Ready to Visit the Ville!

It seems like it's been 2 or 3 months since the Highfields left, but it was only about 5 weeks ago. With the days getting shorter and the weather getting wetter (if not terribly cold), the Lewis family is ready to go home for a much-needed visit. We've been counting down the days for 3 weeks, and Saturday is the day! But that's looking forward, and this blog is (mostly) about looking back. So here goes!

Lucy had a short drama presentation/ play this week, followed by a 3rd grade potluck lunch. During the classroom talk, we got to watch this great video of Lucy's class playing some marimba.

Lilli surprised me at the end of soccer season by declaring that she would like to play basketball. Her football (soccer) coach asked me if she wanted to try out late in the season, but I was doubtful since she has never showed much desire to play unless cousin Serene was around. But Lilli is tall for her age and there aren't an incredible number of girls at the school that play ball, so the coach thought that she would be a good fit for the team.

Tryouts: Despite her old man not teaching her how to play (or, perhaps because of this?), she picked up enough from Collegiate gym class and other sports to be able to compete reasonably well! Lilli has on the red shorts, to the left.

She was picked to travel with the team to the Hague (about an hour from Amsterdam) for her first real game.
Cuts were to be made after this game and a mini-tournament held at our school last weekend.
Lilli is #12, wearing the bright blue shoes, far left.

 Her first basket! She had lots of rebounds as well. Overall a very good game for someone who has had a grand total of 2 practices, and the girls won handily.

After the game, she still had homework to do (we got home at 9:00).

Cuts were announced early this week and she was one of the 12 (out of 18) that made it! She was very happy and excited - and I'm looking forward to spending some time teaching her at home over vacation (in the cradle of basketball that is our home state).


The large "pool" (about 1 ft. deep) in the Museumplein has been converted into a skating rink for the winter. It is not cold enough for it to freeze naturally, so they have refrigeration units running.

The rink is complete with an added restaurant/ skate rental location, a drawbridge (shown), and a zamboni! The Dutch LOVE skating (you may remember their dominance of the olympics) and long for a cold spell of sufficient duration for the canals to freeze. 

The same rink, with the Rijksmuseum in the background.
Some of the smaller kids use the green chairs to stabilize themselves as they are learning.

My girl!

Some very big news - we found a good Mexican place! Similar to Q'Doba (or Chipotle, so people tell me), the Salsa Shop is right around the corner from Holli's office. In fact, her co-worker is the one who told me about it. Lilli and I ventured there on one of her conference days, and we both loved it. So I took all three of them on an in-service day a couple of weeks ago. it was a big hit all around.

Couldn't resist adding this picture. I'm sure Lilli will not be pleased!

Chicken tacos & guacamole!

A little ambiance - right up Lucy's alley!

After lunch, we continued our trip (via bike) to the NEMO (the science center). There's always something interesting to see and do in here, and they all spent some time on this "manufacturing facility." It is complete with operating stations, quality control centers, and live-action sorting to fill orders. Very neat concept (reminds me a great deal of the packaging operations I supported at Rohm and Haas - and may be a bit more sophisticated...)!

Lilli and I had lunch at a cafe on Rembrandtplein on her other conference day (also very close to Holli's office). Our bikes are chained to the streetlight, and she (in the pink jacket) is going to check out the Nights Watch scene in the distance.

A lazy Saturday morning. At one point in time, Lilli's "onesie" had feet in it, and it actually fit!
Anyone looking for a Christmas gift idea, here you go!

Just thought this was a nice picture of Holli. I believe we were on our way to the Winter Fair at the school.

Outside at the Winter Fair, a couple of food trucks (had to take a picture for Martha Walters). The girls are waiting for some miniature dutch pancakes and Holli is getting some soup.

Going shopping.

Eliza was home (sick) a couple of days, so she made a pop-up castle!

Despite the short days and cooler weather, we try to get out and walk or bike on the weekends.
Here, we took Holli to the girls' favorite playground in Rembrandt Park.
The bigger two are up in the climbing ropes while Holli & Eliza are on the see-saw to the left.

Daisy being Daisy.

