Feestdagen in Eindhoven

We're in Paris right now, and Elliott is taking a nap, so I have time to make a quick post.

December has been busy for us, with visitors from home, two holidays, and a move to a new apartment.

First came Sinterklaas (December 5), which was not that big of a deal for us since Elliott doesn't know who he is yet. We put his shoes out anyhow, and he got some very nice presents from Sinterklaas!

Next came a nice visit from Gwen and Ryan Sullivan, who were in Europe for a wedding. They arrived on a Friday, and as is customary for all LeAndrese visitors, promptly got sick. Sorry guys! We had time to show them around Eindhoven on foot and on fietsen, which was fun, until the epidimic broke out. We also had a chance to use their brand new camera to finally take our Christmas photo. Thanks Ryan! They felt well enough to leave for Amsterdam/Copenhagen/Hamburg on Monday evening.

Later that week, we were finally allowed to move into our new apartment. We got the keys on Friday morning, and were completely moved in by Saturday. Easiest move ever! Of course we only moved two doors down. Our new address is Pastoor Petersstraat 21, 5612WB Eindhoven. Pretty much the same as our old address, except the apartment number is 21 instead of 31. The apartment seems palacial compared to anything we've ever lived in before (Grove St. excluded). We have two bedrooms, a living room/kitchen, a toilet room, a shower room, and a utility room. It's great that Elliott has his own room now--we can keep all his junk (toys) in there, and we don't have to tip-toe around our room at night while we get ready for bed. The utility room is also great, because now we have our own washing machine. I think Megan has done a load every day since we moved in. We have plans to install a dryer too (complements of our friend Travis). We even had room for a Christmas tree, which finally made it feel like Christmas.

Next came Christmas. On Christmas eve we had dinner at our apartment with friends from lab who had not gone home for the holidays. It was kind of a pot-luck. We roasted a pork loin, cooked some asparagus, and bought desert. Subi, from India, brought a homemade masala chicken dish, which was very tasty. Itzuro and his wife, from Japan, brought homemade sushi and mashed potatos; also very tasty. It was nice to have people over to share the holidays with.

On Christmas day, we opened our presents. Elliott had the most presents, and he enjoyed all of them. Worst present: 5euro toy keyboard. Why is it the worst present? Because it has no volume control, and it's default volume is annoyingly (perhaps dangerously) loud. I guess that's why it was 5euros.

On the 26th we had train tickets from Amsterdam to Paris in the morning, but when we checked for trains from Eindhoven to Amsterdam we found out that trains were running on a limited schedule that day because the day after Christmas is a holiday in the Netherlands! Did anybody else know that? Our train was scheduled to leave Amsterdam at the same time the first train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam arrived, so instead we frantically made hotel reservations, traveled to Amsterdam on the 25th and spend the night at a hotel near the airport. Everything went smoothly, though, and we made it to Amsterdam and then Paris on schedule. Elliott was so good on the train! He's becoming a much better traveler.

As I mentioned at the start, we are in Paris now, staying in an apartment in the 10th district or Paris. Megan's parents arrived on the 27th here in Paris, and so far we've been to the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame cathedral, and Montmarte. We'll give more details of our trip in a later blog post. Au revoire!

Sinterklaas Fever

Tomorrow is "Sinterklaas" in the Netherlands, which is kind of the Dutch version of Santa Claus. Sintaklaas comes on the evening of December 5 and brings children presents and candies. Actually, Sintaklaas first arrived in Holland about three weeks ago, and kids who leave their shoes out get treats in their shoes every night until December 5 (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, Marieke). Elliott is a bit too young to understand all this, so we don't have to do much this year. Furthermore, the current festivities have been lost on him because he's still recovering from a rough week and a half: he had a respiratory infection, which required that he and Megan remain home-bound for the whole week. But he's much better, and is starting to show shades of his former adventerous, happy self.

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we've tried to make our home feel Christmasy. We've hung up lights and an advent calendar, and we bought an evergreen wreath from the market which gives the living room and kitchen a nice pine smell. Christmas music is constantly playing on our computer. All we need to do now is get a Christmas tree and presents!

If Sintaklaas wasn't enough, our week gets even better on Friday, when Gwen and Ryan arrive to visit! They'll be staying with us for the weekend. We don't have any set plans yet, but we'll probably take it easy while they get over their jet lag. We're still holding out hope that we'll have the green-light to move into our new apartment by then, but we may have to make due with what we have for another couple of weeks, unfortunately.

One last thing: Megan became one step closer to complete integration into Dutch society with her purchase of a pair of boots this weekend. Pics to come later...