Getting Ready to Rumble

These next few months… and years are about to get intense.

Starting in August, I’m going to be entering back into the world of Student-dom. First, I will be taking a twenty hour/five day intense Dutch course. I’m hoping that it will really help me with my speaking and grammar so that I can consistently and effectively communicate with family, friends and colleagues in Dutch. I’m really looking forward to these courses and can’t wait to see the outcome. I’m really hopeful because I already understand so much. Being able to form sentences and speak and express myself is just the next exciting step of living here… plus it is about time anyways. It’s so frustrating wanting to be able to communicate and not being sure how to put together sentences even though I know the words, or when I go to put sentences together, my mouth forgets what it’s doing and a whole jumble of awkward sounds come out. Super embarrassing.

At the end of August, I will be embarking on my part time education journey with the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA for short) (aka the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) in an International Business and Management course. The program is four years long. I’m really open to the opportunities it will open up for me both in the work I’m doing now and for perspective things in the future. It will also be so so so nice to finally have a degree. Classes for this will be twice a week for 3.25 hours a class.

Job is also embarking on a part time educational journey in the IT field. He is also doing his education with HvA and will have classes two nights a week.

Although we are both very excited, it’s also a bit of a bummer because we don’t have classes on any of the same days, which means we will probably only see each other three times a week. But it’s nothing we can’t adjust to or handle! To say we’re not used to it would be a lie as we spent almost a year and a half living on different continents. It will definitely be a big adjustment though, as now we’ve lived together for over a year and a half.

Needless to say, we are definitely going to be doubling down and prepping for school in the next coming month.

Wish us luck!

Eggs in a Nest: A Paleo Adventure

Job and I have been working on eating healthier and adding some more produce to our meals.  We’ve also been trying to make cheap food that is tasty and we can bring for lunch a few times a week/ is super fast to make.

Enter our friends Laurent and Buster who have been sporting a super healthy eating and living style.  One day while I was on lunch break, Laurent happened to have lunch at the same time as me.  He pulled out something that smelled so good! I asked him what he had there, and he proceeded to enlighten me about Eggs in a Nest.

Now if you google search Eggs in a Nest, you get a trillion recipes, but this one is different. Laurent sent me the recipe that he found on this awesome Dutch Paleo blog. (If you can read/speak Dutch, you’ll feel right at home checking out the website. If not, keep reading because I’ll teach you how to do it.)

Ingredients: (Serves 2)

• 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil
• 1 Onion (her recipe says in slices.  I prefer to dice mine)
• 200 g (7 oz) of (beef) Sausage in rounds (slices?)
• 300 g (10.5 oz) of Brussel Sprouts quartered (she likes hers sliced in half)
• 100 g (3.5 oz) Kale (cut up) (In the Netherlands, the kale comes pre-cut to the perfect shape/size)
• 4 eggs
• Pepper
• Salt
• Garlic Powder (I use a garlic grinder…)
• Chili flakes if you like a kick
• Large frying pan
• Lid
• 1/2 cup of water

I like to cut up everything first, but if you’re not a prepping kind of person, throw that tablespoon of coconut oil in a hot pan.

Let it liquify and make sure to swirl the oil to coat the bottom/sides of the pan.

Add the chopped onions and let them get a nice color to them.

Once the onions have a little bit of a brown to them, throw in that sausage.Here I like to add my first round of spices. Some salt, pepper, ground garlic and chili flakes.

Stir the sausage and make sure it gets nice and browned on all sides.

Add in the brussel sprouts.

Cooke them until they’re a nice bright green. This takes a few minutes. I usually add a bit more pepper here. (I LOVE PEPPER!!!)

Time for the kale.  Add the kale.

It may feel like your pan is totally overflowing.  That’s okay.  Add in about a half cup of water to create a nice steaming effect and put a lid on your pan. This will help the kale to compress a bit into the pan making it easier to stir in the next step.

Let it sit for maybe a minute until the kale kind of cooks a bit and turns brighter green.

Remove the lid, stir everything again so it’s all mixed, and make it nice and even throughout the pan.

Crack the four eggs (one at a time) over the bed of kale, brussel sprouts and sausage.

Replace the lid again.  Let it sit for 3-5 minutes.

