Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Zwarte Pete
If you get your Christmas gifts wrapped in paper with pictures of little black men on it, it's because Erin has yet to find any wrapping paper not featuring the head of Sinter Klaus' little black elf-like helper with a fro. Zwarte Pete is black, we think, because according to the story he was the elf that delivered gifts from Sinter Klaus and got all black from going down chimneys and landing in soot. We realize this would never meet U.S. standards for civil rights and equality so we wish to apologize in advance if we indeed fail to find any other wrapping paper before gifts have to be shipped over for Christmas.
French Fries for Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving week has never been quite like this before. Erin was actually out of town until Wednesday visiting some friends from the US that happened to be in Cambridge, UK. England was cold, rainy, and foggy as expected, but Cambridge reminded Erin so much of the time she spent in Oxford during college that she absolutely loved it! Really just being in a country where everyone speaks English is all that is necessary to make Erin's vacation perfect - even if they do drive on the wrong side of the road! We even had lunch one day in a great pub complete with leather furniture, a roaring fire in the fireplace, and Guinness and beef pie. Mmmmmm.
Thanksgiving Day had no Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade or turkey...though we tried to get turkey! We took our friends to Harlem, a city only about 20 minutes away from Amsterdam where we got to take a tour of Corrie Ten Boom's house...eventually. When we arrived at the house the first time, the sign said an English tour was to begin in about 30 minutes. So we decided that, rather than stand around in the rain and cold, we would walk the short distance to the town square and see the church where Mozart and Handel played organ concerts. Well, then we ran into a cheese store on our way back to the Ten Boom House and had to buy some cheese. This took longer than expected and when we arrived, only a minute or two late, at the door for our tour, the sign had again changed to read that the next tour would not take place for another couple hours! Ah well. We toured the church and introduced our friends to a real Dutch lunch: coffee, tea, croquettes and toasties. We made sure to get to the door of the house about 10 minutes early so as not to miss the tour.
It was well worth the wait. Corrie Ten Boom was a Christian who organized safe hiding places for Jews and Dutch Resistance workers during World War II. Her own house had a tiny hiding place where seven people ended up being hidden for two days before being rescued and escaping to other hiding places. Corrie Ten Boom and several of her family members were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Corrie survived, miraculously smuggled a Bible into the camp with her and led Bible studies, and then spent the rest of her life evangelizing all over the world and writing many books about her faith and life.
Traffic on the way back to Amsterdam was horrendous. By the time we got home it was about time to take the trams into the centrum for Thanksgiving dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, one of the only places in Amsterdam that serves Thanksgiving dinner. We apparently got there too early since our reservations were not until 7:40, so the hostess would not seat us. We wandered around the canals of the centrum for about 20 minutes and then returned to eat dinner. We must have set a world record for the longest time a party has stayed in the Hard Rock Cafe. Once seated it took a while to get our drinks and for the waitress to return to take our orders. Unfortunately, she told us the last of the Thanksgiving dinners had just been ordered. We assumed the table of 38 next to us had something to do with that! Oh well. We had all decided that if the turkey was gone, we would all be OK with ordering other things. We did ask if there was any pumpkin pie left. Our waitress went to check and indeed there were some pieces left, so she assured us she would reserve four pieces for us. Everyone ordered hamburgers and french fries (except for Erin - chicken pasta for her) and sat back to wait.....and wait, and wait, and wait. I think we waited about an hour and a half for our food. Our friends were about to chew their arms off they were so hungry! When we finally saw our waitress again, we asked for some crackers or something, which she promised to bring but never got around to. The manager had to visit our table several times to apologize for the slowness in the kitchen. The food was good when it finally arrived, but then we waited again for our desserts to appear. Once again, the manager visited our table to explain something about a mix up in the kitchen: no pumpkin pie! Actually there was one piece left, which we let one of our friends have and the manager gave the rest of us free desserts. Our waitress showed up after the fact to explain she was too upset to come talk to us herself. Apparently she and the chef were having an argument and not talking to each other so the pies got sold to other customers without her knowledge. She offered us any coffee or tea we wanted on the house, so we got some free coffee to go with our free brownie sundaes. After four hours, no turkey, and no pumpkin pie, we got a bill for our meal cut in half with free desserts and free coffees!
