Fijne Koninginnedag (Happy Queen's Day)

Today Amsterdam was painted orange in celebration of the queen's birthday. Everyone wore some piece of orange clothing or accessory to show their Dutchism or just to join in the fun! Groups of fun-loving youngsters dressed up similarly crazy were headed towards Central Amsterdam to party on the roads, streets, parks, canals - basically everywhere.
Vondel Park and many other parks and roads in every locality were laden with free markets - people selling their second hand items, a tradition of Konininnedag.
Last year I witnessed all of this, but this year our Queen's Day was spent at a friend's house, celebrating her son's first birthday. We still got to see alot of orange-ness on our way, but unfortunately we couldn't be a part of it, because our party clothes were not orange.
Even though our celebration had nothing to do with the queen we still had cake and some nice barbeque. Hence, a holiday spent nicely.
Definitely a fijne koninginnedag!

Nederlands leren (Learning Dutch)

When I was coming to live in the Netherlands I was determined to learn the language as soon as possible. On my very first trip to the market it became even more evident that there is a pressing need to learn the language in order to perform even the simplest of tasks like buying grocery. In Amsterdam almost everyone speaks a little or lot English, but they don't like writing English. So anything you want to buy, or any official letter you recieve will be in Dutch.
Hence, I contacted the local gementee, (council) which was kind enough to put me in a free one-year course to learn dutch. Four months ago the course kindly gave me a leave to perform my motherhood duties, and now I have been recalled to finish my unfinished business - the course.
I like learning, and this was my first experience of learning a new language, which was really fun. After my first few lessons I was able to make small sentences to introduce myself - something a five-year-old can do fluently, but I was proud of my accomplishment. Now, I can make people understand what I want to say in small words and broken grammar, but the harder part is understanding what they are saying. Even if I make them repeat themselves twice, the Dutch accent is just too confused for me to understand. Hopefully, by the time my course finishes, my one-way communication will reach atleast the level of a ten-year-old.
Sucess (good luck) to me!

Baby in the tram

During my pregnancy I especially noticed how people with babies manage their prams and little ones in the tram, and it all looked very convenient. For the first two months it really was convenient for me as well, because my baby used to peacefully sleep in his pram. However, as soon as he went over two months he began to wake up, and when he woke up he cried unconsolably. His problem - "Hold me! Why have you trapped me in this stupid seat?"
I again looked around helplessly at other people who had calm and silent babies peacefully sucking on their pacifiers sitting in their prams. Mine wouldn't even try his dummy. As if this crying was not enough, I was introduced to a new rule about trams that I was previously unaware of. The tram doesn't allow more than two children buggies at one time. Some tram conductors are kind enough to let a third one enter, but others just shut the door on you, and you are left outside waiting another ten minutes for the next tram with a crying baby.
I honestly thought that my days of going out have ended, but today magically, when my baby is three months old, he reached a new milestone of remaining calm in his buggy. He was queit all the way from my house to Prinsengracht, a good 25 minutes journey.
I can't be happier! Just hope it remains this way for years to come.
All smiles :)))

Travel to Berlin

I loved Berlin, just an hour away from Amsterdam on plane. Read my travel piece on the amazing city below http://issuu.com/sundayplus/docs/sunday_plus_25_december_2011#downloadpg.26

Playgroup

In my desperate attempts to have a social life I am always on the look out for places I can go and meet new people, and maybe make a friend. Well, after a whole year and a half of searching and trying I think I might have landed in the right place. The English Bookshop in Jordaan has a playgroup every Wednesday morning for babies and mommys. Its not expensive at all, for 2.50 euros you get a drink and get to spend a good hour with other mums and babies. So here I am at a place where I can actually communicate with other people in proper sentences rather than a mix of a few dutch words and sign language. The baby seems to love it, so its a real tenner.

Rise and Shine

All my life getting up early morning has always been my weak point. Everyday when my mom woke me up for school I used to count years until I finish my education, when I would be relieved from the misery of waking up at 7 am. Finished university and one of the best things about my first job was it didn't start early morning. In my recent unemployed years, I admitted that one of the many joys of being unemployed was sleeping for as long as I willed. Technically speaking I am still unemployed, but that is not entirely true. As I look at it I have a full time job now, which not only requires me to wake up early morning, but also several times in the middle of the night. My boss is my baby who gives me orders through wailing and screaming, and rewards me with smiles and giggles. Me signing off at 8:30 am.

Tulips!

