Yesterday, Liliane confirmed Dan's suspicion that she loves to splash in puddles by tromping through every muddy puddle in Vondelpark. Since she was in her faux Crocs when she decided to let me know this, her shoes, socks and jeans were laden with water and mud! This morning, I set off to a store called Hema (that I'll blog about later) in search of garden boots for her. The smallest boots seemed a little big so I decided to hold out.
A close friend told me about a phenomenon here called Febo. You can go there and get hot food out of a vending machine. Febo primarily vends croquettes, all varieties. A digression - here in Holland, the gravy croquette is like a national side dish. I ate one once and the gravy and the crust in which it was fried were separately delicious, but didn't make sense to me together. Anyway, Liliane kept saying "eat" and I had already given her some cookies, so we had even more of a reason to stop at Febo, which was conveniently located next to Hema.
True to word, there was a vast array of croquettes! I went for the weekly 2-for-1 special of chicken and vegetable croquette (cost 1.40). I gave one to Liliane who ended up taking one nibble and then just holding it. I must say, the croquettes really hit the spot for me. They were crunchy on the outside, but not very crummy while eating. The inside was warm and filling for my walk outside. This sort of food concept makes sense to me. How often have you been in a big city during a late night out and had to wait a long time for food, even if it's just simple food like pizza, burritos, or donner kebabs?
Our next stop was a drugstore two blocks away. As soon as we entered, I noticed that Liliane had lost one of her pink crocs. I retraced my steps to Febo three times and it was nowhere to be found. I asked street sweepers and the clerks at Febo and the drugstore. I looked inside a trash can. Nowhere! So my story comes full circle. We ended up back at Hema and I bought the little boots that seemed a little big under the rationale that she will grow into them in the next few months.
I have a song dedication to the friend who turned me on to Febo. If you're interested to see which song, click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiwcOaaRo1Y.
The final picture of both of Liliane's Target Crocs.
Croquettes and bicycles - can you get more Dutch?
