Koffie

One more month before the movers come to pack up our stuff and ship it back to the U.S. Before we start getting too sad and reminiscing about the past 18 months, we need to write a blog dedicated to the phenomenon of koffie (coffee) in the Netherlands.

John sometimes wonders to himself what on earth he will do at work in the U.S. when he is not being asked every 15 minutes if he would like something to drink. The reason the question comes so often during a day at work is twofold: 1) apparently the Dutch need to have about 5 liters of coffee in their system each day, and 2) the coffee cups one uses at the office are about the size of a Dixie cup. Now, if anyone in the room would like a cup of coffee (or tea or water or hot chocolate), he or she must go around the entire room and offer to get something to drink for everyone. John has seen coworkers interrupt phone conversations to ask the all-important question: what would you like to drink? And this is why John avoids needing a cup of water during his work day; he could never remember what all of his colleagues ordered to drink! The choices are endless: espresso, coffee with sugar, coffee with milk, coffee with milk and sugar, cappuccino, decaf coffee...there are seriously about 40 buttons on the coffee machines at work.

Because the coffee-getting ritual is observed so fervently around the country, certain conveniences have been invented to make the process easier. (One of the conveniences, unfortunately, is not larger cups.) The cardboard cup holder pictured here is necessary to cart all the cups back from the coffee machine. The question in red, by the way, says, "Will you get coffee?" This brings up the second convenience invented for the coffee-getting process.

Obviously it gets frustrating if the same person in the office ends up getting coffee for everyone about 10 times a day when other people, like John, refuse to ever get thirsty so as to avoid trying to remember what everyone wants from the machine. Douwe Egberts, the big coffee company here in the Netherlands that supplies most of the huge coffee machines in business places, has come up with Koffiemanager software for you computer! This ingenious program can be added to multiple computers in a room and will randomly choose different people at regular intervals to go get coffee for everyone. Furthermore, the program takes the stress out of having to remember what everyone orders. A pop-up will ask everyone with the software what they want to drink and deliver all the choices to the person who is assigned to go get the coffee!

Because John changes work groups so often, he has not been in the position of being able to utilize the Douwe Egberts Koffiemanager software. He may have used the cup holders a few times, but all in all John has remarkably avoided going to get drinks for the most part. Erin works in a church, so there is no €500 coffee machine available, and everyone buys their own coffee pads to use in the Senseo machine. The congregation might have a problem if they found out they were financing a Douwe Egberts super deluxe coffee machine at the church office (although the staff would probably be grateful if anyone would like to specifically donate one).

Evacuate Immediately, and Grab the Valuables on Your Way Out

Here's another update about our little Dutch hurricane, which has apparently is now named "Cyril" (don't ask us how to pronounce that)... Although John wasn't in the EY office today, he got regular email updates about the various states of peril its occupants were in as the day progressed. It all started late in the morning when the first email came through to inform everybody that the police department had "taken control" of the EY parking garage and nobody was permitted to enter the area under any circumstances. Later, after windows began blowing out of cars, five members of the fire department came to the scene and remained on standby for the afternoon.

We should stop here to explain that a new 20-story EY office building is currently being constructed next door to the current one, and before today they were almost finished putting in the windows. Depending on who you ask in the office, some, most, or all of the windows have now blown out or are broken. Considering the hazardous effects of little bits of glass flying at 60+ miles an hour, they decided to lock down the office. This didn't last long, because shortly thereafter, pieces of the old building also started falling down. The last email that came through says that the fire department ordered the building to be evacuated, presumably because the structural integrity of the building was in question. We hope the buildilng is still standing in the morning.

Severe Weather Update

Let us update you on the weather we're having today: hurricane. Yep. Hurricane-force winds and downpours are ravaging northern Europe. There's even an article on CNN if you're interested in the gritty details. The government is urging people not to ride bikes, as most of the bikes are being blown over and even flipping people around backwards. John has the car (and did not have to drive on any major freeways), so he had an easy time getting to work this morning. Erin's trips to and from work were not so easy. Luckily, she did opt NOT to try to ride her bike to work today. However, there are so many public transportation accidents and break-downs that it took an hour to take the trams to work rather than the usual 25-30 minutes. The trams had pretty much stopped running by the time she left work this evening, so she ended up taking a bus and then walking about 15 minutes to the apartment. The walk wasn't so bad as she tried to sheild herself from the hurricane-force winds as much as possible against buildings. The most dangerous part was avoiding getting hit by empty aluminum soda cans and other debris flying through the air at 50 mph.