The eggs will cook and turn a creamy white/opaque color.

You can add some more spices on your eggs while they cook if you want to (obviously I did).  If you like runny eggs, cook them closer to three minutes.  If you like more solid eggs, cook them closer to five minutes.

I really enjoy scrambling the eggs through the dish at around the four minute mark and then take the pan off the heat.

Serve yourself a nice bowl full and enjoy a healthy and hearty meal!

(I cooked everything on a high heat… but you can do the last steps on a lower heat)

Foods…

The night before last, as I sat on our balcony staring at the sunset while swirling my wine, the first thing…well the first person… that popped into my mind was my sister; mainly because I was swirling my wine, and well, my sister is living in Italy… and she likes wine, so I texted her just to check up on things.

We got to talking and we landed where we land a lot.. talking about food.  This time, it was food we missed.  We talked about what Job and I made for dinner and how she was jealous…and then a small story about peanut butter… but really her list of things she missed was just glorious.

So really, here is just my list from notes of foods that I miss… to be clear, originally I was going to make a post of just foods I missed and then restaurants that I missed, but at this point, I’ll just let you see the list I have.

Most missed American foods

• Maple syrup (Vermont)
• Cabot’s Seriously sharp cheddar cheese
• Chobani/oikos
• Annies Mac & cheese
• Kraft Mac & cheese
• Mint chocolate chip ice cream
• Skittles (All of the fun flavors!)
• Sour patch watermelons
• Sabra roasted pine nut hummus
• Dunkin donuts caramel swirl iced latte
• Dunkin donuts turkey cheddar bacon on a French roll
• Maple & brown sugar Quaker oat instant oatmeal
• Moms cooking!!!
• Chipotle, Specifically a burrito bowl with chips and guac
• Julian’s..their Brunch.
• Nick’s on Broadway…their french toast OMG.
• Broadway Bistro …their menu changes weekly I believe…
• Tokyo
• Nice slice their BBQ chicken, Greek, and La Strada pizza are amazing.
• And…I can’t say that I miss this place, but man oh man I cannot wait to try Hudson Street Deli, one of my old co-worker’s new places!

Anyways, this is a running list… so I’m sure I will think of more things I’m missing… now I’m really hungry.

And for those of you who are interested in trying some amazing local cuisine in Providence, RI, try some of those above listed spots!!!!

As an expat, or just when you travel, what foods do you miss the most from home?

Sorry for the long break…

It’s been a few weeks since I posted… but I have good reason for the time gap..

First, Job and I have been working like crazy.

We have to find a new apartment soon.  We’ve been apartment hunting and food shopping and doing normal life things.

Secondly my computer died.  It was having some troubles and then one night it just wouldn’t turn on.  I went to the Apple Store and now I have a new computer.  But it took a few weeks in between my old computer getting sick, being looked at… coming home, getting sick and dying and my getting my new computer.

I know, I know, I totally could have posted using my iPhone or my iPad or something, but to me, it’s about the blogging experience as a whole.  I’m not able to accurately articulate my stories from typing on my phone or iPad and I can’t add in the pictures and flourishes I like to adorn my posts with, so I tried to take some photos in the mean time and post those. 

With all of this being said, I’m back in business now with my new computer and am hoping to have some time in the not so distant future to put up some posts.  We have a few back logged recipes from last month that I can try to post up.

We also have some fun coming up this month.  It’s Job’s birthday on Monday and we are viewing a few apartments.  We’ll try to keep you all up to date on what’s going on where and how life’s going.

Today we were both off and had a nice leisurely morning.  We browsed more apartments online.  After that, we went to one of our favorite coffee shops, Sweet Cup.  They’re this amazing hidden gem in the city with the best coffee I’ve ever had.

After that we took a relaxed bike ride through VondelPark.  From there we headed over towards De Pijp.  We walked around for a few minutes there at the Albert Cuyp Markt.  We biked back home, making a quick stop at Albert Heijn for some groceries and headed back home.

Earlier in the day, we decided to make some Gnocci for dinner.  We put our potatoes in the oven to bake… and by the time they were baked enough to actually make the gnocchi dough, it was around 8PM.  Instead, we decided to have some leftover stammpot from the other night and make the gnocchi dough after we ate dinner.

