View from the Hotel

Isn't this just gorgeous???

No more peddling

We’re not in bike country anymore!! Saw few bikes. This is the land of mopeds and crotch rockets!! Jim and Mom—saw a couple on a Harley late on Sunday and thought of you two. Chris—sorry didn’t see any guys on a Harley with their little dog strapped to the back!

Our "Favorite" Ad in Malaga

Doesn’t this ad make you want to run out and buy this perfume?? Owning this perfume = you get to lick yourself excessively like a dog! We were amused by this ad and of course it was ALL OVER town!!

Attaché- my new favorite profession

I always thought this word = briefcase and I guess it does. It also has another meaning.

Per Wikipedia….
Attaché is a French term in diplomacy referring to a person who is assigned ('attached') to the administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Depending on custom, 'attaché' may be modified to correspond to the gender (e.g., 'attachée') or number (e.g., 'attachés').
The term normally denotes an official, under the authority of an Ambassador or other head of a diplomatic mission, who serves either as a diplomat or as a member of the support staff. He monitors various issues related to areas of intervention. To this end, he undertakes the planning for decisions which will be taken and makes all necessary arrangements, manages the agenda, conducts research for the study of particular matters, and acts as representative when necessary.
Sometimes an attaché has special responsibilities or expertise, often specified by that field. Examples include a cultural attaché, labor attaché, legal attaché, military/defense attaché (or more specifically, naval attaché, air attaché), press attaché, agricultural attaché, commercial attaché, and science attaché.
A related use for the term is in the phrase attaché case, similar to a briefcase.--- SEE I WAS RIGHT!!

So we got to meet the attaché for the Dutch government stationed or rather attached to Spain. And get this—he is from a town that is REAL close to Venray, small world. I asked him what he thought about living in Spain, the country Sinterklaus and Helper Pete are from and his thoughts on how the Dutch threaten that the kids will be kidnapped to Spain if naughty. I think he enjoyed that question. Jen and I also asked him what the main function of his job was and he did confess that being an attache meant attending copious amounts of parties such as the one we were at that night. I think I could totally handle a job that required excessive party attendance!! I also made sure to say hello and goodbye in Dutch.

Having Flair and Proud of It!

I caused a little giggle at the party when I commented to some of the guys that Jen didn’t have nearly enough flair as the other guys did. They got a kick out of that and laughed even harder when I told them about how I refer to all of Chris’ army signage as “stickers.” So here are the seamen pointing to their “flair” and loving learning Bea’s words for all things military.

Paula Dean Welcome to Malaga

This post is for all the foodies I know!!

Here is a picture of the head chef on the Anzio. He made these scrumptious little cheesecake tarts. Jen and I loved them soooo much and we had to know where he got the recipe. Guess who his inspiration was? The queen of butter, he looked this recipe up online and decided to give it a whirl for the Malaga party. Paula Dean would have been proud of him!

Anzio Time

Day 1 in Malaga was Navy training 101. It did remind me mildly of Grandpa Smith and his “permission to come aboard” comment when everyone went to visit the Constitution in Boston. I arrived at the port around 11am and almost lost my passport to some nutcase security guard. He wanted to take it somewhere to see if I was on a “list” and of course I managed to tick the security guard off when I snatched it out of his hands. Luckily Jen and 2 of her fellow officers came and rescued me and off to the Anzio we went. Here are some thoughts on the Anzio:
- it is massive and we climbed all over the ship and I even scurried through holes, I felt like a kid on an adult sized jungle gym
- the color theme seems to be grey and more grey..in fact the boys were very busy painting the sides of the ship grey to make it extra beautiful (??? Pink is much more gorgeous) for when they pull into port in about 10 days in Virginia
- the space is cramped- Jen lives in this teeny tiny room with 2 other girls. The room is smaller than our red room guest room! These three girls are on this ship with hundreds of other seamen, they are all males
- the medical clinic has some pretty strong views—make sure you take a look @ my pix of that plaque—yikes propaganda time!
- Anzio has a kick ass telescope you could see people on their porches from oh so far away

