Uncle Big Bob and Aunt Lu

This weekend brought a return to one of Rob's many "hometowns." We visited our friends, the Duffies, in Vilseck, Germany, where Rob lived for 4 years. It's a small Bavarian village surrounded by farms and forests. Erika got to see a little of where Rob was from and we got to eat at a few of Rob's favorite restaurants. We spent most of the weekend playing with Denali- Rob spent most of his time reading her books and flying her around the room, and so he didn't take many pictures. Here, Denali and her dad feed the ducks at the stream behind their house:

We also spent an afternoon in Nuremburg, a gorgeous medieval city that still has much of the original wall encircling the city center. We did a little shopping, walked through the market and followed an old city tradition of turning a brass ring in a fountain for luck:

The pics from Bruges that needed explaining

When we were in Bruges, we did a little shopping in a little arts and crafts store. Some of the stuff was cute, some of it was junk, and some of it was just odd. There were these hand-carved figurines of people in various professions, like dentists, fishermen, karate experts, etc. Our favorite was the butcher, although it's a little graphic, don't you think? (Also, one of us, ahem, thought he was some sort of psycho dog killer at first...)


Speaking of scary killers, we found this cool sculpture of the 1st Horseman of the Apocalypse:


Later, Erika bonded with another, more fabulous horse:


And, finally, there was this. Actually, we have no explanation for this.

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

As lovely as our apartment is, one thing it lacks is a garden. Erika's been missing her yard and her plants and while we've enjoyed some beautiful flowers, our only plant has been a sad little pot of basil. That all changed this week when we found the local nursery. It's one square mile of all things green- it's huge, like a Home Depot devoted to gardening. So, now our little basil plant is no longer alone, Erika gets a house full of beautiful plants, and Rob still doesn't have to mow. Everybody wins!

That's Heavy...

1.21 Jigga, what?!

Yes, Rob is a dork.

Other People's Boring Vacation Photos

Just a quick post to say that we updated the Flickr account with a few more photos from Bruges. Enjoy!

We Have Seen the Future and it is Red

Once, years ago, when Rob was in college, he teased a girl at a party about her pants, which seemed a little, well, short.

"They're called capris," she said with disgust, "and they're huge in Europe right now. Pretty soon you'll see them everywhere so you'd better get used to it."

Rob learned two valuable lessons that night. First, making fun of a girl's outfit is not good strategy. And second, you can't stop fashion, no matter how silly it might look. Sure enough, soon capris were everywhere, even on people with no business wearing them. Even on men.

With that second lesson in mind, men of America, I give you the latest European fashion trend, coming soon to a store near you:

Red Pants!

These things are everywhere and on men of all ages. We can't figure it out and we can't stop it- we already know one American here who bought a pair to be 'ironic.' And, of course, that's how it starts. One man's ironic red pants is another man's trendsetter. So, fellas, consider yourselves warned.

Beer, Beer, and More Beer

Wow, some of you just spent three days with Rob's parents, which is more than he can usually handle. (Just kidding, Rob's parents- we love you). But, while the rest of you were wondering what Rob was doing in that awesome blue suit, we took a little trip to Bruges, Belgium.

Bruges is mostly famous for being famous- it's always full of tourists. But it's still worth a visit as it's a very charming medieval city with a grand church and a beautiful bell tower that Never. Stops. Ringing. No, it's nice. Although, at one point the church decided to ring, too, and went off for about 30 minutes as we sat next to it, eating lunch... This is the bell tower:


More importantly, though, is the beer. Belgium has more brands of beer (over 600) than any other country and the beer is very flavorful and higher in alcohol content. We took a good shot at trying as much as we could, even touring the local brewery and enjoying a sample. Please note the delicate placement of the pinky finger:



In between beers, we wondered through the city and enjoyed another weekend of spectacular weather. The city has a few canals running through it that offer some stunning views of the neo-gothic buildings. Bruges is said to be 'more Gothic than Gothic,' but we didn't see a whole lot of kids dressed in all black. Well, there was the one lady, but she may have been a nun. A view:


Finally, a trip to Bruges wouldn't be complete without a giant bowl of mussels (polished off with more beer, of course):


Bruges was a beautiful city and we're looking forward to heading back there with some of our visitors. Notice how we always end these posts with plugs for visitors?

