While in Hood River, Nancy and family stayed in the historic Columbia Gorge Hotel, built in 1921. The hotel and its grounds rest on a cliff overlooking the Columbia River and include a 200 ft waterfall. Nancy and Amy had a lovely time breakfasting in the fancy dining room and pretending to be 1920s heiresses, although the more likely story is that the staff unwittingly let a couple of flappers into the hotel.
Inside:
Outside:
At a burger joint in Portland, enjoying local beer, I had the opportunity to swap my beef patty for a vegan, gluten free hemp seed veggie burger. I declined. But it reminds me of home: I can’t imagine finding this in a Dutch restaurant.
-Hendrik
Guest blog entry by Amy:
Look, children, at the evils of alcohol.
Just two hours ago Nancy was a successful PhD scientist and after just one sip of lager, she’s a bum sleeping on the bench outside Full Sail Brewery, waiting for her next fix.
We have been spending our American Christmas holiday in Portland, OR with Hendrik’s parents. Nancy’s family drove out from Idaho to join us. Yesterday Nancy and her family drove out to the Columbia River Gorge for a mini-holiday. They have been having a grand old time exploring the gorge. Here is a brief summary of their sightings so far:
Waterfalls: 31
Bald Eagles: 2
Polar Express Trains: 1
Revisiting Multnomah Falls after 14 years!
Riding the Polar Express to the North Pole!
From Rosie the Riveter:
-Hendrik
Sometimes it is hard to remember how far north we live because it doesn’t get very cold here, but on the winter solstice it becomes quite obvious. We are at 50.85°N, almost 2°above the US-Canadian border, and tomorrow, on the shortest day of the year we are three minutes shy of exactly eight hours of sunlight (8:36 to 16:33). That means I have been commuting to and from work in the dark for quite some time now. (Except for this last week before Christmas where I decided to show up late so I could see sunlight at least once per day.)
The darkness is a little rough on the psyche, but here are the things that make it doable:
1) Vitamin D supplements
2) Well-marked bike lanes and dynamo bike lights
3) An office building with glass walls and ceiling
4) Knowing that when we come back from the US, the days will be getting longer again.
This weekend was filled with visits to German-style Christmas Markets. Yesterday we went to the local Maastricht Christmas Market with Zhiyi and Kristin (two expats) and today we went to the Cologne with Mike and Meredith (two other expats). To my surprise, Cologne actually had multiple Christmas Markets. We attempted to visit three, but while walking around we managed to visit five or six. Thus the title “Christmas Markets” (plural).
We had lots of Glühwein, fried food, bratwurst, and candied nuts. We also bought some cute Christmas decorations and saw Hendrik’s cousin Sophie.
Next up: American Christmas!
I have realized that you can tell a lot about a language and culture by what is deemed important enough to go in a first year language textbook.
During my first year studying German, I learned how to say “excuse me (entschuldigung)”and “I’m sorry (tut mir leid).” After one year of learning Dutch I know how to say neither of those things but I do know how to say “it is my turn (ik ben aan de beurt)” and two ways to say “go away (rot op/flikker op)” in decreasing order of politeness. I think this is a perfect example of why I find it difficult to integrate into the culture here.
It is exactly one year today that we moved to the Netherlands. The year has certainly had its ups and downs but we made it! And now we only have one more week until we visit the grand old (but not so old by comparison) USA!
Here is a quick summary of what we have been up to:
We have spent a year learning Dutch.
Mijn Nederlands is niet zo goed. We are taking lessons again next year although I am convinced I’ll never be close to fluent and it is pretty much the most useless language to know if we ever move anywhere else. Hopefully those studies about learning multiple languages being good for your brain are true so it isn’t a total waste.
I have traveled to 8 countries this year!
Nine if you count the airport in Iceland where they stamped my passport with what is probably the coolest EU stamp name ( Reykjavíkurflugvöllur).
I started a new job.
As a research scientist at a materials company. I get to do cool science stuff most of the day every day! Sometimes I go on business trips too, which is a weird grown-up thing to do and I’m not used to it yet. Hopefully as long as I wear a suit, no one can tell that I want to run back to my lab and hide behind a spectrometer.
We are becoming Maastrichters.
We now feel at home in our little town of Maastricht. To give you a feel, one American compared living in Limburg in Maastricht to being like living in Louisiana but being in New Orleans. The comparison is particularly apt during Carnival/Mardi Gras.
Are we becoming Dutch?
The final question is: have we picked up the Dutch directness (it as I tend to think of it, inexcusable rudeness)? Perhaps our families will be able to tell us after we visit.
-Nancy
Two of our dear American expat friends are transferring back to the US and we are going to miss them! They rescued us from drowning in the canals in Amsterdam when we first arrived, fed us Christmas dinner when we were all alone in a new country, and showed me how to go to the doctor when I got sick before getting insurance. Today we visited them in the village of Susteren (pictured below) for their going away party. They made BBQ pizzas and pulled pork, which was of course delicious. We hope they have a good time adjusting back to living in America!
Their neighborhood in Susteren (or Züstere in the local dialect).
EisenOrem Adventures 