Goedendag! September is already here and summer has been in full swing. There must be a summer camp nearby, because the other day we heard a lot of children chanting and looked out our window to see a few dozen kids scuttling around on all fours at the park. Just normal things. But honestly, we love hearing kids playing, we are not used to that happening outside of a school yard. While the heat is short lived around here, it can be harder to deal with than we initially thought. The US standard of having air conditioning is something that we have definitely missed. Fans and a portable AC unit are critical, and we are very glad we bought those right after moving in, because even with them, our brick apartment building gets HOT. Like it is 31 C outside and 30 C inside hot. It gets hard to do anything when the only appropriately cool place is the grocery store. We thought 25 C inside was uncomfortable when we first got here. Now that is a perfectly acceptable temperature!

But in much more exciting news, we finally took our first trip outside of the Netherlands. A trip that was just for ourselves - not a family event or a business trip. We went to London for the Soap Box Race in June! It was a bit last minute, so we ended up flying to save a bit of time and cost. Only 45 minutes in the air, importantly WITHOUT having cats to worry about, is not too bad. We stayed near King’s Cross station and learned a bit about the Tube system. Public transit in the Netherlands still reigns supreme, however, the buses in London get a special shoutout for being much more enjoyable than we anticipated. We ended up spending an afternoon at the British Museum checking out the Egyptian exhibits, eating some delicious food at Borough Market, and stumbling into a Korean mythology AR art installation. But the main event was at Alexandra Palace, or Ally Pally as the locals call it. There was a huge food truck presence with about 16,000 attendees, all gathered to watch dozens of amateur pilots race their handmade vehicles down an obstacle course. It was a fun collection of events, the sun was shining, and the crowd was very enthusiastic. Every team got lots of “oooohhhsss”, and “aaaahhhhsss”. And each team went all out with some silly theme. One group made a carriage for the royals to ride in, one group of minions were in a rocket, one group bubble wrapped a groom-to-be and shipped him in a box nestled in the back of a lorry, and the winning team ( and Allison’s personal favorite ) performed a magic trick and sent the sawed off legs of a woman speeding down the track. Definitely a trip we would take again.

Incidentally, there was a huge cycling event in London the weekend we were visiting. And a prominent part of that event was the Brompton race. Well, Brandon had looked into getting a folding bike for a couple months at this point, and now he has a new bike! Somehow we managed to squeeze in a day trip to Brussels, Belgium, as well! Our friend rode up from Paris and the rowing Olympics, and we took the train down to meetup for some dinner and drinks. It turns out, Belgium likes to sleep in, because when we first arrived, nothing at all was open. We wandered around until we got to the city center, and at noon all the shops and cafes came to life. We ate delicious sandwiches, checked out the chocolate museum, and ended up getting dinner at a “Mexican” restaurant. Brussels was not our favorite city, overall we were quite underwhelmed, but the company was more than worth it. And we love a good train journey.

In August we were fortunate enough to be invited to a little Germany outing with our friends. We traveled from Amsterdam to Ede, then hopped in our friends’ car to the first village just over the border. Apparently Germany is the place to go for great prices, particularly on petrol and alcohol! But our favorite part, aside from seeing another country, was the bread. Delicious bread. The grocery store had large soft pretzels for only 49 cents! And we were also able to grab a couple packs of english muffins. We look forward to visiting Germany again, to see more sights and experience more food, but this mini trip was an awesome day out.

And of course we cannot forget our Brandon’s-business-trip-turned-mini-holiday. We explored a little bit of DC, and took the train up to NYC to meet Allison’s old supervisor and animation mentor! He kindly walked us all around Penn Station, most notably to Times Square and Central Park. AND Allison finally got to taste real New York pizza! It was delicious. We will have to update you all on how it compares to the pie from Dutch restaurant chain New York Pizza, but we have not been brave enough to try it yet.

Until next time, tot ziens!