Holli has had to do some traveling over the last few months, and quite a lot more recently. During one of her several trips to Moscow, she was surprised and amused at their catering choice - she was certain that they had no idea of the company's Louisville origins...

Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.

She did manage to capture a couple of shots of more well-known sites as her taxi drove her around the city.

Holli also has a knack for catching pretty scenes from her window seat (unfortunately she has lots of opportunities).

And some random pretty things from around town:

I believe Holli took this from right in front of our apartment.

The Dutch do a wonderful job of decorating their streets. I don't think it's just a holiday thing - many of the lights have been up for several weeks and are more themed based on the street name than Christmas. The "9" on this block's lights represents the "9-Streets shopping district"

Lilli and I passed this guy on our way home from dropping her sisters off at school one morning (conference day). Kind of hard to tell what's going on from this angle, but you get the idea that the guy driving this rig is pretty comfortable, and watching him you see that he is plenty skillful in handling it!

From a little further back, you can see that he is operating a claw. For exact reasons unknown, he is using the claw to scoop up water and drop it into the barge that he has been pushing down the canal. Any guess what else is in the barge?

Mostly bikes, but various other things as well. Still hard for me to believe that there are that many dead bikes in the canals. It's not like these guys do this once and they're done. They come around periodically and have these kinds of hauls! I saw them in the same spot twice in the same week!

More interesting (to me anyway) public service operations in action. This is one of the plastic recycling containers that dot the cityscape. I'd guess its footprint is about 6' x 8'. Trapdoors open on the bottom to release the contents into the compactor. The analogous ones for paper and glass are about 6' x' 6' but are underground and about 10' deep. I may have posted pics of these before, but I still find them interesting, especially since I really believe that they do recycle this stuff (unlike the mixed-bins at home that we leave by the curb).

Mr. Mom notes

The exercise equipment arrived, and has seen some use. In fact, I have not been back out on my bikes (for exercise) since we got the trainer set up. I must say that I absolutely HATE riding a stationary bike, but I'm glad that we have the option (riding for an hour or two in the cold rain is not much fun either). I've put in over 16 hours of seat time during the last three weeks, generally reading or listening to the "Serial" podcast to pass the time. Beats concentrating on what I'm doing by a long shot, although I can tell that this podcast is going to be a disappointment.

The back of the garage is now fully consumed with exercise gear, plus a chair for Eliza to watch Holli run.

I've now made it through the first four Jack Ryan novels (Patriot Games, Red Rabbit, The Hunt for Red October, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin) and am halfway through Clear and Present Danger. Rabbit was kind of hard to get through - you could tell that it was written much later, and it seemed like Clancy had a bit of an agenda or was trying to prove something with his style. Not nearly as good as the others.

Did not watch much TV until the last week or two. Caught up with Homeland (was not expecting last week's turn of events at all!) and then saw that there was entire season of Ray Donovan that I missed over the summer. Starting to rectify that oversight (2-3 episodes in so far).


So here's another little difference between the US and Amsterdam (all of Europe?)... Clothes dryers. We bought the bullet and purchased replacements for the washer and dryer that came with the apartment. Although the existing units were apparently good (people here love Meile), they were small. Like three bath towels at-a-time MAX small. With the volume of laundry that our family of 5 goes through, two loads per day were required. Throw in the days where we change the bedsheets and the fact that our family apparently can't re-use towels (I still agree with uncle Cle's take on this topic), and we just couldn't keep up. Especially when the loads take at least 90 minutes in each machine.

I picked out Samsungs units that appear very similar to the ones that we bought at home about 2 years ago (which were nearly identical to the ones we bought at Kenilworth - very happy with this brand). The are some peculiarities with the washer, but for the most part it functions about the same as the US model.

The dryer is a different story as becomes immediately obvious on inspection of the faceplate:

This is from the English (U.K.) version of the manual.
Both my manual and my faceplate are in Dutch, so I had to print out a few select pages from one I found online.

For starters, there are several "levels" of dry. I have no idea what the difference is between Cupboard dry and Iron dry, but based on the drying times indicated for each there isn't much. Also note that there are two different options depending on what type of clothes you're working with (cotton vs. synthetics). I guess that some people have the time/ energy/ patience/ ability(?) to segregate along lines of not only color/ lights/ darks but also fabric type. I'm not one of those people.