Happy Anniversary!

On this day in 1975, these two crazy kids got hitched. They've hung in there all this time, and even managed to raise three great kids, although one of those kids seems to think that posting an old picture of them on his blog constitutes a 'gift.' Not sure about that kid, but let's hope the other two turned out okay.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Booyah!

Rob biked by this store again today. It's always been one of our favorite store names in town:

Our Friend, Flickr

You'll notice a new feature on the right that directs you to our Flickr account. Flickr, for those of you "of a certain age," is an online photography album where you can store photos, either privately or publicly. You only get a 100 MB per month free and with Rob's new camera (and Rob's trigger-happy camera use) we're not sure how far that will go. But, until we figure out something better (or decide to pay for more space), enjoy our test run of some more pictures from our trip to Paris.

Baby Yoga?

One of the places we shop is a little organic grocery. Everything in the store is all-natural or chemical-free or organic. Except this creepy dolphin/baby fetus. I don't think that's natural.

Our First Visitor!

A big part of the reason the transition has been so smooth so far is that our friend, John, works in Amsterdam for another firm and our friends, Aaron and Sara, moved here with the firm just after we did. So, we've had a small piece of home here already. But this last weekend we had our first official visitor. Michelle had some work in Brussels last week, but then she met up with us in Paris and afterwards spent a few days with us at home. We had a great time in Paris, and since Rob is a jobless bum, he was able to show her around Amsterdam a bit. It was great to have a visitor and Michelle has set the bar for the rest of you very, very high: she cooked us dinner last night! Here are a couple of pictures of the girls mugging for the camera and our first attempt at a little video. The video's not very long (or interesting) but you can see the amazing weather we had. The tree just behind Erika is shielding the base of the Eiffel Tower:

Savoir Faire Is Everywhere!

Update: YouTube had to take down the video we linked to. Here's another one with just the song and no cartoons. Listen to it and then see if you can go all day without singing it.

Rob doesn't know any French, other than what he gleaned from a lifetime of watching cartoons. Hence, he spent the entire weekend in Paris quietly muttering lines from Underdog and humming this song from The Little Mermaid. Isn't he so worldly and refined?


Our weekend in Paris was wonderful. We took the fast train from Amsterdam- well, it's called the fast train because it can hit speeds of over 200 kmph, but it doesn't really reach those speeds until you leave Brussels three hours later, so really, it should be called the same-as-every-other-train-until-you-get-to-Brussels Train, but still. It rained Friday night, but we managed to have a plate of cheese and some drinks at a nice café near the Louvre and dinner at some fancy-schmancy (or was it hoity-toity?) restaurant that is famous for being cool and having appeared in some TV show that Rob doesn't watch and therefore must not exist (Erika says it was in Sex and the City). But, it was in a great location, and though this isn't the greatest photo, you can see that it is on the roof of a building overlooking the Seine:


On Saturday we enjoyed a walk through the park and headed to the Sainte-Chapelle, which is famous for it's vast columns of stained glass that tell the story of the Bible from Genesis to the Crucifixion. It was gorgeous:


Then, we took a walking tour of Montmartre and the Sacré Coeur, only the walking tour was in Dutch (the trip was sponsored in part by Erika's Dutch firm), so we ditched it with some other Americans and made up our own tour, which of course was centered around crepes and beer.


Finally, on Sunday, we rented City Bikes and pedaled along the Seine, down the Champs Elysées, over to the Eiffel Tour and back again. While the Metro system in Paris is fantastic, biking was an amazing way to see the city. We had wonderful weather and it was a great first trip out of the city. And, it's only a "fast" train away from here, for any of you potential visitors out there...