- When you are in port you fly the flag of the country you are visiting (this is only in "good" countries I think)
- If you are in charge of the boat you get to sit in this very high lazy boy on the sea seat, since I was a special guest I got to climb up into the seat!
- Sitting in Jen’s room I began to feel a little woozy and we weren’t even moving on the high sea
- The “board room” had the BEST lime ice cream from Italy for us to enjoy after lunch, yum yum—while it wasn’t goodberries it sure was tasty
- Jen is like a celebrity on the ship—everyone says hello to “Chaps” it is endearing!
- It is the best damn ship on the sea—I learned this fact after sitting through a hail and farewell the next night—this was the statement of the evening.

Simple Pleasures

Jen and I stayed at the Malaga Centro hotel and loved it! I arrived the night before the Anzio docked. The first night I got in I just chilled in our swanky room and it was fabulous!! The bathroom was too die for—it was what I would imagine would be in the“Growing up Gotti’” house. The whole room was marble and this is the best part…..a built in sound system so when you take a soak or a shower you can listen to “Top Latino 2000esqe music” on the radio. Jen plugged her iPod in and jammed to her favorite tunes but I left it on the radio since I’ve always had a penchant for the Latino musicJ After my first soak imagine my surprise when I went to climb into bed--- it was like Christmas—I had sheets!! Yippee, I forgot how much I love sheets. Here in the Camp de Witte Vennen we don’t really have sheets although the housekeeper insists I do. The “sheets” here at the Camp remind me of a mattress pad—very fuzzy and a little not fabulous. Needless to say I had the BEST sleep in Malaga and thoroughly took pleasure in the simplest of things—sheets and tunes.

Off to Spain

Hi All-

Tomorrow I am en route to Malaga, Spain! Yippee, can't wait!

I'm going to meet up with Jen Hill, our good friend that officiated at our wedding! As many of you know she is in the Navy and her "big boat" the Anzio is going to port in Malaga and I'm going to be there to greet the boat when it arrives.

We are really looking forward to our girls weekend in Malaga. Things on the agenda--- eat LOTS of tapas, drink GOOD spanish wine, SHOP, and just general lady of leisure tooling around types of activities. I'll update the BLOG next week with some pixs of our weekend away.

How to say Blah in NL

Bladibladiblah is “Dutch” for Blah Blah Blah. It just sounds so much better and so much more singsong like I love it. I heard this the other day between 2 grown men which made it even cuter sounding! Now I’ve been saying Bladibladiblah at work much to the amusement of my coworkers.

Baby paraphernalia here is SO MUCH better than in the United States. The items look more functional and just all around cooler. Forget about Babies R US….. I think if we ever have a little person in the Ellingson house we’ll have to return to NL to go on a shopping spree for the nursery. Here are pictures of my 2 favorite baby stores. I’ve been shopping at these stores in honor of upcoming Baby Nash-Floyd and also our little nephew David—and just snooping around because I love to see baby items for sale!

Let me introduce you to Black Pete, the “helper” of Sinterklaas

Here are some things I’ve learned about Sinterklaas and his little helper Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). They arrived in Holland this weekend via boat (this was played on TV for all to watch). Now every night there is a little show for the kids to watch of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet getting ready for their BIG day in NL, December 5th. Apparently someone is especially forgetful and prone to making mistakes and Sinterklaas ends up saving the day. December 5th is the day the team delivers treats and gifts to all the good children. This is also the day that they will punish all naughty children. I especially like this part! Punishment is getting kidnapped and carried off in a sack to their homeland of Spain. I wouldn’t mind getting carried away to Spain, but apparently that is a dreadful punishment here. Spain is apparently where Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet dwell out of season.

Zwarte Piet really isn’t a black person, he is dark because he slides down the chimney for Sinterklaas and deposits the gifts in people’s shoes waiting by the hearth.