Although John got to work before the worst part of this storm hit, he might have trouble getting home tonight. Officials are telling people not to drive unless they absolutely have to because the wind is flipping autos over on the freeways and there is a lot of dangerous debris (like parts of buildings, 100-foot trees, pieces of wall along the freeway) flying about. John has told everyone at work that he's not letting any of them leave for their own safety. Of course, John's been working until midnight anyway, so maybe by then it will be a bit calmer.

If you're interested in pictures, here are some that were taken before it got dark today. Erin would take a picture of the large pine tree that blew over behind our apartment and is now about five feet from our kitchen window (blowing dangerously close sometimes), but it was dark by the time she got home to discover the situation.

In the words of John, it's "Commotion!"

The Tram

Sometimes it takes longer to get places on the tram than it does at other times. For instance, this evening on Erin's way to work the tram driver stopped at the next to the last stop for an extremely long time. Erin looked up from her book to see what was happening. There's no need to wait for a traffic light at this particular stop. What was happening?

Erin looked up to the front of the tram to see the tram driver with the driver door open, sitting sideways in her seat with one boot off while rearranging her sock. She must have had something in her boot or her sock was just uncomfortably messed up and the problem had to be dealt with immediately. The last stop was only about 1 minute down the road so Erin couldn't figure out why it was necessary to prolong the journey just for this, but nevertheless the tram was stopped while the driver was fixing her sock.

Trams can be delayed for other reasons as well, as several of Erin's coworkers attested last week. One coworker described how she was once talking on her mobile phone (not prohibited on the tram) when the tram driver stopped dead on the tracks, turned around in his seat and announced for the entire tram to hear that she was talking entirely too loud and needed to quiet down. Needless to say, she was a bit embarrassed and the tram driver would not proceed until she had promised him that she would be quieter.

Another coworker witnessed his tram driver stop at a tram stop, actually get off the tram, go into a store across the street, return to the tram with ice cream in hand, and then continue on his way.

Maybe these are just some of the reasons that the amount of time it takes Erin to get to work can vary greatly.

Oh, for those interested in the weather in Amsterdam: it has been windy! In fact, Erin saw an older lady get blown over the other day while standing too near the edge of the sidewalk by the curb. It's not fun riding a bike in the wind...unless you happen to be going with the wind (which inevitably does happen either on your way to or from wherever you're going), in which case you just hop on and don't even have to pedal!

London Trip, A Summary

Big Ben and the London Eye
Originally uploaded by john_and_erin_rogers.

London was a mixture of museums, shopping, food, and culture (we saw the musical “The Producers”). Actually, we’re not sure “The Producers” quite counts as “culture.” We stayed in Notting Hill, seeing several locations we recognized from the movie “Notting Hill.” Among the tourist attractions checked off on our list were: St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London, Windsor Palace, Westminster Abby, Parliament, Big Ben, the British Museum, the National Gallery, Harrods, and Buckingham Palace. John loves London because he can talk to cashiers in English, read signs, and use the toilet for FREE. And yes, we had afternoon tea in London…at The Orangery at Kensington Palace no less. It was a wonderful trip!

London Trip, Part III

Thankfully the Gatwick Express train was once again running on Sunday morning for our trip to the airport. We had figured that if we again had to take a coach, we would need to leave about 4 a.m. in order to get to the airport in time to catch our flight! The four of us sat at a table in the train and played Uno to pass the time and entertain ourselves on the way to the airport.

The reason we had to get back to Amsterdam on New Year’s Eve was to again witness the incredible fireworks in the city. We were about to give up hope for a great fireworks display as the rain kept coming down, but the rain stopped completely about 5 minutes till midnight. We high-tailed it out to the main street nearby and watched as people set off all kinds of crazy fireworks everywhere! It was worth coming back for! (This, by the way, has got to be one of John’s favorite holidays in Amsterdam: noise, chaos, messes, fire, and danger. Who could ask for more?)

