The Pedometer

Path in the foggy morning.


The haunted forest.


The sink hole that the monestary fell into. (In the background, you can see the water).



The friendly donkey - checking for treats in my pockets.


My latest fitness gadget is a pedometer. I used to do ½ ironman triathlons and I had all the gadgets: running shoes, bike shorts, tri-suits, sports bras, heart rate monitors, Speedos, swim goggles, sun glasses, and more. And now I’m excited about a pedometer. How the mighty have fallen…. (As if I was ever mighty!)

But seriously, after the stress of moving to a new country and suffering through my first very dark and rainy Fall and Winter, I found some extra pounds had become fairly well attached to my hips (and everything else for that matter). I had to do something, because this is a pretty unhealthy path. My initial attempts were pretty half-hearted. I lost a few pounds, but then got distracted. A few more months passed with no progress. At least during the distraction, I managed to not regain the weight I had lost, but I needed to get motivated

When we were in the US, Dennis was cleaning out some office junk and he found a McDonald’s pedometer. This is a pretty simple gadget that clips to your waist-band and counts how many steps you take. I grabbed it thinking it would be a fun way to stay motivated. I looked up pedometers on the internet and found out that you should aim for 10,000 steps per day, which is supposed to be 5 miles. So, I started recording my daily steps and found out that I actually walk quite a bit. I’m regularly up near 9000 steps without much extra effort. I do a lot of work in the lab and that gets me walking around. I also walk to the grocery store every few days.

I began to get frustrated with the pedometer after going for several long walks. Dennis and I walked around Naarden, a walk that we know is 4 miles, and the pedometer said I went 3000 steps. Hmm, that seems low. Then, we did a 12 mile hike that took about 5 hours. The distance was confirmed by Dennis’ GPS unit. But, the pedometer read only 8000 steps. I was hoping for a record high number, and I got screwed! I was mad. It may be important to note here that I am still a little bit competitive even though I’m not actually racing any more.

I went back to the internet (the Wizard of Oz for the Gen Xers) and found out that most pedometers are not very accurate. No kidding! I found a consumer report showing which pedometers have the best accuracy. Then, I spent a couple hours trying to find that same model in the Netherlands, and another hour trying to pay for it after my credit card was rejected (again). Finally, I got the email saying the new pedometer had been shipped. Yay! But wait, the mailman always delivers at our house during working hours (as if I don’t work). I always have to wait for the post man to do his two delivery attempts before I can go pick up my packages at the post office. Finally, after a few days of waiting, I had my new pedometer.

As luck would have it, the same day I got the pedometer, we went for a long bike ride, so I didn’t get to really test it out. We biked with an expat meet-up group for 60 kilometers (30 miles). Most of you know that a 30 mile bike ride should take a couple hours, maybe 3 hours if you’re talking a lot of breaks. This ride took 5 hours! At some points I felt like I was pedaling backwards to go slow enough. To be fair, we did get stuck for about 30 minutes waiting for a ferry to cross the river. It could have been worse because the ferry only ran every two hours. Thank goodness we got there only 30 minutes before and not 90 minutes before. It was very dark when we finally finished and it was starting to rain. It’s a good thing it was a fun group, but after 5 hours I was done being sociable. Dennis and I may not be racing anymore, but at least we aren’t this SLOW!

OK, back to the pedometer. After the first day, I’ve had over 11,000 steps per day and hadn’t gone on a real walk yet. This weekend, Dennis and I had a chance to go for a long walk. We picked a walk through the oldest woods in the Netherlands. In a country where much of the land is reclaimed from the water and by definition “new,” this is an important distinction. The woods also have a haunted legend. According to the story, there was a monastery in the forest that sunk into a big sink-hole. The legend says that it was pulled into hell and the monks still haunt the forest. It’s a big hot-spot for new-age believers and ghost chasers. A more plausible story is that there was a big chunk of ice under the ground and as it melted, it created the sink hole. Anyway, it made for a nice 11 mile walk. The walk was extra long because we started walking down the wrong road from the start-point and ended up going a mile before we realized our mistake and turned back. At the half-way point, we stopped at a café and had some tea and butter-cake to keep us going for the rest of the walk. We didn’t see any ghosts, but the sun shining through the trees was stunning. I also got to pet a couple donkeys that were very friendly and curious. In the end my pedometer said 24,850 steps! That’s better! Now I just have to loose some more weight.

