nieuws from Holland

Hello!

I'm in Amsterdam and my brain is all mushed up with dutch and english words.  The spell checker on this computer is in dutch as well, so you'll have to excuse my grade 6 spelling if I make any mistakes (in grade 6, my english teacher told me that I would never make it through grade 7 with my terrible spelling).

I really don't have much to report, actually.  I arrived on Saturday, caught up with my cousin Simone, slept for a few hours and then we ate out at fun restaurant (www.pacificparc.nl) in the westerpark.  The westerpark is an old industrial area in Amsterdam, where many of the factories are now restaurants with high ceilings and interesting architecture.  My uncle also has a sculpture at the southern entrance to the park (www.michielschierbeek.com).  While I'm bragging about my brilliant relatives, my cousin Simone also makes beautiful art (www.simoneschierbeek.com).

On Sunday, I visited my family in Groningen.  It was a lovely visit and I had a lot of time to stare out of the train windows at cows, canals, and brick houses.  I had even more time than I expected because I ended up taking the train to Leeuwarden instead of Groningen and then had to take another train to get to Groningen.  This event really hurt my dutch language ego, because I really thought that I could understand dutch well, but apparently not well enough to get on the right train.

I did read an interesting article about dutch dairy cows...  Apparently, the dutch have started importing north american Friesian-Holstien cows because the north american cows produce more milk, even though they came from holland in the first place.  The funniest part about the article is that the dutch have started a cow preservation society to make sure that some of the original dutch cows (or their sperm) remain in circulation, even if they don't produce enough milk.  I'm sure there are many evolutionary reasons to keep the dutch cows but I also thought this was a good indicator of dutch society - it is important to keep the heritage!

Today, Simone and I went to the photography museum (www.foam.nl) and had dinner with my uncle and cousins.  Tonight we saw a show with the Pigeon Detectives.  It was good!  I mostly had a good time watching the lead singer jump around the stage and put his knees together like he had to pee.  Most of all, I liked hanging out with my cousins Simone and Steven!

Tot ziens!

Titia