Judging by the cycle times, cotton garments must just be tumbled with no air going over them in the hopes that the water will magically disappear. After 3 hours in the dryer on any of the 3 cotton settings (not an exaggeration), you could hang your clothes on a clothesline for a while and they may be wearable. Or maybe not... The synthetics cycle generally takes between 60 and 90 minutes to complete depending on what's in there. This is still nearly double the cycle time as our dryer in the US. Why the difference?

Well, first these units are electric. In my experience, gas dryers operate faster - maybe 25%? Gas dryers are not common here (and may not be used at all? Just guessing) in large part due to the age of and configuration of the buildings. You have to run an exhaust port out of the house to get rid of the CO2, otherwise you'd run the risk of poisoning or even killing the house's inhabitants. Existing Dutch construction doesn't easily accommodate running exhaust ports, so they just stay away from gas.

But - you might be thinking - you have to run an exhaust port for an electric dryer too! Otherwise you'd be dumping all of that humid air back into the house, which would cause lots of problems (condensation, mold, hot house in the summer, etc. - not to mention the lint that makes it through the filter). And here's the second difference - this dryer has a built in heat pump and condensing unit. Anyone that has worked in my units at Rohm and Haas or has studied the refrigeration cycle will see something familiar here in my best guess about how the process works:

A compressor "squeezes" a gaseous refrigerant (call it freon for inaccurate simplicity), causing the gas pressure to increase and its temperature to rise. The hot, pressurized gas is sent through tubes in a heat exchanger (condenser), where a stream of air passes across fins attached to the outside of the tubes. The air stream is heated while the hot gas condenses and becomes a liquid. The hot air is then sent to the drying drum where it removes some water from the clothes, thus making the air more humid and somewhat cooler.

The warm, humid air passes through the lint filter and then goes into another heat exchanger where it passes over fins that are cold. Water from the air condenses on the cold fins and drains to a reservoir, from where it is pumped out to a sewer drain. The cooled and dried air is then recycled to the first heat exchanger and the cycle continues until the air leaving the drying drum is dry (according to the analyzer). The cooling in the second heat exchanger (the evaporator) is provided by the liquid "freon" that was condensed in the first heat exchanger. The heat provided by the warm air leaving the dryer causes the freon to boil, which in turn cools the air!

The evaporator, protected by a secondary "absolute" filter that has been removed for cleaning.

To those unfamiliar with these concepts, I'm sure it is a little confusing (I still have to think about it and I'm not 100% sure I described the cycle correctly). To engineers (and other geeks like me), it is an elegant solution that allows a clothes dryer to be easily located any place with an electrical outlet. An accessible sewer drain would eliminate the need to empty the water reservoir, but that is not strictly necessary, nor is any exterior wall opening.
Additional checks in the Plus column:
- There is no duct/ hose to clog up with lint, which creates a very real fire hazard.
- No air is exhausted from the house, so no makeup air is drawn into the house. This results in a very real savings on heating and cooling bills and reduces drafts/ cold spots in the house.

The only compromise I see with the design is that the air used for drying is not conditioned as well. Much like the heat pumps used to heat a house, this one may not provide a great deal of temperature increase, and it likely doesn't get the air as dry as fresh air from the room. Both of these shortcomings contribute to less efficient drying and thus longer cycle times. However, they are MUCH more energy efficient - to the tune of 50% less than traditional designs. And it looks like they are coming to the US!


That's all for now - we are all excited to see many of you over the next few weeks! Can't wait!

Our First Visitors

The big news since the last post was of course the Highfields' visit. It was truly wonderful (for all of us) to have them with us, and I think that they enjoyed themselves tremendously as well.

Nice
The French Riviera was stunning, as I wrote in my last post. We were blessed with perfect weather for our entire stay, which is apparently highly unusual for this time of year - so score one for Climate Change! I'll let the pictures do the talking... There are probably way too many this time, but there was so much cool stuff, and lots of good shots of the girls & the Highfields...