Italian Sausage

I’m sure I’ve mentioned how bad the food is here in the Netherlands. I didn’t think it was possible, but our company cafeteria recently reached a whole new level of awfulness. Seriously, they even serve terrible soup. So, I’ve been cooking at home more often to make sure I have leftovers to take to work.

One dish that always makes good leftovers is lasagna. While living in Chicago I learned that the best way to make lasagna is with Italian sausage rather than just hamburger. It really gives the lasagna a whole different (and yummy) dimension. But, Italian sausage is not available here and nobody seems to know what it is. Maybe it’s really an American thing or maybe the Dutch haven’t figured out Italian food yet.

Just as I thought I would have to wait until I got back to the US for good lasagna, I realized that I know how to make Italian sausage! Yes, at my last job, we occasionally developed Italian sausage seasonings and had to test them by making the actual sausage. The seasoning itself is not difficult – just a blend of salt and spices. The sausage is fresh, so it’s just a matter of blending the seasoning into ground pork. The seasoned meat does not even need to be stuffed into a casing. In fact, most of the time when I’m cooking sausage for pizza topping or lasagna, I squish it out of the casing anyway.

It took me a couple of tries to perfect the recipe, but I finally got a version that I really like.

Italian Sausage

1 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp. ground anise
1 tsp whole fennel seeds
½ tsp sugar
1 slice of white bread
¼ cup milk to make the bread soggy
1 lb ground pork or beef

Mix the dry ingredients together in a small dish. In a mixing bowl, soak the slice of bread with the milk. Add the ground pork and the seasoning. You can mix it by hand or with a mixer, just make sure to get the bread broken up and the seasoning evenly mixed. You can cook it in a frying pan and break it up into pieces for lasagna or pizza. You can also make patties or meatballs and fry them. Or you can push it into a meatloaf pan and bake it.

The other challenge here is cookies – I mean the ooey gooey chocolately chippy yummy American cookies. While many of the Dutch cookies are tasty (because they are made with real butter) they tend to be rather hard and dry. Of course, the main ingredient for these cookies is chocolate chips. Yes, it is nearly impossible to believe that the people who invented Dutch cocoa do not have chocolate chips, but it’s true. You can’t get them here. Fortunately, they do sell good semi-sweet chocolate bars that can be chopped up into pieces. That makes a pretty good substitute, especially if I can get Dennis to do the cutting. Baking soda has to be purchased at the drug store – a tip I found on the expat forums. My favorite cookies are Knapsack cookies, with oatmeal, rice crispies, and coconut. I know some stores sell Rice Krispies here because my coworkers know what they are, but I’ve not been able to find them in any of my neighborhood stores. And they don’t sell the sweetened coconut like we get in the US – only the dry flakes stuff for Indonesian food. So, I have my coworkers and my Mom send me the cereal and coconut for my cookies. Everyone at work loves the cookies. Some have asked for the recipe, but I don’t think anyone has succeeded at making them yet. Maybe you guys will have better luck!

Knapsack Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
2 cups quick cooking oats
2 cups rice crispies cereal
1 cup coconut
12 oz. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Add the eggs and mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda, and baking powder and add to the sugar mixture. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

Scoop the dough by the heaping tablespoon onto un-greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350°F for 12-15 minutes and cookies look golden brown on the edges.

Social Life

After we got back from the US, Dennis and I took a couple weekends just to recuperate. Then, Dennis was on call for two weekends in a row. So last weekend, we were finally ready to once again embrace our European life and get out there!

Over the year and half that we’ve been living here, we’ve noticed that the Dutch are very closed people. They are not open to new friendships and they don’t go out with new people just to hang out. They really only hang out with the friends they made in high-school and college. I had read this on the expat forums, but I did not believe it. The expat forums are full of people who just whine about everything. But, on this point I am going to agree that it’s true.

