Parisgiving

Last week we went to Paris for Thanksgiving. Some of Hendrik’s friends from grad school are living in Paris for a year and they invited other friends from grad school so we all had a potluck Thanksgiving-UT Austin reunion there. We did a bit of sightseeing but mostly we just wandered around the city with friends and ate all of the delicious things (baguettes, cheese, macarons, croissants, other pastries, wine, etc.). 

The coolest touristy thing we got to do was listening to a pipe organ concert in the Notre Dame cathedral and the least cool thing was being targeted by pickpockets (but we escaped).

I think we will have to go back and see more, plus it means we can ride the high-speed Thalys train again (2 hours, 10 minutes from Liege to Paris).

A Lille Too Much Wine

It has been a rough two weeks since our last post. I must say that I haven’t felt like talking about that disaster of an election and the hate that has consumed our country (and apparently always been lurking there). I still don’t feel like talking about it so I’ll just skip ahead to the week after.

Despite my rather somber mood, I managed to have a pretty great 29th birthday. It was a busy work day but all of my coworkers managed to be nice to me without even knowing it was my birthday. I kept it a secret to avoid the obligatory cheek kisses which still totally freak me out. That evening we had delicious life-giving Thai food for dinner with Kristin and Zhiyi, who also had a birthday that week.

For the weekend we went to Lille, France with Mike, Meredith, Travis, and Jim for an independent wine festival where we tasted and purchased lots of wine and a little bit of cognac. We had a nice time although we continued our trend of finding mediocre French food and this time it even gave me food poisoning. I’m feeling much better now though, or at least my stomach is.

By the way, you can thank Hendrik for the “clever” title.

The most Dutch introduction

A few days ago, I had the most Dutch introduction imaginable while riding my bike home from work. A few days before, I had met a Dutch guy with a Brompton bicycle on the train and we had talked briefly. It turns out we have essentially the same commute so when he saw me riding to the train station, he pulled up next to me in the bike lane and said, “Hi, we talked the other day but we were not properly introduced. I’m Martin,” and he extended his hand across the bike lane. I shook his hand while riding parallel and introduced myself. Good thing he didn’t go for Dutch cheek kisses or I would have fallen off my bike.

Double Dutch Rainbow

Yesterday I saw probably 10 distinct rainbows (one or two at a time of course). We had a lot of fast-moving, highly concentrated rain storms blowing through, and my office has an unobstructed view:

They were a very pleasant distraction.

-Hendrik

November

The best month of the year. Also spelled November in Dutch. So far we are having a gorgeous Fall, rivaling the beauty of New England (I claim, never having been to New England during perhaps their most pretentious season). Here’s a photo of Hendrik and some trees to support my assertions.

He’s carrying bag of cookies from The Cookie Club, an American style bakery that makes the cookies in the elusive “chewy” style.