Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, if you are in the Netherlands around holiday season, you will know who Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet are. It is an interesting experience to say the least. I had seen the holiday decorations in the mall and the lights on the streets, but it was not until two weeks ago when I saw this Sinterklaas festival. The streets are crowded with people and children alike waiting for this annual event...

Sinterklaas is Dutch version of the American Santa. Since being here, I have learned a lot about New York and its Dutch roots. Apparently, during the War of American Independence, the inhabitants of New York City (New Amsterdam), reinvented their Sinterklaas tradition as Saint Nicholas was a symbol of the city's non-English past. The Saint Nicholas society of New York still has a feast on December 6th to this day!

Sinterklaas wears a long red cape, a white bishop's dress, a red bishop's hat, and holds a crosier (a long gold colored staff with a fancy curled top). He carries a book to determine whether children have been naughty or nice and traditionally rides a white horse.

Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) is Sinterklaas's helper. The story behind this beyond interesting character goes something like this: three small Moorish boys were sentenced to death for a crime they did not commit. The bishop intervened and to show their thanks they stayed with Sinterklaas. Why is he black? Good question. My research has shown that there are some reasons: he is Moorish, he does the job of a chimney sweep, he is the devil that was enslaved by Sinterklaas, and the most modern explanation told to children is that he works voluntarily for Sinterklaas and they learn their trade at a special school in Spain.

Traditionally there was only one Zwarte Piet, but the Canadians introduced the first multiple Piet idea after the post WWII Sinterklaas celebration. Obviously this multiple Peit idea is still going very strong! Zwarte Piet usually carries a bag with candy for the "nice" children and "roe" a bunch of willow branches to spank "naughty" children.

Last weekend I went to the mall, I got to experience Zwarte Piet's in action:

they dance

they do acrobatics

they like attention

they play in a band

Sinterklaas arrives in the middle of November by steamboat from Spain. Children await his arrival and then he is paraded through the streets. I am eager to see what will happen this Saturday when I get to experience my first Sinterklaas eve. That's all folks.

Food Review & Friends

Popsicles

Knetter Lolly's

Upon trying to find a good popsicle at the Albert Heijn these treats looked good, Knetter Lolly's. From the box impression they look like these big strawberry sherbert Popsicles dipped in multi-colored sprinkles. The reality of the situation is that these are not nearly as good as they look. They are very small, have some sort of sherbert on the inside (maybe strawberry? maybe cherry? either way not good) and those sprinkles are actually pop rocks. Pop rocks are typically a good candy there is nothing more fun then having that sensation in your mouth, however, these pop rocks are soggy and do not taste good on a sherbert Popsicle. The combination of the sherbert and the pop rocks creates an over done, way too sweet, soggy catastrophe. D- (worst)

Since the Knetter Lolly's did not work out, the search for a good Popsicle continued. In the picture above we can see two types of treats: Vrieslollies Sucettes a Congeler and FestiniPopsicles. The Vrieslollies reminds me of the classic multi flavored ice pops you can buy in bulk and then freeze and enjoy. While these Vrieslollies did have a purple, orange, red, and a yellow selection, none of them tasted like the flavors you would assume they would. The problem is that I don't even know what they tasted like, some mixture of flavors which were very gross. They are sitting in the freezer not being touched. One day I found the Festini Strawberry pops. I figured you can not go wrong with a basic real fruit Popsicle, and my friends that is the truth. These are delicious and thoroughly enjoyable. From here on out I'm sticking with the basics!
Vrieslollies Sucettes a Congeler=D (not better, but not the worst)
Festini Strawberry Popsicles Strawberry =A+ (by far the best)

Matzah Crackers

I had to add these Matzah crackers to the blog. After purchasing a spreadable cheese one wants something to spread it on, naturally I think of crackers. In the cracker isle there happened to be these Matze Crackers. I thought these were actual Matzah crackers like the Matzah that I eat during Passover. Dave and I did not believe this was true. Why would the Dutch want to eat this bland cracker? Sure enough, it is definitely Matzah. Too funny, never would have thought this would be found here and stocked all the time! I can not really grade this cracker because I have Matzah every passover.

