This backpack is a symbol of graduation

With the World Cup going on, it’s normal to see plenty of orange or Dutch flags.  During this past week, we’ve started to see backpacks put out with flags.  This is only done at the end of the school year, and it’s a sign that someone in the house has graduated.  They literally hang up their backpacks.  When you drive through the city, you’re sure to see this sight.

Here is the other thing that I never thought I’d see advertised:

New herring is here!

Herring is a really big deal here.  They eat it raw & pickled.  Often, they’ll put raw onions on it.  I’ve been told that this helps it taste better.  I take people’s word for it.  I don’t like seafood, so I stay as far away from this stuff as I can.  This is the time of year that the new herring is sold.  It’s the first herring of the season.  People say that it tastes better at the beginning of the season.  They also discuss what year had the best herring.  It’s like a wine connoisseur discussing which year’s wine is best.  That’s a conversation I will never be a part of!

Today was the first Dutch match against Denmark.  It was played at 1:30 pm here.  Every school that we heard about stopped classes and let the students watch the match.  Grace said that her class started watching it, but the girls got a bit bored with it.  She was happy to have a break from the schoolwork though.  :)

You have to understand what the atmosphere is like around here.  There are orange banners and streamers everywhere.  When there is a score, you can hear people in the neighborhood cheering.

This is just some of the banners you can see supporting the Dutch team. This is in the school where our church meets.

Today while the Dutch match was going on, Mike was having a church “staff meeting” that happened to have the game on in the background.  I was out running errands before picking Grace up from school.  At the bank, I was able to watch the game while waiting to be helped.  At the grocery store, they had the game on the loudspeakers so everyone could continue to follow it.  Mike was also sending me texts so I could know what was going on.  At one point, I heard people honking their horns and blowing vuvuzelas (the horns the fans blow at the game).  A few seconds later, Mike send me a message that Holland had scored.  Everyone was so glad that The Netherlands won the match!

Orange banners in a neighborhood in Leiden

Today is Koninginnedag, Queen’s Day.  It’s the day to celebrate the queen.  It’s supposed to be on her birthday, but since her birthday is in the winter and weather is bad, they kept the date as her mother’s birthday.  This is the only day that garage sales are allowed, so everyone goes into the center of the city to set up and sell their things.  Grace has asked for years to do this, and I finally gave in.  We got there at a little before 8:30.  It was rainy and cool.

Here is a timeline of how things went:

8:30 – It is raining.  Grace asks, “Has this thing started yet?”

8:45 – Nothing has sold.  It has at least stopped raining.  Grace asks if we can go home.

9:00 – It is raining again.  Still nothing has sold.  Grace asks again if we can go home.  We lower prices.  Grace says, “I hope we at least sell one thing.”

9:30 – Morning snack time.  The kid next to us asks if we have sold anything after he sells a few things.  I begin to not like that kid.  I try to convince Grace to call out to people and try to sell things.  She absolutely refuses.  It’s no longer cool.  It’s becoming cold.  Grace and I are shivering.

10:00 – We sell our first item.  Grace is more optimistic about the day.  More people are starting to come.  It’s raining off and on.

10:30 – The people by us leave, so we move to their better location.  We sell a few more things.

11:00 – Grace gets her second morning snack.  It has started to rain harder.  Yuck!

11:30 – Grace and I are ready to go.  Grace has started picking up certain items and shouting their price.  She even goes so far as to get a Winnie the Pooh toy and have it wave at people as they go along.  I have to tell her to back up because she doesn’t need to get in their face quite so much.

11:45 – We call for Mike to come pick us up.  It has stopped raining, but we are pretty wet and cold.  Most of the people around us have left.

12:00 – We are home and get to go through our things.  Everything is wet and kind of gross.  Grace has made 8.25 today and is very happy.  We have cleaned out a lot from her room and it looks much better , so I am also happy.  Hot chocolate and hot tea make us both feel much better too.

I asked her if she wants to do this again next year, and I got a definite “NO” from her.  I tried not to be too obviously excited about her answer.  Today, I hope she realized how much I love her!  By the way, as I type this, it’s now 1:30, and the sun is coming out.  It looks like it will be a much better afternoon than morning.

Happy Queen’s Day to all!

The view during our morning walk

It seemed like a lot of snow to us, but on Sunday, we had much more.  Grace was able to play in the snow before we went to church.  She even had a snowball fight with our neighbor, Dirk.

Grace gets a huge snowball for the fight

While we were at church, the snow was coming down so hard!  I said that it looked more like someone was shaking feathers out of a pillow than snow.  The flakes were huge!

The after-church snowball fight

We came home and made our own snowman.  Because the snow was the perfect consistency, it only took the three of us about 10 minutes to finish.

Our snowman for home

All the snow was beautiful, but it wasn’t always wonderful.  On Christmas day, we had just finished opening our presents.  I thought I heard our dog chewing a new bone he got, but the sound wasn’t him.  I followed the sound until I found our roof leaking.  All the ice and snow had blocked the drain.  As the snow started to melt, it was had nowhere to go.  One part of our roof is flat, so the water started coming through our skylight.  It wasn’t a drip, it was a constant stream.  It started in one place and ended up in about eight different leaks.  Mike had the very good idea to use the plastic tubs we had for moving.  Each bucket held about three leaks.

What a mess!

We felt awful but had to get our neighbor/landlord to come help us.  For now the leak has been stopped, but we’re leaving the buckets out for a little while longer.