Off to Lille, then Minneapolis

As I pack for our weekend in Lille, France and start setting aside a few things for our trip to Minneapolis next week the juxtaposition of temperatures is striking -- Lille will be sunny and 50 all weekend. Are we sure we want to move home? Bon weekend, all! We'll update you with pictures when we're back! Au revoir!

Well that's different

As many of you know, saying something is "different"is midwestern parlance to indicate that we dislike, disapprove or are slightly bewildered by something. (Of course it's an interesting window into our worldview that using the term "different" nearly alwaus carries a negative connotation, but I won't go into that here.) So when Ryan called me this afternoon from the dermatologist's waiting room and, replying to my question of how it was, reported it was different, I wondered what he meant. Well, he explained, there's porn in the waiting room. Wow. The choices were a yachting magazine, a medical journal, a Dutch celebrity gossip magazine and porn. Hmmmm . . . I wonder how many doctors offer patients that option in the States. It really is different here, and every now and again it's "different".

Mother/Daughter/Sister/Cousin/Auntie/Neice time in the Netherlands

Thought we needed a few more pictures to capture our month. Poor Grandpa and Dads were definitely outnumbered, but I think they are no worse for the wear. Cheers to you all.

Christmas and New Years

We are just coming down after a wonderful month with a full house and many side trips to Germany, Belgium and Amsterdam. Friends Sara and Alex (Alex is Ellie's age--lovely fun they had) from Memphis were first, followed by Auntie Cassie and then the rest of my family from Minnesota (Ellie and Della were reunited, which was lovely, as was seeing an expecting Emily and Dan and of course grandparents!) and then friends Michelle and Brian from Memphis completed our full month, just overlapping with Cassie. Being together was a wonderful blessing, and everyone put up with long lines for the bathroom and (poor Cassie) sleeping on mats on a few different floors. Excursion highlights include Amsterdam between Christmas and New Years and a quiet Christmas pancake brunch in Belgium. Also, the men took a trip into Germany (Cologne and Monchau) sans women and, as you can see from Dan and Dad here, were most inspired by German street art.

Happy New Year! Merry Christmas! (no longer neglecting the blog, will do e-mail soon)

Hey ya'll--time flies and Christmas and New Years have past, along with a few birthdays in there--hope it was wonderful for all, it certainly was for us here. I've received a few comments wondering when we'll be back online--we've been loving having a houseful of guests (5 left this morning for a freezing Minnesota) this last month and I promise to update it now that there's a little down time. Look for pictures of crazy family time in Amsterdam soon . . . I'm also looking forward to getting to some lovely e-mails that are gracing my full inbox, so please know I'm thinking of you and will no longer be incommunicado. So exciting!!!

gate-crashing the pick-up pool

As biking has lost some of its appeal during the increasingly chilly and wet days, I ventured to the pool to find an alternative form of exercise. We have a view of the gym and pool from our patio, but I have to admit that until I discovered I was pregnant I had very little interest in getting in the pool. The elliptical was more appealing, and if I wanted to join a class there were better alternatives than water aerobics. I had been hoping to get up the nerve to join the spinning class, but the all spandex outfits gave me pause. The Dutch do things properly--you wear proper bike shorts and a jersey (matching, of course) even on the exercise bike. But the water aerobics class seemed an increasingly sensible choice--it meets on the two mornings that Ellie's at school and it's supposed to be the perfect exercise during pregnancy. I figured that I should give it a try, get used to it and then I'd enjoy it later on when I really needed something for my mama body. So on Tuesday, I ventured into the pool and lamely looked around, waiting for someone else to start doing something that I could follow. I noticed a few things as I waited for the class to start:

1. I was the youngest by at least 35 years. No one except me was under his or her late sixties. Some daring individuals had to have been pushing ninety. The one individual who was in his 40s quickly hustled out of the pool as soon as the water weights were being distributed, leaving me in a pool with 25-30 of my elders. These were serious elders, too--you could tell they had known a lot of success in their lives just by the way they carried themselves. Also, this part of Maastricht is known as the place where the up and coming live alongside the pensioners whose success allowed them retire in a chic little apartment next to the river.
2. The women were ignoring me and, when I would catch one of them looking at me, she would quickly look away pretending not to have been wondering what I was doing there. No women smiled or said hello.
3. The men, however, were very interested in me--two men started conversations and many others smiled or nodded approvingly that I had joined the class.
4. The woman who was my age who handed out the water weights at the beginning pretended that it was normal that I was there, but she did have a jaunty little smile with questionable sincerity. Later I caught her and a friend laughing after looking at me flapping my arms around in the pool with all the other would-be exercisers.

I wondered what I had done. At first I felt I should never have gotten into the pool, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. To everyone, even before they realized I wasn't Dutch, I was a curiosity by virtue of my age. And to these folks, this was the equivalent of the bar, a place to check each other out and maybe meet up with someone. So to the women, I was an unwanted distraction, competition even. To the men, I was a welcome curiosity.

I think I'll go back. I was really sore afterwards--contrary to my low expectations, this isn't wimpy exercise. And eventually one of the women will talk to me. Eventually it will become obvious that I'm expecting and then hopefully the suspicion will fall by the wayside. I'll still be an oddity in the pick-up pool, but perhaps I'll feel more welcome.

pining for home

I write after a windy rain storm swept through Maastricht, pelting our windows with water though we have almost 2 meters of overhang on that side. Though our mail slot has been opening and closing in the wind all evening, I'm just now learning not to check for mail with each door clatter. Besides, it's Sunday. In Minnesota there's a fresh 10 inches of snow, in Des Moines they closed the airport yesterday. It's times like this I really miss home. Ryan's in LA, Ellie's sleeping upstairs after finally agreeing to part with her pink leotard (courtesy of Becky) and get into her pajamas, the wind is now dying down now. In lieu of dwelling on the NY Times news (I can be obsessive, which becomes depressing), I finished reading Harry Potter--again--trying to nurture my hope, which it always does. The tea kettle's on and I'm thinking of all the people at home I'd like to share a cup with. Sending love.