The gnocchi have been prepped for tomorrow night’s dinner.

After all of our hard work, we decided we needed to reward ourselves with a nice smoothie for dessert.  We created a beautiful Strawberry Banana Smoothie from this recipe here.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 C Strawberries (chopped)

2 Bananas

3/4 C Milk

1/2 C Ice

Directions: 

Put it all in the blender and blend until smooth. (We don’t have a blender so we used our food processor.  Same result.) 

Yumma!

The Run

Yesterday I decided I needed to start running again.  It was a perfect day for it and the night before I made up a destination/route and checked to make sure all the fun apps I like to use were working.

When I woke up in the morning, I made some scrambled eggs (well egg, we only had one) and ate a strawberry activia yogurt.  I accompanied this with two or three glasses of water and then waited for all of my food to settle.

I looked through my dresser to pull out my running clothes, my compression pants, my dry fit t, and running jacket and sneakers and got all geared up.

I stretched in the living room before my run to make sure that I wouldn’t really seriously injure myself.  

While thinking about my route, I also thought about the errands I had to run.  I needed to go to the bank to withdraw money from my American bank account and deposit it into my Dutch bank account to ensure I could pay for rent.  I also needed to get some contact lens solution as well as eggs and more yogurt.

I packed my bank cards into my pocket with my residence permit card and my tram card, grabbed my inhaler and keys, and was out the door.

I set up my couch to 5k app because it’s really helpful at getting me back into running and set up the first run since I really haven’t run in a long time.  I launched a playlist on spotify and off I went.

I basically just followed the tram tracks so that way, if anything went wrong, I wouldn’t be very far from a tram ride home.

My plan was to run to the Vondelpark from my house or get as close to it as I could because that is about a 5 km distance.

The run was really nice.  Intervals were 1.5 min of walking and 1 min of running.  Pretty easy for my first time back.  That went very well and I wasn’t even tired when I finished the 30 minutes of the couch to 5k program.  I had traveled 2.23 miles.

I decided to keep on going and just walk the rest of the way to Vondelpark which was about another mile or so away. From this point, I launched my Nike+ App to track the walk.  When I got to Vondelpark, I messaged Job and asked if he had taken his break yet.  The park is very close to where Job works, and he was actually out on a break so I walked over and said hi and told him about my run.  He was pretty impressed which was cool.  He did have to get back to work though, and I wanted to continue on walking and finishing my errands, so we both departed.

I made my way to the bank, walked through Dam Square and the Rokin, and to Centraal Station and hopped on a bus back to our neighborhood. 

I had walked an additional 3.12 miles which was pretty great.  I forgot to pause the walk when I ran into Job and when I went to the bank which severely hurt my pace, but it was great exercise still.  

I got off the bus and went to the C1000. (I only went to C1000 because I didn’t want to have to go all the way back home and get a bag or pay for a bag there, and they have a container where you can put your old bags for someone who may have forgotten a bag to take, so I took one.)  I purchased the eggs and yogurt I needed and made my way next to Kruidvat which is like a CVS.  I found my contact lens solution here and then walked home.

I definitely strained a muscle in my left leg because I can barely lift it and my right leg is sore.  But it’s a good sore.  Hopefully the weather will be nice on Sunday.

A Taste of Leiden: A Photo Journal

A few weeks ago, while Job’s mom and sister were in Cambodia visiting Job’s brother, his brother’s girlfriend and their beautiful baby, Job and I went to Leiden to experience the city he grew up in and have dinner with his dad.  Here are some photos, some with explanations about the sights we saw that day!

To start you off, here is a map (kind of) of where we walked and the photos we took.

A windmill near Leiden Centraal

The view from outside of La Place/V&D

Again..

And again…

And one last time.  I really liked how you could see all the red tops of the houses.

Appelbollen (seriously the best things in this world.  They’re kind of like Apple Pie balls, but not pie. They’re a different pastry and they’re covered in sugar. They get topped with Vanilla sauce and you can see the container of it in the back right of this photo. SO GOOD.)

This is a gravestone that makes up part of the floor from Pieterskerk (Peter’s Church)

Here is a panorama of the inside of the church.  It is so vast and gorgeous.  This photo does not do it justice.

I liked the top of this building.  There is a coat of arms carved in the top.

