A few of you, or I should say I only actually know for sure one of you, have been in Rotterdam's Central Bibliotheek. It is a modern 7 story building and the absolute nicest libary I have ever been in. It has totally been renewed since I was last there last summer making it that much nicer. The first floor still has the giant chess game and you checking your books, CD's, and DVD's out is now self-service. In the large magazine/newspaper area there are individual desks that slant and are big to hold a large newspaper and open it up and there's a light directly above providing excellent lighting for reading. Instead of one computer room they now have computers on levels 2-7 and they are now free for 30 minutes or if noone's waiting you can continue to log on for 30 minutes. There are so many around now, there were plenty available today. It used to be you had to pay to use the computers.
One of the differences here in NL and a shock to Americans is that library cards aren't free. Part of the library's funding comes from the yearly membership dues, which are needed to check out books. The current fee is 30 Euros per year. It allows you to check out 10 library items at a time and gives you a 3 week due date. For 46 Euros you can check out 15 library items for up to 6 weeks.
Laurie wanted to look at the children's books...yes, for those of you who know my love for children's books, you know we hit it off even more. Laurie used to work in a children's book store. Plus, it is an easy way to practice and learn some Netherlands. So she read a book and I helped her with the words she didn't know. It took a while but was so fun. Unfortunately the picture I took of her holding the book turned out blurry...looking forward to getting a new camera with a bigger screen! We'll have to restage it when we return there on Tuesday, as there is no Sit & Stitch this week. I did get one from behind her, showing very little of her.
After our library stunt we went across the way to Bagels & Beans. I used to go to this place quite a bit but haven't been there in probably a year and the owner recognized me, was so happy to see me, and remembered what I most often got...a cinnamon raisin bagel with honey walnut cream cheese and a cappuccino. Today we both needed more substantial food so we both got the tuna melt on a whole wheat bagel. It was delicious. When the gal that waited on us first came to our table to take our drink orders, we only spoke in Nederlands. Laurie needed to use the back part of the menu that is in English and when the gal came for our order, Laurie spoke first in English and the gal looked totally shocked, asked if we were English, said she thought we were Netherlanders, and when Laurie told her that she only speaks a "klein beetje", meaning a little bit, but I speak much more and could pass, the gal said that we both did great and she would have never known. Yes, Laurie is doing really well teaching herself and just interested in learning the language so loves to hear me say things and teach her new words and such, something else that's so nice as so many Americans are just here for a short time, they don't care about learning much of the language.
After our late lunch we went through Rotterdam's big market, right by the library, in search of two bouquets that I needed to get for the birthday's Arjan and I have to go to tomorrow and I found a 5 bunches for 2.50 deal. They are so nice but I forgot to take a picture and Arjan has set them outside for the night so the cats don't eat them then I'll make 2 bouquets in the morning and the rest for us! Then I found other great deals there...unfortunately I didn't buy the raspberries 2/2 Euros but I did get a nice head of andive for 65 Euro cents, over a pound of beautiful looking green beans for 50 Euro cents, and 2 lent onions for 30 Euro cents. You can not go wrong at the end of the day at the market and I found in the Centrum they let you get just a couple things...the market by us usually won't sell less than a kilo at the end of the day which is usually too much for us and Arjan gets upset because we'll end up not using some, even if it was so cheap. I told him I'm going to the Centrum market for the deals on Saturday. Our kaas (cheese) man is also at that market on Saturday's, though we are in routine of getting the kaas on Wednesday's when he's at the market by us.
Oh, yeah, and as I was walking to the library from Beurs, there at the C & A, a clothing store, there was a mob of people that I had to take a picture of because it was so American looking. From what was painted on the windows, apparently smoke had infiltrated the store so they were having a 50% off pretty much everything due to the smoke damage. The store wasn't opening till 1:30 and it was 12 someone inside the store needed an ambulance and stretcher and when the worker opened the door to direct the ambulance, the people pushed in the door and the ambulance workers ended up having to go round another way and I left as the male workers and police were getting the people out. I really didn't expect to see such a sight. When I walked back when I was going home, there were signs on the windows that they were not able to open today and would be tomorrow. Another madhouse I'm sure.
Ok, time for bed and hopefully tomorrow will bring you photos from the infamous Dutch "birthday circle", most English speaking expats call it.
The mob in front of C & A.
The ambulance arrives.
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