Winterswijk, Netherlands

Yesterday we took off in the big van to go to Winterswijk, Netherlands for the afternoon. It would be Dylan's first time in the Netherlands, and both me and Dylan's first time riding with Bryan while he drove a stick-shift car.  Despite being a little jilted by GoogleMaps from our ill-fated trip to Kauflands, we consulted it once again for directions to Winterswijk and GoogleMaps redeemed itself. 


Here is the map from Borken to Winterswijk.

 Winterswijk is only about 12-15 miles away from where we live, so it was a pretty short drive for us across the border to the Netherlands. 

Some interesting history to note about Winterswijk is that according to Wikipedia (so it must be true!), Winterswijk was mainly an isolated farming town until 1830 when the road from Borken was built.  Then in the 1840s, many residents emigrated to America - mostly to Michigan.  So perhaps some of our Dutch friends in Michigan are have ancestors from this adorable little town.  Do you see how reading our blog can be informative as well as entertaining?

Anyway, Bryan did a decent job showing off his driving skills, although his movements weren't totally flawless, so I spent a lot of time grasping for the handle and pumping an imaginary brake from the passenger seat. No one got carsick, though, so the drive was a success.

Winterswijk has lots of clothing stores, shops, bakeries and shoe stores, so once we figure out what our shoe and clothes sizes are in European measurements, we will be headed back here to shop.  Yesterday we mainly just walked around, then bought some pastries to eat on our way home.  We also bought some more espresso shots from the nearby grocery store (we were already out).  We heard that coffee is cheaper in the Netherlands, so we took advantage of the opportunity.

Here is a little photo tour of what we did, followed by some cute recent photos of Dylan goofing around.



Bryan and Dylan at the beginning of the "marktplatz" in Winterswijk.  I asked Bryan if he wanted to change out of his workout clothes before we left.  He declined.  Once shopping, it didn't take long for him to say, "I think I'm a little under dressed."  Thank you, Captain Obvious. 



Every European town has a big church in its center.



Dylan and I in front of the big church.



Here are Dylan and I down a cute little side street.

Here is my happy baby.

Flashing his cheesy smile for the camera.



I try really hard to bundle him up at night so he'll stay warm, but this is usually how I find him in the  morning.  He has his pants off and has mostly taken off his shirt.  He is, obviously, very proud of himself.

 

Posing on his "Big Bobby Car."



Lost In Munsterland

I pride myself on having a keen instinct for directions, so I am little tentative to tell you the following stories from the past week (yes, there are actually two). I figure, though, that if we are going to live in a foreign country, than I need to be able to laugh at myself. So, here I go:

On Monday, Dana and I were desperate to get to Kaufland’s (kind of like a German version of Walmart) to get Dylan some shoes, Dana a hair dryer, and a couple of pillows. We weren’t exactly sure where Kaufland’s was, so we did a quick search on Google maps and carefully wrote down the directions on paper. It seemed like the map was in the wrong direction, but who are we to question Google Maps when we were on Day 4 in Borken? The map said it was about 1.5 miles away, which is consistent with the distance we rode in the car on our first trip to Kaufland’s. So we walked, and walked, and walked. We followed the directions perfectly and it took us to…the Kaufland Haus. We didn’t ring the doorbell to say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Kaufland, but we now know where they live.

This is Kauflands - where we wanted to go.

This is Mr. and Mrs. Kaufland's house. 

We ended up on the outskirts of town and ended up taking the bus back to town (see bus episode on my random thoughts post.) After all of this, I was determined to still find Kaufland’s. We were a little cranky and hungry after walking for the last 45 minutes. I told Dana that we walk to the center of town and my instincts would get us there. She reluctantly came along. It didn’t take very long to find Kaufland’s once we got the center of town. I pumped my fists in victory as we walked in and explained to Dana for the 3,201st time that “I just need to trust my Y chromosome. Google Maps is not wired with this type of instinct.” She was not impressed.