'The land of tulips' I came to one and a half years ago, but to my disappointment I didn't live in a house facing the infamous dutch tulip fields. I live in an appartment that doesn't even have a garden, and whenever I try to bring some kind of plant in my house, the poor thing dies to remind me of my raw gardening skills.
The tulip fields are a very short lived attraction of Netherlands. They come around March and are gone by May already. For these two months opens the Keukenhof, the famous tulip garden of Netherlands adjacent to a big array of flower fields.
Last year in May with some friends from Canada we excitedly went to the Keukenhof. However, to our disappointment we found the tulip fields barren, and the garden flowers also breathing their last breaths. "It got too hot for them" said the garden manager. My canadian friend was more disappointed than I was, because somewhere in my heart I had a feeling that I will still be here next year, and maybe then I can see the tulip fields.
Well this year came March, and the opening of Keukenhof was announced. I asked my husband if we should plan a trip there and he looked at the baby, who hates his car seat. Sadly, we both fell silent.
Fate has its was of teasing me and on the iamsterdam website I found out that a sea of tulips is going to be displayed in the Amsterdam museum courtyard for four days 19th - 22nd April. This was my chance to see 30,000 tulips as advertised on the website. On Sunday, we got ready, and set off on the tram to the see the tulips. I dressed up extra special to take some nice pictures with the flowers. Excitedly we entered the courtyard and there in front of us was nothing more than four rows of red tulips. We stood in front of them looking at each other. "So thats it?" asked my husband. "I think when it comes to flowers 30,000 isn't a big number after all" I replied.
Once again dissapointed to have missed the sight of the tulip fields I hung my face down, but my husband eager to cheer me up said "Don't worry I'm sure we are going to be here next year too".

The joy of living high up

I live in an apartment on the 9th floor, and from my bedroom's full size windows I get an amazing view of the city.
Whenever I decide to go out I go to my room to analyse the weather outside. Since I am too dumb to understand the weather guide when it tells me the speed of the wind and amount of precipitation outside I prefer to rely on my own judgemental skills instead.
The tuincentrum (garden centre) in front of my house has mounted some banners outside it. If these banners are vibrating vigorously I know its windy, if they are gently swaying, I know its safe to go out.
Then there is the conundrum of how to dress up to go out. The inside room temperature of my house remains 21 degree throughout the year, which makes it hard to fathom how cold or warm it is outside. Again, I go to my bedroom window, and this time look at the people already outside.
The oldies would always be overdressed, the youngsters would always be underdressed. I keep looking until I find someone whose dressing sense I can rely on and then decide how many layers of clothing I need to wear while going out today. Not only that, but when I am really bored, my bedroom window becomes a big tv screen for me. I can choose which floor of the opposite building to watch. My favourite being the top floor, where I see a baby boy growing up to different stages. Its amazing how fast these little ones grow.

My baby and the laptop screen

When you become new parents you spend alot of time researching on how to raise a baby. What are the do's and dont's about feeding him, making him sleep, playing with him. Every website, book and peadeatrician gives different advice, and in the end you learn that the baby is the boss. He gets done whatever he wants to be done.
One of the point of conflicts is introuducting the child to television. When I was expecting I used to sit in front of the laptop alot and one day I thought, what if these rays are affecting my unborn child. My fears were soon subsided as I googled 'is it safe to use laptop during pregnancy'.
Before the baby was born I had a differnt idea about how I will raise him. I didn't want him to be over exposed to the television or computer screen. What I didn't realise at the time was that there will be times when he will wake up at 6am and want to be held, and I would seek refuge in my laptop to compensate for my sleepless night. That's when the baby is in my lap staring with his wide eyes at the bright computer screen in front of him.
Maybe it reminds him of the good old day in the womb.
Me signing off at 6:20 am.

Back to the baby

So, yes, I did announce a few days back that I have a baby boy now. Let's talk a little bit more about him today. Born on the 27th of January he is an aquarius like me, which makes me associate high hopes for him. Maybe he has also been born with a creative streak, and maybe he will decide to take a creative path in his career later on, and maybe he would do things that I couldn't. And at this point I am reminded of my mother.
As her first born, she had high hopes from me too. My results were never good enough, and I was never perfect enough for her. As for my younger siblings she was content on them being average.
However, I like to believe that my achievements were a result of my mother's motivation and pushing.
I wonder if I will turn out to be like my mother. Will I push my son to achieve more, or will I be happy even at his failures.

The free hand

Having a baby teaches you many amazing things. It shows you the enormous utility of a free hand. If you manage to keep your right hand free while holding or feeding the baby, then you can do wonders with that free hand. You can type, you can text, you can even play a silly game on your mobile phone, or use the phone for its primitve function - calling someone.
So the important trick is to keep the baby on the left side and carry on your own life with your right hand. You can gently stir the food, pick up dirty dishes and put them in the sink, and even make a bottle for the baby - just with one hand!

Re entry

SO, its been long, almost a year since I opened these pages. Sad indeed, because there has been so much to share in the past year. Problem with sharing so much information is you don't know where to start from.
So let's start from today - the cold morning of 17th April 2012. From my bedroom window the first sight I saw was the tuincetrum (garden centre) banners trembling in the cold wind. And there went my plans of the day, right out that window.
It is almost impossible to enjoy a decent walk in such a windy weather, especially if you are pushing a children's buggy. Yup, I have one of those now, and that's what I have been upto in the last year.
Blog has to stop here, baby crying :)