Everything here is very “towny” and cute.  This building had a french poem painted on the side.

This building is from 1683.  OLD.

Pilgrims in the Netherlands!

A splash of color!

A statue.

This car lost it’s license plate… 😦

De Burcht

The entrance.

View from the top

View from the top, inside of De Burcht

More red housetops

The sun setting over a church

Another view from the top, inside.

And again.

Some more sunset over the church.

Another church and some other buildings

The side view of De Burcht

The sun setting near a canal.  I loved how the sun hit the canal houses.

Waiting for dinner and relaxing

The amazing dinner Job’s father made. Meat with roasted parsnips, carrots and potatoes!

The meat was juicy, the veggies roasted perfectly with a nice herby taste and a nice crisp.  The company was wonderful.  A very nice day for us all!

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Very happy to have received this mail!

The Mix Up

*As for anonymity’s sake, I will be replacing the names of streets here with random names and post codes with random numbers, but anyways, let me tell you about my already so exciting day… So exciting that things have already happened and it’s barely 10 AM.

Let me just first explain some logistics.  In Amsterdam, many street names either end in “straat” meaning street or “plein” meaning square.  Also, in the Netherlands, post codes directly correlate to an exact street (it’s brilliant). We live on *Bakerstraat with post code *4812QR.  When we first moved here, we believed, according to our lease, that we lived on *Bakerplein with post code *4812QT.

When we went to city hall to secure my BSN, in America, a BSN is like an SSN (Social Security Number), The woman asked us for our postal code and then our street.  We told her, but she said that the information we gave her did not match the lease.  The lease said we lived at Bakerstraat 4812QS.  Also not correct.  We ended up using Google Maps to figure out that we actually live at Bakerstraat 4812QR.  We thought it was Bakerplein because of the bus stop that is near our house.  

Anyways, we get a lot of mail that is neither ours, or Job’s brother’s/his brother’s family’s mail, as we are renting from them right now.  We thought at first maybe it was the people who were here before them.  Then recently, we received some mail for two little girls. The envelope was kind of squishy like some sort of fabric was inside.  We knew it was probably something important and that we had to get the letter back to the people it was intended for. 

A couple of weeks passed and it was now the night of my birthday.  (You read all about that the other day.) Well the gift I received from Job’s parents was a MuseumKaart, a membership card to the majority of the museums here.  Job’s dad informed us that we should have… or would within the next day receive it in the mail.  Awesome!

Well, come February 18th, we still hadn’t received anything.  Job was getting worried.  He called his dad, just to double check and asked him what address he had sent the card to, and sure enough, he had sent it to Bakerplein 4812QT.  (This of course was our fault because we had given him initially the incorrect address.)  Well that was the reason as to why it hadn’t gotten here yet.  

As Job was leaving this morning, he strongly advised that I go around the corner to Bakerplein and go to house number *25, the same as us and speak with the people who live there and let them know that we thought that we had their mail and they maybe had (HOPEFULLY) my museumkaart.  Job left around 9AM for work.  About thirty minutes later, I sent him a little message in my awful Dutch and asked if it would be okay to say this to the people who lived on Bakerplein, if it made sense.  He made a few tweaks.  I then rewrote all of the message down on paper and left my phone number in case they didn’t answer.

I then asked if it was too early to go over there.  He told me I should be fine, so I went.  I slowly walked over, mostly because I was rehearsing my Dutch and looked for number 25.  There it was!  I looked at the name on the mailbox and wrote it on the envelope.  I also had in hand, the card for the two little girls, and that was their house!  I rang the bell hesitantly and waited.  I was really nervous that I was going to trip over all of the Dutch words, so I did what I always do when I get nervous.  ”Hoi, uhhh… Ik spreek Engels…” “Oké,” the woman replied.  I then went into English and told her how I lived at Bakerstraat at the same number and how I thought my boyfriend’s father sent me mail to their address accidentally and that we had some mail of theirs as well.  The woman welcomed me inside, and I told her that in the card I had written was also my phone number in case it happened again and we needed to switch mail.  She looked through her things and found my museumkaart!

(A little worse for wear, but hey, it happens)

Job and I had been so worried that his parents had spent money on something that might have accidentally gotten thrown away and then what! No museumkaart for me, but I was super lucky.