Even though dinner was much longer and not quite as holiday-ish as we had planned, we had a great view of the canal and boats and a long time to catch up with our friends from the US. All in all it was a good Thanksgiving. (Erin definitely prefers chocolate brownies to pumpkin pie anyway!)
Thanksgiving Day had no Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade or turkey...though we tried to get turkey! We took our friends to Harlem, a city only about 20 minutes away from Amsterdam where we got to take a tour of Corrie Ten Boom's house...eventually. When we arrived at the house the first time, the sign said an English tour was to begin in about 30 minutes. So we decided that, rather than stand around in the rain and cold, we would walk the short distance to the town square and see the church where Mozart and Handel played organ concerts. Well, then we ran into a cheese store on our way back to the Ten Boom House and had to buy some cheese. This took longer than expected and when we arrived, only a minute or two late, at the door for our tour, the sign had again changed to read that the next tour would not take place for another couple hours! Ah well. We toured the church and introduced our friends to a real Dutch lunch: coffee, tea, croquettes and toasties. We made sure to get to the door of the house about 10 minutes early so as not to miss the tour.
It was well worth the wait. Corrie Ten Boom was a Christian who organized safe hiding places for Jews and Dutch Resistance workers during World War II. Her own house had a tiny hiding place where seven people ended up being hidden for two days before being rescued and escaping to other hiding places. Corrie Ten Boom and several of her family members were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Corrie survived, miraculously smuggled a Bible into the camp with her and led Bible studies, and then spent the rest of her life evangelizing all over the world and writing many books about her faith and life.
Traffic on the way back to Amsterdam was horrendous. By the time we got home it was about time to take the trams into the centrum for Thanksgiving dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, one of the only places in Amsterdam that serves Thanksgiving dinner. We apparently got there too early since our reservations were not until 7:40, so the hostess would not seat us. We wandered around the canals of the centrum for about 20 minutes and then returned to eat dinner. We must have set a world record for the longest time a party has stayed in the Hard Rock Cafe. Once seated it took a while to get our drinks and for the waitress to return to take our orders. Unfortunately, she told us the last of the Thanksgiving dinners had just been ordered. We assumed the table of 38 next to us had something to do with that! Oh well. We had all decided that if the turkey was gone, we would all be OK with ordering other things. We did ask if there was any pumpkin pie left. Our waitress went to check and indeed there were some pieces left, so she assured us she would reserve four pieces for us. Everyone ordered hamburgers and french fries (except for Erin - chicken pasta for her) and sat back to wait.....and wait, and wait, and wait. I think we waited about an hour and a half for our food. Our friends were about to chew their arms off they were so hungry! When we finally saw our waitress again, we asked for some crackers or something, which she promised to bring but never got around to. The manager had to visit our table several times to apologize for the slowness in the kitchen. The food was good when it finally arrived, but then we waited again for our desserts to appear. Once again, the manager visited our table to explain something about a mix up in the kitchen: no pumpkin pie! Actually there was one piece left, which we let one of our friends have and the manager gave the rest of us free desserts. Our waitress showed up after the fact to explain she was too upset to come talk to us herself. Apparently she and the chef were having an argument and not talking to each other so the pies got sold to other customers without her knowledge. She offered us any coffee or tea we wanted on the house, so we got some free coffee to go with our free brownie sundaes. After four hours, no turkey, and no pumpkin pie, we got a bill for our meal cut in half with free desserts and free coffees!
Even though dinner was much longer and not quite as holiday-ish as we had planned, we had a great view of the canal and boats and a long time to catch up with our friends from the US. All in all it was a good Thanksgiving. (Erin definitely prefers chocolate brownies to pumpkin pie anyway!)
Brrrrrrrrrr - lin
A little over a week ago, almost two weeks ago now(!), we left for Berlin. The last 12 days have been a whirlwind. Thursday afternoon we left for Berlin and arrived home Sunday night. Monday morning Erin left again for Cambridge and returned with some friends Wednesday afternoon. She was home for less than 48 hours before we both left again Friday morning for Barcelona. We got home yesterday afternoon for good. Well, at least for this week. John leaves next Sunday for a week in California and Erin leaves in a couple weeks to fly to Munich; she'll meet John there for more adventures. But we're jumping ahead of ourselves.