Friends

Albert Heijn has something new they give out every couple of months with purchase of 10 euro or more. Since I have been here puzzle pieces were given out to complete a "football game" puzzle. Now that is over and its time to collect all 15 characters from Sneeuwwitje en de 7 dwergen. These are my first characters up above, the friendly turtle and squirrel washing clothes on his stomach.

What are your neighbors like? Our apartment is surrounded by several other houses, apartments, restaurants, etc. The one neighbor who really has me curious is the bird that lives next door. I can never completely see him to know what he is. All I know is that he is always out there perched in the corner of his cage.

I discovered another neighbor today, there is this cage on top of one of the roofs. I have no idea what its for and what lives in there! Time will tell.

Wendi's First Food Review

Fries with mayonnaise and onion

I'm proud to present my first food review. I have been doing a lot of cooking, so I have not been eating anything out of the ordinary, until now! You walk around Holland and you see these "snack walls" or "snackbars." What are these? These are places where you can get fast food. I'm not one for fried food, but every now and then I like to indulge. I decided to try something I have been wanting to for a while, fries with mayonnaise and onion.

Fries are typically served with mayonnaise or a lower-fat version called fritessaus. Other sauce options include; satay sauce (peanut sauce), ketchup, speciaal (a mixture of chopped onions, fritessaus, and ketchup), Patatje Oorlog (Dutch for French Fries War, which is french fries with a variety of sauces differing from region to region or snackbar to snackbar). Dutch snackbars usually have around 8 condiment options. Fries are not only limited to being purchased at snackbars, they are also served as a side dish. I really enjoyed these fries and I especially enjoyed my combination. The original thought of mayonnaise on my fries was unappealing to me. I only want to see and eat mayonnaise on my sandwich. Now I have a new love for this treat. The onions give the combination that extra flavor you need to make it all come together. A+

Prince Cake & Choc Duo

I was in the mood for something with chocolate and these Cake & Choc Duo's were on sale. After reading Dave's previous blogs about Prince treats and knowing I see this brand advertised a lot on TV, I decided what the heck? After dinner I tried one of these little treats. It is basically a fun size marble cake with sprinkled nuts on top. I liked it because it was not overwhelming or too sweet. I think it did what I needed it to do for my sweet tooth, however it was nothing crazy, amazing, or that I would crave again. B

My Pretty Flowers

Lastly, I felt like showing off the pretty flowers Dave got for me from the market. They were beautiful.

Food, Life, Amsterdam, & Heineken

Hey everyone, okay update time. Currently, Dave is trying to sponsor me because he has temporary residency. Once I am sponsored I will have residency and then I can work. At the moment it would be illegal for me to work so I have to play whats known as the "waiting game." The good news is that the paperwork is mostly done and parts are already being processed. Let's hope that this works out.

Meanwhile, I am learning how to live a stress free life. I am so used to being a crazy busy person so the concept of "relaxing" is confusing to me. I am learning a lot about myself and what I enjoy doing. While Dave goes to work I do a variety of different things and create my own projects. I am learning this website software for my professional interior design portfolio website. Once I am ready to look for a job, this will be my portfolio I present. I have needed one of these for a while, so now I actually have the time to learn how to create one. It is very fun, but time consuming. In the future I can have this website link on my resume so an employer can look at my portfolio before an interview.

I have also taken over the blog for a little bit. Feel free to leave comments about anything. Dave finally got Rosetta Stone working on his work computer so we are learning Dutch starting this week. I am really interested to learn Dutch or at least the basics. If I am going to attempt to get a job here, I think it will look good to show that I am putting forth the effort to learn. I know it takes years to become fluent with Dutch...and I can believe it. There are so many noises we just do not make in our language. This will be something nice Dave and I can do together.