The woman was so nice and we decided that if accidentally we got the wrong mail again, it was just a quick walk around the corner to bring it to the correct place.

PHEW! Crisis averted!

Now! Time for some breakfast!

Valentines Day… (times two) [Part Two]

We left off in the valentines day story on the evening of valentines day after the amazing chocolate soufflés, but that was just the beginning of the soufflé saga.

We also still had to go out to eat.

The day started out with an amazing rendition of Job’s French Toast which in most cases is better than any french toasts I’ve had in restaurants.  I’m hoping that when he does tell his tale, he’ll include directions to make his french toast because it is out of this world.

 Additionally, he made some bacon and eggs and everything was perfect as it always is with practically all of the things he cooks.

(We did eat this french toast with maple syrup from AMERICA)

We had slept in and after breakfast, the majority of the day on valentines day part two was spent relaxing at home (we slept until around 11, so there weren’t that many more hours before dinner), me, working on the blog and Job browsing and catching up on the internet.  We also looked into multiple recipes for a lighter soufflé, and watched both some Dutch TV and the olympics.

Around 18:30, I think, we decided that we were starting to get hungry.  The day before, while Job was at work, I had thought to myself, man, I haven’t had sushi in some time… so when presented with the question as to what I wanted to dinner, I moused out, “… sushi?”

Lucky for me, that was the exact thing Job had been thinking, which is great, because, DAMN, I really wanted sushi!

In Amsterdam, there are a bunch of all you can eat sushi places, so we started on our adventure.  

Things we didn’t think about:

• It was a Saturday night
• It was dinner time
• it’s kind of a holiday weekend and maybe others had the same thoughts on valentines day as us
• maybe making a reservation…? It never crossed our mind.

We threw on our coats and walked to the tram stop which is conveniently located next to Albert Heijn.  We decided we would just quickly stop in and get the ingredients we would need to make our next type of soufflé.

IT WAS SO SUPER WINDY OUT.  At one point we had to use force to actually keep walking into the wind.

We decided a lemon lavender soufflé would be up next on the docket.  We needed to get more milk, eggs, lemons, and lavender oil.

We ended up only getting lemons because we decided we had enough eggs and milk, and didn’t want to carry those to dinner, and we were unsuccessful in finding lavender oil.. or lavender…whatever you would use in food.

At this point, well actually, after not finding anything in Albert Heijn, we actually walked to C1000 (pronounced saydousand; I kept calling it “see-thousand”) which is where we weighed and purchased our lemons, Job started to feel a little ill.  Now as previously posted, I always carry water with me and offered him some of that.  He was feeling light-headed and dizzy.  From C1000, we walked back to our tram stop and Job sat down and we waited for the tram.  I think Job was just a little dehydrated and hungry, and since we had been inside all day where it was warm, the temperature and wind sort of shocked his body.  I also gave him a piece of chewing gum.

The tram arrived about eight minutes later and we went straight to Leidseplein.  As we walked up to the restaurant, it started to rain. (…Typical) We went inside and Job spoke to the host.  He turned back to me and said well they are full.  We walked out and Job profusely apologized for not thinking about needed a reservation and not making one.  Of course I told him there was no need to apologize and that we could go somewhere else. At this point, I was just hungry.  On our way out of the restaurant, I had grabbed their business card.  They’re a chain restaurant and so we called another one in Amsterdam who was also full for the night.  Next we walked to a third one of these types of places to see if we could get in there.  Also fully booked, but the restaurants were so empty.  Oh well.  At this point we were very near to UvA (Universiteit Van Amsterdam, or the University of Amsterdam).  Job told me he knew of a good burger place and would that be okay?  Well you all know of course that was perfectly fine with me.  We made our way to Cafe ‘t Gasthuys.  

We were seated almost immediately.  After all of this, it was probably close to 20:00.  We were hungry.  We ended up ordering bread with garlic butter and arugula or rocket croquettes to start.  We also both ordered the cheese burger.  

It. Was. So. Much. Food.  But it was happily welcomed into both of our mouthes and stomachs.  

The bread with garlic butter was crunch on the outside and so soft on the inside, and the garlic butter just aromatic and tasty.

