Friday 3/31/06

I am so bummed over this computer thing! It won't let me post pictures! In case you haven't noticed I really like to post pictures. I think I have just wore it out... I don't know, Mark said he would look at it when he comes home tonite.

So far he hasn't had to work very late but he keeps warning me its coming. That bums me out! I knew I would have some time alone over here and it's kind of cool but I just really like him around! Oh well, our time will come in a few weeks. Its better now (when he does start working late) because we had the whole 'spring forward' thing last weekend so it's light until around 8 - 8:30pm. This house creaks alot and I think dark would freak me out a bit. You know the front door doesn't have a peep hole!!! How do you know who you're opening the door too??? Trusting Dutch...

I wish I could record sound and post it. I don't know if anyone has been paying attention to the weather sticker on the top of the blog but the wind around here has been horrendous for the past week. It's blowing at 25mph now. And that's not 100% accurate because I'm closer to the coast than Rotterdam. But anyways, the wind blows and hits this house and it sounds like the roof is going to come off sometimes!! It took me about 2 days to get use to it, it wakes me up out of a dead sleep sometimes! Wild!

Well the weather (besides the wind) has finally turned pretty again. It's been rainy and overcast for about 3 days and today the sun is finally out with hardly a cloud in the sky!! The plants are finally starting to bud, can't wait until they are in full bloom, about a week they say. Should be nice!

I have really got to quit fighting this blog and start organizing our weekend and start planning our vacation! I still have to figure out for sure where we are going and reserve seats on the train and find some hotels. I think we have talked ourselves out of Prague. We here its gorgeous and pretty cheap but that was a last minute add and there are other places we really want to spend some time in. Plus right now it's fix'n to flood due to all the rain they are getting and the snow melt. Tomorrow we are going to Brielle to watch there annual April 1st reenactment of them kicking the German or Spanish out of their port. If you are interested in checking it out you can pull up this page: http://www.brielle.nl/index.php?mediumid=3
The English version isn't as informative but I didn't figure any of ya'll spoke Dutch! :)
Can't wait to post more pictures! Have a good day!

Jennifer

Computer difficulties

sorry I haven't posted anything much lately. I am having some computer difficulties which are hendering my ability to post efficiently. I will work on the problem and get back to you soon. Thanks for haning in there!!

Jen

i give up

This is the third time I have tried to do this and every time I attempt to add pictures I loose my text... It was very cute and witty, now it is reduced to just a post - I don't have it in me to be witty again right now... aaaaaggghhh!

Last Thursday we were invited to a Squash Match between our neighboring Enlishman and a Dutchman they work with. It is a pretty physical and competitive sport. We enjoyed watching it. There was a bar in the sports complex and we enjoyed some fine brews! Here are a few shots of the game:


hmmm... okay I have attempted to add pictures about 5 times!! I don't know what the problem is, I can't seem to post just a few shots. :( this is becoming very frustrating! This whole post is going to hell - that must be what took me so long to write it. Well it was a very enjoyable night and I look forward to seeing another match in the future. If you are interested the pictures are located on my photo site. I'll work on a different post. Have a good day!

We went to Amsterdam!! (3/25/06)

We went to Amsterdam today!

I drove!

Well I drove us to the Amsterdam stadium where we parked and took the train into town. That was weird! It traveled above ground and then also below. The station at the stadium is underconstruction so it was pretty confusing (+ everything is in freak'n Dutch) but we managed after asking one of the lovely citizens of Amsterdam. Thank god they all seem to speak at least a little english. Actually central station was also underconstruction, at least on the outside, I think the inside is just a dingy, dirty subway/train stop. I wasn't impressed with the city train. But I didn't expect to be either, I guess that's fair.


The architecture was amazing from the second you step out of the train station! Unbelievable!! Its amazing people live and work in a place like that! We only spent I think 6 hours or so in the city just wondering around. We just wanted to have an idea of what to expect before we go with Jason and Ashley. It's weird because it is the prettiest/dirtiest city ever.




We walked down the main street and stopped and got a bite to eat and snapped pictures. The road opened up to this 'square' that had a beautiful monument of some kind. Couldn't read a lick of it, but it was very striking. There were people and bikes and cars and trollies everywhere. Its amazing we didn't get run over. You would be walking down this LITTLE cobble stone path along a canal and all of the sudden a car would appear in front or behind you and you would swear he had lost his way!! Nope, we just happened to be walking in the road! Anyone who has ever thought the people that drive in Las Vegas were nuts... man, they don't hold a candle to the Amsterdam folk. You have trollies down the middle of the road, you can't tell where they are going or when they're coming. Then you have cars zooming everywhere, you can't tell which side of the road is which and then people on bikes driving around taking them all on! We saw a few near misses!!




Here I am being a tourist! Just trying to get back to my roots! Mark wouldn't sit in the shoe! I don't know why?



This is my love at on of the canal bridges. It really is a beautiful place. I can't wait to go back and spend a little more time there. We are going to see the Anne Franke House and hopefully a museum or two and the zoo of course! There is so much to see and do there it will be hard to pick what to do.