Finally, I have been working on my cooking skills. Those of you who know me well know that I am not the best cook! I have lucked out because Dave and my mom are good cooks and they have always cooked for me. This is going to change. So far I have made homemade spaghetti and meatballs, green bean and pea salad, broiled chicken seasoned with balsamic vinagrette and olive oil with a variety of fresh vegetables, and my favorite, bean salad. I got this recipe online and I have mastered it. This bean salad fesh, delicious, healthy, and we love it. I just made my second one today! I am sorry I do not have a "Dutch Food Review" in this blog, I PROMISE next entry! I will still grade this...Here is a picture of it:

Wendi's Healthy Bean Salad gets an A++

Dave and I took a nice trip to Amsterdam on Saturday. We chose to go to the Heineken brewery. Take a look:

Me in the center of everything

Above shows the process of how they bottle the beer and then a really cool room that had a ceiling design using empty Heineken bottles. The picture does not give the ceiling justice as to how cool it really looked. Thanks for blogging with me. Next time I will have the food review.

Dave and Wendi Go Dutch

Hello everyone, this is Wendi blogging. Most you know that I moved to the Netherlands September 7th. It is now my third week and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Dave and I moved the first week I was here to an apartment right in the middle of downtown Breda. The picture above is our street. You can see all of the shopping going on. It is always busy! We are in-between two shoe stores (not complaining). Next to one of the shoe stores is the best fresh market. Our grocery store is down the street we are perpendicular to. Lets just say that everything is close and convenient. The other day I was making food and needed a can opener. I went downstairs out of the apartment complex, walked across the street to a store and bought one! Easy, simple, fast. Below I provided pictures of our new pad. We are very happy with it and can not wait until we have visitors!

Note: you walk up a flight of stairs to get to the first floor.

Guest bedroom needing help...it is a work in progress.

Time to head upstairs!

3 flights of stairs! Be careful!

AMAZING bathtub! Laundry room is in master bathroom too.
Rooftop patio, this is where all our parties will take place.


Who can not be thrilled with the fact that the main attraction in Breda, the church, is a glance off of our rooftop patio!

Well friends, I plan to update this blog each week. This week is special, there will be another post. I will update you on everything going on with Dave and I...and a food review. Hope you all like our new place.

THE RETURN OF THE DUTCH FOOD REVIEW

Hi everyone, sorry I have not posted in a while, this blog site has some funky things going on right now (hence the reason the type here is underlined) I have heard the most postive feedback from folks concerning the food review, so I present to you a very special edition of DaveGoesDutch, with 5 whole food reviews. Its a food review bonanza, and everything must go.



Carrot Balls

Carrot Balls are a wonderful find. They have renewed my love for carrots. At first I was very excited when I found these, for I believed that the Dutch had engineered a spherical carrot. To my dismay, it turns out that these things are made the same way that “baby” carrots are, by cutting regular carrots. Although I no longer eat these with the same look of bewilderment and hope in my eye, they still are a great shape for carrots. A- (would have been an A+ if they grew that way)

Bungel Stroop

I tried to make pancakes one day, so I purchased this stuff thinking that it was syrup. I still am convinced that its purpose is to go on top of pancakes, it just does a horrible job. Man is this stuff revolting. It almost seems to be pure corn syrup, its got no flavor other than sugar goo, or a gooey version of hummingbird food. I did not like this and will not be purchasing it in the future. I also was very disappointed to find out that the cool looking top of the can does not have any kind of internal propulsion device to extrude the goo from the bottle, its just a straw, you have to squeeze the bottle. F-

Albert Heijn 1 Persoons Wok Schotel

Albert Heijn is the local grocer, and they are good at what they do. Half of the products in the store carry the Albert Heijn brand. One thing that is majorly different between US and Dutch grocery stores is the fact that Dutch grocery stores have a very limited frozen food section. I don't mind this fact because my freezer is the size of a shoebox. The Albert Heijn frozen food selection consists of frozen pizza, ice cream, french fries, various krokets and other deep fried dutch treats (more on these in future posts), and the only vegetable they sell frozen: Spinach.