The conclusion, of course, is to meet people from other places who are living here. I had been reluctant to meet other expats because they always seem so whiny on the forums. I wanted to come to my own conclusions about living in the Netherlands without having other people color my opinions. We also wanted to meet people who do more than just go out to the bars. Dennis found an adventure group that does a lot of outdoor activities. Last weekend, they were planning a 13 mile hike so we decided to join in.

The hike started in one town and followed a river to another town. Each town has a train station so the logistics are easy. Dennis and I drove to the first town (Zutphen) and met the group in the train station. There were about 15 people total and a really nice mix of people from different countries. There were two other American ladies, two people from India, also people from Romania, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, England, and also one Dutch guy. It turned out that the Dutch guy had traveled as an expat in other countries so he has some rather un-Dutch attitudes towards friendships. Our hike was 5 hours long, so we had plenty of time to get to know everyone. By the time we got to the other town (Deventer), it was getting dark and we were TIRED! We were planning to take the train back from Deventer to Zutphen to get back to our car, but there was construction on the tracks and the trains were not running. They had busses available, but it was chaotic and hard to figure out which bus we needed to be on. We were with another lady who left her car in Zutphen as well. We had to ask a lot of questions, but we finally got on the right buses. It ended up taking an hour to get back to Zutphen and it was only a 15 minute drive. With 20-20 hind-sight, we should have taken a taxi from Deventer. Oh well, it’s all part of the adventure!

That same weekend, we had dinner with a Romanian couple that Dennis works with. They are a fairly young couple, but apparently they didn’t mind having us old fogies over. They served us traditional Romanian foods and some home-brewed Romanian wine and liquor. We had some funny conversations about politics. Dennis and I told about the corruption in Chicago politics and that some of our politicians are actually in prison now. They pointed out that the difference in Romania is that nobody goes to prison for corruption so it just continues. And because you can’t trust any branch of the government, you learn how to get around the laws rather than learning how to follow the laws. It’s a very different attitude than the US or the Netherlands.

This weekend, Dennis and I went to a horse show. We were looking on the internet for things to do and I found a link to an international horse jumping competition. Dennis surprised me saying it sounded like fun. The show was in Assen, a town about 2 hours north east of us here. We were surprised that it was held in a convention center and not just a stable with an arena. We were able to sit so close to the jumps that I was afraid of spooking the horses. I felt like they were looking right at me, but I know they were probably pretty focused on the jumps. It was fun to watch the different styles of the horses and riders. One rider was trying to make a very sharp turn and he fell off when the horse turned but he didn’t. Another rider fell off when his horse landed hard after a jump. The horse got really excited that his rider was gone and he ran around the arena and wouldn’t let anyone catch him. It was funny watching all the people trying to corner him in a round arena!

This week for work I spent three days in Belgium for a plant test at a potato chip factory. The whole trip was a disaster, but I really enjoyed the food. We went to the historic town of Veurne and walked around to square to pick a place to eat. We kind of randomly chose a restaurant and it ended up being fantastic. I’m not sure why the food is so much better only a few hours drive from Netherlands, but it really is. For one meal I had pheasant cooked in a rich browned butter sauce. Another meal was a fish stew served with bread to soak up all the creamy sauce.

On our way back home, we stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch. It is interesting to note that we did not see any McD’s in Belgium, but as soon as we got into the Netherlands there was one at every exit. I should also explain that we had breakfast at 7:00 am and didn’t get “lunch” until 4:00 pm. So, I ordered the Big Mac and was two bites into it when I noticed that it was undercooked. I walked back to the counter and got a new Big Mac. Again, two bites into it, I noticed it was also undercooked. This was not a little bit undercooked either – it was raw and bun was soaked with raw meat juice. Again, I went back to the counter. The guy was NOT happy to see me again. He started to argue with me that a little red color is OK, until I showed him the burger. His eyes practically popped out of his head and then he quickly showed the sandwich to the manager. He cooked the replacement burger himself. And that about sums up the difference between the food in Belgium and the food in the Netherlands.

On my next post, I’ll tell you about some of my adventures cooking in the Netherlands. Stay tuned!

Nova's Post

Since my Human has not been writing much in her blog, I’m going to write a post for her by walking across the keyboard with my cat-paws.