Holli loves her window seat, but she does make use of it. The city of Nice is dead-center, with Cap Ferrat sticking out from the coastline just below it. The airport is on the far left - directly across from Nice. Holli captured a better view as we left.

One of many pictures from the pebble beach directly in front of the hotel.
Not the most comfortable place to sit, but not bad either - and the views are well worth it!

The water was warm enough for (young & energetic) people to get in, which they did a few times.

The girls worked on some art while we were here. This is Lucy's castle.

And Lilli's precarious stack of rocks topped with sea-glass.

Don't know what to say.

This was the place to sit - comfy chairs and service!

Our future marine biologist getting some dolphin-riding practice at the carousel next to the hotel

Circumnavigating Cap Ferrat - what a great national resource!

Lilli inspecting a cactus

That's big!

This one however obviously does not impress Eliza.

I think these two had a good time, and will hopefully be back!

These two certainly had a great time, and will hopefully get a chance to come back!
We had dinner at this place just about every night - it was fantastic!

Super star!
I have no idea who taught her to pose, but I could probably narrow it down to 2, or 3 or 4 people...

I got a kick out of this as we were looking for a place to eat dinner our first night there.
This is a French clothing store named after our home state, which is definitely NOT famous for clothing of which I am aware unless you count the seersucker suit. Also notice that they have registered Kentucky as a trademark.

Lilli found a cool tree in the park near the hotel.

Overlooking Cap Ferrat, on our way to see Eze and Monaco.

Eze from the road below

These are the "streets" of Eze. No cars obviously... I believe our guide said that about 15 people live here full time.

Not only narrow, but steep!

Thought we might be able to slip in here for a few minutes un-noticed, but alas we had to keep climbing.

The views were worth the climb however.

I believe they refer to this as the Devil's bridge - something to do with a local legend... Impressive regardless.

Grace Kelly's grave at the Monaco Cathedral

Last picture before heading to the airport

And the previously-mentioned better picture of the airport. I think KLM should buy this picture from us!

Paris
We made a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to drive to Paris for the last weekend that the Highfields were in town. What a great decision that turned out to be! After some careful negotiation between Holli and the Westin staff, we were upgraded to an incredible suite so that we could be attached to our three lovely girls. The pictures of Eliza above probably give you a good idea of why we might not want to leave them in a room on their own overnight in Paris.

Sweet suite! Hey - that's somewhat more original than Nice is nice!

These panoramics never look as good unless they are full-size, but this is the view from the hotel... Louvre to the left, Eiffel Tower to the right. Awesome!

Outside of the Westin, ready to see Paris!

Like typical tourists, the Eiffel Tower was the first place we went. It was incredible.
I accidentally cut Eliza mostly out of the picture - she has a strangle hold on Papa's leg.

After dark, they illuminate the tower with twinkling lights for about 5 minutes every hour. 

We took bike taxi's back from the Tower to the hotel and got a nice tour of the area along the way.

Outside of the Musee de Louvre.
You could walk around and look at the details on the exterior of the building for a week and still not really see everything!

Eliza carried that Eiffel Tower with her all over the city.

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Venus de Milo

The Mona Lisa - this is an interesting read.

Cupid executing the Carlton.

Notre Dame de Paris. The detail is endless. The architecture is unlike anything else I've seen.

Inside the Musee d'Orsay, a converted railway station on the Seine.

The Arc de Triomphe on our way out of town.
Do you see those lines on the road? No? Well, that's because there are none, except for the one down the center. It is a complete free-for-all driving in this city! Fortunately, after driving in Amsterdam for a few months now it didn't really phase me, but I did get a kick out of it!

Brussels
We decided to stop for lunch/ dinner in Brussels on the way back from Paris (it's about half-way through the 6 hour drive). We had absolutely no plans nor any idea where to go, so we found a garage near a restaurant well-reviewed on Yelp and started walking. We decided against these two:

Can you believe that a) Chi-Chi's is still around, and b) there is one in downtown Brussels?

Mei Wei Lou - reminded me of one of Mom's best friends so I had to take a snap.

We found the Yelp place, but they had no tables available. It was cold and windy, we hadn't eaten for several hours, and frustration started to kick in. About that time, we looked down an alley and saw what looked like an old church that we should go see.

The alley opened up to this incredible courtyard called simply the Grand Place.

The Museum of the City of Brussels.

Brussels Town Hall.

Unknown - will do some more research when I go on my Belgian Beer Quest.

Getting to see this magically put everyone into a great mood, and we were able to enjoy our dinner after all!

Did I mention that it was windy?

Amsterdam, the Highfield way!
The Highfields DID spend some time here with us in Amsterdam. They took a couple of canal boat tours and got to see some things that we have not seen yet (due in no small part to our children's dread of going on another boat tour after falling asleep on the one we took over spring break).

The Hermitage Amsterdam,  a branch of the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, Russia, located on the Amstel river.

The Stopera.

The Basilica of Saint Nicholas.

Amsterdam Central Station.

The Paleis van Justitie. One example of the cantilevered architecture that is common here.

The Highfields got out of the boat some as well. This is the burning bush from the Westerkerk, one of a couple of very old churches that they visited.

We made a trip to the Rijksmuseum one day while the girls were in school. As with the Louvre, you can only see so much in a couple of hours, but they did get to see the Night's Watch.

Mr. H and I stumbled on this at Rembrandtplein a few days later. I had no idea it existed!

The most famous park in the city, more so for the things that happen inside than for what is inside.

Some improbable residents of Vondelpark.

The Dutch Royal Palace in Dam Square.

The Grim Reaper, always hanging in Dam Square. Reasons unknown...

The requisite shot at the iamsterdam sign

We also had a lot of downtime hanging around the apartment. The girls were so very happy to have them here!

Lilli was excited to see that she has outgrown her grandmother - rather significantly!

They also had to do some foot-size comparisons (Lilli's are a lot bigger than any of the four on the right)

There was quite a bit of cards played during the visit. Lucy and Eliza managed to win about 90% of their games against Papa - Gin, War, Trash - the game didn't really matter. Eliza also got quite a few extra stories read to her!

A new feature of dinner during the last couple of weeks was Lucy's Dessert Tray.

I think that in the end, Papa was the most at ease just watching and exploring the neighborhood.

Eliza celebrated her 6th birthday on the day that the Highfields left us. We had a nice family dinner the night before where she got to open presents from here and abroad. I think she was pleased with her haul!

The MLP on roller-skates from Nana was a big hit.

Life (after the Highfields) goes on... But it is both figuratively and literally a darker place. We're already under 9 hours of daylight and losing another 3 minutes per day! By the time we come home for the holidays the days will be only 7 hours and 45 minutes long - nearly 2 full daylight hours shorter than Louisville.

The Rijksmuseum on the way home Monday night at 6:00 pm. The sun set just before 5:00!

This is a shot from school at 8:20 a.m. the same day!

I thought I might get so spread out a little while Holli is in Moscow this week... Not so much.
This is what I woke up to Tuesday morning.

Tuesday night was a big night in Amsterdam, where they celebrate Sint Maarten on 11/11 each year.
Children carry lanterns around the neighborhoods and sing songs to neighbors and receive candy.
Since they don't really do Halloween here, this is kind of a nice alternative!

Daisy Update
I guess I never really paid much attention before, but I began to get a little concerned that something was wrong with her as she appeared to be staying in the same place for the entire day (8:00 am to 6:00 pm anyway). So I looked it up... turns out that cats normally sleep for 15 to 20 hours per day. How is that possible?!?
In any case, she is improving, but still has a limp, and may for quite some time yet. It doesn't really affect her - she still plays, aggressively chasing hair-bands (not the 80's kind, like Def Leppard) across the room and sliding into the furniture. She has claimed a favorite blanket though.

Holli "objects" to her lying on this new blanket, but she is not really believable.

Dad's corner
All of the girls' after-school activities ended last week except for Eliza's ballet, which makes this week MUCH better! Less stress, less sitting around in the school cafeteria (where other parents mostly let their kids run completely wild/ unsupervised), more time for homework, dinner/ baths, etc.! 

I'm still trying to ride as much as possible, but the trips cut into my schedule a bit. I did have one unbelievable ride in Nice - along the Grande Corniche, around Eze and to Turbie. The scenery was incredible!

