2E Paasdag

Last Monday, the 13th, the day after Easter (Paas), is the 2nd Paasdag. It's the same thing they do at Christmas with the 2nd Kerstdag. I think it's just an excuse to get another day off. In the case of Easter, most businesses, including banks, were closed on Good Friday as well. That's a difference here as, in the US, banks cannot be closed for more than 3 days in a row, here they close for 5. Arjan and I spent the day as true Netherlanders.

First we went to the Woonboulevard in Barendrecht. A woonboulevard is a house/living street found in the area of any city outside the centrum, with bigger cities having more than one, where you will find furniture stores, kitchen and bathroom stores for building/remodeling, a lighting store, sometimes an electronics store, and even fewer times other types of stores. These, along with the home improvement stores, a few supermarkets, and some sporting stores, are the only stores open on these 2nd days so Nederlands flock to them. In fact, after the 2nd Christmas day there is so much traffic into Ikea's they have to close the streets off. At the Easter time, zoo's and other attractions are open and since it was a beautiful day, lots of people went in those directions so it wasn't as busy at the woonboulevard.

We are looking for a new sofa so we went to a furniture store (De Zuider Ster). We found a sofa we like but as any good Netherlander, Arjan will still think about it more before deciding to buy it. Then we went next door to Ikea to have lunch and look a bit. We did find a new umbrella holder that we needed for only 5 Euro, a real bargain compared to other prices we'd seen.

It was such a nice day and still early in the afternoon so on the way home Arjan suggested we go on a bike ride when we got home. (Yes, I am being teased by my sweet Dutch "country leader", for one of my secret shopping companies, for doing such typical Nederlands things. No wonder I came out "Dutch to the Bone" on Facebook's "How Dutch are you?" quiz!)

Here are some pictures from our fietstocht:

First we rode over to Katendrecht to see the SS Rotterdam. This was the original SS Roterdam for the America Holland Line and was brought back to remain permanently in this place. A housing corporation took control of it and it will be opening in less than 100 days. It will house a hotel, restaurants, and conference rooms, think some other things as well. Now it has a big fence around it with lots of work still being done so you can't get too close.

Here's Arjan telling me something about the ship, and you can see some of the beauty from Katendrecht:

We then rode over to Noordereiland...North Island. It's name comes from the digging of the North Haven between 1868 and 1876 that created this island. Here we stopped to enjoy the scenery at one end, the Antwerpse Hoofd:

The yellow structure on the other side is a main ship radar/ship traffic control.


We saw a container ship passing.



Then we biked over to the other end of the island, Prinsen Hoofd, that faces the Erasmusburg.



There were lots of people out enjoying the day, even if it was a bit hazy. There were other bikers and here where some people taking a break from motorcycling:

There were a lot of people on the Spido, the boat that gives a tour and tells about the Port of Rotterdam and it's importance in shipping.

By this time it was close to 4 so we biked home a different way and who of all people did we meet up with on the bike path at a traffic light the last bit of our ride, the only others at the light with us? Arjan's youngest neef , his vrouw , and their 1 jaar dochter also on their way home from a fietstocht. Unfortunately the baby was asleep but it was so cute to see her sleeping in her seat in front of her mother.

The Weather/Het weer

Every day I discover something new or interesting here and yesterday it was this reiger (heron), as I looked out the window, sitting on the houses across the street. I was able to get this decent picture of him before he flew away. This was a rare sight.

Since I have learned that more people reading this know some Nederlands and know a few others want to learn some, I decided I do need to include some Dutch in my blog. It also helps me in remembering and spelling the words. So, I will put Nederlands, the official name of the language, words in italics.

It has been very nice because I've pretty much been able to stay home the past two days. I was supposed to go on a visit today but I changed it to do with another visit tomorrow because it was so nasty out. "Nasty" is what my freshman year roommate used to call the weather at Houghton, in the middle of nowhere in southwestern New York, when the weather was not pleasant, which could be often. She was from Maryland so thought a lot of the weather was "nasty". I sure think of that and remember her here! Here they call yesterday saai (boring/dull) and dull it was, just various grayer clouds all day. Today, on the other hand, we had weather. Rain, snow, more rain, sleet, hail...and on my walk today the sun peaked through the clouds. We had it all today. This brings me to the title for today's post.

Nederlanders love to complain (klachten) and their favorite topic is the weather. Not only did I learn this in the inburgerings cursus but you only have to talk to a few Netherlanders or over hear their conversations and you'll hear the complaining about the weather. After a couple days like today I well understand it but, the secret I have is that the weather is no where near as slecht (bad) as most think it is or I was led to believe by those San Diego Nederlanders who didn't want me to move here! Folks...come forward to 2009, it was even in the news recently how Nederlands has 30% more sun than it did 10 years ago, I think it was. It really isn't that bad most of the time and I am very happy to say that I can usually find the sun peaking through at some point during the day, if only for a brief moment. That's another reminder of San Diego because I think there were only 2 days I didn't see the sun at some point in the day in the over 21 years I lived there.

I close with the sun coming through on my walk this afternoon.


De zon gaat door. The sun comes (goes) through.



The road into Katendrecht looking towards Maas Haven, for those who know Rotterdam.