Fast forward to Thursday morning when I took the Sprinter Bus to Munster from Borken. My bus stop was approximately 500 meters (1/4 of a mile) from the Business School Building, so I didn’t really check a map to make sure that I would take the right direction. I was so confident in my instincts that I displayed on Monday that it wouldn’t be a problem. It was a problem. I kept walking and would stop to use my instinct to give me the next step. I could also see the Dom (large church at the center of town) from time to time to show me where I was in proximity to the center of town (pretty close to where I wanted to go.)

I was within range for a while… and then the wheels fell off. I got so turned around I had no idea where to go. My instincts became guesses. The Dom was out of sight. I was terribly lost. The good news is that Germany doesn’t really have ghettos, so I wasn’t in danger (except for my ego). After 45 minutes of walking I was simply happy to find a busy street (I had listened to nearly the entire Kollide album from our church's worship band). When I arrived there, I saw that I was two bus stops back from where I was dropped off. This is ok on a local bus, but the Sprinter Bus only stops 8-10 per hour, so to be back two bus stops is really messed up.

I found a taxi filling up at the gas station across the street. Asking a taxi driver if he is still on duty in German was out of my vocabulary range, so I walked up to him and muttered a half sentence in German and waited for him to get the hint that I had used my entire vocab repertoire and if the conversation didn’t immediately go to English, we were done. He said that he could take me, in English, if I was close. I convinced him I was.

The taxi ride was really a ride off shame for me. With each kilometer that we drove, I realized how badly I messed up the directions. The driver could hear me say, “Ouch” and “Wow” with each passing block. We finally arrived and I paid my taxi cab fare… 7.20 Euros. All I could think of for the rest of the morning was that I was a 7.20 euro taxi lost. I went into my office and shut the door behind me and didn’t talk to anyone for the entire morning. By lunch, I was able to confess my misfortune and laugh about it, but deep down, there is a Y chromosome that is badly bruised.

In this map, the red mark is where the Sprinter Bus originally dropped me off and my destination, the Finance building, was "B."  I got in the taxi at "A" and needed to be driven back into town.

Photo Tour of our Flat and Town by Dana

Sorry it's taken so long to get these photos up - we know this is what you've all been waiting for. Here are some pictures of our flat and a few from around town.  A few of these are makeshift panorama's, so bear with us.

Here are Bryan and Dylan outside our building.  We live on the third floor, which is extremely confusing for Oscar.  Every door we pass on our way up the stairs, Oscar stops at thinking it is our house.

This is the view of our living room area from the front door. I really like the modern furniture. 



This is a view of the kitchen and looking back into the living area.  Straight ahead is our refrigerator, which is slightly smaller than our fridge in the US.  It makes for more frequent trips to the grocery store, which is OK becasue it's only a couple of blocks away. 
We also have a small dishwasher, which is disguised as a cabinet. 
I haven't quite figured out the oven yet - I still have trouble converting the Celsius degrees on the oven to Fahrenheit - I need to make a cheat sheet.  On the far left next to the blue chair there is a small freezer, and just to the right of that under the red table cloth is another small fridge. 



This is our bedroom.  Directly to the right and left (not in view in this photo) are some really nice closets and cabinets.



This is Dylan's room, which was formerly used as an office.  He has one wall that has floor to ceiling windows and a great view of the fire station.  Some days we can see the firemen smoking on the roof - how ironic.  We've purchase some curtains for this office and tried to hang them from a rail system that is above the windows. It looked great for about 5 minutes, then the entire rail system including the curtains came crashing to the ground.  Someone is coming here this week to help us fix it.  Curtains are very important because the sun shines brightly in here in the morning, causing Dylan to wake up super early.



Here is a picture of Dylan's room facing the other direction.  Notice the drying rack - we have two large drying racks because although we have a washing machine in the basement, we do not have a dryer.  It takes some getting used to, but it really isn't that bad. 

This is our bathroom.  Directly to the left (not in view) is the shower, so we don't have to take baths only in the giant tub.



Here are Dylan and Oscar playing in the park near our house. It is a large, beautiful park with lots of open space for the boys to run around in. 



