Snow and noodles

I woke up one morning to find snow on the ground!

A little bit anyway. It gets cold here! Also, I found some spicy ramen for Nancy. All is now well.

Comfort food.
-Hendrik

Blue skies

There’s something funny about the sky in this puzzle. It doesn’t seem to have a unique solution. Puzzle 2 of 5 completed.

Here’s Nancy on our afternoon walk through the city.

-Hendrik

Snow!

It snowed yesterday in Maastricht, but didn’t stick. Today the sky has completely cleared up, but it has also gotten way colder.

Nonetheless I’m enjoying my morning strolls through the city.
-Hendrik

Puzzles and Christmas

We had a wonderful evening of Christmas dinner and board games with some other expats in a nearby town. Then wet got down to the business of puzzling: we bought a five pack

And finished the first one pretty fast. Now we’re on number two:

I also went for a stroll this morning during what was supposed to be (but wasn’t) snow.

-Hendrik

Christmas Market in Maastricht

Nancy and I enjoyed the local Christmas market yesterday.  We had currywurst and several great desserts (churros, crepes, etc). We also rode a carousel.

Gemeente

We registered at the Gemeente Maastricht (town hall) yesterday. Now we are almost real people.

Hendrik is already assimilating into Dutch culture quite well and is nearly fluent in the language.  He has mastered the pronunciation of “dankjewel” (thank you) so well that a Dutch lady apologized to him for counting out his change in English!

– Nancy

Bags!

Poor Nancy was sick all day but is on the mend. Our bags arrived today – five heavy, heavy bags up 4 or 5 flights of stairs. Now to finish unpacking.
-Hendrik

Lots of firsts

We woke up in our Dutch apartment for the first time today (view out our bedroom window below). Our luggage is on its way from Amsterdam and it’s almost time for our first-ever grocery trip here.

-Hendrik

Hoijme sweeijt hijome

We made it to Maastricht and moved into our new temporary apartment. We had dinner with Juliana and David, two other Americans who live here. So far we really like the apartment although we have to climb a lot of stairs to get up here. Hopefully our lost luggage arrives tomorrow. When Hendrik called to ask about it they said something about Istanbul…
San Francisco -> Boston -> Reykjavik? -> ??? -> Istanbul -> ?????? -> Amsterdam? -> Maastricht??
Here is the apartment:

– Nancy

Immigration and banking in Amsterdam

We spent today and yesterday getting some basic things – banking and immigration stuff for Nancy – figured out here in Amsterdam. Here is Nancy in front of the Rijksmuseum on our way to immigration.

-Hendrik