Despite the freezing temperatures, heavy winds, and various types of precipitation, we really enjoyed Berlin! It is a much larger city than we had imagined. It is a shame most of it was destroyed in World War II, but that allows it to have many more open green spaces than most cities that just continue to be built up with more and more buildings through the years. While there are cranes, construction crews, and boarded-up windows everywhere you turn, there is also such a reminder of recent historical events around every corner. We were amazed and incredulous to be standing directly on top of Hitler's underground bunker where he spent his last days, to see the very train tracks where so many were carted off like cattle to concentration camps, and to be just feet away from the Berlin Wall. Thanks to our guided bike tour in English we learned more history, or should we say we were reminded again of all that history that somehow lodged into the recesses of our brains during many years of elementary, middle, and high school, and saw more sights than we would ever have been able to had we been walking around on our own. We highly recommend Fat Tire Bike Tours and Mike's Bike Tours if you're ever in a city over here in Europe.
Ahhh, the varying precipitation! Erin experienced snow flurries and light rain on Friday while John was cozy and secure in a small meeting room for 8 hours learning about really exciting accounting updates. Luckily during the heaviest snow, Erin and Annette were eating lunch (in a Schlotzsky's! yea for Schlotzsky's!) with a beautiful view of the city being covered in snow. Then Saturday during our bike tour, we witnessed hail followed by snow flurries. Again, we happened to be enjoying some potato soup, chili, and hot chocolate while trying to thaw out our frozen hands and feet in a biergarten when the sky decided to drop a lot of hail. Once back on the bikes, we only got rained on a bit. This is not to say the biking was by any means comfortable since we were so cold we were beginning to wonder what the signs of frostbite might be. It's funny how even the most uncomfortable situations are balanced out by the fact that you are seeing astounding historical sites and beautiful buildings and are learning interesting city facts!
We do not think it precipitated much on Sunday. We spent much of our afternoon at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum discovering all the ways people attempted to cross the border between East and West Berlin. It was a great museum. Everyone else thought so too; it was so packed that at times Erin was thankful she is not claustrophobic.
After Erin spent so much time walking around Berlin Friday with Annette, she decided the maps make things look deceptively closer than they are in reality. The rest of the weekend John and Erin traveled as much as possible by the U-bahn and the S-bahn. Erin read in her literature the difference between the two: the U-bahn is the underground rail system that sometimes travels above ground, not to be confused with the S-bahn, which is the aboveground rail system that sometimes travels below ground! We only suffered one unfortunate mishap. Erin knew from riding to the center of the city on Friday which U-bahn line to take from the hotel to get to the radio tower where the bike tour was supposed to begin Saturday morning. It seems the city decided to do work right in the middle of this line beginning Saturday morning. About five stops right in the middle of the line were inaccessible. When our train got to the last stop possible going toward the center of the city, an announcement was made, in German of course, and most of the people on the train got off...not everybody, just most. (We later found out that the only people left on the train were those who couldn't understand German!) After sitting on the stopped train for about 10 minutes, we finally started moving again...in the direction we had just come from! When we arrived at the first stop back, we decided to get off. Fortunately for us, just as we arrived in the station, another announcement was being made about the line in English! This is when we understood that this U-bahn would not be able to take us where we needed to go. With expert public transport map-reading skills we ascertained that we needed to go back almost to where we had started and take an S-bahn to the radio tower. We hesitated several times about which S-bahn to take as not all the stops were posted when a train arrived at the station, but we finally figured it out. By this time, of course, we were going to be very late for the bike tour. The brochure had said it starts at 10, but if you're late it's OK since they spend the first half an hour or so just talking at the meeting point. Well, making it by 10:30 was cutting it close! Who knew 45 minutes would not be enough time to travel just into the city center. What took 25 minutes on Friday took us over an hour on Saturday! We did make it to the bike tour meeting point just a few minutes before the group was about to set off. We think all we missed was a chance to chat with the other participants and have some coffee and tea.
With a more comprehensive knowledge of the public transit system and an expectation that temperatures are very cold in Berlin, we would definitely like to visit there again. Perhaps next time in the spring or summer when it might be, oh, 40 or 50 degrees farenheit.