There is a complete lack of an American staple, the frozen dinner. As someone who relied on frozen dinners for 2-3 meals a week (sad I know) adjusting to cooking here took some time, but the above product is a great example of how to replace frozen dinners with real food that is good, doesn't make you feel sad and is made for one person. I have heard that 40% of the Dutch population is single and lives alone, I am not sure if this is true or not, but it would explain why Albert Heijn caters so well to the single person. They carry hundreds of dinner kits to make a healthy, fresh dinner for one. My favorite is their wok series. It consists of a plastic tray that is divided into three separate containers, each with their own individual plastic film cover. One of the containers is filled with an uncooked meat (or tofu and egg as pictured above), another contains either rice or pasta with a sauce, and the largest container contains fresh, chopped up vegitables. These vegitables are really high quality, were not talking about brocoli stalks and mushy carrots. So you heat up a tablespoon of oil in the ol wok, throw in the meat, cook for 2 mins, then throw in the veggies, cook for two mins, then throw in the sauce and noodles/rice, cook for two mins, and BAM dinner for one. Its a lot of food too, very easily could be dinner for two. There are about 8 different kinds of these I have seen so far and they even have 2 and 4 person versions. I think I have eaten every kind (this is dinner 2-3 nights a week for me) and I have yet to find one that isn't great. A+

Euro Shopper Beer

The Ramen noodle of Beer. That is the best way to sum up Euro Shopper Beer. To begin, I should inform you of what Euro Shopper is.

Euro Shopper is the generic brand in Europe. Think of it as a Euro-Spartin brand. I have Euro Shopper sugar, maccroni, tuna, window cleaner, and now Beer. I think I bought this can strictly because it just says BEER in big letters across the can. Euro Shopper is really cheap, really really cheap. I think these beers are around 25 cents a can. You can usually find these beers on some pallet they leave in the middle of the beer isle. Its usally really disorganized, with beer cans rolling around on the floor. Every time you take a can off the pallet, several fall on the ground (sometimes they even explode) People put items they decieded not to buy on the pallet, so its really just a sight to see. After you have made your beer purchase, you must return home and put it in the fridge for 2-3 days, because this stuff comes warm and for some reason never gets that cold. Maybe the ability to retain cold temperature was too expensive for this beer, so that 'feature' was removed. Once you have acheived the desired temp you open the can up (sometimes it is a pull tab) The taste is not good. It brings me back to my college days when on Sunday I would help friends finish the keg from the party they had Thursday night. Stale, flat, and somewhat sweet, this beer will be my first and last Euro Shopper Beer. B+ (it is still beer, so it can't lose too many points)

Hagelslag

This is a true Dutch food. Dutch Hagelslag (or chocolate sprinkles as we call them, I think some people also call these jimmies) was invented by Gerard de Vries in 1936. The story goes something like; little boy writes Mr Vries telling him he wants a chocolate topping for his bread, so the guy invents Hagelslag, end of story. They are named Hagelslag due to their resemblence to hail.
Now I know what some of you are thinking, "Dave, great the Dutch invented sprinkles, wonderful, why did you buy three different boxes of sprinkles?" The reason is to make sandwiches out of them. The typical recipe goes something like this:

-Two pieces of white bread
-butter
-Hagelslag

Lightly butter the two pieces of bread, take one of the pieces and sprinkle a lot of sprinkles on the bread. Now sprinkle some more. Place the other piece of bread on top, so that both buttered sides of the bread are in direct contact with the sprinkles. Now with your hands, smash the sandwich flat. Then eat it.

I know it sounds the exact opposite of good, I used to think the same thing. Then I ate one. They are really good. This might be due to the really good chocolate they use. There are serveral versions of hagelslag on the market, I have three above to review.

Lets start with the ones with the monkey on the box, because monkeys are awesome. This type contains both white and brown hagel, the white being vanillia and the brown being haselnut. The bonus thing about this type is it also comes with little white chocolate monkey heads mixed in with the spinkles. While this brand scores points for its use of monkeys, I found the flavor not to be on par with the other types of hagelslag I have enjoyed. B

The middle box is the worst of the hagel I have tried. The box is small because it represnts a single serving box. These kind are colorful and taste like your standard rainbow sprinkles, or sugar. Not good. D

The last box is Fair Trade hagelslag. I was compeltely unaware of the human rights abuses going on in the Hagel industry, but I can now sleep better at night knowing that I am purchasing fair trade hagelslag. This flavor is Melk, or milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is call purr. This is my favorite type of hagel, although I have heard there are better brands out there. If you know of a better brand, please provide its name in the comments section. A-

More Dubai PicturesTallest Building in the World, the Burj Look at those wimpy skyscrapers next to it

The Oracle Star Team standing in front of the new Dubai location

This one doesn't look real

Hi everyone. I have to give special thanks to my co-worker Hans for putting his Dubai pictures up online, so I could steal the above pictures and post them on my blog. Thanks Hans.

