Daily Life in the Netherlands

Last Thursday, January 17th, I met with a few women from the American Women's Club of Amsterdam for coffee at a home in Heemstede. It was about 1.7 kilometers away, so I decided to walk. The walk was okay since I could go through the woods most of the way (not icy there!). We discussed health and one of the women was selling raw vitamins. It seems to be a good product, however, to pay for it they take the money out of your account automatically every three months. So, I told her I would speak with my husband about it before committing to it. It's also not inexpensive....50 Euros a month. 

I took a couple of pictures on the way to Heemstede:

While I was walking home from Heemstede I was on the phone with Louise and I fell on the ice coming around the corner to the house.  I was not injured....so I got up and walked home. I cannot multitask anymore, which I should have realized.......sooooo no more walking and talking on the phone. Aye...very frustrating. I had a little lunch and took the bus up to the train station where Louise met me. From there we walked to her house. We sat and had a cup of tea and talked. She showed me around their home....very cute and cozy!

Saw this interesting use of duct tape at the train station:

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This past Friday, January 18th, Andrew took a couple of hours off from work to drive us (Socrates and I!) to the Warmerdam Veterinaire Radiologie in Noordewijkerhout which is about 27 kilometers away. Four years ago he was diagnosed with a heart problem and was put on a medication called Diltiazem. Last month we took both pets to the vet here and discovered that Diltiazem is not available here. I provided our vet records (including previous ultrasound results) from four years ago. Before prescribing a new medication our new vet wanted to get a new ultrasound done in case there were any changes in his condition. The drive took about 35 minutes, as it's down some twisty little roads going through small towns. When we arrived they took him right in. They shaved some of his hair away and we laid him down on the table, where they started the ultrasound. While he was doing it he explained everything he was seeing, which was pretty interesting. Before leaving, we were told our vet would have the results shortly and we could call them to decide what the next step will be.

When we arrived home, there was a large truck blocking our street, so we were unable to park next to the house to drop off the cat. Sooooo, I got out of the car with the cat (who was in his crate) and started to walk to the house. The road was very very icy (I had fallen the day before...and didn't want that to happen again!), and the cat is not light (he weighs about 16 pounds!). Sooooo, I put the crate down on the icy road and started pushing him towards the house on the ice....it worked!  Socrates was not happy, but I just couldn't carry him home!  I was able to get inside without incident while Andrew parked the car! Whew!

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When I woke up Saturday morning I decided to make a big breakfast of french toast and bacon. Oh myyyyy...that was good! Thanks to my Mom, (she had sent a large package with lots of goodies for Christmas) we had Mrs. Butterworths for the french toast!!! Yum!

Adventures in shopping at Hanos---

Yesterday we decided to check out a store the women in the American Women's Club had been telling me about. With my membership card to the AWCA I was able to get a membership card (at no cost) at this store. It's called Hanos. It's in Amsterdam, about 20 kilometers away (all freeway).

It kind of reminded of us Costco...a big box store. However, you can also buy small quantities of quite a few items. We ended up buying quite a few things, but probably won't be shopping there on a monthly basis like I did Costco. It's nice to buy certain things in bulk, especially since I have to carry everything home here...but we found we weren't saving much, if any, money there. We did notice that there were very few customers in the store. They do have a lot of beautiful displays, a very nice array of wines from all over the world, spices and all kinds of food items from all over the world, etc. They sell appliances, some furniture, household items, etc. We enjoyed our shopping experience, but probably won't be going often. It is the perfect place to go to get pretty desserts for a party!

We've driven by this building so many times and I've always wanted to take a picture of it....and finally got it. It's the ING building. There are many buildings in The Netherlands built like this......it looks like a big ship..pretty cool!!!

This morning we got up and took Sammy on a walk through the woods. We stopped at a pancake house Called "'t Elfenbankje" and had some pannekoeken. Sammy sat under our table and chewed on a bone we had brought:

When we were walking around town I found these cute Bokfietsen:

and this cute little "car" parked on the sidewalk: