Holland Part 1

As promised, I am continuing my posts about Europe (I know you were all waiting with baited breath! ;) )
Laura and I flew into Schipol airport, Amsterdam and enjoyed a lovely stay with Ward Schoemaker, the uncle of some of my dearest friends! He lives in Amersfoort, a good sized town in the middle of the country.
Here are some photos of the area he lived in. Even the apartment complexes in the Netherlands are well designed and stylish.


I particularly liked these "floating" apartments.


His apartment was lovely as well....




We enjoyed eating out on his little deck...especially at 10pm when it was still bright as day!



Cheese, fruit and salad was a very common meal for us! :)


The Sunday morning we were there, we had a lavish spread with Ward and Monique....complete with raw herring ( a dutch delicacy!), and hagelslag, chocolate sprinkles that are meant to go on bread. Hagelslag is simply what Americans would put on ice cream, but in Holland, it is marketed to go on buttered bread. Quite tasty actually. I highly recommend it! :)
In this photo, Laura pretends to sample the raw herring! :)




And here I am with the hagelslag.




After filling up on a hearty dutch breakfast, we headed off to Hoge Veluwe National Park , a beautiful park that represents one of the more arid parts of Holland, complete with a "mini sahara", a sand deposit brought about by glacial movement during the ice age. There were miles of bike paths and a free white bikes at the entrance to transport you throughout the park.In the middle of the park was the Kroller Muller art museum and INCREDIBLE sculpture park. Even farther in, was a beautiful hunting lodge erected by the benefactors of this park when it was their private property. Such a lovely day of riding, art gazing, and nature absorbing!



Riders coming through the dunes...



Here's the mini sahara








Loved the two ducks :)








One was supposed to be male, the other female...we had trouble determining which was which...





Only in Holland have i ever seen such massive rhododendrons! There were massive walls of these bushes throughout the park.










Laura at the entrance to one of my favorite sculptures.It was titled the "garden".


Making our way into the "garden"








the hunting lodge! get a load of that watch tower!




Like a savanna in the middle of Holland!


Here we are with our trusty bikes! Our backsides were so bruised from riding the past two days that we had a painful time getting on and off of those things!





The majority of our time in Holland was spent on bicycles, as it is one of the primary modes of transportation in this country. Being so flat, cycling is accessible to everyone, young and old, professionally athletic and, well, not. :) To close out this post, here are some photos from a lovely ride we took through some of Holland's many pasture lands.





gnarly looking sheep :/







I read this sign as saying it is fine to let your dog defecate in this spot. It would seem that the Dutch assume that it is not acceptable to let your animal do so if not marked, whereas with Americans, it is just the opposite.


Beautiful mother horse and foal








More on Holland to come....including thatched roof houses, Amsterdam, Den Haag, and Indonesian food! :)

End of July....

Soooooo it's been waaaayyyyy too long since I last blogged. That's how all my blogs start out, and that is sad. Somehow blogging seems overwhelming to me. Maybe if I was in the habit of it, that wouldn't be the case. Anyway, It's been almost a month since I got back from my European adventure. Can that be true? In some ways it seems like ages ago, in other ways, not so much. I will spend my moments of free time slowly blogging about some of the highlights from that trip. It really did feel like an accomplishment to do this trip. My room mate Laura from college and I have been dreaming about this trip for over a year and finally made it happen in February when we booked the tickets and started making all our contacts!
(here Laura and I are enjoying the French alps! :) )

Thankfully we did not have to stay in hostels and were treated to the joy of staying with locals! Where I knew people was where we traveled! Made narrowing it down a whole lot easier! :)

We stayed with Ward in Holland (Uncle of two of my best friends)





Luke and Ellie (Luke is a childhood/family friend who is living in Geneva with his lovely wife -- we also got treated to their lovely little chateau in the French alps!)





And Naomi and Joseph, who are stationed in Ansbach, Germany with the US military. We got both German culture and army culture when we stayed with them!





This last month has been a whirlwind with seeing friends, working, enjoying the company of a lovely new man ;), choreographing up a storm for an upcoming show (www.songonthewind.com), and prepping for my "big girl" job starting at the end of August!
More Europe reminiscing to come! :D

Kylie :)

My college friend Kylie came to visit me over Patriots Day weekend! P. Day is a BIG deal in Massachusetts...especially in the Concord, Lexington area. It marks the beginning of the Revolutionary War. It also happens to be Marathon Monday, the day thousands of runners tackle the Boston Marathon.
Kylie and I enjoyed taking photos at the Old North Bridge (the site of a big reencactment) the night before Patriot's Day! I so enjoyed having her visit and she makes a beautiful model! :)

Here's a big one! :)






Ky enjoys "shooting" too! :)




















These are two of my faves that she took of me.






And here we are! :)