Apparently in the olden days people would dress up as Zwarte Piet and walk across the rooftops of the village, even across the top of the cathedral! This has now been banned for safety reasons much to the dismay of people that used to get to participate and watch the rooftop walks.

Zwarte Piet is all over town. He is in lots of shop windows, costumes are for sale for children to wear on December 5th and you can even buy cakes that look just like him.

Here is a link to watch Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet on youtube…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OERF6ytyRbM&NR=1&feature=fvwp

I will be sure to take lots of pictures on the big day.

I got a bike last weekend and went for a big ride through the country the first day I got the bike. There is a field near me where Irises are growing, I will ride back and take a picture next weekend! The bike is really cool and peddling is very easy here in Holland, maybe because it is so flat. We had to do some work on Saturday and I did my first ride into work. It was awesome and I’m planning to cycle in again on Monday morning. It was super easy and about a 3 km. ride and it went really fast. Plus it is cool riding the bike around because it allows me to check out homes and yards. My bike even has a little light on the front of it, so at night when I am peddling the motion forces the light to shine for me, so I can even ride it home from work during the week when we are working late.

Here is a picture of the church that is near the center of Venray. Whenever I go to the center I park in the parking lot right next to the church and then I walk along this brick walkway into the center. The brick walkway is just beautiful because you get to enjoy the contrast of the bricks with the lush green grass! People also ride their bikes to the center and they just park them wherever they want. It took me awhile to figure out that they have locks on their bikes! Here are some pictures of all the clusters of bikes. It is cute seeing the little people’s bikes mixed in with the adult bikes!

THINK PINK

My newest MAE/BFF (Mexican American Expat I love adding letters to BFF taught me some things about pink and being frugal this weekend. If you go to HEMA (the Dutch equivalent of Target) and order any treat you get a free coffee drink! You can have whatever you want, latte, cappuccino, coffee! Sue Stock watch out (for those of you that don’t know about Sue, she writes on being frugal for the Raleigh News and Observer—yes I know I am one of the last 30 somethings to get the newspaper delivered to my house)!! Lisette introduced me to this yummy PINK dessert. It is really 2 graham crackers with decadent heavy whipping cream inside them and the outside is frosted pink. This tasty treat is called tompouce.
Tompouce is my new favorite word! These things are tasty!!

A tompouce + a free cappuccino = a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

PLUS if you sit at HEMA there are these huge windows and you can easily spending an hour watching people come and go.
Later after a day of wandering around in the shops Lisette wanted to introduce me to her favorite girly beer to order in the Netherlands. The beer is called Rose. Notice how it is pink! It is a very tasty fruity beer and quite bubbly! Now I have a new drink that is beautiful to order when out and about.

Package Success

Yesterday I heard the best news, it just MADE my day! Figured I’d share with you (it is funny how the simplest things can make you excited when you are away from home)….Chris got his very 1st package from meJ Finally!! I was starting to get worried…..I’ve arranged for each of my parents to ship something to him once we knew his address (since I would already be gone) and I’ve sent him 3 packages from the Netherlands and he hadn’t gotten anything yet. This was not a good situation for me because some of you will remember last time he was deployed I got the gold medal from the army for being super package girlfriend and this time being away in the NL has really limited my ability to get things mailed to him quickly!! I was about to leave work last night and he popped onto google talk to say the package that I had Dad send showed up today, yippee!! So he spent the day catching up on one of his favorite shows—Scrubs (yeah Chris got to reconnect with Dr. Cox!!) I wanted to say thank you to everyone that has been writing that they want to send Chris a package or a letter, it is appreciated greatly by the both of us, mail while deployed is a real morale booster! We did hear some news about packages and letters though; all of them must be mailed by 12/1/09. Anything mailed later in December will not get delivered to him.
So I figured you would enjoy hearing that yesterday the wife regained herself in her mail capabilities!! HoorayJ GO USPS, hopefully soon I can cheer for TNT (the post office here in NL).

