Great B-Day!

Yesterday I turned 33 years old!  Like so many birthdays in the past my family was sure to make it a very happy birthday!  Even though my side of the family is in The States, they are always sure to call, Skype, send cards, & presents - thanks!  The other half of the family I get to see in person, and we have our yearly bbq combined with the city fair, and of course cake & presents - thanks!

This year, like so many, my incredible husband bought me an amazing b-day gift.  (Last year he bought me my 1st car here in The Netherlands!)  I do have to give my daughter credit for coming up with the idea this year but it was my husband who made it happen.  They bought me a brand new bike!  See here in NL bikes are very important (wrote about this when my last bike was stolen).  Finally I have a bike again, and it's beautiful!!!  It's retro style and even has a cute wicker basket.  I was sold on it the moment I walked into the shop (great display work on the stores part).  And on top of the great present, my husband did me a huge favor and biked it home for me from my in-laws one town over (45 min bike ride), thanks!!!

As always I have to include pics.  One is the display at the store Bike Best.  And the other is an adorable plaque on the frame of the bike.

 

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Stolen Bike

Huge bummer, someone stole my bike last night!!!  I am a mixture of sad & angry, and it has totally ruined my day!  See, here in The Netherlands bikes are very important, not to mention very expensive!  Besides often popping to the stores on the bike, one of my favorite things to do is go on a family bike ride.  My daughter rides with my husband, I bike next to them, and we go all over town visiting playgrounds.  Now that winter is passed, I was really looking forward to those outings.  And now some @#?! ruined it by stealing my bike!  It was there last night when my husband returned home, he even parked his bike behind it.  Then this morning, the second time I let the dog out, I realized there was only 1 bike and not 2!  So somewhere in a 12hr period, someone walked up to the back of our terrace and stole a LOCKED bike.  Why my bike?  I really liked it, it was really nice, and it was expensive - still €150 second hand!  I guess we're lucky they didn't take my husbands bike because that's the one with the child seat attached... my daughter would have been heart broken if she couldn't go on bike rides with dad anymore.  There were lots of other bikes in the parking lot, even on the street in front of our apartment there are at least 50, why mine!  (Even more upsetting, we were just 10 feet away, asleep in our beds.)  Just a month ago I wrote about the rise of crime in our town, and now we're victims again!  (In July 2012 someone tried to steal our scooter, which ended up costing us money because insurance wouldn't cover the damage and the apartment committee said even though it was their property they're not responsible, nice!) 

Hope you are all having a better day than mine!

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

2AM Bike Rides

For those of you that know me probably can't imagine me biking to work at 2 in the morning, but it's true.  When I first moved to the Netherlands my in-laws employed me, they gave me an opportunity to join the IT world and learn the family business.  But after many discussions with my husband we decided it was best for me to find work elsewhere.  I upped and quit my job one weekend (in hind sight I would have done things differently), and decided to pursue new things.  In all of the discussion I never once considered I might not be able to find work (I was in my early 20's).  In The States it was easy (I'm talking before the recession), I thought it would be just as easy here, I never once figured in that I barely spoke Dutch and never completed college.  Well, I was in for a rude awakening.  I reverted back to my teenage years and started going shop to shop asking for applications and work.  Most of the people chuckled or stared at me like I was an alien, mostly because my Dutch request wasn't better than a 5yr old.  Now that my Dutch has improved and I look back I was literally saying : "I search work".  Who says that?  I should have consulted with my husband, jotted down a few Dutch sentences, anything other than standing at the counter of the baker, the drug store, and the grocery store saying, "I search work".  I sounded like a caveman!  Anyway, I put in applications where I could and eventually landed a job.  It was seasonal work (1 month) at a strawberry farm.  Cold December, standing in a non-heated barn, sorting strawberries with other foreigners.  I gladly accepted, money was money.  Then days later I convinced UPS to hire me in their warehouse, they were very reluctant, they couldn't see the benefit of a female office worker in their warehouse sorting boxes in the dead of the night.  But with a lot of begging they gave me a chance... now I temporarily had 2 jobs.  I didn't want to let the farm down, so I decided to push myself harder than ever physically.  I would wake up at 1AM, get ready for work at the warehouse, bike there at 2AM, work until 7AM, then bike straight to the farm, and work there until the afternoon, CRAZY!  But I did it.  Anyway, my post is supposed to be about the bike ride (but hey I always have to give the back story).  I'm an American, the idea of a woman out on a bike, alone, at 2AM sounded insane, but I didn't have an option.  Not to mention I really suck at riding a bike!  Luckily the UPS warehouse was only 3.1km (2 miles) from our apartment, I could get there in about 10-15 minutes (depending on how fast I biked).  I'm a fairly nervous/paranoid/antsy person in general, so you can imagine what a 2AM bike ride, alone, in the dark, to the outskirts of town, through a wooded area must have felt like for me.  I came up with tactics to make sure there was no one following me.  Some of the bike paths had loose stones that would clink when I biked over them.  I learned to bike around them, knowing if I was being followed they wouldn't know to avoid the stone and I would hear them.  Or I would listen to the leaves on the bike path, too much rustling or crackling behind me would make me bike two times as fast.  Obviously I survived because I'm writing this blog!  I also learned other things, like how to bike in the snow & ice, or freezing rain, as I already mentioned it was the winter.  I also got to deal with the Thursday night bar crowd, I was leaving for work as they were wrapping up at the bars.  One time I even saw a man passed out in the middle of a round-about, that was interesting.  My work at the warehouse only lasted 4 months, because I managed to get promoted to the office.  I was obviously out of place in the warehouse, but I didn't mind the physical work, I was the thinnest and most muscular I had ever been.  What I minded was the fact my mind wasn't challenged (and the hours of course).  I also proved a lot to myself (and family); I'm not afraid to work hard, I'm not afraid to start at the bottom and work my way up, and I try my best not to think I'm too good to do something or better than anyone else.  You never know where life may take you, and sometimes you have to spiral to the bottom to get to the top.