Fall 2013 -- Fall is in the air! This city is definitely making it easy for us to embrace fall. The end of summer and beginning of colder weather usually makes for a difficult transition, but this year the changing leaves and crisp mornings let us walk along the canals with an entirely different vantage point. I'll also admit it was nice to bring warm sweaters and boots out of storage.Fall 2013 -- Fall is in the air! This city is definitely making it easy for us to embrace fall. The end of summer and beginning of colder weather usually makes for a difficult transition, but this year the changing leaves and crisp mornings let us walk along the canals with an entirely different vantage point. I'll also admit it was nice to bring warm sweaters and boots out of storage.
Sept 13-15, 2013 -- Where do we even begin? The city greeted us with a cold mist and poured buckets of rain on us the following day, yet we fell in love with it. Maybe it was the ambiance, the architecture, the food or the site seeing, but it all seemed to perfectly combine into a beautiful city. By the time we arrived in Paris we had already visited a number of other European cities. The likes of Prague, Krakow and Budapest raised a pretty high bar for Paris to meet, and it completely surpassed our expectations. And before we left Paris we were already planning our return trips!
Aug 22, 2013 -- Sarah and I had been in Amsterdam for less than two weeks before booking an impromptu trip to Antwerp, Belgium. Day trips are some of the many luxuries of living in centrally-located Amsterdam, and I still find it hard to fully appreciate how many cities (and countries for that matter) are reachable by a 4-5 hour drive. Taking advantage of summer train fares and the short two hour ride to Antwerp seemed like a no-brainer! |
| We found our home! |
This marked my first week of work, so it seemed fitting to ease back into employment with a short work week. Sarah and I spent the day riding our bikes to Zaanse Schans in Noord-Holland. It’s more of a neighborhood than a town, and a picturesque neighborhood at that. Situated on the Zaan river, the streets are lined with beautifully-restored houses. The river itself has eight windmills guarding its riverbanks -- each dating back to the 17th or 18th century. Windmills are a quintessential part of Dutch culture and I’m fascinated by them, so we thought this would be a great opportunity to immerse ourselves in our new home.
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| Dutch houses on the Zaan River. These houses have a great view of the windmills on the opposing river bank. |
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| With two thirds of the country below sea-level, much of Holland's farmlands sit on reclaimed land segmented by a series of canals to help redirect the water. |
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| Sarah got a chance to pet one of the lambs... |
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| ... and feed a baby goat. |
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| Albert Heijn is a popular grocery chain in the Netherlands. It all started from this store in 1887. |
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| Coffee beans being weighed in a scale. The Dutch love their "koffie" |
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| We found a cheese factory! |
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| Wheels of cheese aging in a climate-controlled room |
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| Holland is full of engineering marvels. It's interesting to see all the different bridges in action. |