They have them here too.

I seem to be regularly summing up the goings on of the weekends on the following Monday. A bit of a slippery slope.
I'll get to the explanation of the title in a minute.
Friday was a bit of a blur for some reason, except that I distinctly remember setting off on the bike around 10:00 a.m.and thinking the rain had stopped.

Nope.

Didn't get really soaked or anything, but the tops of my legs were definitely damp. Wore the nifty rain jacket type of thing that Rob and Kat got me for my birthday. Thanks kids!
It's an amazing thing to be riding in the rain and actually be comfortable. The only notable exception being that I do need a bigger bike. Just too cramped, and that's all I'll say.

Usually don't go back out on a Friday afternoon, since Delden does get a little nuts on market day, but I wanted to pick up some salmon.
Since we're closest to the Atlantic ocean, it's going to be Atlantic Salmon, which we greatly prefer over the pacific variety.
Did the trick with the garlic on the rasp mixed with olive oil, cooked on foil on the BBQ. Can't say enough.


Took Gabe to her hair appointment on Saturday morning and was back at the house evaporating some time on the computer when the door bell rang. Of course, it's a little loud, so I usually jump, and wonder if I'm going to have to pony up some cash.
Open the door, and there's a man and a woman (early 30s maybe) and the man starts nattering off in Dutch, and I point out that he'll either need to slow down or try his English, since my Dutch is "niet so goed".....
Well, he proceeds to pull out a copy of the Watchtower (and I don't mean "All along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan, 'cause that would have maybe been something worth talking about) and I immediately said, "Oh....right, we have you people back in Canada, now let me show you just what I do there", and wished them a nice day, and closed the door.
I swear if Seventh Day Adventist show up next, I'm getting a big miserable dog! No handguns allowed here either, so it would be pointless to try and scare anyone off with the sound of a round being put into the chamber.
I didn't think I needed to go into the whole, "now, have I ever come to your house uninvited?" routine, as I've been known to do in the past. I figured we'd just settle for the short version.

I'll leave it at that.

We headed in to Hengelo briefly to look for a couple places to shop, but my plan was to drop Gabe in Enschede and head over to Germany to look for a particular tool store. We meandered around Hengelo for what I thought was way too long, but did get a couple more Christmas presents out of the way.
I was going to Nordhorn which, even though it's in Germany, is not all that far away, and ended up tooling around for quite some time trying to find the place. (oh geez...that was another pun, wasn't it?)
See, stupid GPS couldn't come up with an actual address, so I thought I'd do the trick that I had done in Remsheid, and that was to put in the Post Code, but that was actually out in the countryside somewhere. Did manage to get there (after having to break down and buy a friggin' map for €4,95) only to find that they were closed. Kind of made sense from the sort of industrial setting they were in and it was no big deal really, since I don't mind these little reconnaissance missions.
So I managed to burn up the better part of the afternoon while Gabe shopped. Didn't mind at all since it was a nice day for a drive. I do find though that Enschede can be a little confusing, and although I didn't exactly take the most direct route, I did manage to get to the underground parking garage and come out within 20 meters of where she was standing. Never helps if it's overcast either, since I really do rely on the sun for my sense of direction.

Sunday turned out to be a very nice sunny day, and I think the temperature got up to a whopping 5° C, which was a heckova sight better than last week, so we went a quite a bit farther on the bikes, and were once again on the outskirts of Hengelo.
Discovered this park on the edge of town, and we look forward to going back when the weather is a bit warmer.
There was a sign posted over on the other side that I should have taken a picture of, since it had to do with some sort of water management scheme, and I could have posted it here and maybe one of my Dutch speaking friend's could have clued me in to what this body of water is all about.

Before we set off though, I thought I might add some air to Gabe's back tire, since I now had the old cruiser to compare to. I need to get a tire gauge, but it's just not something I think of.

Not sure what was on the ceiling that was so interesting....


And so this is supposed to be better.

It was such a nice day for the bike riding thing, that we actually went out a second time in the afternoon to dilly dally around Delden. There were actually a couple stores open, but otherwise it pretty much is a ghost town on Sundays.

