote, we have made a couple purchases to make our stay here a little more comfortable.  We discovered Markplaats.nl which is the equivalent to kijiji.ca from Arne’s cousin Martijn.  Back home we bought some stuff off of kijiji when we moved into our new house and then sold a bunch off of it when we moved out.  Pretty handy site and a person can get some great deals on used stuff.  So needless to say, I was all over markplaats.  The most important thing first was getting a bike.  We put some major k’s on our shoes in the first week and these feet were not made for walking.  It’s so slow!  I would almost like to run instead, but then I couldn’t have worn nice clothes and then I would not have mixed in with the norm here.  Can’t have that - must blend in…  Anyways, we got a sweet cruiser that is so fast and smooth.  Oooooh it is awesome!  I have a smile on my face everytime I ride it.

Then we also bought an oven.  Yes, an oven.  It’s like a large sized toaster oven that can get as hot as a real one.  It was cheap, so we thought we’d give it a try.  I was so excited and soon determined to make a pie.  I went to the Blokker (housewares store) and bought a taart (pie) plate and then realized that my measuring cups and spoons were in the boxes being sent over.  A knot choked up in my throat.  I really wanted to make a pie.  Don’t get me wrong here people, I was not about to cry over buying new measuring cups, I was about to cry because you can’t buy measuring cups here.  They weigh ingredients!  I sucked it up and decided that I would just guesstimate the ingredients and get Arne to make the dough.  He is the pie king after all…  In the end the pie baked perfectly and we are therefore in business with a dutch oven!  Crisis/crying averted!

We made it here to our new home in Delft, Netherlands, but just barely.  Our flight landed in Frankfurt, Germany the day that the volcano erupted in Iceland.  We had previously booked a train from there to Delft and good thing we did because almost all the airports in Europe closed that very day.  Amsterdam airport is still closed I believe.  Crazy!  Luck was on our side.  Arne started his PhD studies on Monday so it would have been bad if we were still stuck in Germany!

We are all moved in to our new apartment.  It is better than expected, but maybe our expectations were low.  Just kidding!  It is a 1 bedroom with a large living and eating area.  The only place lacking is the kitchen where there is only a fridge and a hotplate.  We have made due pretty well so far and are settling in nicely.  I even ordered some veggies in Dutch at the market - and the understood me!  Yay!  My Dutch definitely needs some work, but I am planning on taking some classes for improvement.

I’ve already tried out a gym here.  Since I retired from skating, I had joined a World Health Club in Calgary and was loving the recreational workout life.  I frequented the classes and got right in to it.  Here it is pretty much the same.  The only difference is that they have a cafe that is free for members.  Pretty good bonus I would say since the coffee here is superb.  We enjoyed cappuccinos on the terrace of a cafe on the weekend and it was all very euro.  I am loving it!

Well, as they say in Dutch, tot ziens!

For the past month we have been working so hard to get all our things together to move.  Room by room, closet by closet.  If you have ever moved, you know how much stuff you can accumulate.  How have we only been in this house for 2 years?!  

We are moving out for the first of April and then off to Saskatchewan for Easter.  We are excited to get back home and see all our family.  Finally, we fly out on April 14th for our new adventure in the Netherlands.  I may be off until we get there, but I’ll definitely let you know how Delft is going.

Bye for now!

The Paralympics began in Vancouver on Friday with the opening ceremonies.  After the athletes have been competing for the past 4 days, Canada has already hit gold!  Brian McKeever won the first gold  of the games in cross country skier.  Brian is visually impaired and trains in Canmore.  He is an amazing skier and even competed in the trials for the Olympics in February.

Lauren Woolstencroft won gold and Karolina Wisniewska won gold and bronze respectively in alpine skiing.  Lauren hails from Calgary and has topped the podium several times during her career as a downhill skier.  Amazingly, she does it on prosthetics below both knees!

In sitting alpine skiing, Canada has two medals.  Vivianne Forest and Josh Dueck both have won silver medals!  Looks like the alpine skiers are having better luck than they did at the February Olympics.

Canada is in third place in the medal count with 6 medals.  Russia is leading with 15 and just ahead  of Canada with 7 medals is the Ukraine.  Keep up the good work Canadians!

A couple weeks ago,  I was invited to a luncheon at the AdFarm offices.  I arrived thinking that I was giving a thank you lunch to my amazing sponsors, but when it began, it was a thank you lunch to me. I thought that was a little backwards since I am so grateful to Dow AgriSciences and AdFarm for all their support over the past 4 years.  We had some lunch and then Laura and Brian said some really nice words to me.  They then presented a video of the previous years we spent together doing everything from talks to walk-throughs of canola fields.  You can see the video here http://www.youtube.com/user/adfarmchannel#p/u/6/wqSJS-4HFl0 (thanks for sending it to me , Annemarie!).  I then made a tearful speech about how I was able to reach my dream goal of making the Olympics.  The lunch was very special and I hope to be involved with these two outstanding companies again in the future.