Oranje Piet

Once a millenium, when a leap year coincides with misaligned intercontinental Daylight Savings and transatlantic relocation disrupts Yule time, Christmas and Easter fall on the same day. This day is, of course, called Chreaster. This year was a 'White Chreaster'.

Anyway, when this miracle occurs Santa and the Easter Bunny get into a huge legal battle over marketing rights and sales at Macy's. While they are distracted, their roles are subversively commandeered by the crafty and wily Oranje Piet. Oranje Piet is a master of disguise and a master of the obvious. He is the younger and more handsome brother of Orange Julius. In the off-season he enjoys watching 'Dancing with the Stars'. As his orangeness attests he is obviously Dutch. He is in no way affiliated with Black Piet. This year, due to the unexpected snowfall, he donned an orange fleece and protected his floppy bunny ears with a waterproof hot/cold Trader Joe's bag. Big pimpin' track pants are a standard accessory.

So while the children are sleeping (a difficult time to predict in this household), Oranje Piet flattens himself ala Flat Stanley and slides beneath the door. He then opens the door to bring in his sacks o' goodies which do not have the same magical flattening powers. Creeping silently down the hall, he noiselessy navigates into the children's room and places a bevy of presents beneath the Chreaster Tulips. When they awaken, the children are horrified to discover an overgrown rabbit man in an oversized tea-cozy hat prancing around the coffee table. But when they oversome that horror, they do notice the gifts! Opening commences with gusto. To the outside observer, one might suppose that the objective was to preserve the wrapping paper and obliterate the contents. When all that's left is the clean-up, Oranje Piet promptly flattens beneath the door and dashes off to the next household in his Skoda wagon. Yes, Piet is sporty and thrifty!

Until next Chreaster (999 years hence), we'll miss you Oranje Piet!

It's not wrong, it's just not right

Madeline will probably report on exciting details from the trip itself, but here's a brief update on a topic of much anxiety over the past few weeks: driving on the left side of the road. I must admit I have been mostly terrified by the prospect of what would happen when we arrived in the greater Folkestone/Dover region after our Channel crossing.

To my surprise, it hasn't been all that bad! Some tips should you decide to attempt this:

• Each morning when I get in the car I recite a little mantra - "Dan, you are in England. Please stay on the left side of the road."
• Satellite Navigation systems rule. Our Garmin prevents us from getting lost and provides subtle reminders at roundabouts ("Stay left...") along with helpful graphics.
• When other vehicles are coming the other way, it's really not that hard to remember to stay out of their trajectory. The hardest part seems to be when there are no other cars around (e.g. parking lots and side streets).
• Even with the driver's wheel on the left side it isn't too difficult to see everything you need. The only near-impossible challenge would be attempting to pass on a 2-lane road. Way too risky for me!
• If you plan to go through toll booths (and there aren't many), bring a passenger. This also applies to drive-thrus I suppose. Should you not have a willing passenger, you may hire one at the border. Alternatively, you could put the car in park, remove your seatbelt, and lean waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over. Be sure to give a silly grin so they know you are "not from 'round these here parts".
• There are rumors that left-drivered vehicles have headlights that 'dip' to the right (and vice versa). This could lead to unanticipated 'dazzling' (or dazing in our case) of oncoming traffic. This suggestion was debunked by those we questioned, and the purchase/application of black-out strips dismissed as sheer tomfoolery. If you have been caught in our cross-beam, please leave an informative comment to correct our brash continentality.

Enjoy and good luck!

Skoda-mobile has now been to 4 countries and one region desperately desiring to be a country. No word on its replacement.

Gouda ya do

Today we made our first (of many I'm sure) excursions out of our new home city. The Skoda zipped us down the A2 past Utrecht to the unbustling cheesetropolis of Gouda. For those of you thinking 'Gooooooodah', please replace the 'G' with a guttural noise from the back of your throat and the 'oo' with an 'ow'. Now you are speaking Dutch (the post-title only makes sense if pronounced in Nederlands).

After parking (I'll reserve an entire post for this phenomenon) near the canal, we ventured into the town market. Not surprisingly, there were several vendors offering an assortment of giant cheese wheels. The prices were pretty good, so we did purchase some Oude Kaas--yum. We strolled about the town for a bit, enjoying the unseasonable warmth. Clearly we packed a bit of Arizona in our bags (or 'most of Arizona in our bags' you may think as you look at our departure photos). We took our lunch at a cafe inside a bakery, happily nabbing a stroopwaffel sample to placate Liliane's cookie penchant on the way out.

Gouda was a very pleasant city, with interesting architecture throughout. A nice place to go to get the small town feel of the Netherlands. We didn't get to tour the Sint Janskerk, though it may be worth a visit if we pass through again. You can view some more pictures here.

Temporary Skodarifficness

For the time being we are driving a Skoda Octavia Scout. It is a sporty Czech wagon that holds the whole familia. But it appears that this allegedly modest sedan exceeds our budget, so it must be swapped...we hope Yugo makes a wagon!