John returned to work after New Year’s so Erin entertained her parents the rest of the week. Well, kind of. Erin and her mom got colds about Wednesday so they didn’t really feel up to doing too much. They did get to shop in Amsterdam Centrum, see the Anne Frank Huis, walk around in Vondel Park, and buy cheese. All in all it was a satisfying holiday for everyone.

London Trip, Part II

Afternoon Tea at The Orangery
Originally uploaded by john_and_erin_rogers.

Friday dawned cloudy, a little rainy, and cold. We headed over to St. Paul’s for the second time, though this time it wasn’t free and we did actually get to tour the entire cathedral. All four of us made it up to the first upper gallery, the Whispering Gallery, which looks down into the cathedral. Supposedly you can whisper into the dome and someone on the opposite side of the dome can hear what you say, but there were so many people and so much noise that it didn’t quite work. Erin’s parents had had enough of the stairs at that point, so they returned to the cathedral floor while we trekked up to the Stone Gallery and then to the Golden Gallery, both outside the building with views over London. I think the Golden Gallery is almost as high up as the London Eye goes! The whole experience took close to an hour with more stairs than any of the other towers we’ve had the pleasure of climbing in Europe. When we met back up with Erin’s parents we all headed over to the Tower of London.

The audio guide at the Tower of London is great! There are lots of entertaining stories about failed escape attempts and snooty prisoners held at the Tower. The downside of our visit as the extreme wind and cold. And the crowd. There were so many people that we decided right away that seeing the Crown Jewels would be near impossible. Erin and her mom had already seen the jewels before, but John was looking forward to it. Alas, the line was so long and we got there late in the day so the Tower probably would have closed before we even got in to see the Crown Jewels. The upside of our visit was that we got to see people dressed in medieval attire, playing the parts of kings, queens, court jesters, and musicians. We even got to hear the musicians play on authentic instruments the music of the medieval period. It was a satisfactory visit. Next time we’ll know to get there early in the day to see the Crown Jewels.

Friday evening we went to see the great Harrods. When we first arrived the place was a mad house (right after people got off of work), so we opted to go have some dinner and come back. On the recommendation of Erin’s sister, we tried to eat at a nearby out-of-the-way pub, but they weren’t serving dinner. We ended up just down the street at The Wilton Arms for fish ‘n’ chips and Guinness pie. Harrods was extraordinarily less crowded after food and drinks. We got to see the Egyptian Room and the Food Halls, the highlights for us since we did not really want to actually shop. Well, we did end up buying a little something…some chocolates which lasted us about a week.

On Saturday we finally made it to Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abby. It has become terribly complicated to get a tour of Parliament, so we settled for seeing the outside of the building. Also, it seems only U.K. citizens are allowed to go up inside Big Ben…if you apply 6 months in advance, pay a fee, arrive 30 minutes early, and leave your first-born child as a deposit before entering. We did go inside Westminster Abby. Reading the gravestones is fascinating, and of course standing in Poet’s Corner is amazing. Friday was actually quite sunny in the morning, so after Westminster Abby we roamed through St. James Park and arrived at Buckingham Palace just as the Changing of the Guard was taking place. We hadn’t planned to see the changing of the guard, which is lucky since by the time we got there we were so far away from the gates that we couldn’t see what was happening anyway. Anyway, we had already seen the incredibly long but interesting Changing of the Guard at Windsor Castle. We walked through Green Park to the underground and saw The Ritz (as filmed in “Notting Hill”) then headed off to the Portobello Road Market (also seen in the movie “Notting Hill”). Unfortunately it started raining while we were at the market and we neglected to try to find any information before we left about where to find The Travel Book Shop or the house with the blue door (from the movie “Notting Hill”), so we didn’t get through the whole market before heading back to the apartment.

One of the fun, quintessentially "London" things we did was go to afternoon tea Saturday afternoon. We stayed quite close to Kensington Palace, and The Orangery restaurant at the palace has excellent afternoon tea. It was nice to be inside out of the rain and cold for a bit while enjoying tea and scones and cake. It must have been all the walking around in the cold and rain that made us all so tired Saturday evening. We had to pack up anyway, so just got frozen pizzas at the Tesco down the street and watched “Sense and Sensibility” while eating pizza and packing Saturday night.

London Trip, Part I

100_0922
Originally uploaded by john_and_erin_rogers.