Despite the freezing temperatures, heavy winds, and various types of precipitation, we really enjoyed Berlin! It is a much larger city than we had imagined. It is a shame most of it was destroyed in World War II, but that allows it to have many more open green spaces than most cities that just continue to be built up with more and more buildings through the years. While there are cranes, construction crews, and boarded-up windows everywhere you turn, there is also such a reminder of recent historical events around every corner. We were amazed and incredulous to be standing directly on top of Hitler's underground bunker where he spent his last days, to see the very train tracks where so many were carted off like cattle to concentration camps, and to be just feet away from the Berlin Wall. Thanks to our guided bike tour in English we learned more history, or should we say we were reminded again of all that history that somehow lodged into the recesses of our brains during many years of elementary, middle, and high school, and saw more sights than we would ever have been able to had we been walking around on our own. We highly recommend Fat Tire Bike Tours and Mike's Bike Tours if you're ever in a city over here in Europe.
Ahhh, the varying precipitation! Erin experienced snow flurries and light rain on Friday while John was cozy and secure in a small meeting room for 8 hours learning about really exciting accounting updates. Luckily during the heaviest snow, Erin and Annette were eating lunch (in a Schlotzsky's! yea for Schlotzsky's!) with a beautiful view of the city being covered in snow. Then Saturday during our bike tour, we witnessed hail followed by snow flurries. Again, we happened to be enjoying some potato soup, chili, and hot chocolate while trying to thaw out our frozen hands and feet in a biergarten when the sky decided to drop a lot of hail. Once back on the bikes, we only got rained on a bit. This is not to say the biking was by any means comfortable since we were so cold we were beginning to wonder what the signs of frostbite might be. It's funny how even the most uncomfortable situations are balanced out by the fact that you are seeing astounding historical sites and beautiful buildings and are learning interesting city facts!
We do not think it precipitated much on Sunday. We spent much of our afternoon at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum discovering all the ways people attempted to cross the border between East and West Berlin. It was a great museum. Everyone else thought so too; it was so packed that at times Erin was thankful she is not claustrophobic.
After Erin spent so much time walking around Berlin Friday with Annette, she decided the maps make things look deceptively closer than they are in reality. The rest of the weekend John and Erin traveled as much as possible by the U-bahn and the S-bahn. Erin read in her literature the difference between the two: the U-bahn is the underground rail system that sometimes travels above ground, not to be confused with the S-bahn, which is the aboveground rail system that sometimes travels below ground! We only suffered one unfortunate mishap. Erin knew from riding to the center of the city on Friday which U-bahn line to take from the hotel to get to the radio tower where the bike tour was supposed to begin Saturday morning. It seems the city decided to do work right in the middle of this line beginning Saturday morning. About five stops right in the middle of the line were inaccessible. When our train got to the last stop possible going toward the center of the city, an announcement was made, in German of course, and most of the people on the train got off...not everybody, just most. (We later found out that the only people left on the train were those who couldn't understand German!) After sitting on the stopped train for about 10 minutes, we finally started moving again...in the direction we had just come from! When we arrived at the first stop back, we decided to get off. Fortunately for us, just as we arrived in the station, another announcement was being made about the line in English! This is when we understood that this U-bahn would not be able to take us where we needed to go. With expert public transport map-reading skills we ascertained that we needed to go back almost to where we had started and take an S-bahn to the radio tower. We hesitated several times about which S-bahn to take as not all the stops were posted when a train arrived at the station, but we finally figured it out. By this time, of course, we were going to be very late for the bike tour. The brochure had said it starts at 10, but if you're late it's OK since they spend the first half an hour or so just talking at the meeting point. Well, making it by 10:30 was cutting it close! Who knew 45 minutes would not be enough time to travel just into the city center. What took 25 minutes on Friday took us over an hour on Saturday! We did make it to the bike tour meeting point just a few minutes before the group was about to set off. We think all we missed was a chance to chat with the other participants and have some coffee and tea.
