Jelelelelele! Ajax, Amsterdam!

That is the most prominent chant for the local soccer team (of course we thought it had, you know, words in it, but these are soccer fans we're talking about). Rob went in for season tickets with some friends and we took advantage of a rainy Sunday afternoon to catch the most recent match. The home team won handily, 2-0, and the team is having a pretty good year so far- the team always seems to do 'pretty good.'  They're not the Yankees or the Red Sox, but more like the Cardinals- an old team with a great history and every once in a while they'll take the championship from the better clubs in the country. Just look at all the banners:

 

Rob's still learning the ins and outs of Ajax fandom, but most of the fun is just going to the game.  We 'enjoyed' some lovely stadium food, including a noble, but failed Dutch attempt at a hamburger, and were thrilled to find the belgian waffle stand as we filed out toward the train station after the game.  

The nice thing about a soccer match is that it's 90 minutes of play with about a 10 minute halftime, so we can get there and back in just over two hours (as opposed to a baseball or football game which approach four hours).  Of course, soccer being soccer, that doesn't always mean it's an exciting two hours. Erika said she had a good time, but judge this picture for yourself:  

Wedding Planning, by Donald Rumsfeld

As we start to make plans we've discovered that "we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Thankfully, one thing we know we know is what our song will be. Vicki, start learning the words...

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Ah, Paris!

A few weeks before we moved to Amsterdam, we had dinner in Portland with two other soon-to-be-expat couples, Sara & Aaron and Chris & Casie.  Like us, Sara & Aaron moved to Amsterdam, while Chris & Casie have been enjoying life in London.  Anyway, at that dinner in Portland we had many bottles of wine and decided that we should all meet again for dinner a year later in Paris to celebrate a year abroad... and so we did.  

The weekend weather was incredible and we took advantage of it by mostly staying outdoors. We headed back to Montmartre to find some art and we were happily surprised to find a food and wine festival taking place.  It was a gorgeous day spent sipping wine and tasting various honey, sausage and cheese. After a while, we decided to take in a little art and headed to the Musée Rodin, where we walked through the sculpture garden and Erika took the briefest of naps before we were shooed out at closing time.  Here's Rodin's The Thinker and a stalkerific shot of Erika (taking stalker candid photos of Erika is one of Rob's new hobbies with the new camera. He would have put up more to prove it, but Erika's eating a sandwich in most of them -the same sandwich-Erika doesn't go all around Paris eating sandwiches- and pictures of someone eating aren't always very flattering, or so he's been told).

On Saturday night we had an amazing dinner in a small French restaurant just off of Pont Neuf and then went out for a few more drinks.  

On Sunday we remained outdoors on a nice bike tour of the city, including lunch in the Jardin des Tuileries (the garden in front of the Louvre).  

It was an absolutely lovely weekend (even carpooling with a 10 month old wasn't too bad) and a very cool way to celebrate our first year in Amsterdam.

On the Boat with Jason

Erika's cousin, Jason, was in town last weekend for a quick visit before heading off to Denmark on a business trip. Rob and Jason toured the inside of several local cafés and the two cousins later took in an exhibit at the Van Gogh museum. After one failed attempt at a canal tour- it started raining buckets as we left the house- we were able to bundle up for a brisk evening boat ride. We even managed to bring a thermos of hot chocolate.  

For some reason, the canal that runs through the red-light district was overrun with swans, so we played 'chicken' (or is it 'swan') as we made our way through town.

Crete

Our trip to Crete was wonderful, even before we got engaged.  While it was great to be home in August, it proved to be one of those "vacations" where you get home more tired than you left, and so the point of the trip to Crete was to sit on the beach, read a few books, and to generally just relax. Of course, an hour after we arrived on the island it started to rain (for the first time in six months), so we were a bit nervous that we'd waited too long to get in one more week of summer. However, the bad weather blew over as we napped the next day and we were able to get plenty of time on the beach.  

In the interest of keeping it a stress-free, relaxing trip, we spent most days by the beach and only took one day trip, to the island of Spinalónga, in East Crete. Spinalónga is a small, impenetrable island that served as a Venetian fort in the 16th century, but is more recently famous for having been home to the last leper colony in Europe. Fun!

Our trip included a tour of the island, swimming on a remote beach, and a greek barbecue and while the swimming, the barbecue, and the views were great, we wouldn't recommend the trip. There are other, better sights to see in Crete, but we weren't really interested in getting up at 5 to catch a 3 hour bus ride- at least not for this trip.  Still, Crete is home to the caves where Zeus was born and who could forget the Minotaur?!  Maybe next time.  

The sun and the ocean were amazing, but we were just as happy with the food. Greek food is so good! And, since they have a lot of German tourists in this town, everybody served German beer. (In fact the town seemed to cater strictly to Dutch, Germans, and Brits. Every one we met was surprised to find out that we were American.) So, we ate a ton of food, which is sort of the opposite of what you want to do when you're spending all day in a bathing suit. We ate at many different places in town, but we found that the consistently best food was at the restaurant run by the people who also ran our apartment. Here's a shot of a typical starter, stuffed vine leaves and some baked feta. Sooo good! 

And then, of course, we got engaged, which is all well and good, but was really just Rob's insecure way of keeping Erika from running away with our waiter and host, George, who constantly plied her with booze and Greek food in an effort to drive a wedge between us. 

All in all a fantastic vacation and a wonderful trip.  If you ever go to Crete, here are a couple things you should know: 1.  The water is heated by the sun, while sitting in tanks on the roof.  So, hot showers in the afternoon or evening, but not the first morning you wake up.  2. The beaches are topless (or, at least, top-optional) but the people who choose to go topless are never the people you'd choose to go topless.  And finally, while you can't smoke on the plane, you can smoke in the airport (everywhere), which was probably the most foreign thing about the whole trip.  It was like going back in time or being on Mad Men....

She Said Yes!

We spent last week in beautiful Crete, trying to squeeze in one more week of summer, and while we were there, Rob surprised Erika with a proposal.  And she said yes. We'll put up more pics of our trip soon, but here's a shot we managed to grab with our first ever use of our camera's timer. Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes!