New Post

Sorry about not putting any updates in a week, but it has been a very busy week. I have been at Oracle training all week in De Meer. Getting there each day requires a 3 mile bike ride to a co-workers house, followed by an hour car ride to the training facility, then the same thing on the way back. I leave at about 6:45 each morning and return around the same time at night, so after dinner and a shower, posting a new blog entry seems to require too much brain use, something I usually lose after dinner. I snapped this picture on the ride home today. I know its blurry and such, but I was in a car. This is a windmill. The Dutch used these marvelous devices to pump out all the water that had their country submerged under the North Sea. This country has had a very long battle with the never ending water. Almost the entire country is below sea-level, which means it will be one of the first to go if the polar ice caps melt. If you click on the picture and make it big (like almost all these pictures!) you will see the various canals that run through the fields. Its like at the beach, if you dig a hole, you hit water pretty quickly.

TINY SPOONS!

No, I haven't had an allergic reaction that swelled my hand up to massive proportions. What your seeing are good examples of the tiny spoons you can find everywhere in Holland. Mostly used for coffee, these things are great. I use them to eat my pudding cups, which makes each cup last 15 minutes longer. I have about 20 tiny spoons in my house, I also have a normal size, but the only alternative to the normal spoon is the tiny version. Maybe some of you have tiny spoons at home and don't think its a big deal, but it was new to me.

Dave is going to Dortmund

I will be traveling to Dortmund, Germany for the next two days, spending time with the purchasing department there. Dortmund is a four hour train ride or a two hour drive, so driving sounds like a better idea. Every time I visit Dortmund, I have the same set up. I stay at the Steigenberger Hotel, a hotel I really like. The best part about it, they leave these sheep gummies on your pillow when you arrive, and they are some of the best gummies Germany has to offer. I also usually eat at Mango’s; it’s the only restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. Mango’s is a Mongolian BBQ style restaurant, which is good for me, a non-German speaker, because I know what I am about to eat. They also offer quite an array of meats and vegetables, including Kangaroo and exotic mushrooms.

I wrote the above paragraph before I went to Dortmund. Today, I woke up at 4 am this morning, rode my bike to the train station, and began my trip to Dortmund. I traveled to the boarder of Germany, where I was to change trains. Upon arrival at this train station, I was informed that my connecting train was cancelled, and that taxi’s would be arriving at noon to take me to the next station. I was told this at 8 am, so I waited at an unheated train station four hours for this taxi. The taxi showed up, took me across the boarder to Germany, and dropped me off at an abandoned train station with three other people. We soon discovered that trains no longer run through this station (the plants growing over the tracks were a dead giveaway.) So we waited, until one of the group located a local taxi phone number, called it, and got us a taxi ride to the next station. So I am about a half an hour drive away from Dortmund, so I figure that the train ride can’t be that bad. Two hours later, I pull into the Dortmund train station, the time being 4 pm. That’s right folks, a two hour car ride took me 12 hours to arrive at my destination. It took less time for me to travel from Detroit to Amsterdam than from Breda to Dortmund. I looked some info to compare the trips

-Detroit to Amsterdam My latest flight 7 hours 14 mins

-Breda to Dortmund My latest trip 12 hours, 33 mins

-Distance from Detroit to Amsterdam Like 6000 miles, Google maps wont give me driving directions, so I had to estimate

-Distance from Breda to Dortmund 134 miles

I also have been hearing that people have been having trouble leaving comments on the blog. I think the main reason is that you must have a blogspot account or a google id. I have corrected this, now you can enter a comment without having to create a profile, you don’t even need to do that thing where you have to type the words that appear in the image above anymore. I hope this helps, so let the comments roll. I would like to hear suggestions, criticisms, praise (of course), or just a friendly hello.

I met my landlord this weekend; he is a very nice guy. He works at a Brewery here in the Netherlands, which is one of the coolest places you could work. Plus, he gets a lot of free beer and beer related swag. I work for a company that manufactures mechanical pumps, valves, and seals. I do really like working for this company, but sometimes I wish I worked for a company that made something that I might use. Like my sister-in-law gets a bunch of free and discount clothing from her work, which is a big benefit for her ( and me on Christmas, birthdays, ect). I’m not exactly in the market for a 14,000 gallon per minute slurry seal that is 12 feet tall and weighs more than 10 tons at the moment, so no need for any discount from my company.

Daves Dutch Food Review "Big Americans Pizza"

This here is the ‘BIG AMERICAN” pizza. The sad thing about this is the emphasis on the size of the pizza, with the box and name implying that this is a huge pizza, the type of huge pizza that Americans must eat. Atlas, it’s not very big at all, at least in US pizza standards. There where several topping choices, including Hawaiian, BBQ Chicken (which includes corn and what appears to be oatmeal toppings), American Supreme (big ham circles, corn, zucchini, and onion) and the one I chose, bacon, which is actually ham. I do have to admit, there was a faint hint of freedom in every bite though.

One final note, today I watched our 44^th President, Barack Obama, sworn in today at 6 pm. I watched this from a hotel room in Dortmund, Germany. This was the first inauguration I ever watched, or was the least bit interested in. I found it very interesting, I found Obama’s speech very inspirational, and overall I enjoyed it. Although I will not be in the US for the first two years of his term, I look forward to what he has in store for us and wish him the best.

Sunday Night Post


Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone had a good weekend. If you are interested in my weekend, feel free to read on. The most important thing I would like to share tonight is that I purchased a New Bike!


Yes that's right, this baby became mine on Saturday afternoon. Walking on the sidewalk is now a thing of the past. It's a Dutch manufacturer and these folks know a thing or two about bikes, so I feel fairly confident this was a wise choice. Its actually a very solid bike, with all sorts of things my other bike doesn't have:
-bell
-inflated tires
-saddle bags with reflection technology patches
-Headlight, xenon bulb (same kind that BMW uses)
-Kickstand
-Tire mud flaps
-Chain guard
-Hi-performance security system, its like a cuff on the back wheel, that has a key you can lock it with, but it also has a chain that attaches to the cuff and bike frame, so you can anchor it to a post or tree.

So I rode all day Saturday, pretty much saw what Breda has to offer. It was raining, so I didn't take pictures, but I will ride soon again, so town pictures will be coming. Saturday night, I even rode to the pub and back on it. This morning, it was about 47 degrees and sunny, so I rode down this one street a coworker told me about. 30 mins later, I was in Belgium. Yes, you heard correct, I rode my bike to Belgium today. I should do that every sunday to get waffles, that would be a good blog entry. Unfortunately, there was no border town where I entered, hence no waffle house.




Also readers, please feel free to put up suggestions on what you would like to see, I will take all advice I can get and I personally will sumit it for serious consideration. One more thing, if you have Skype, I am on that, just look up my full name and you will find my profile. I can give you a webcam tour of the place. Wendi and I have been using it since I have arrived, and we both have been very impressed with the quality of the signal.

Dave's Dutch Food Review - Dier & Co Lange Nekken

One of Africa's most gracefully and beloved animals is the inspiration for this childrens treat, the giraffe. These foot long, chocolate covered cookie tubes come two to a pack, five packs per box. In addition to be covered in a very nice milk chocolate, they also have crispies surrounding the cookie tube, providing a very sastifying crunch. These are a delight, alone or with a nice cup of coffee. Rating A+

Please note: Although you might start to notice a trend of Dave's Dutch Food review being more focused on snacky cakes and gummis, these foods are not a fair represtation of my day-to-day diet. These are what I choose to review, which are selected based on their entertainment value. I didn't think you would be as interested in hearing a review of the chicken I made last night.

Daves Friday Post
This is the Friday entry for my blog, only one picture to upload at the moment, and that is of my Scrooge McDuck statue that came with the apartment. I generally tend to disagree with Disney memorabilia, but I like this piece. First off, its roughly two feet tall, which would most likely be life size for the weathly duck. Secondly, scrooge is looking cool with his top hat and dollar bill sign bag of money.

The HR manager emailed me this immigration form from the Dutch government that was seriously 12 pages long. In it, I had to answer all your standard questions on who I was, where I am from, where I am going, ect., I hope they don't reject my visa, it did specifically say "don't start working in the Netherlands before your work visa is approved." Also something about if I don't follow that rule, it will count negatively during the review process.

Later today, I have my second driving lesson. I took my first on Tuesday this week. I am going to be in the Netherlands for more than 180 days, so getting a Dutch drivers license is required. Driving isn’t very hard here; there are some things that are different, including:

-No turning on red

-highway etiquette

-no cell phones while driving (I like this one)

-Watch out for the 1 million people on bikes, they are everywhere, they always have the right of way, and they don’t have to signal turns

Mentioning bikes, I am still shocked by how many bikes there are, and how stupid I look when I am walking down the road. The only other people I have seen using the sidewalk and not riding a bike were old people that were too old to ride a bike. I might have to go bike shopping this weekend, which could be fun, Breda has like 25 bike stores within the city limits, so I am sure I could pick up a decent bike for under 200 Euro. I don’t want to spend any more than that; bike theft is a national pastime here. I guess if you buy the best, most secure lock on the market, the bike thieves single your bike out to rob, just because they like the challenge. That is why I am planning on securing my bike with a piece of twine.