For more photos of todays trip check out this link:

Rotterdam Zoo 3/26/06

Today we went to the zoo!! But first I made breakfast! This is my plate but this is typically what we eat in the mornings! The eggs are from 'free range chickens' (supposedly) and they are yummy!! The toast is something we got from the clubhouse up here - I don't know what kind it is, some kind of multigrain - it too is very good!



Here is Mark relaxing in our living room waiting for me to quit screwing around. (I'm still running around in my pj's)



Us, at the zoo!!

If you want to see more pictures of our adventures you can view them here.

It's a pretty good Zoo! Expensive though, 15.50Euro each! But it was really clean and well laid out - I don't think we actually made it through the whole thing. We were pretty tired from Amsterdam on Saturday (that is my next post). They had Giraffes, Otters, penguins and quite a few Gorillas... it was a GOOD zoo!

Hi all

Hello everyone. I just wanted to let everyone know how my work is going. The plant is very nice and unbelievably clean. The Dutch definitely get high marks for their friendliness. I don't think I've met one person yet that hasn't been happy and helpful. The plant is starting the maintenance portion of the T/A on Monday so that's when the real work begins. It's not nearly as big as the ones I'm used to but there's also less people and MUCH less hours so we'll see how it goes. I'm really glad that everyone is participating in this blog, I was a little skeptical at first. Anyway, we've got to go. We're heading to Amsterdam this morning since it's right down the road and all....

Later,
MG

03/23/06

The days here have been unbelievably beautiful!!! The mornings and night are pretty cold, hoovering around freezing, but the days have been unspeakable! It must have been close to 50deg.F and hardly a cloud in the sky! Everyday has been has been better than the day before... The wind will blow and it is chilly but not uncomfortable. It was so pretty this is all I did all day -







You might laugh at me and think I'm a geek but whatever... who's sitting on their ass in Europe?!?! :)

this is the new link to my photos:web.mac.com/jakulin/iWeb/Photos/Welcome!.html The old link went bad.

3/22/06

Just some nice pictures

Mark off to work

These are from Wednesday (22nd). We had a pretty cold evening and when Mark went to leave for work he had frost on his car! I was camera happy this morning...

Our ducks (I haven't named them yet)


Me feeding our ducks. They are at our door every morning and numerous times throughout the afternoon.


Mark and his frosty car




It was a really beautiful morning!

Groceries

I walked up to the front desk yesterday and bought a few groceries!! They have a little convient store that is only opened for 3hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening. I was bored and wanted "something" so I took a journey and came home with this:



All that for 5.50Euro! I got screwed!
The Diet Coke taste the same - it was the 1st one I've had in probably more that a week. The cracker looking things I thought were graham crackers... No, they are wheat. Good, but I was looking for a bit of sweet... oh well! I haven't tried the soup yet, maybe tomorrow.

I have pictures

Okay I have finally figured out (I think) how to upload my pictures to my .mac site and link it back here. Bare with me - I'm getting reaquainted with the computer world. I don't typically experiment on this thing much anymore, Mark does it all. But, I'm here in Europe and, as I understand it, have a duty to rest of the world to document my travels and experiences! So, I'm commited and ready! I'll probably end up boring the life out of most of you but... My mothers will appreciate the info I'm sure!

Let me start by inserting this link to my picture page: photos
If there are any problems navigating please let me know so I can fix it. I'll continually add to it and when I do I'll attach the link to the most current post.
The first two pages show our journey from the airport to our villa and our toliet. Yes, toilet, I never thought I would be taking pictures of a toilet but Mark insisted it would be interesting to all. You decide! I am about to upload the pictures of the house too so stay tuned!

PS: Shelly, I can see all the little options now at the top of my post screen. I have to go through virtual pc - I guess all the features aren't compatable with mac. :(

WE MADE IT!!

We are officially abroad!!



The flight wasn't too bad, I'm really surprised. I was pretty anxious right before we took off and for about the 1st 15 minutes or so and then I leveled out. Mark's version wouldn't be so nice... He wasn't able to get any sleep and was having bouts with RLS and because we had moderate turbulence the entire trip, the pilot never turned off the 'fasten seatbelt light', so he could never get up and walk it off. I feel terrible for him but he was a trooper and made it until about 9pm here. The sunrise on the plane was beautiful and we opened the shade for a moment as we crossed over Ireland! We saw a little green through the clouds! It still hasn't really hit me I don't think - I'm kind of slow that way.

The airport was nice but didn't get to explore much (there is supposedly a full museum inside). We were too busy trying to find the Englishman we were meeting, Danny, who will be working with Mark. That was its own small adventure; find a man that you have never laid eyes on, have no physical description of, in a foreign country, in an airport neither party has ever been too, with no working cell phones (on our side). We found Hollands answer to the pay phone, a very odd looking contraption that does, fortunately, take credit cards. I haven't looked yet to find out how much we were charged for the 30second call... I'll try to remember to look soon. Grabbed a quick bite and went to rent a car.
Car rentals are expensive! Over 1000euros for the month. Mark and Danny will be carpooling to work, much to Danny's delight, he is from the UK and they drive on the wrong side of the car and road. He was more than happy to grab the map and work on the logistics of how to get us 'home' while Mark takes the wheel.