We’ve been living in this funny place for a year and half. The first thing I noticed was that the stairs are super-steep and slippery. It took me months to get used to having my paws slip as I raced up the stairs for my dinner. From the family room, I have to go up 2 flights of stairs to the room where I get fed. It’s also the room with the litter box. Sometimes I’m too lazy to go up the stairs for the litter box (but never too lazy to get dinner!). The Humans get mad when I poop in their dining room – but they think it’s OK if I poop in MY dining room. I’ll never understand people!

After I mastered the stairs, I began to notice the other cats in the neighborhood. There are LOTS of cats here. One cat, a friendly yellow kitty, likes to sun bathe in the front yard. He follows the warm sunny spots like a sundial. We call him Sunshine. There’s a black kitty who looks a lot like me, but not nearly as handsome. He has a funny sounding meow. He’s quite scary when he looks into the front windows at night and makes his squeaky/freaky noises. There’s also a little brown cat that goes on walks with his dog. We see the owner with the little dog on the leash and then the brown cat just follows behind a few feet. My Humans never take me for walks in fact they don’t let me outside at all. Sometimes I poop on the floor just to remind them that cats are supposed to go outside.

I am quite a fashionable cat in the Netherlands because I still have all my claws. It’s very common here for cats to keep their claws. Declawing is considered cruel. Since most cats are allowed outside, it’s important that they keep their claws for defense. It’s fun to watch the neighborhood cats sharpening their claws on the tree in our yard. They really seem to enjoy it. I can’t sharpen on the tree, so I use the Human’s office chair instead. I was getting a really good section torn up and was already getting to the stuffing when the Human finally put duct tape over the spot. Now I have to start over in a new spot. Of course, if they just let me outside, I could do my nails on the tree… They never learn.

The cat kennel was another bit of humiliation I had to go through here. When the Humans went on vacation, they put me in the cat kennel for three weeks. I had to share a cage with two other kitties. They were not very friendly and one of them had a cold that I caught, too. The Humans were very upset by my illness because they had taken me to vet and made sure all my shots were up to date well before they took me to the kennel. To make sure they understood how sick I was, I would crawl up the back of the couch and breathe on them. Of course with a stuffy nose, my breathing sounded…well, juicy. They got the message. Now I don’t go to the kennel anymore. They ask the neighbor girl to look after me. Catharijne is a very nice girl and I talk to her a lot. I may need to learn Dutch to understand her better – I’m working on it. We did so well the first time she looked after me, that the Humans asked her to help out again when they went back to the US. This time I was a bit naughty for her and barfed up fur balls and pooped on the dining room floor for her. She still didn’t let me outside and she tattled on me!


Despite not being able to go outside I still like it here. I was never allowed outside in Chicago either, so really that is not different. My Humans were able to find the same brand of food that I like, so I didn’t even have to change food. The only thing I really miss is my buddy JJ – the Australian Shepherd who used to visit on weekends. JJ was always a lot of fun because he was terrified of me even though he was 8 times bigger than me. We played chase and ambush for hours on end. Then he got a little brother, a miniature Australian Shepherd named Dusty. Dusty was not afraid of me even though I could scratch his nose. Whenever Dusty came over, I had to hide in the basement. I bet he still thinks I’m hiding there!

So, that’s about all that’s been happening here. Eat, sleep, try to escape, repeat. If you get this message, please tell the Humans to let me outside!

Home Leave

Before we went to the Netherlands, I read a book about the expat experience. Of course the book pretty much assumed that every expat is a man with a wife who organizes all the details of the home and family. But my feminist sensibilities are not the point of this blog post. The book had a hilarious chapter about “your first home leave visit.” Most expat contracts allow you to go back home once a year to visit family. This is known as “home leave.” Apparently most expats have a disastrous experience with their first home leave. It involves running around to visit everyone you are obligated to visit, buying gobs of clothes and needing to buy a new suitcase to carry it back, and feeling guilty about not visiting the rest of the family. Check. I can now say that I am a pretty typical expat in this regard. Even after reading the warnings and vowing not to make the same mistakes, we made them all. I guess some things you just have to learn the hard way.