Ok, I will get some good pictures of Downtown Breda over the weekend, there are some cool places I can put up here.

Thursday Night in Breda Post

Here are some more pics of the apartment, got some requests. The sink is part of my bathroom. I like the tiny little garbage can on the counter, its sweet. Too bad I don't make tiny little garbage for it, I put a toothbrush case in it and it was full.

This is my stove. It is a beast. I have no use for six burners, I live by myself. Pretty nice though.

So I am going to be in Tarragona Spain at the end of the month. I will make sure to provide some pics when I get there. Also, I was thinking of doing a special Spanish Edition of Daves Food Review.

Dave's Dutch Food Review:
Kanjers Extra Grote Stroopwafels (with a glass of Langlekker Halfvolle Melk)

I purchased these gems at the local gas station, which I visited on my way home from the closed grocery store. The gas station was actually very nice, featuring fresh produce and a full selection of fresh, healthy foods. I managed to avoid that section and found these babies. You get two per pack, which ran for 60 euro cents. They are filled with a syurpy goo that made me not feel good. The waffle exterior is basically a waffle cone, hiding a terrible fate for your tounge. Thankfully, this melk is so good, adding that to the breakfast (yes this was my breakfast) made it a much more satifying meal. Overall grade of C-

Yum, syurp, who wants a headache?

Apartment Photos















So I promised everyone (everyone meaning the 2 people who might read this wonderful blog) pictures, so here is the first round, just some shots of the apartment

To the left here is the livingroom, there's a green couch further to the left, you cant see it. I felt showing everyone the TV would be more important

The other half is my Kitchen, the little fridge hides in the cabinets. They way, he doesn't have to be able to store a weeks worth of food.

Daves Dutch Food Review : Haribo Star Mix

I found a great pack of gummies today. The bad thing was that the pack consisted of 24 little packs of gummies, and the little packs were made of tiny sized gummies too! These "fun packs" mean less overall gummi mass and more opening of packaging. But boy did they make up for this shortfall in tasteyness. Not only are these things fresh and flavorful, but the diamond ring gummies have a strange calamari texture to them that makes me pretend that they are calamari gummies. It's Great! Also, I have eaten about 20 packs of these so far, and this was the first pack that contained a fried egg gummi, where did that thing come from?

My First Post

Hello and welcome to my blog. I plan on posting my pictures, stories, thoughts and musings on this thing while I am here in the Netherlands.

Arrival Day (Friday Jan 9th):
On Jan 9th, my plane landed in Amsterdam, where I got my bags (weighing in at a combined weight of 165 lbs) and took the train to the town of Roosendaal. Roosendaal is the town I work in, but I chose to live in a nearby city called Breda. Nothing against Roosendaal, its a charming little town, but Breda has more modern ammentities, like a movie theater, shopping distirict, and bus system.

My boss, Arjen, drove me to Breda after I arrived in Roosendaal. My apartment is very modern (pictures coming soon) It even came with a Bravia flat screen tv, which is nice because I just sold my US Bravia to my brother and was missing it. I got my Playstation 3 working on the TV, which does work as long as I use an HDMI cable for the picture and sound.

Saturday (Jan 10th):
After spending Friday night dining on what I could get from the local gas station down the road, I decided that I needed to start buying real food. I walked about 2 km to the local Alberts, which is your standard grocery store in the Netherlands. Here are the major differences:
-50 cent deposit to unlock shopping cart
-20 cents per plastic bag
-only 10 types of cereral (instead of 250)
-weird looking fruit that is spikey
-Deli makes it own sausage right there on the spot
-Fanta Zero is awesome
-about 6 isles, no toy isle, no dvd isle, no hallmark card isle

I bought some food, spent 50 euro, and then realized I had to carry the grocies 2 km home (Shouldn't have purchased that laudry detergent so soon) Later I walked downtown and went to a pub, which was okay, but not worth the 4 km there and back.

Sunday (Jan 11th):
Then Sunday came, you know how some stores are closed on Sundays and its really annoying. Well in the Netherlands, every store is closed on Sundays. Gas stations are all that I saw with a light on. It was a good time to unpack.