The croquettes were perfectly fried with a brown crunchiness on the outside and soft hot melty cheesy arugula on the inside.

The burgers were juicy and of course came with whisky sauce which is not something i’ve yet written about, but it’s a thing here for burgers.

We also enjoyed the side salad and fries that came along.  Job of course ate his the dutch way with mayo and I ate mine the american way.. with ketchup.

From there we decided to take a quick stroll through the red light district.  I wish that Ayla, Chauncey, and my sister were there with us.  The nights we took them respectively to the RLD were both rainy, so they didn’t get to see any of the girls or what the RLD is really like… It’s such an oddity to me still.  From there we walked a little further to our bus stop (normally we catch our bus from central station, but since we had eaten a lot, we decided to walk to the next bus stop) and got on and went home.  

By the time we arrived back from our excursion, it was close to 22:00.  We decided that was a bit too late to be cooking soufflés.

We did however end up making them the next night, which I guess would make this Valentines day time two part three, but instead, I’m going with Soufflé Saga, which will be a different story for a different day.

Although we didn’t get sushi like we both wanted, and we didn’t make our second soufflé, and well, we really didn’t do a whole lot, the second day of valentines day was just perfect for me.  It was relaxing, delicious, and I got to spend some quality time with Job.

Additionally, I apologize for the lack of photos in this post, but I didn’t take pictures of dinner.

Some Dutchisms: What I’ve learned in one month

Suffice it to say that living here has been great, however there are many need to knows that I wish I knew more about.

1. Free Water: You may be thinking.. what do you mean free water? Well, in the United States, whenever you go to a restaurant, you always get free water.  Hi, yes, I’d like a glass of tap water to start… Yeah. Not here.  Good luck finding any restaurants that give you a glass of water.  Basically you pay for a bottle of water, whether it is barely 8 oz or you get a gigantic bottle, you still pay for your water.  And one last thing… AMSTERDAM HAS GREAT DRINKING WATER.  It really is a shame, because I’m a huge water drinker.  It’s practically the only thing I drink.  I have come around to carrying a huge water bottle with me at all times and get very sad when it’s empty.

2. Coffee (Koffie): If you’re not a coffee drinker (I will have to say I definitely was not a coffee drinker.  I probably had one to three coffees a week if that before moving here, and that was only recently) you will become a coffee drinker.  Wherever you go, whenever you go, you are always offered coffee. Coffee at your friend’s place, coffee with your parents, coffee at the bank, coffee for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert.  At the Bijenkorf Nespresso counter, coffee for a snack… the list goes on.  And I’m not sure if this last part is true, but saying no to coffee at least feels to me like a big no-no.  So I just say yes..and then get really dehydrated because you can’t get water anywhere without paying.

3. The weather (in the winter): I would say that on average, at least in the winter, it will rain at some point every day.  It is also severely windy, or at least has been, with howling winds every night that sometimes carry through the next day. The air here is humid and it hasn’t dropped below freezing since I landed.  I have not seen snow like all of my friends and family on the east coast of the United States.  I will just say that the type of rain it is is that spitty misty rain for the most part so it just makes my glasses really spotty and hard to see and makes my hair frizzy… in other words, I wish it were just actually raining.  The best part of this rain is seeing the bicyclists attempting to bike with umbrellas and the like.

4. The grocery store:  Albert Heijn, The Marqt, C1000…First off, you have to pay for a shopping cart.   Edit: you get the money back… Job has this cool coin keychain thing that he can put in the shopping carts and we don’t have to pay which is great, but won’t be ours for much longer. I am going to look into seeing if we can find one somewhere.  Anyways, i’m not sure on the price of carts, but basically, take a basket and hope you don’t need more than that, or go with someone and each of you take a basket.  Also, bring your own bags because otherwise you will be paying for a bag to bag up your groceries, and be prepared to do it quickly and efficiently because the cashier will start sending the next customer’s things through and you will only be halfway done and if you’re like me, you’ll get frustrated.  I now bring a backpack whenever I go to the supermarket and fill all of the outside pockets of my backpack with shopping bags to make sure that just in case it doesn’t all fit in my backpack, i’ve got extra bags and don’t have to pay!