As we made our arrangements to go back to the US, we knew we had to make some hard decisions about the house. We had been renting the front office to a neighbor who was working from home with 3 young children. But he decided to take advantage of the bad economy by building an addition on his garage. The guy who was using the bedroom like an extended stay hotel room when he was on business trips to Chicago also took advantage of the real estate market to buy a condo. And because everything happens in threes, the neighbors who were helping to take care of the house are expecting a baby soon. With a new baby, they won’t have time to pick up our mail and mow the lawn. We know that an empty house is not good for the house or for the neighborhood. We spent a long time debating between selling and renting the house. In the end we decided to rent it out with the help of a management company, but it was an agonizing decision.

When we arrived at our Chicago house, we had a welcome dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant with our neighbors. Day 1, we started doing all the outside yard work – trimming bushes, scrubbing the porch rails, and cleaning out gutters. So many of our neighbors stopped by to say hello that it was actually hard to get any work done. It just reminded me how much I liked living there. Day 2 was the dentist, eye doctor and of course packing the rest of our junk into boxes. Day 3 was renting the moving truck and moving everything to the storage unit. Good thing we had the neighbor kids to help with the heavy lifting – they worked from 8 in the morning to 9 that night. We spent Day 4 trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the junk that wouldn’t fit in the storage unit.

Day 5 we left Chicago for Minnesota. Flying Southwest Airline was a pleasure, but after all the work we had done, I think any airline would have seemed nice. The guilt portion of the trip occurred in the Twin Cities. We have quite a few friends and family there, but we flew it around noon on Thursday and still had a 4 hour drive to Dennis’ home town. So we didn’t stop – sorry everyone there just wasn’t enough time! In southwest Minnesota I managed to go shopping in Sioux Falls with my sister and mother-in-law, we went to a baptism for the twins of Dennis’ cousin, had a great steak dinner, got my hair highlighted, and helped to bail hay on the farm. We picked fresh apples, had homegrown tomatoes and had a fun BBQ with the family. We even visited the End of the Line Museum in Curry. Too bad we had to go back to Chicago a day early to finish the rest of the stuff for the house. Day 11 was traveling back to Chicago. With all the driving and the flying, it takes about 9 hours to make the trip. We did manage to see our old house in Minnesota before we went to the airport.
Back in Chicago, we were pleased to see that the kids had done the painting on the front porch and patio as arranged. They did a really nice job, too. But we still had lots to do – installing a new front door handle (old one was rusting), throwing away tons of trash, cleaning carpets, changing furnace filters, and fixing the leaky condenser pipe on the air conditioner. Image saving all of the home maintenance repairs for 18 months and trying to get them all done in less than a week. Yes, it’s a nightmare.

On Friday night, we had dinner reservations at our favorite Italian restaurant at 8:00. After stopping at 2 shoe stores, we finally sat down at 8:15. We had a relaxing dinner for our last night in Chicago. Saturday morning, Dennis ran the last of the stuff to the storage unit (vacuum cleaner and other cleaning stuff) and dropped off the old paint, pesticide and weed killer at the toxic waste facility. He also wanted to stop at the bike store to do a bit more shopping, but he had to be back home by 12:15 so he could shower before leaving for the airport. I went to Wal-Mart to buy the extra suitcase for all the junk we bought. At 12:15, Dennis made it home. Our newest neighbor dropped by to see the power tools that Dennis was trying to sell. A very quick transaction resulted in the neighbor taking most of the large tools and a lawn mower. We left feeling a little bit better about the last remaining things that have to be sold.

After two weeks in the US, we finally were heading back home. Yes, home is where the cat is. A day of jet-lag and it’s back to work. Actually work feels a bit more relaxing than “vacation” now. Maybe next year we will go to Hawaii instead! That was the advice in the expat book, too.

Playing Hooky from Work

Numbered way-point sign on the bike path - shows all the connecting paths. No need to carry your own map, just follow the signs.


Here is the bike path (busy today) and the guy with the fashionable yellow pants.


See the cows with the white stripe in the middle?

This is a common style of barn here. The roof can move up and down on the big corner poles.

The hay had been cut was getting ready to be baled.

Old ladies with HUGE shoulder pads - the traditional dress of the Netherlands.

