There's just something about being on the West Coast

The west coast of South Africa that is, although it has a very Portland-like feel. Erika has had the good fortune to get put on a project down in Cape Town, South Africa where she's been enjoying 70+ degree weather in the middle of Amsterdam's cold, wet winter. 

The first weekend of her adventure was filled with a little sight seeing where she checked out the Eastern Cape and the well known Jackass Penguins. Not exactly the type of animal Erika was expecting to see in South Africa that's for sure! 

The weekend was topped off with a Sunday concert in the Kirstenbosch gardens which made Erika feel right at home. The grassy concert hill was filled with families, groups of friends, lots of kids, and plenty of picnic baskets filled with good food and loads of wine. The amateurs in the park (that would be Erika and her two colleagues) did not manage to pack any sort of picnic and were subjected to packaged sandwiches and water only...no wine for sale on the premises. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it truly was a great time. Just think of the Portland Zoo concerts on a beautiful summer day and you'll have the right idea. 

The second weekend of her adventure entailed a Saturday wine tour in the Stellenbosch wine region. The group hired a driver for the day (very much advised), and hit up four different wineries for tastings and another one for a luxurious lunch on the patio, with wine of course. On Sunday, a local colleague opened up his home and invited the group over to his place for a braai (South African for BBQ).


Jack & Jan may recognize the third girl in...it's Katie who was kind enough to let her Amsterdam apartment be their home away from home when they visited the Netherlands.

All in all, Cape Town has been spectacular. It's full of diversity, beauty, genuine and down to earth people that have been wonderfully warm and hospitable. Rob's coming down in March and we hope to safari with some friends and maybe hit the beach (and maybe smuggle back a penquin... our lease says no dogs, but there's nothing in there about penquins...).

Connor shakes it for the camera

Just a warning for those of you with young kids: Rob teaches them stupid tricks. 

We kept waiting for the thing to pop...

Kirchberg

Our ski trip this year started out with an ominous sign: on the first day, Rob took his skis in to get them fitted to his new boots. The Austrian ski shop guy took one look at the bottom of Rob's skis, scarred from a previous run-in with some 'misplaced' rocks (who puts rocks on a mountain?) and announced, "These skis are only for the trash!" Luckily, one quick rental later and we were on our way.  

The skiing was fantastic and the runs were long and covered several different mountains. Rob quickly realized that he was severely outclassed by Kevin, but he tried his best to keep up (Erika, of course, has no trouble keeping up, as long as the run isn't too flat).

 

Of course, the second best thing about skiing in Austria is stopping for lunch and enjoying the hearty food and a beer. Here we are, squinting, at a lunch break.

And, the third best thing about skiing in Austria is that they had the wonderful foresight to put bars on the mountain. So, on the days when your legs are on fire and you start questioning your physical fitness, safety, and sanity, there's a nice place to stop and forget about it all:

It was a wonderful trip and we'll put up some more photos on the Flickr page. We're also trying to cut together some of the video we took, so look for that soon!

You say 'charming,' I say 'boring'

We just spent a fantastic week with our friends, Tanya, Kevin, and Connor skiing in Austria. Before we left, we showed Connor around Amsterdam. He was not impressed.

More pics and videos of our ski trip to follow! (Tanya and Kev- we hope you had a great flight. You did fly this time, right?)

It's (Amster)dam Cold Here!

After being back for Portland's coldest winter in 40 years, we came home to the rarely frozen Amsterdam. Every few years it gets cold enough here for the canals to freeze over and as soon as it does, the Dutch flock to the ice to skate. Here are some pictures Erika took in the park this weekend of our little Dutch Winter Wonderland.  

Goober-natorial?

Image courtesy of Rob's freaking parents.  

Happy New Year!

The new year finds us back in Amsterdam after a very relaxing two weeks in snowy Portland. We had a little bit of an adventure getting there, with an overnight delay/diversion in Minneapolis, but we were able to visit a couple of our friends while we were there, so it was actually pretty nice. Portland suffered through it's heaviest winter in 40 years, so that was fun. The area doesn't really have the need, practice or infrastructure to deal with snow and ice, so we spent most of the first week happily confined to Erika's mom's house eating and visiting.  

We spent the second week of our trip running around with wedding related errands, which was fun, exciting, and a little overwhelming (but mostly fun and exciting). We capped off our trip with a nice New Year's Eve party with some friends (Rob celebrated more than he should have and spent most of the next morning valiantly (and successfully) trying not to, um, revisit the previous night's festivities, especially since we stayed at a friend's house and while revisiting the previous night's festivities is unpleasant enough, it's a little rude to do it at someone else's house, especially when that someone else is sleeping in the next room and might be awakened by said revisiting).  

It's good to be back in Amsterdam and we're slowly getting past the jet lag.  We awoke this morning to a nice dusting of snow as Holland has been having a nice little winter, too.  We're looking forward to the coming year and are very happy to have some awesome visitors lined up for the rest of the winter and into the spring. And, there's always room for more if anyone else is up for it...

Hope everyone else had a great holiday and we wish you all a Happy New Year!