Now back to body cleanse…hmmm. I must wonder how this will work out in the end. It’s a two week supplement program. Bought a vegetarian version at Whole Foods while I was home. Then stupidly I took the first four pills yesterday with only a small biscuit in my belly. Umh, within an hour I was in my office bathroom yacking! Ugh!!!! I was good by late last night and ok today. Tonight I am taking like 12 supplements. I might be nuts. And I am not sure but I am drinking wine with it which may defeat the purpose. Hmmmm….box does not say anything about avoiding alcohol, though it says to limit physical activity. Course I still want to run tomorrow. Oh and did I mention there is a beer fest at Grand Place!?!? I may be actively self-destructive on this whole body cleanse thing.

Oh well, will let you know how it turns out. Must go finish my wine:-)

I figured my best bet to get back into shape and build endurance is to start running. Some unintended side-effects will be I’ll lose weight and my heart won’t be in jeopardy. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I just want to play better golf and if that means running 30 minutes 3 times a week, so be it. And since Staci’s doing it, too, I have no choice to do it so I don’t let her down. *grumble* Stupid buddy system *grumble*

To get us going, we’re doing the Couch-to-5K running plan found on the Cool Running website. Staci’s done it previously with good results, and since I’m just a lazy tub of goo with bad knees and a doctor’s advice to “never run again”, it’s probably best if I start slow so I don’t hurt myself. Besides, I hate running, but it’s the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to get into shape, and it’s only ~30 minutes every other day, so there’s not much I can do to not do it, especially since I’m not giving up beer.

I plan on posting once a week or so with results and thoughts on how much I hate running to (hopefully) keep me going through this ordeal. I don’t intend to use this as a springboard to longer runs. (Remember, I hate running.) 5K is enough for me. It may be a starting point to working out and getting into better overall shape, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it’s all about golf.

Week 1
Distance: ~4.4km
Route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3030228
Weight: 104kg (230lbs)

Yesterday, Jon & the family were nice enough to call us for a visit and ask if we had errands to run. Originally, I just planned to walk to some nearby shops, but instead we took advantage of this opportunity. Fast forward to a trip to an Appliance Outlet to look at washer/dryers (we’ve been able to go 2 weeks without doing laundry and still have fresh undies, which either means we have a lot of underwear or we aren’t wearing any…you can decide). Then we realized we better take measurements of the stairwell, elevator and utility closet before purchasing a machine that might end up sitting out in the back parking lot where we would just stare at it from our living room window.

Next we tried to find a non-existent home store on the south side of town, and when that did not pan out we headed to Ikea instead. 4 hours later we left Ikea!!! FOUR hours! Mind you we did eat when we first arrived. Jon and Jeff LOVE, and I mean LOVE, the meatballs there. Since the coke sucks, we had beers instead. Have I mentioned I love Ikea? Then the journey through the endless halls of Ikea began.

We started by going against the flow of traffic. I do not recommend this technique. It is dangerous. We only made it through the kids section and part of the storage area, before we took the short cut to the start. Much safer. Hours later, we had selected a shoe storage bench, a duvet and cover for guests (hint, hint!), tupperware, oven mit, and who knows what else-it’s all foggy now. By the time we left, the guys were ready to kill somebody. Marcus had one meltdown and then promptly fell asleep. I had to sign and speak garbled French and English to the cashier to take off the bowls which somehow ended up being 5 euro/each instead of 1.50. We were all drained. And the scariest part is that since unpacking things today, I realize we still need stuff from Ikea!! AAAhhhhhh!!!

The goal for next time – borrow the car so Jon doesn’t have to be tortured again. Only take Jeff for heavy lifting and so there is room to pull down the backseat and I can finally buy my full length mirror, instead of dressing in our elevator:-) Have a list and stick to it! Then maybe we won’t need to spend 4 hours there. And some day we might finally be settled.

We will work on being better about blogging. Here are some pics of the new place (during the move and after unpacking). It is a work in progress and most of the furniture is ala Jon and Christine (thank you again!). But the nesting will begin now. Visitors are officially welcome:-) Of course, you’ve always been welcome!

So what does this post’s title mean? No, I’m not going to talk about Vanilla Ice. (As far as I know he has absolutely nothing to do with The Netherlands or Amsterdam.) Rather, it’s a clever play on words. Today, we’re talking about ice cubes, specifically the lack of ice cubes available for purchase in large quantities at the grocery store.

You see, historically, Holland (and western Europe as well) doesn’t really believe in drinking beverages too cold. This has been changing in recent years, and cold beer is now common.¹ Ice in a drink, though? Yeah, you’ll get ice: 2, maybe 3 cubes. Bars just typically don’t need a lot of ice as their clientele doesn’t expect it as they’ve grown up not really using it.²

Case in point: We had a party at our place a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Staci’s graduation. We live above a bar. (Yeah, it’s kind of awesome. You can be jealous.) I went downstairs to see if we could get a small bucket of ice. First thing the bartender says is “Ice?” as though he had no idea what I was asking for. Turns out he just couldn’t hear me, but I thought it was funny that that was initial response given the lack of ice to be had. Anyways, when he grasps what I’m asking for (a small, hotel-size bucket of ice,) he begins to try and figure out if giving me that much ice will leave him without enough for the night. (It’s ~6:30P on a Friday night, there were 4 women sitting at the bar drinking wine and the bar crowd won’t even start trickling in until ~10P.) That’s when I realized that their ice making machine was under the bar counter, and the tub it dumped into was maybe 12″d x 18″w x 12″h. My little bucket was going to take ~1/2 that. He gave it to me anyways, and even offered to let me come get more later if I needed it. (We did, but opted to not go get any. I didn’t want to screw him over.)

So the whole point of this post was to give you a little background and show you how things we take for granted in the U.S. can be a big deal here. Also, it clues you in to why I’m excited to find out that I discovered that the liquor stores sell ice and that I was way to excited when I confirmed it wasn’t just a rumor. I saw it with my own eyes yesterday. Granted, anything resembling warm weather is gone until May, and we have no space in our freezer for a bag of ice, but I still feel like I won $10 on a scratcher ticket.

1. Cold beer is found in bars. Beer is not refrigerated at the store. It’s your job to get it cold, not theirs, which really sucks when you have a refrigerator the size of a hotel mini-bar. Think I’m kidding? Click the picture to get a full-size view. I’m standing next to it to give you perspective. My inseam is 36 inches. (Sorry ladies, I’m married.) It’s about 2ft wide inside. Remember when you were in college, living in the dorms and you & your roommate shared one, but it mostly just contained beer and soda because you had the dorm cafeteria to eat at and no place to cook anyways? Now imagine using that dorm fridge to store food that you cook and still having the roommate share it. Yeah, it sucks. The first thing to lose fridge space? You guessed it: beer.
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2. My polling sample is some of the students from western European countries in Staci’s master’s program. ~15-20 people were polled at a party while I was drinking, so the data may not be as conclusive or accurate as it could be.
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But, I’ve officially graduated. The diploma is mine, as evidenced in the attached picture where I am signing it as is part of Dutch tradition. And no cap and gowns here in Holland…sad:-( But, it was still a lovely day with a roughly 3 hour ceremony to acknowledge the 27 students present who were graduating and the other 15 not present. This was followed by a Borrel (drinks) to celebrate, and then one last hurray at our student pub, GeoVUsie (80 euro cent drinks kept us quite happy this past year, but the price just went up for the students this year….90 euro cents….we got out just in time:-)). 13241321

The next evening Jeff and I hosted my classmates at our flat for a “Last Bash” and was it ever! 1294 1297 We were amazed how many people we could fit into our smaller apartment in the city. Originally we figured by midnight we’d all head out to a club for some dancing, but since people brought so much alcohol the party went on till after 2am.

A couple strange events occurred that evening. First, was Milena spilling wine on the floor which took the shape of a skull! 13091312We of course had to properly honor this with candles and many pictures. Then, perhaps the most bizarre happening of the evening…my husband, one Jeff McLennan, proceeded to PASS OUT just after midnight. 1318He did so on top of everyone’s coats in our bedroom. There was much discussion about sharpie markers, shaving cream, inappropriate pictures, but in the end we all just laughed at him. Oh, and rolled him over to get the coats!