I was sitting outside at lunch today and when we had to back to work, everyone groaned. It was about 80 degrees and sunny, not very humid and just a light breeze blowing. It was great for being outside playing, but not so great for being in the office with no air conditioning. As we walked back to our building, I realized that I had no meetings planned for the afternoon. Nada, none, zero. If I was ever going to take an afternoon off, this was the one!

I sent my boss an email and let my colleagues know that I was leaving. Oh yeah, they were jealous. I zipped home and changed into my biking clothes. I even remembered to grab the camera as I left. Oh and I called Dennis to make sure he was also jealous.

I rode south along the freeway for a while and then turned off onto the farm roads. You’ve heard the saying “make hay while the sun shines” and today the sun was shining. The farmers were out making hay. The cows were out enjoying the sun, too. I even got a picture of the funny cows with the white stripe in the middle.

I got on a bike path along the lake and sat for a while having a snack and watching the people going by. This was a very popular path for a Wednesday afternoon. The lake was busy with sailboats and water skiers. I saw a guy with yellow pants and I wondered which store in the Netherlands sells these goofy pants – I see yellow, orange, green and even pink pants ON MEN. With local fashion being that well-developed, obviously I fit in pretty well.

My next stop was the little town of Spakenburg which is known for being very traditional. We’ve ridden through on Sunday and really everything was closed even the cafes. I was excited to see it when things were open. Normally when we ride, we follow the numbered bike paths. At every way-point, they give you a map with all the connecting routes. It’s really a fantastic network and we are getting super-spoiled. The only problem I’ve had with this system is in towns where the route makes several turns and they are not always well-marked. Today was even worse than normal because Spakenburg was having their annual festival. Only a very traditional town would have a festival on a Wednesday – and it was only running until 5:30. That’s so very Dutch! So, the town was crowded with booths and tourists and I ended up walking my bike. I also ended up quite lost. At least I managed to get a good picture of the old ladies wearing their traditional costumes. Apparently the costume involves brightly colored football shoulder pads. These ladies make those 1980’s shoulder pads look subtle!

I finally found my way out of town and thoroughly enjoyed the tailwind on the way home. I’m very lucky to live in such a beautiful place AND have more than 5 weeks of vacation so I can enjoy days like today.

Disconnected

Most of the time I feel pretty connected to the people back home. We have so much technology available with Facebook, blogs, and email that I don’t realize how much I am missing. Today, I was surfing some blogs connected to MJ the Ironman. I clicked on Run Bubba Run, not even knowing who he is. His post was about a triathlete friend of his named Michelle who died from cancer. Even though I don’t know who Bubba is, I knew immediately who he was talking about.

I googled Michelle Chaput and found her obituary from June. I was sad that it took me over a month to find out that she died. Michelle was one of my first triathlon friends. She had started the Human Racers Triathlon team about the same time that I started racing.

The team was in Orland Park, quite a drive from Downers Grove – but I went for the weekly runs and Sunday morning bike rides on the Old Plank Trail. The bike rides were great fun. Dennis was always a little bit shocked and awed when Michelle passed him on the rides when he was going all out! Michelle taught us tons about riding and triathlons.

One year, Michelle had signed up for her first iron-distance race in the fall. You always have to sign up a year in advance for the long races. That winter, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Knowing that she couldn’t do the whole race after going through all the cancer treatments, she called the organizers and asked to change her registration to a team instead of individual entry. She asked a couple of friends to do the 2.4 mile swim and 26.2 mile run and she would train for the 112 mile bike ride. I got involved shortly before the race when one of her friends dropped out. I stepped in to do the swim. It was the closest I’ve been to an ironman and I was glad it was over after the swim! Most of all, it was inspiring to watch Michelle race after the mastectomy, chemo, and radiation. I can’t imagine where she found the energy to train!

Dennis and I gradually drifted away from the Human Racers team as we found training partners closer to home. We still ran into the old gang at some of the local races and I had heard that Michelle’s cancer had come back. But I hadn’t heard that it was back for a third round or that it had spread. She was only 41. Even though we had lost touch, she left a lasting impression on me. I’m sad about her death and I’m also sad to realize how disconnected I’ve become.