They did a fabulous job!! The drive was suppose to take us an hour and we did it in 2h 20m! Not too shabby for being in a different county! I sat in the back seat and snapped pictures mostly, occasionally I would add my two cents but mostly left it all to them. We finally experienced the 'turnabout' and got turned around but did finally figure it out, right after we got turned around and played 'chicken' with a delivery truck! Don't worry, it all came out okay.


This is our house, Danny lives next door.


Our house is pretty cool! Big for just us and cold at night, I can't figure out how to work the heater! We are staying in a vacation community. Its a small neighborhood full of detached cottages, duplexes and condo-type housing. I think that some of the homes have permanent residents by the looks of it. We sit on the edge of a little water inlet that is home to some ducks and a lot of seagulls (the beach of the North Sea is very close). The facility has a community center with a small market/shop thing and a restaurant/bar on premise with excellent food and surpassingly tasty Heiniken on tap. I've never been a fan of that particular brand but had no complaints last night. The house we are staying in is fully furnished with dishes but obviously no food and you can't just hop in your car and drive to Walmart or Krogers to get groceries. We thankfully, found out last night at dinner that we can order breakfast and take it home with us that night since the place wouldn't be open as early as we would be getting up. We blindly placed our order after we heard oj and milk. I got up with Mark this morning at 5:30am to fix him some breakfast... he let me take off my job for 2 months and brought me to Europe, the least I can do is fix the man breakfast before he goes to work in the morning. :) Anyways, breakfast was a loaf of really good multigrain bread, some super thin sliced peppered ham and some other unidentified meat and some cheese, jam, peanut butter, butter, milk and oj... a little different but not bad. Mark ended up breaking out a skillet and heating up the ham... it is just smoked I thing so it seems kindof raw... its the same ham that wine tasters are into... Dad, can you help me out? Do you know what I'm talking about? I can't remember what it's called... oh well. It was pretty good though, oh, and we got a pear, that was yummy.


And that is Holland so far. I haven't ventured far today, I walked up to the main office to buy the wireless internet access and I unpacked. Now I'm just waiting for my love to come home. I don't know what time he gets off and he can't call me because we don't have our cell phones set up yet. We have a phone here that we can receive calls on but I haven't actually seen it yet... (I'm sure its on a table upstairs where) and I don't think he knows the number anyways. oh well, I know he'll come home to me! I'll just sit here and wait. :)

Let me see if I can't get some pictures attached and call it good for today! Thanks for checking in and talking to me, come back soon!!

Jen

if your are interested this is where we are staying: here

'the hook'

Since I have so much interest/visitors I figured I had better give an update to avoid loosing any viewers. This post is what we are going to call 'the hook', you know, like they do in TVland...

We are at 6 days to lift off! :) We are crazy excited!! We have spent the last two weeks trying to tie up loose ends at home but our jobs rudely got in the way. He got pushed to 13 hour nites and I have been working 7-12s! Its been crazy to say the least. This past weekend was the 1st time we had a chance to breathe away from work and see eachother for that mater. We are steadily working on getting our house in order and spending as much time with our babies as possible until we go.





These lovely creatures are going to be cared for by our pet sitter, Patty. She'll be by everyday to walk them and feed them. Our brother will be by once a week to spend the afternoon with them and my Dad will come by once a week or so to check on them as well. They should be fine - although I don't know how well I will be... I had Mark install a video survellence so we can keep our eye on them too! That's what we worked on this weekend. That should be up and running soon!

So, we fly out on Sunday evening and will arrive Monday in Amsterdam! Once we get there and settle in a day or two I'm going to be all over this blogging thing. We'll be exploring the Netherlands and Belgium on the weekends until he gets off work.We will be there for about 5 weeks while that fabulous husband of mine has to work some but then we are off to explore greater Europe. We are going everywhere... Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Switerland and then flying out of France. I'm sure we are fitting more into our 2 weeks than we should but that is a chance I'm willing to take. You only live once I hear... we'll see... can't take any chance right now though.
The pictures should be amazing if we can avoid getting our equipment stolen. That is proving to be my biggest fear, being robbed. :| that would SUCK!!

I can't wait to see it ALL!

FAQs:
*We leave Sunday, March 19th
*The flight over is about 9.5 hours (we will be slightly druged and hope to sleep the whole way). Its an overnight flight so I'm hoping that will help with the jetlag.
*Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead of Texas (Central Standard Time). I don't know how the daylight saving thing will affect anything.
*We will have a car and they supposedly drive on our side of the road - no major change there
*We are staying in a 3 room villa within walking distance of the North Sea!!
*When we start our travels we will mostly use the Eurorail - that should be fun
*We return home out of Paris on May 9th - it will be about 10.5 hours home

OH! I have to get back to work! thanks for stopping - I'll be checking in soon!!

Jen