5. Bicycles: Everyone here bikes. Everywhere.  So that’s cool. I can do that.  I brought my bike here from home.  it’s good to go.  You should bike here too.  It’s the easiest way to get around.  Things to know about cyclists: some are crazy and must cycle past you no matter how fast you’re going so that they can just go faster.  Some are not paying attention to anything and bike 2km/h and don’t care that there are other bikers on the road.  Tourists. Just look out for them because they’re probably the most unsafe thing about bicyclists.  They don’t know where they can and cannot bike, or about the nifty bike traffic lights or the hand signals to let people know which way they’re going, or how to maneuver that turn because they’re not sure that you saw them make the hand signal.  I promise I saw you now GO! Also, watch out for the motor bikes/vespa/scooter things on the bike path because sometimes they go really fast and it’s really scary when they pass.  Just stay to the right and you should be fine. And make sure to go to the HEMA to purchase €3 bike lights because even though you bought really cool rechargeable ones from America, they’re not that cool.

6. Learn enough Dutch to be able to say sorry (sorry), excuse me (pardon), thanks (Dank U, dankuwel), please (Alstublieft), do you speak English (Spreekt u engels?), I don’t speak Dutch (Ik sprek geen nederlands), yes (ja), no (nee), bye (Dag, tot ziens), and hello (hallo).  And if you’re going to be here for an extended time, when you’re at the supermarket, the last thing the cashier asks you is if you want your receipt.  These few words/phrases will come in handy.  I went to the bank the other day, and I really don’t like being a rude american, so I will always ask the person I need to talk to if they speak english.  I think it’s more polite.  Otherwise, you can just start speaking english to the Dutch.  Most of them know it enough to answer your questions… Most of the time.

7. Get a map or a data plan for your phone (so you can use maps).  The city is super old, full of canals, lots of little alleys, bridges and is curved.  It’s really really really beyond helpful to have a map.  And Google Maps is great for when you’re biking and lost because you can get bike directions.

8. Fries and other fried delights: There are snack bars on every corner.  And it is AWESOME.  They serve fries with pindasaus. It’s peanut sauce, or satay sauce.  Fries here are double or triple fried for some extra crunchiness, and you can get them everywhere.  The first week I was here, I’m pretty sure I ate fries with pindasaus every day.  Also, croquetten, kaassouffles, and bitterballen.  All amazing as well.  Try them at least once. They’re usually served with mustard and the common fry topping here besides pindasaus is mayo. FEBO is your one stop shop for all of the above, however you can definitely find better fries around the city.

9. Waterlooplien: Go there.  Go there any day but Sunday.  There is a huge flea market every day with lots of cool things for very cheap prices and also some good food.  Loempias. That is what I would suggest.  They are spring rolls and I love them, and sometimes there is this awesome/ crazy lady who basically just sings to herself really loudly.  She prepares the loempias.

10. Money:  This is super important!  BRING LOTS OF CASH. LOTS OF IT! It is very rare that any place here takes your american credit card.  Even if you have the chip inside, because guess what America, Chip and signature isn’t a thing.  And that is what is in the American Chip credit cards.  No.  It’s chip and pin here, and if you don’t have a pin to go with your chip (I promise you, you don’t) Then you won’t be able to purchase anything except for at huge retailers, like De Bijenkorf (basically a huge Nordstrom/Bloomingdales/Macys/Departmentstore-like place).  So bring cash because if you don’t have a residence permit/are a citizen here/ have a BSN (the dutch equivalent to social security number), you also will not be able to obtain said chip and pin card (PINNEN is what it’s called here). Just bring cash.

Bonus! ChipKaart:  This is what is used to ride the tram/busses/ and on occasion, trains depending on how much money you have on your chipkaart.  You must tap your card every time you enter the train/bus/tram and also when you exit.  This is very important.  A)At some stations, you will not be able to enter, and you will not be allowed on a bus or tram without doing so, and you will also be yelled at by the tram driver. B) If you don’t check out, you’re immediately charged €6 because they assume you went as far as you could go.  So remember to check in and check out by holding the beautifully holographic card to the card reader.

I will try to think of more helpful/insightful things later on.  I know this is a bit out of the range of what I normally post about, but thought it was a bit of fun information to know.

Let me know what dutch things got you, or what other things you want to know about in terms of living here!