Route des Grandes Alpes is right! After cruising the flatlands of Holland for several months, I've forgotten how to ride on hills, much less the Alps! If I look a little winded, I was - but I managed to keep the pedals turning for the entire ride except for a few stops to take pictures. I was pretty happy with my "performance."

Most of my normal rides are from home to the beach at Zandvort and back - about an hour each way. I usually stop long enough to take a picture of the beach - sort of interesting to see the changes through the seasons.

Trampolines in the foreground. September 1.

September 25 

October 3 - Stuff's getting packed up & put away.

October 27 - nothing left but sand. 

Not all of my rides have gone so smoothly; I've crashed twice in the last two weeks. I'm fairly accustomed to this when mountain biking - I tend to try to do things that are challenging to me so I end up a little bloody once every month or two on average. But both of these crashes were on flat surfaces - the problem in both cases was water. 

I hit a 3 ft wide patch of wet leaves last week, doing about 20 mph on my road bike as I was taking a sweeping 90 turn. The front tire immediately and completely lost its grip and I went down, skidding about 20 feet into a curb. The asphalt pushed my left-hand levers in and apparently my shoulder pushed the right-hand levers in, but no real damage done (to the bike) other than some scratches on the shifters. After resuming my ride, I noticed that my shorts were a bit shredded, which got me thinking "that's about where I keep my phone..." 

I had checked the phone out to make sure that the screen was OK after the crash, but I pulled it out again to take another look. I'm always cognizant of how I put the phone into my pocket so that the glass is towards me so that it is protected. However, the new iPhone - with its protruding camera lens - outsmarted me. The one corner that met the road was THAT corner, and it did some damage.

There's supposed to be a sapphire lens in there. I guess it is somewhere on the bike path!
Glad the salesman talked me into the insurance! It helped that two people came in with broken 6's while I was getting mine.

The second crash was just yesterday. I was hoping that the 10% chance of rain would hold off, but no luck. I took my mountain bike out this time because I was hoping to check out a BMX course on the west side of town. It was closed, but I wanted to get some miles in anyway so I kept going - in a light drizzle most of the way. I noticed a gravel (walking) path that meandered alongside the bike path so I decided to ride on that for a while - kind of pretend-mountain-biking.  For some reason, the path-builders installed short rock walls on either side of the path, and in those areas they substituted wood planks for the gravel. The wood was wet and had some moss/ algae on it, and so the first patch that I hit had a remarkably similar result to my last crash - no control, immediate crash. I was going a little slower (16-17 mph), but I had no chance to catch myself. The bike was completely unharmed this time, but I tore a hole through my glove and into the palm of my left hand, and jammed my thumb pretty badly.

These experiences have made me feel much better about our decision to buy a trainer - it will be very handy to have the option to stay indoors and still get a decent workout without worrying about the hazards!

On the reading front, I finished several books since the last post. I needed some lighter material after Anna Karenina! I burned through two or three Reacher novels and a couple of Alex Crosses while on vacation(s). I've now decided to read the Jack Ryan novels all the way through since I couldn't remember which I haven't read. I'm going in "chronological" order as opposed to the order in which they were written. Mostly-so anyway... I started out of order with "The Cardinal in the Kremlin" but am now circling back with "Patriot Games", to be followed by "Red Rabbit" and "The Hunt for Red October."

TV has taken a backseat to reading, other than Boardwalk Empire. I heard some people grousing about the ending, but I thought that it was much better than the Sopranos' - at least you KNOW what happened! Overall I thought the show was really well done, but they seemed to be running out of good storylines so it was a perfect time to end it. Unlike True Blood. Looking forward to getting back into "Newsroom," but I think I'll wait until there are a few episodes out there and catch up. Same with "Homeland."

I'm very excited about the upcoming basketball season - U of L's season starts tomorrow night, but since it's a 1:30 am start time here I think I will be watching it Saturday morning over coffee. Saturday night I'll be watching U of L play their first game at Notre Dame (9:30 pm kickoff here) - looking for an upset here. Notre Dame is ALWAYS over-rated. Kind of hard to believe that they are not in one of the playoff spots from that perspective.

Until next time- tot ziens!