With a more comprehensive knowledge of the public transit system and an expectation that temperatures are very cold in Berlin, we would definitely like to visit there again. Perhaps next time in the spring or summer when it might be, oh, 40 or 50 degrees farenheit.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Berlin
We returned from Berlin a few hours ago, and are getting ready for a very busy week. Erin goes to Cambridge tomorrow to visit some friends for a couple of days. She'll then bring them back on Wednesday for Thanskgiving dinner before we leave for Barcelona on Friday. We enjoyed Berlin very much and would like to return sometime soon. John had training on Friday so Erin and Annette explored the city during the day, and they met up with John and Jacob Friday night for dinner at a nearby mall. On Saturday we took a five-hour bike tour and learned quite a bit about the city. We also enjoyed some tasty hot chocolate and soup at an East Berlin beer hall. We saw snow and hail during the tour, and had lost feeling in most parts of our bodies by the time the ride was over. Make sure to visit our photo album to share in our experiences. We have a whole lot more to say, but we have to rest up for the rest of our adventures this week.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
More Shootings
Yeah, so there has been more gangland activity around our neighborhood lately. We think we're up to 5 now--a politician was shot Tuesday night by some dude on a bike. But, there is another incident that is getting quite a bit of press lately-- a poor little sparrow that knocked over a whole lot of dominoes. More than 100 people from 12 countries have been working for over a month to set up 4 million dominoes in an attempt to set a world record, and they weren't about to let this little bird get in the way. We have a feeling we haven't seen the end of this. A DJ and some Dutch website have offered rewards to anybody who knocks over the dominoes before Friday, and there have been death threats against the guy who shot the bird.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Aankondiging van beschikking
Loosely translated, this phrase means "aha! We caught you parking in the wrong spot! We're going to fine you 45 euros!" John walked out to his car in the rain this morning to find this yellow notice under the windshield wiper of his car. A secretary in the office helped translate the rest of the notice and found out that although he parked in the "parkway" area in the outside of the apartment, he must have been too close to the corner. Either that, or he crossed some invisible line between valid parking spaces and sidewalk. She thought this was unfair and called the Regiopolitie to explain the matter. Apparently we can choose between paying the fine or filing a dispute in writing (in Dutch).
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Real Life
Amsterdam is becoming less like a vacation, or a bad dream depending on which day you're talking about, and more like real life. We live here. We know people here now. We have everyday activities to do here. We both have people who now expect us to be here doing certain things. Evening activities like watching movies, having dinner with friends, going to meetings at church, attending a small group and working out at the gym are now all parts of a relatively normal schedule. John is becoming accustomed to his job and the different people he works with. Erin is counseling again and may have a part-time job as head of the counseling ministry at church in just a few months.
We haven't written in several days because, well, sometimes life is boring. Boring is welcome here sometimes.
We can promise that "boring" will not always define life, so please stay tuned for more adventures. After all, we do live in Europe. We do have several trips coming up to other countries. And we've never really known life to be boring for very long.
We haven't written in several days because, well, sometimes life is boring. Boring is welcome here sometimes.
We can promise that "boring" will not always define life, so please stay tuned for more adventures. After all, we do live in Europe. We do have several trips coming up to other countries. And we've never really known life to be boring for very long.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Ijmuiden
This morning we awoke bright and early to drive out to the North Sea. Ijmuiden is a coastal town only about 20 miles away from our apartment, so we decided it would be fun, if cold and windy, to drive out early enough to see the sunrise and eat some breakfast. Just as we suspected, it was cold and windy, but the sunrise was gorgeous. By the way, Ijmuiden is practically impossible to pronounce correctly unless you are fluent in Dutch. We have asked several people to teach up how to pronounce the "ij" and "ui" sounds in this word correctly and have failed miserably.
Since it is November, we were two of only four people on the beach when we arrived. Even after walking along the shore for about an hour only four or five other people had joined us. We were, however, accompanied by 2,000 seagulls who stayed at a comfortable distance since we had no food with us on the beach. It was so beautiful to start the day outside by the water, hearing the ocean. We found a few lighthouses and watched several large boats come into dock. It would have been nice to eat out on the beach, but we decided it was much nicer on such a cold morning to eat the picnic we had packed inside the car with the heater on!
The only thing we might regret about this morning is waking up so early when we're still awake at midnight or 1 tomorrow morning visiting the city's museums, which are open from 7 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. tonight for a special event called N8. We think it might be a good idea to take a little nap right now!
Filing Cabinets and Sausage
There is a shortage of filing cabinets, both in our apartment and in the Netherlands.
Our shipment arrived sans filing cabinet and we desperately need one! We have been to nearly every furniture store we can think of, or that has been recommended to us, with no success. We attempted to visit a huge office-supply store, but apparently one has to obtain a special card from the Chamber of Commerce to even enter this store, let alone buy anything. We have found one-drawer filing cabinets that usually also come with another regular drawer for the insane price of around €200-€250! Apparently the Dutch do not prefer hanging files. We are now seriously considering converting all our files to what is obviously the Dutch method of paper organization: hole-punch every single piece of paper and store everything in giant three-ring binders on a shelf.
There is, however, an overabundance of sausage...in the Netherlands, not in our apartment.