We stayed in an apartment in Notting Hill, just a 3-minute walk from an underground station. We were all so weary when we finally arrived around 4:00 that we just went to dinner at the pub next door, The Swan, and vegged in front of the TV until we went to bed. Or tried to go to bed. We slept on the pull-out sofa bed in the living room and didn’t get much sleep. Imagine lying on a bunch of springs covered in cloth. Then imagine the whole bed as a canyon with a deep valley in the middle. Then imagine we could not figure out how to turn the heat down so it feels like summer in Texas. Not pleasant. Thankfully, the next day we discovered several extra blankets and an extra super-thick comforter. After folding these blankets and the comforter up and piling them on the bed to cover the springs and even out the canyon, we slept quite well the rest of the week.

Wednesday we were ready to go. Since the grocery stores had been closed the day before, John went to the store while we were all getting ready to go and bought stuff for us to eat for breakfast. He was absolutely delighted that he could converse with the cashier in English, something he hasn’t been able to do for a loooong time! Just a short train ride away was Windsor Castle. Erin and her mom had both been to London before, but Erin had not been to Windsor Castle, so it was new to three of the four of us. The free audio guides were great, and John said it was the best castle he’d been to, mostly because it is actually in use and seems quite new compared to the medieval castles we’ve been visiting lately. We attempted to have some lunch at a pub, but when we went up to the bar the bartender told us the cook was not making anymore food right now because he was too busy. Hmmm. OK. We ended up getting pasties in town near the train station, and they were quite tasty.

Since it was still the Christmas season, St. Paul’s Cathedral had a “Christmas Carols and Readings” service that we went to Wednesday evening. Even though the choir was much smaller than expected (only about 10 of them), it was awesome to be at a service in that cathedral. After the service, in search of sustenance, we wandered into Piccadilly Circus. After perusing the Trocodero we finally found a place to eat, Adam’s Rib, and had some good old pork ribs. John mentioned that he’s like to see Tower Bridge at night, so we headed out there after dinner. We ended up getting some pretty good night pictures of the bridge and walked along the Thames before calling it a day.

We had claimed Thursday as theatre day, so after breakfast at the apartment, we went to stand in line at the tkts booth in Leicester Square to get some half-price musical tickets. There wasn’t a lot of choice for shows that day and we ended up with tickets to “The Producers” playing at the Drury Lane Theatre. The show was OK, but not fantastic. We’ve heard the cast in New York is much better. After purchasing our tickets, we made a quick trip to Starbucks for some coffee, hot chocolate, and the bathroom. We did not have to pay to a use one single toilet the entire week! Another reason John loves England!

We then headed over to see Trafalgar Square and visited some highlights at the National Gallery. That museum is far too big to even see in an entire day. Since we had limited time, we just marched around looking at the most famous pieces and glancing at the galleries we were walking through. Next on our list was the British Museum. We stopped to have some lunch on our way at a café called Munchkins. The tables inside were all taken, and since it wasn’t too terribly cold we opted to just sit at the two tiny tables outside. The food wasn’t awesome or anything and people kept looking at us funny sitting outside in December, but it really wasn’t too cold and we got to people-watch. Erin decided that we and our families are not the only people on the planet who agonize over finding a place to eat while on vacation. Several groups of people stopped in front of Munchkins, perused the menu, had some discussion for a few minutes, argued about when/where/what to eat, and either headed off in search of yet another café or shuffled inside for some lunch. The British Museum was a whirlwind. Again, there is soooo much to see. We saw the highlights of the Greek and Roman rooms, the Africa exhibit, the money exhibit, some etchings of The Nativity, and a brief walk through the Americas rooms. Pretty good for a little less than 2 hours!

We had dinner that night at a restaurant near the Drury Lane Theatre: Sarastro. It was a Turkish restaurant, and although the food wasn’t spectacular, we got crackers to open and the décor in the place was astounding! It was a bit gaudy and over the top, but quite an experience. The musical was not quite astounding. We enjoyed ourselves, though, and the bit in the second act portraying the musical “Springtime for Hitler” (the musical “The Producers” put on in the musical) was absolutely hilarious!

