* cababarant *

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Oranje fever
It's hard not to get caught up in the soccer fever here. People actually run the streets wearing orange on game day, if you can believe it. Basically the European championships have been going on for about 2 weeks now and team Holland is still in: first game was a tie with Germany, followed by a loss to Czech Republic, then a win against Croatia (with an assist from Czech Republic who beat Germany, keeping Holland in the tournament as a result), then last night with a win against Sweden, which was exciting and boring at the same time (like most soccer games, in my opinion). Even when you're not watching, you know there's been a goal scored, or a game won by all the air horns and firecrackers going on outside. Go Oranje!

posted by sheryl | 1:22 PM | comments (0)

Yesterday was mijn verjaardag!

Yep, yesterday was my birthday, celebrated with a trip to Puccini Bomboni in Amsterdam for a big box of chocolates (some of the best ever, especially the pepper and tea flavors). Happy 3-0 to me!

posted by sheryl | 1:17 PM | comments (0)

Friday, June 11, 2004

D. getting ready to knock over some Indonesian marionettes

We went to the huge Indonesian festival here in The Hague today. It's called Pasar Malam Besar, and they dub it "The biggest Eurasian festival in Europe".

Because of the colonial legacy in Indonesia, much of The Hague in our particular neighborhood was built on Dutch wealth attained in Indonesia in the 19th century. Basically a lot of the residential buildings drip with the style of 19th century nouveau wealth. As a result of this colonial past, there is a sizeable Indonesian community in the Netherlands, and I am often approached by Southeast Asians here with "Are you Indonesian?" Granted, I can't tell Filipinos apart from Indonesians, and even the language is incredibly similar. Anyway, Indonesian food is incredibly popular, especially in the face of the meat-and-potatoes blandness of native Dutch food. There is this great colonial invention called the rijsttafel (literally "rice table") in which white rice is served with anywhere between 9-30 little dishes like sate, curries, etc. It's not a true native style of serving the food; it was invented by Dutch colonial landholders stuffing their faces and having barefoot brown servants bringing in the dishes one at a time. But anyway, it's turned into a fun local custom nowadays, of course, sans the barefoot servants. :)

The festival was fun, with an entire tent dedicated to food and the rest dedicated to shops and stages for shows. There were fruit stands selling tropical fruit, even durian. Okay, if you haven't ever smelled durian, try leaving some rotting fruit and vegetables in a bowl on the counter and smell it after a week. That is what durian smells like. It's usually banned in hotels in Thailand. But I digress.

Some of the good treats are like Filipino good treats: basically, a fried feast. Loempia (really similar to Filipino lumpia), this thing we had called pangsit (which was basically ground pork deep-fried in something resembling a wonton wrapper) and pisang goreng, a plaintain dipped in something close to tempura batter and deep-fried. Mmmm mmmm!!

posted by sheryl | 9:53 PM | comments (0)

Read, on Kyle's site, about how a tattletale got me busted for not paying on the tram. At least I avoided a fine. No more tram scam for me!

posted by sheryl | 9:48 PM | comments (0)

Soleil and Tricia arrived last week, and will be staying with us for a few weeks. Naturally, the girls were ecstatic to see each other!

Reunited! Standing in front of the De Valk windmill, Leiden.

posted by sheryl | 9:36 PM | comments (0)

Friday, June 04, 2004

It turns out that there's a sizeable Filipino community here in The Hague. I get the sense that it's a bit transient; a lot of Filipinos from the Philippines (I haven't met any second generation types like myself), who intend to go back someday as their families are there. We found this church that holds this great mass every other Saturday for the Filipino community. There's even a Capampangan lady who brings food for after mass. Excellent! The mass is held in half Tagalog, half English, and I found myself able to understand a surprisingly large amount of the Tagalog. Of course this doesn't help Kyle much, but he seems okay with it. :) We met Lourdes, who has a 4-year-old daughter in Manila who is spending the summer in The Hague, so there's another friend lined up for Sofia and Soleil!

posted by sheryl | 9:03 PM | comments (0)