In three weeks I'll be in California...

...eating a burrito, hugging my best friend, and plotting my strategy for getting as many things as I can at Whole Foods without going broke or having to buy another suitcase to take back to Amsterdam.

One more week until summer break...

In exactly one week from today spring semester at UMN will be officially over. My final project will be turned in, 3am chats will be over, *summer will have arrived.


*except for my pesky Dutch final, which is on the 29th. So, summer officially starts for me on the 30th, but I'm going to celebrate the end of the UMN semester, because that's what really matters.
 

Peace Palace in Den Haag

Quote of the Day: Monday

"Do you need any help with your project? I once made the National Monument entirely out of sugar cubes and paste. I'm good at crap like that."
 

Delicious Sunday night dinner

Tonight my amazing husband made a delicious thai fish curry for dinner! Yum! Am I a lucky girl, or what?

Bike ride along the Amstel river

Today we decided to take a bike ride down the Amstel river towards a little town called Ouderkerk. It was so cute! We saw cows, horses, sheep, goats and of course a windmill. If you're ever in Amsterdam and the weather is nice, I highly recommend it.

Dinner at De Kas

After hearing about this place and reading reviews, our dream finally came true... we had dinner at De Kas. It is this very cool restaurant in Amsterdam that is in the middle of Frankendael Park. It is attached to a green house and the menu changes daily based on what is in season and what they've grown there. Sounds familiar, Californians? Well, here in Holland it's a very special place.

I was too excited to eat that I forgot to take pictures of the beautiful food, but it was amazing, and the service was out of this world good. We biked over a little bridge to get there and then dined under an olive tree.










The sun hadn't even set yet when we biked home after 9pm. It was a lovely evening.

look what i ate today!

today i found a restaurant called hoi tin. this chinese food is totally legit, people! it reminds me of home. i'm a happy happy camper over here in amsterdam.

yum... grapes

Cinco de Mayo still happens in Amsterdam

Cinco de Mayo pre-gaming

Because we were extremely excited about the fact that Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow, Jenn and I decided we needed to get the party started early with a visit to our favorite Taco Shop for some nachos. Of course, because we are in Europe, certain places are not open on Mondays (because everyone knows Mondays suck, so why not just do without them all together!) and the Taco Shop is one of those places.

Never fear, our day was not lost. Jenn remembered that the Hard Rock Cafe had nachos so we went over there to get our fix. Oh yeah, and an appetizer sampler platter with potato skins, onion rings, chicken fingers and spring rolls may have arrived at our table as well. Oops! Yum.

April didn't bring showers, but May certainly brought flowers!

In the beginning of April the tree in front of our apartment looked like: THIS. But now, in early May it looks like this:


It's covered in little pink flowers!
 

Summer travel planning!

Now that it's May I think it's appropriate to start talking about summer travel. As most of you know, we have a quick Southern California trip planned in June, and a BIG Northern and Southern California plus Chicago trip planned in August. That leaves July for a little European summer travel. We have decided on...

Normandy, France and Lisbon, Portugal.

While Normandy and Mont Saint-Michel seem like obvious destinations, Lisbon might sound like a random choice when places like Spain, Greece, most of Eastern Europe are still unexplored. I can't really pin point the exact moment, but at some point someone was telling me about Lisbon and I fell in love. There are these crazy looking streetcars there that I am just dying to ride on.

Quotes of the day- Guess who said which one:

"I think this bread grilled-cheeses quite nicely."

"Yes, I did use the quadratic equation yesterday!"
 

What did YOU eat for lunch today?

A grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup is a common lunch, wouldn't you say? Well, what if your tomato soup is a Moroccan chickpea soup with carrots (YUM!) and your grilled cheese sandwich is made from some Dutch pesto gouda? Egads.

YAY for May!

When a new month rolls around, and the weather is gorgeous, and you go out and buy a BBQ, and you "accidentally" have too much beer, what do you do? You have an impromptu BBQ with all of your friends, that's what!!! Thanks again for having us, Jenn and Danny!






Gimme that egg!