So hows everyone's week been? I don't have much to write about at the moment, but I would like to inform everyone that there will be a special multi-item Dutch Food review coming up soon. The pictures have been taken, the passages have been written, but until I can figure out how to rotate the photos on this blog everyone will have to wait. I just can't post sideways pictures, I have to maintain some aspect of journalistic integrity. I do get over 40 vistors a month!

Below is a great group shot of the team in Dubai that we trained. They were all great to work with. I will back in Dubai soon, until then I must ride my fiets.

Dave Goes DubaiThe jewel of Dubai, the Burj al Arab
(its also the most expensive hotel I have ever seen)

Hi everyone, sorry about not posting for a while, but I was in Dubai. This website is considered a dating website by the UAE and so it is blocked in Dubai, hence no posts while I am there. I am back in the Netherlands for this week, after that I will return to Dubai for 3 weeks.

Dubai is a pretty amazing city. Its under constant construction, half of the skyscrapers in the city are under currently being built. This was also my first time in the Middle East. The funny thing about Dubai is it felt less foreign than the Netherlands. I think this can attributed mainly to the cars and driving style. You see more SUV's, pick-up trucks, and American cars, which are all pretty rare in Europe. I also was able to find a Taco Bell and Budweiser, two things that do not exist in Europe, so that was also pretty sweet. The weather was nice, though it did get up over 100 degrees in the last few days. There were some strange weather occurrences I hadn't yet expeirenced, such as orange fog, which is a mix of dust and fog.

I saw some pretty amazing sights on my time off while I was there, including:
-Indoor ski mountain inside the Mall of the Emerites
-The Burj Dubai, the tallest man-made structure in the world (wiki this thing, its pretty amazing)
-The Palm Jumeriah, the man-made island in the shape of a palm tree. There are two of these, but we only went on one of them
-The Atlantis Hotel, this hotel is one the Palm Jumeriah, it is the largest hotel I have ever seen. In it's lobby, it has a fish tank that is over 20 feet high and contains a whale shark.
-DubaiLand, the amusement part of the future, Today! When this thing is complete, it will be over 3 billion sq. feet. Take that Disney.

You might notice that I am posting this on Monday morning. There is a good explaination for this. I use an old cellphone of mine as my alarm clock, as the alarm on my Blackberry is completely useless and works like 25% of the time. I forgot to change the time on this phone when I returned to the Netherlands (3 hour time difference between the Netherlands and the United Arab Emerites) So instead of waking up at 7 am this morning, I woke up at 4, got ready, got in my car, looked at the clock are realized what I had done. So now I have a couple of hours this morning to kill before work. Which I decided would be a good time for this post.

Being back in the Netherlands is pretty nice, I am able to cook my own food again instead of the two weeks of eating at resturants. Ever since I began traveling rather regularly for my job, I have stopped enjoying going to a resturant. A good, homecooked meal is so much better than any meal I can get at a resturant. Though we did go to one very nice resturant while in Dubai.
Here is a picture of the restaurant. Its got the typical tacky gold-theme that you find in Dubai, but this place was pretty amazing. As you can see from the picture, Dinner also came with a live band and belly-dancing. It served traditional Lebanese cuisine, including hummus, grape leaves, and shrimp from the Gulf that were larger than any shrimp I have every seen. One could even call these shrimp Jumbo. It was off the balcony of this restaurant that I snapped the photo of the sailboat hotel pictured above.

Comments have been pretty thin lately, so I am not sure who is still reading this. If you are able to post a comment, please do so, I would love to hear from people who are reading this. The easiest way to post a comment is to click on the link below each posts that say's 1 comment, 0 comments, 2 comments (ect). This will bring up all the comments on the post, below these comments you will find a place where you can post your own comment. Simply select Name/URL in the field Comment As. A pop-up window will ask for a name and URL, all you have to do is write you name in the name field, then click Continue. Write your comment then click Post Comment.