A Second Visit to Amsterdam

Erin’s parents came to see us over Christmas. This is their second trip to Amsterdam, so things were a little less rushed since they’d already been here before. It was nice to have some family in town on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In true Rogers fashion, we neglected to actually check the service times on Sunday for the Christmas Eve services at church. Nevermind that Erin is on staff at the church and has been involved in numerous meetings outlining the goings-on for Christmas Eve. We decided to go to the 8:30 p.m. service after enjoying our dinner. At about 7:55 Erin found a schedule of the service times and noted that the service actually started at 8:00. We left immediately, thinking we would only be about 10 or 15 minutes late. After arriving closer to 20 minutes late, we found that the doors to the auditorium were closed and the men standing by the door were explaining that the room was at capacity and it would be a fire hazard to let anymore people in. We guess the 8:00 service just wasn’t meant to be. We decided to drive back to the apartment, open gifts, have something warm to drink and come back for the 10:00 service. Everything turned out OK in the end. John was just a bit sad after hearing that there was indeed a false fire alarm during the 8:00 service and everyone had to exit the building; he hates to miss chaos! There was no chaos at the 10:00 service.

The day after Christmas, 2 Kerstdag in the Netherlands and Boxing Day in the U.K., the four of us left to fly to London for the remainder of the week. Erin’s mom had purchased tickets ahead of time for the train that takes us straight from the airport into London, so we were planning to get to our apartment around 2:00 p.m. Alas, the train company decided the week after Christmas would be the best time to do repair work on the tracks. The express train was not running and we had to take coaches instead. What was supposed to be a 30-minute train ride would now take at least 2 hours on the roads. The most memorable part of the trip was the first 30 minutes or so as the heater in the coach was turned on full blast and all of us thought we were going to die of the heat! Finally one woman went to ask the driver if the air conditioning could be turned on and we rode in comfort the rest of the way to Victoria Station.

Upon arriving at Victoria Station, we went to the information desk to see about buying travel cards for the underground. The man waiting on us at the desk was the absolute nastiest, meanest, rudest person we have ever encountered. After getting angry that he was just about to leave when we walked in, he then got angry about our method of payment and the number of cards we were buying, and told us we should just leave London! Fortunately, the transaction got finished and we never met another person that rude the entire rest of the week.

The story of London will have to be chronicled in parts. Let’s face it, we are going to write about our adventures in great detail for our own benefit rather than yours (unless you are planning a trip to London and want tips on what to do). We are aware that many of our readers will just skip the next entries because they could care less what we ate and how many stairs we climbed to get to the top of St. Paul’s. That’s fine. We’ll provide a quick summary for all of you.

Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar!

That’s “Happy New Year!” in Dutch, and thanks to the people sitting in front of us in church yesterday, we now know how to properly pronounce it.

As a follow-up to the previous blog, we need to say that the door-buzzer issue was quickly solved the Friday before Christmas with a 30-minute visit from the door system people. The guy didn’t even charge us for his time (Merry Christmas!), but he did leave us with the bad news that the system is really old, the wires are not good anymore, and the entire door system will go “any day now.” So far it’s been two weeks and everything is still working!

Also, a new shower curtain of the right size was obtained before the parents got here. Well, it was almost the right size. This time it was wide enough for the shower stall but much too long. That problem was easily solved with some scissors.

Erin’s computer at work is now back in order, although the “computer guy” is beginning to think Erin is bad luck for the computers there since she has already completely fried one CPU, jammed the printer, and keeps getting her internet locked up. Apparently no one else on the staff has these numerous problems with their computers!

The TV is a sad story that we would prefer to not talk about, but we must keep our waiting audience updated! After messing around with the remote control menu buttons and punching random options (all in Dutch), Erin got the digital box to reprogram itself. Now we get almost as many channels as we originally received, most of which are now completely in Dutch. CNN still has no sound and one of our favorite channels that airs tons of U.S. sitcoms and good movies is mysteriously missing in the channel lineup. Actually several channels have no sound, but on those channels it’s just as well since we can’t understand a word they’re saying in Dutch anyway. We still have not received a new box in the mail, as promised. Also, we think we’re going to be charged for this “new” television service on a monthly basis despite the lack of “service” that we’re receiving.

Erin’s parents just left Saturday to go back to the U.S. after a two-week visit. Our adventures during their visit will be in another blog. Stay tuned!