Anywho, just after 2am when the alcohol was running dry we finally got the party to leave the apartment and head out for some much needed dancing. I proceeded to leave Jeff on the bed and went dancing with friends till the bar closed at 4am. Then it was falafel and home to bed with a few house guests sleeping over.

We woke the next morning to a trashed apartment. But those fabulous house guests pitched in with the clean-up….a good thing because the maid stopped by early, only spoke Dutch and was insistent on coming in to clean. I am trying to sign to her that we had a party, the place is trashed, and we would like to clean it up before she comes in to do her cleaning. Finally, Xander translated and the maid started her cleaning upstairs (which she usually does, but for some reason wanted to stop in our place first that day). I mean she literally knocked on our door about two seconds after I had told Anne, Daniel and Xander that we had about 2 hours to clean up before the maid would arrive. Doh!

Well four bags of garbage later, all surfaces had been sufficiently cleaned of empty and full beer cans, wine glasses, liquor bottles, and perhaps some recreational drugs legal in Amsterdam. Even today a day later, I discovered a beer can on a window ledge (outside) that we had missed yesterday. Though I had found the beer cans stuck down in the plants on the balcony! Anywho, to finish our party cleansing we did a quick mopping of the floor and then we all vacated the apartment for some much needed greasy breakfast consumption. It was a beautiful sunny day in Amsterdam so we walked around for a little while before coming back to a VERY CLEAN apartment (did I ever mention how nice a maid service is!?!) and RELAXATION!

Today, it is back to that bloody thesis! Hope to be done at the end of October. Must really force myself to leave the apartment for the library during the week or I will never finish!

(Click on any of the photos to see more pics. To view the entire Graduation and Party albums go to my Facebook page Staci Putney McLennan and click on albums!)

I blame it on being in a developing country where internet and electricity were limited (woah is me), then moving to a new apartment, then going home to the US for my AWESOME Grandma Mary’s memorial (103 and 8 months (that’s how ya roll post-100)), and then returning to Amsterdam to still work on that bloody thesis I am supposed to be writing….while I am already graduating this week (hence the very little motivation to work on my thesis:-)).

So what is new? Well, we probably have about 10 blogs we need to post about our lives in the past 3-4 months……..but I am so behind that it will take a while.

What can I tell you in the mean time? Our apartment smells like peppermint! No, it WREAKS of peppermint. See, we have a little mouse problem. I like to call it a mouse problem, because I am in denial that Fievel’s entire family is living in my walls (though I know this is true). You know me, I LOVE animals. Hell, I don’t eat them cause I love them. So, when we moved into our new apartment and the first weekend late at night I saw a little mouse scurrying across the floor, I thought it was cute. And I laughed. Then the poop droppings came and did not stop. I am cool with wildlife invading homes. I figure we built on top on “nature” so why shouldn’t nature come inside?! But, when the presents show up daily and in many spots I start to think, hmmm….maybe some action is necessary.

We entertained the idea of bringing a kitty from home. Thunder is a killing machine, but he would soon kill us if stuck inside an apartment daily. Sheeba is still quite the mouser (or chipmunker given her last LIVE prize brought home), but she is going on 19 and as Dr. Darren tells me “she is too old to take overseas”. Now Keegan likes the great indoors, but he is also neurotic as all hell. Therefore, no go on bringing kitties from home.

Since kitty importation seemed out, we went the natural route (i.e., I googled “humane deterrents to mice”). Hence, the Peppermint oil that is now permeating our apartment. It has been sprayed on cotton swabs, towels, open holes and floorboards. Steel wool and towels now seal any obvious holes and a dusting of peppermint oil covers everything else. My sinuses also feel surprisingly open (side benefit I guess).

Will Fievel move upstairs? Or stick to the walls? I wonder. Will I see him again like this morning when my 7.30am wake-up obviously threw him off and he was trapped behind the entertainment center for 3 hours? We shall see. I will keep you posted.

In the mean time, know that no inhumane glue traps and/or snap traps will be used in this story. Nor Poison…cause I wouldn’t want my cats or any others sickened by eating a poisoned mouse. Despite my husband’s enthusiasm to buy one of these archaic devices.

For now, I will sit here and dream of Christmas trees, candy canes and coffee liberally doused with Peppermint Schnapps!

Cheers!