Also, Happy Birthday Mike, forgot to call you yesterday, but I hope getting a "shout-out" on the DavegoesDutch blog will make up for this. Personally, I couldn't think of a cooler place to get such a shout out.

One of the canals in Breda Centrum, the fortress looking building behind the bridge are part of some military training facility

The Grote Markt, kind of a central plaze in the heart of Breada. you can see part of the big church that sits downtown in the back.

Happy Valentines Day Wendi

Hi everyone, this is going to be a short post, just wanted to post some pictures of the city that I have been promising since day one. You can chalk the delay up to two main reasons (1) The weather (2) My fear of being discovered as an outsider by taking pictures.

I would like to add some details on the Grote Markt. This is great spot to get a nice afternoon coffee, sit outside, and watch the people move throughout the city. Its full of cafes, pubs, restaurants, a bike shop, several other little shops, and of course a bakery or two. The church in its center seems to be the central hub of the city, with roads twisting in every direction from it. One other thing to add about the Grote Markt is its a very different place Saturday night. This spot would be filled with groups of people, going to the different pubs located around this area. The pubs are nice, but the drinking age is 16 here, so its very strange seeing high school kids drinking a pint in the bar. Even stranger is the fact that you cannot drive until your 18, which I kindda agree with (I was a terrible driver at 16) Ok, I hope everyone has a good weekend.

So I have been in Europe for over a month now. As I expected, homesickness is setting in. It’s really the little things that begin to really get to me, below is a list of things that I am missing here in the Netherlands; the order is up for debate. Certainly, Wendi is who/what I miss the most, but do I miss dirt roads more than the lake house, snow over taco bell? This is hard to determine.

1. Wendi (of course)
2. Talking to strangers without an awkward introduction to establish that I will not be speaking to them in Dutch
3. Adult Swim on Cartoon Network
4. Bookstores with an English section that contains more than 20 books (half being part of the Twilight series, simply terrible)
5. Drinking a Diet Coke in the morning without getting strange looks
6. Meijer (more precisely, a 24 hour superstore)
7. Running errands on Sunday instead of doing nothing
8. Detroit Basketball
9. My FJ Cruiser
10. Snow (I know, who would have thought)
11. Dirt roads
12. Friends/Family
13. Hulu.com (doesn’t work in Europe)
14. Best Buy
15. The lake house
16. Cheap American Beer, the beer here is amazing, but sometimes you just need a Bud
17. NPR
18. Taco Bell
19. Dollar bills instead of dollar coins
20. Green Onion
21. A normal salad, no corn, no strange dressing, no herring, no egg, just lettuce, tomato, carrots and dressing
22. Listerine
23. Getting mail, real mail from the postman
24. Monster Truck Rallies; I have never gone to one, but I miss knowing that I could
25. HBO
26. Kitty (stupid kitty)
27. Conan O’Brian
28. Cheddar
29. Ortega Taco Sauce
30. Xbox 360
31. American Humor (many of my jokes flop when delivered to my Dutch colleagues, and its not the jokes fault)
32. The newspaper
33. Non-sandwich based breakfast options (A colleague of mine recently pointed out that to tell the different between a Dutch breakfast and a Dutch lunch, you must look at your watch.)
34. Rude, inconsiderate people (The Dutch are way too nice)
35. Bumper stickers

Of course, there are several things that I do not miss, and I made a small list of some of things I am most happy to have out of my life.

1. Angry drivers
2. Billboards
3. Charter Communications (worst company in the universe, someone could establish a company that’s sole business was puppy genocide and I would still consider Charter to be more evil)
4. FOX News

Oh Fox News, how I miss your journalistic integrity (Please note: Fox requires the word Terror to appear on the screen at any single moment)

5. Starbucks
6. Wal-Mart (never shopped there, but glad I don’t have to see one)
7. People who talk on their phones while driving
8. Frozen dinners
9. The current state of the US economy
10. Freedom Fries