The park has lots of walking and bike paths and leads from the Sporthalle (where Bryan's games are played) to the town center.



Here is Dylan in the town center.  This is a large open area for pedestrians surrounded by shops and restaurants.  This is just a  short walk from our house.



We were walking back towards home from the town center.  This is what a typical street looks like in the "marketplatz" (market place). 

Random Thoughts by Brzan

It’s been a full week since we’ve touched down in Germany and so far it’s been quite a week with a lot of new experiences. Dana and I have also been sick (kronk) the entire time, which means that Dana has to take care of two babies instead of one. We are being very well taken care of and are settling in nicely.

Here are some random thoughts from my first week back in Germany:

• I am in a foreign speaking country. This should be an obvious thought instead of random, but we have realized that we have a lot of work to do in order to learn German. We have learned a lot of new words in one week, but we are looking at a long road ahead. To add to the pressure, I said in my press conference that I would do next year’s press conference all in German. Maybe I can blame my jet lag for that comment and take it back.
• I am short; Really short. You would think that after 29 years of being short, I would be able to accept this. In Jacksonville, I was at least average, but now in Germany, I am back on the ‘short list.’
• We don’t get the websites we’ve taken for granted. We were exited that we wouldn’t miss any of our favorite TV shows in America thanks to hulu.com and nbc.com. That led to a huge disappointment when the error message for both appeared saying ‘Video is not available in this area.’ We were devastated, but our German friends were quick to help with other sites that we can work around to watch American TV and Sports for free.



"Nein!!!"

• I can get arrested for not recycling correctly. Germans take their recycling very seriously. Instead of the American recycling container that contains all things that can be recycled, we have to sort into separate paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum bins. When I asked what would happen if I get it wrong, a friend told me that I could get arrested by the “Recycling Police.” He wasn’t joking. Evidently, they can rummage through your trash and find your name in the trash that is not recycled and give you a ticket. I almost want that to happen as it would make for a great blog post. Bring it on Recycling Police.

  

• Don’t walk on the red brick road. Muenster is the bike capital of the world (I think there are 500,000 bikes for 250,000 people) and their bike paths are packed with people riding bikes. The sidewalks here are split, with a gray sidewalk and a red sidewalk. I learned the hard way that the red path is only for bikes. Now, whenever I hear a bike bell behind me, I freeze and look down to see if I am on the red brick. I am getting better, but still put my chances of getting hit by a bike are between 99.5% to 100%. Sadly, these bikes are very well built, which means I will lose the battle if I get hit.

• The bus driver will ask you your destination when you get on the bus. For some reason, I forgot this when we took the bus for the first time, leading to a very awkward standoff in front of a packed bus. It was a local bus and I was almost 100% sure that the driver said “’Free Pass,” so I just walked through. I learned that I was wrong when the bus wouldn’t move and the bus driver was saying something to me. I went back up and told him where we wanted to go and gave him money. He was not very happy with me.
•  The @ sign is impossible to find on a German computer. My office at the University is very nice and it comes equipped with a nice computer. However, it has a German keyboard, which isn’t too different, except the ‘y’ and the ‘z’ are in opposite places. I wonder how long I will type Brzan? Also, I could not find the @ sign. I had to ask a colleague to help me type it. “I am smart, I promise.”

• Espresso Shots are readily available here. We have an espresso shot maker at our flat. As a person who loves efficiency, coffee, and process improvement, this concept makes me giddy (and shaky). I can consume an equivalent of two cups of coffee in 2 minutes. That means I can have two shots before our coffee is ready (we have that here too). What I am also saying is that my caffeine consumption problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

We will keep you posted as more adventures come along.

Link Time

Bryan is starting to get some press here in Germany for his return to basketball. The team sent out a press release a few days ago and last night he had his first game. Here is a picture from the game - check out his big guns - wow!



Here are some links to the recent articles about him:

RC Borken Website

Borkener Zeitung

Dorstener Zeitung

BSV Wulfen Website