The grocery stores, however small they may be, devote entire aisles to sausage. Erin is not quite sure how to decipher the labels or how many different kinds of sausage there could really be. She's sure there must be Italian sausage here somewhere; we just haven't found it yet among all the other piles of sausage. Even after buying some, she is still not entirely sure what kind it is.
Our shipment arrived sans filing cabinet and we desperately need one! We have been to nearly every furniture store we can think of, or that has been recommended to us, with no success. We attempted to visit a huge office-supply store, but apparently one has to obtain a special card from the Chamber of Commerce to even enter this store, let alone buy anything. We have found one-drawer filing cabinets that usually also come with another regular drawer for the insane price of around €200-€250! Apparently the Dutch do not prefer hanging files. We are now seriously considering converting all our files to what is obviously the Dutch method of paper organization: hole-punch every single piece of paper and store everything in giant three-ring binders on a shelf.
There is, however, an overabundance of sausage...in the Netherlands, not in our apartment.
The grocery stores, however small they may be, devote entire aisles to sausage. Erin is not quite sure how to decipher the labels or how many different kinds of sausage there could really be. She's sure there must be Italian sausage here somewhere; we just haven't found it yet among all the other piles of sausage. Even after buying some, she is still not entirely sure what kind it is.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Out of Favor with the Lunch Lady
In the U.S., John usually went out to a restaurant with the audit team every day for lunch. In the Netherlands, the custom is to go to the first floor of whatever office building he happens to be in and dine at the company cafeteria. He has come to expect quite a variety of quality in the food, depending on the cafeteria, and also depending on the day. There are always a few constants--plenty of bread, cheese, and lunch meats. Milk is always an option, and the cafeterias will usually have two choices of soup. Even the smallest cafeterias will offer kroket--a fried, roll-type snack containing a mixture of an unknown meat and gravy. It's actually quite good. It is fried, after all. Herring is something he hasn't tried yet, but it comes highly recommended by his Dutch colleagues. This is a Dutch delicacy and is eaten raw, sometimes with onions. You pick the fish up by the tail, let it slide gradually into your mouth, and swallow it whole. Wow. The one thing to always remember about the cafeteria, no matter which country you're in, is this: don't ever, ever mess with the lunch lady.Today John was eating at the cafeteria of his current client, which is usually quite good. Today was no exception--they were offering something that resembled Hamburger Helper. When going through the hot line at this particular cafeteria, all you have to say is "small," "medium," or "large." There is a 30-35 cent difference in price between each size, and the medium and large meals come on a larger plate with a blue rim. This is where it starts getting confusing for the cashiers. Since the medium and large meals come on identical plates, they have to be specially trained to notice the difference between the four spoonfuls of Hamburger Helper you get with a medium meal and the five spoonfuls that come with a large.
Last week one of John's colleagues ordered a medium plate, and another ordered a large. They happened to be comparing receipts during the meal and noticed that both were charged for a medium. One of them (Carl) remembered this today and decided to opt for a large plate. As John ordered his large plate, he explained the pricing discrepancy to Brooke in what he thought was a quiet voice. After the lunch lady served up five heaping spoonfuls of Hamburger Helper, she starting running off at the mouth in Dutch. He replied with his usual response--"I'm sorry?" and she proceeded to say some other things in Dutch. His Dutch friends, and all of the other Dutch people in the vicinity, immediately understood that she was saying, "You should tell the cashier that you have a large plate." Apparently he wasn't talking as quietly as he thought.
Needless to say, John paid the full price for the large while Carl again got away with paying the medium price. But that's not the worst part. Now every time he goes through the line, John has to face the lunch lady and wonder how or when she will choose to retaliate.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Goings-on in the Hood
So today when John arrived at work his colleagues had some news for him about some happenings in our neighborhood last night. This was unusual, because John is usually the one that entertains his co-workers with bizarre apartment stories. They decided to fill him in on this one because they know that we don't have access to most of the local news, which is broadcast in Dutch.Apparently yesterday evening around 6:00 there was a shooting less than a mile from our apartment involving a gunman with an automatic weapon of some sort firing at a lawyer who used to represent "underworld" criminals including "criminal godfather" Sam Klepper. We don't know who any of these people are, but it sounds like these guys weren't messing around. As far as we know we don't have any ties to the criminal underworld in Amsterdam, so we think we're safe.
Here is the full story we found on an expat website.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