In some areas there's nary a soul....




This mornings project was to book a car rental at the airport for when we get home.

Just shoot me.

Pretty sure I wasted most of the morning trying to figure out who has the best deal. We might have to do that one night after dinner, since I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger on that just yet.
As it was I did manage on Friday morning to book our rooms in Luxembourg for this Saturday and figure I'll just rest on those laurels for the time being. Besides, if all the cars are mysteriously gone by the time I get around to finding something, then we'll just take an airport limo home and have Enterprise pick me up the next day. I can always bamboozle them into giving me the corporate rate over the phone, which I can't quite do over the Internet.
Hey, maybe if someone back home has a spare set of wheels sitting around over the holidays, we can work something out?
Well, I had better go check and see if the Wonder Machine has finally finished the second load of laundry. Never a good idea to leave it unattended for too long a time.

Leads to disappointment.

This week.

Pretty sad when I can sum up the events of almost an entire week with one blog entry.
Tuesday I found the tire dude in the morning. Mind you it was on the second try, since at first I just figured I had the address wrong, so came back to the house and went to Google Maps. Sure enough, I had driven right by it, and would have missed it again had I not got out of the car and gone in and asked someone.
Not sure why ordering tires has to be so complicated, but since it's part of the lease, (i.e. we don't pay) I'll go through the hoops. Seems that tire dude didn't need just the size, but also the VIN number, so he could check with the manufacturer for a speed rating. He has to get tires that are one level below the ones presently on the car. So my guess is I'll be limited to something like 200 k.p.h?
Ok, I've barely had the car over 160, so I'm pretty sure I'd need to be wearing a diaper to go much faster than that in a snow storm.

But, like I said, I just go with the flow.

Oooh, that was a bit of a pun, wasn't it?

He took my phone number, and will call when the tires come in. Could be a couple weeks.
So since I had the car, I decided to head for IKEA, only to discover that, although they were open for breakfast, the store itself was not yet open. The restaurant was mobbed, by the way.
Fine, on to plan B. Picked up the old cruiser from home and took it for a new inner tube. This is the one I mentioned earlier.
Dropped it off, and was surprised when he told me that I could pick it up at five.
Several days later, the tires still have air in them. Wow.

Not many revelations for Wednesday, except that we discovered the fun and convenience of Skype, which I am now whole heartedly advocating to all our friends and relatives who might like to hear from us from time to time. I downloaded the program in the morning, we chatted for a half hour or so with our friend down in Switzerland (where apparently they get the same 27 minutes of daylight as us) and a bit later that evening yakked with one of our daughters back in Burlington for the better part of an hour. We could see her, but since I'm a bonehead and cannot for the life of me find the webcam I bought a couple months before coming over here, she couldn't see us. She's going to check through our stuff* at home to see where I might have left it.

Honestly.

*You need to watch the George Carlin video on "stuff".

Today was the day we decided to go to a little town called Goor (try to make it rhyme with the English word "boat"..) to go to the municipal building for Hof van Twente, so I could get myself registered for my residence permit.

Also, Gabe had to get some sort of Certificate of Good Behavior (I kid you not!) because she needs to be a Director for Eaton-Holec here in Yurp.

Anyhoo, as we were able to kill those two birds with one stone, we then came back to Delden for her Dr's appointment at 2:30.
Turns out her blood pressure is pretty much fine, it's the retarded blood pressure monitor that she's been using. So it was off to the Apotheke to get a prescription filled and buy a new monitor. Busy place, but really amazing service. Wouldn't mind bringing some of the Chimps they have working at what we think are drug stores in Canada over here to show them how it's done....and how filling a prescription should not take half a friggin' day.

That's about it.

Oh well, one other minor thing, and this is particularly directed to any of my siblings who might be reading, all of whom were born in Margaretville, Nova Scotia.
I knew ahead of time that when I had to register over in Goor, that they'd be asking me a bunch of whacky questions on the form about my parental units, where they were born, birthdates etc. I made up most of it, but I had it written on a post-it note, so that at least it looked like I had the right answers.
Now, we always had a less than glowing opinion about the town where we spent our youth (some of us less than others, thankfully) and used a somewhat perjorative term to discribe it.
So now it's "official", since the name of this village is on an official document here in the Netherlands.