Nature-- enjoying the colors of fall

The other morning I was sitting in my living room and this butterfly landed on my doorway. The poor butterfly seemed stuck, so I picked her up and put her on a tree outside. When I did that she spread her wings out, look at those gorgeous rich colors! They really coordinate with the current season fall!

Mail in Box 21

On Saturday I was driving through the gate at the Park and the owner came out of the reception building to flag me down. She wanted me to stop and swing by the office because I had a letter in my box. Each cottage gets their own box at the front office; however, the front office keeps banker hours- 9a-5p Monday-Friday. I am not around during those times and I’ve kind of forgotten that I can get mail. So after I unloaded my groceries I walked over there to see who sent my first letter! What a fun surprise, a letter all the way from Maui! Shiloh sent a note while away on her honeymoon. Thanks Shiloh for the fun card, loved hearing tales from Maui from you!

Today one of the IT guys brought me a gift. He had seen my screensaver of Mya and Chris and had questions about the mooch. Apparently on the weekends he is a judge for a group in the Netherlands called, “Fly Em High.” Here is a link to check them out http://www.flyemhigh.nl/
It is pretty competitive!! He thought Mya might like competition quality Frisbees. They are better for the dog’s teeth and they are more flexible and harder for dogs to bite through. So Mya has his first gift from the NL and I can only wonder how long it will take Mya to destroy one of the Frisbees, he does like to abuse his toys. I told Patrick that Mya really isn’t a candidate for competing in a Frisbee competition since listening to commands is not one of Mya’s top priorities. Patrick suggested I learn to be more firm with Mya, has Patrick been talking to Chris? Why is it always MY fault that Mya isn’t the best listener!! I promised to send Patrick a little wmv once home of the mooch and me playing with the Frisbee. Well let me rephrase that of Mya and Chris playing catch!

Ode to Chocolate

During the afternoon of my Koln visit we hung out at the Mecca for chocolate…..Schokoladen Museum. WOW! A whole museum dedicated to chocolate and the history of chocolate and this place was PACKED with people. I quickly learned that Chris and I are NOT the only ones out there that LOVE chocolate. The museum is compartmentalized into where chocolate is from, chocolate and what it does to your body (besides make you plump), how chocolate is processed and then a history of chocolate advertising and sales. The funniest part of the museum visit was in the room where chocolate was flowing out of a golden tree, it was a little willi wonkaesque. Then a “Lindt” employee dressed head to toe in white began to dole out little wafer cookies dipped into this flowing river of chocolate. She looked so angry and bothered by all the tourists you just couldn’t help but laugh, you would think flowing chocolate would make her smile. Maybe she didn’t want to have to work on a Sunday or maybe she was sick and tired of all the hands clamoring for the wafers or maybe the odor of chocolate made her feel sick, who knows but watching her angrily hand out the chocolate was just hilarious! The museum made me think a lot about Grandpa Smith and how he was probably smiling down from heaven watching Elizabeth in Koln! There was a whole room dedicated to vintage machines that would plop out chocolate when you put coins in it, Grandpa would have a blast with a roll of pennies in this room! I had to take a few pictures of the ones that he would probably love the most; of course they were the crudest! Figured all the Smith men would get a chuckle and probably would agree with me!

A Sbux Sighting that made me homesick!

As we were walking out of the church I looked down and across the plaza I saw some familiar green writing, immediately my radar went off! My first Starbucks sighting in EU! So we headed over there so I could of course take a picture for Nash and get a little drink, I love the cafes here and haven’t really missed the bux, but then when I saw it I missed it, or rather missed all my coffee time with my friend! While there I bought a big Koln mug. Look at my Koln mug compared to the mugs in my house, now I can have my BIG cup of coffee before work again!! We all know I love a little coffee with my milk – oh and I have skim milk at me house now too, life is good!