Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Photography 101

Our favorite part of living in Amsterdam is getting to ride our bikes everywhere, but we also love the tram system. It's cheap, it's easy, and there's a line that stops near our apartment that travels from the city center all the way out to Erika's office. It's great and it makes you wonder why so many American cities can't figure it out. Anyway, here's a picture of Erika riding the tram.


Notice the angle of her head. That is the sign that she is only moderately annoyed at Rob taking yet another picture. If she tilts it a little less, she's happy to have her picture taken, but if she tilts it a little more, Rob's in trouble. He understands this, and in addition to light and shutterspeed, he always takes this angle into equation before taking a picture.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Bite-sized Heart Attack

Amsterdam is a great city for dining, but there are very few actual Dutch restaurants. When your most famous dish is raw herring (or, as our friend, John, calls it, Dutch sushi), you might have a problem attracting customers. However, the Dutch do like cafés and bars and, with any bar, you're going to need bar food. And that's where the Dutch cuisine really takes off. This, dear friends, is a Bitterball:


Looks harmless enough, kinda like a tater-tot, right?
But let's look inside:


That's right. That's gravy in there. Deep. Fried. Gravy. Mmmm, mmmm. Only in a country where everyone rides a bike everyday and has to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get into their homes can you get away with something this deliciously evil. So, how do they taste? Well, let's just say that we just signed up for a local gym membership.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Gentlemen, how brave are you?

This one is for the guys. This is a public toliet. They aren't all over the city, but they aren't really rare, either. Would you? Could you? Should you?


Our favorite part? The little blue man that clearly shows that this urinal is for men only. In case you were confused.

Want to see a Portland band? Move to Amsterdam.

One of the nice things about Amsterdam is that, for a big European city, it's actually kind of small. Like a Portland or an Austin. So, when bands come here, the venues tend to be smaller, which is cool if you can get a ticket, which hasn't been too hard, since we seem to like a bunch of smaller bands that aren't that big here. So, while The Police play at the arena, we got to see Rilo Kiley with 300 other people. Very cool. Also cool: we went to that concert with some friends and before the show we went to a noodle place called Wagamama.
Side note: Wagamama is really good and we both love the food, even Rob, despite the fact that every time he eats there he later suffers from what he calls 'The Dutch Resistance.' Too much information? Sorry. Moving on...
So, anyway, who else is eating at Wagamama, not 15 feet away from us? That's right, the band, Rilo Kiley. Pretty cool. They played the small stage at the theater which was very cool, though Erika was feeling a little short amongst all the giant Dutch people. We had a better view during the Modest Mouse show, although we don't know where they ate before the show. Here's a picture from the show:



This week Erika and a bunch of the girls from the office went to Rotterdam and caught the Gwen Stefani concert. (Rob was invited, but would only go if he could watch Gwen the way he does at home, with the mute on). It was a great show, but on a school night, so Erika was pretty wiped out the next day.

And finally, this weekend we're going to see The Decemberists. Rob's pretty excited about this as he missed them twice, in both Seattle and Portland. They're another Portland band, although, like 90% of the people in Portland, they're originally from Montana. (The other 10% of people in Portland are from California. It's a little known fact that nobody from Portland is really from Portland.) Anyway, when your favorite band's concert sells out in 30 seconds or if you get tired of paying crazy Ticketmaster fees, come visit us in Amsterdam and we'll go catch a show. Arcade Fire in November!

Update: The Decemberists' show was awesome. First show of their European tour and they were amped.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Your Wireless Internet is now connected...

And we're back. Today we received our modem and even though every last instruction was in Dutch, it was fairly idiot-proof and so Rob managed to get it all hooked up without much trauma. So, the days of poaching the neighbors' spotty (and usually secure) wireless are over and we are up and running and able to post and even call home now and again.

It's been a very busy and fast two weeks since we moved in. We've spent two consecutive Saturdays at IKEA and other various furniture stores and Rob has spent two consecutive Sundays putting everything together. The apartment now feels a lot more like our place, which is really great. We even met one of our neighbors, who travels a lot and is really nice, and really, really likes to listen to techno music when he's home.

We'll have several posts up soon to let you know what we've been up to. Hope everybody's doing well. Tot Ziens!

Sunday, September 2, 2007

"Kind of Blue"

Erika called and said she had a car and it, she thought, was "kind of blue." Naturally, Rob thought she must mean it's Navy Blue, or even manlier, Midnight Blue. No, it was this color, which Rob lacks the vocabulary for:


And it fits in your pocket! But, it's free, and so we're both thrilled to be driving the amazing Fiat Punto! That's Punto. With an 'o.' We took it for a test drive yesterday and managed to nearly kill only one biker. Not too bad. Finally, we'll put in a plug for our new friend, Tom-Tom. We can't imagine trying to get around without one. Nearly every street in the city is one-way, and with all the bikes and trams and intersections without signs or signals, driving is scary enough without trying to follow a map.