It just happened, before I knew it, I had in fact written down,


(wait for it)



"Maggotville"

.....and never let on one bit.

Straight faced the whole time.

So it turns out Dad was born in good ole Maggotville after all.

Well...... Nico (Dutch lesson Dude) will be here shortly, so best get ready.
...and yes, I've done my homework.

Monday Again.

And with the exception of the fact that some of the stores are closed on Mondays, that's just pretty much another day here in la-la land.
It means that, although I was able to get Gabe an appointment at the Doctor's office for Thursday afternoon, the hairdressers were closed. Somehow on this side of the pond, those types of errands fall to me.
I don't mind taking the car to the tire dude tomorrow, since I'm quite used to those sorts of tasks falling to me, as they always have and always will, forever and ever, amen.
He's only going to have a look at the tires, since he needs to order a set, and the hope will be that it shouldn't take too long for them to come in.
I was a little miffed with myself that I had no clue as to their size.

This is not the norm.

Typically I could rhyme off the size of tire on any vehicle sitting in the driveway, but somehow I missed that little snippit. Of course, the fact that there's exactly 27 minutes of daylight doesn't help.
The visual acuity is gettin' a little weak, don't ya know?

(to be fair, the sun has been out all afternoon...)

Oh, forgot to mention. There's the minor issue of snow tires that need to go on the car. Could probably get away without, but after going through some of the snotty bits a couple weeks ago over in Germany, I won't mind snow tires one bit.
Ah yes...... the "fatherland", where they don't bother burdening you with the decision as the whether or not you need snows in the winter...they just change the law, since you're now legally required to be driving with snows if the roads are showing wintry conditions.
(winterliche Fahrverhältnisse)
Chances are you can get away with not having them on, but if there's any kind of mishap whatsoever, the insurance company simply won't pay. Even if someone hits you from behind.
There's some interesting reading on the subject here.
AND...even if you manage to keep it between the guard rails, you can still get fined.


Ok so, it's maybe not that interesting, just go to the bottom of the link.

The scuttlebutt is that we'll be heading up to Denmark some time in January. There just might be some wintry conditions.

Boy am I ever looking forward to that.

Now I readily admit, over the last several years, I've become a firm believer in snow tires. Beauty is, since it's a legal requirement, and we have to travel there, Eaton will have to pony up the dough.
Hey! That works.
And lets face it, how many nitwits in the GTA go sliding off the road at the first hint of snow because they "don't need snow tires".
But none of the provinces in Canada* would ever pass such a draconian law, since that might infringe on our right to kill ourselves.

Survival of the fittest I say!!

* On Edit, I have to mention that one of our readers has pointed out to me that La Belle Province de Québec has indeed passed a similar law, with the emphasis only on the similar part, since the knobs at the National Assembly (just what nation they're referring to is another mystery) decided to make it mandatory for everyone to have snows from Nov. 15th until March 15th, whether there were "wintry conditions" or not. Proving that they are bigger nitwits than we've been giving them credit for.


But I digress.


This.....

....is the church in Arnhem, where we went shopping on Saturday.
Really though, Gabe went shopping and I spent about four hours out of my life in a state of semi-consciousness, schlepping from store to store, dodging the crowds and wondering how much longer it would take.
I do so love shopping!
Managed to get to Hengelo in time to stop at the Albert Heijn, even though it was getting close to five o'clock.
Had we not made it to some sort of grocery store, pickings would have been slim in the supper department let's say.

Sunday seemed to consist of riding our bikes just long enough to realise it was way too cold for that sort of nonsense, (2°C) and then taking a car ride to get warmed up. The heater in the car is that much better than the one in the house is all.
Had this idea that IKEA would be open.

It wasn't.

That will be on my list for tomorrow, right after tire dude.