dutch music

piles of awesome patterned clothes. mint and fresh eggs

I just built a little desk for myself. I'm sitting here taking a break from my homework. To my left is a large window where I can people watch. It's Sunday, but there's a lot of action on the street... a motorcycle gang of middle aged men just roared by. At the other end of the street is the Elandsgracht festival. It's been going on since noon on Saturday. Wild dutch music galore! It's kinda painful to listen to after a while (17 hrs and counting, ha ha!) I just got back from getting some groceries and exploring. There's one store open on Sundays. I continue to find amazing ethnic restaurants! Let's see if I can remember them all... Tunisian, Moroccan, Brazilian, Thai, Indonesian, Indian, Italian (of course!), Japanese, and even a boutique burger place! And that's just my street! It's so ethnically diverse around here!

Saturday was wonderful! I had some great time in the morning to read and rest, then had lunch with a new friend we've met through a great little church here in the city. She had Allie and I over for yummy sandwiches, fruit, and great coffee! Then off to the organic market just north of us. Amazing! My favorite place so far in Amsterdam! Everything was so fresh and gorgeous and so inexpensive. So, I'm thinking I'll just get my produce for the week there.  It will also be a great place to Christmas shop... lots of little hand made art items, clothes, and gorgeousness! My senses are going crazy lately! I can't take the beauty, it's out of control! I've taken this month to just soak it all in... now that I'm thoroughly drenched I'm going to start making art again... and putting my thoughts in to some paintings.. If it's any good, I'll share!

Tomorrow morning I'm back to the dutch! I leave at 8:30 and cycle south through  Oud West, Vondelpark and Oud Zuid to the Vrije University. It's a beautiful ride and I'm wide awake by the end of it! The lessons this past week were on furniture, food, and ordering things. Which came at a perfect time since I went to get some furniture (meubels)... I was able to understand a lot! And then the market was great for food practice! I successfully asked, paid, and thanked in dutch :) Slowly but surely! 

Our teacher informed us on Thursday that "This is the most intensive dutch course in the Netherlands!" Wow, we sure know how to pick em! Ha!!.. oh well, at least we'll learn fast... and hanging on for dear life! The other students are so fun! People from New Zealand, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Guinea, Italy, Spain, and Morocco to name just a few! I'm in heaven! It's fun to look at all the dictionaries, not Dutch to English, but Dutch to Farsi, Italian, Arabic, etc... These people are so crazy smart! 

Much love,

bc

As promised: pictures of my new little home

the other angle of the living room.. to the left is the hall back to the kitchen

proof: no need to worry mom, I'm eating!

the view from the front window. It's a very active street, lots of ppl and action!

the view from the back balcony (attached to the kitchen and my room)

building furniture

the kitchen. Everyone has Ikea designed kitchens here. Very clean and modern.

The living room and the huge wonderful front windows

home sweet home

Yesterday was a low point for me. It's hard living out of suitcases and not feeling settled, and feeling confused about why the apartment stuff was taking so long. Carol J. sent this psalm to me. It hit me square between the eyes and was exactly what I needed to hear. 

God, the one and only--I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I hope for comes from him, so why not? He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, an impregnalbe castle: I'm set for life. My help and glory are in God--granite-strength-and-safe-harbor-God--So trust him absolutely, people; lay your lives on the line for him. God is a safe place to be. Ps 62 (the Message)

Some of today's highlights:

1)  I had some great time praying with Eric, Julia, and Allie in the am. It felt amazing to re-focus and worship God, remembering that He is our solid rock and the one leading us as we enter in to this new city and love new people and seek his wisdom as we plan and dream and join what He's doing here.

2) Gigi (the Pickerill's youngest) and I went looking for an adventure in the afternoon while Eric and Julia had some chill time. We had so much fun, got sandwiches and ate them under a tree by a canal. It started pouring (and I hadn't brought rain coats) so we hopped from tree shelter to tree shelter and then ducked into The Flamigo, a cute little pub for some tea. It was a great afternoon which finished with this amazing pic of Gigi buying her mom flowers!

3) Our broker finally called back! Praise God! ... and (drum roll please!!) we have an apartment!! Hurray!! hurray! hip hip hurray!! We'll get our keys and move in Friday! It's in the Jordaan neighborhood. Really great! 2 bedrooms, perfect for Allie and I. I'm going to go measure some things tomorrow and head to Ikea to get some furniture. The address is:

                Elandsgracht 97 3H

                1016 TS

                Amsterdam

              the Netherlands

4) I'm going to start language school on Thursday, I think. It's a great program held at the Free University. It runs for 9 weeks, 4 days/week, 4 hours/day with usually 16 hours of work to do at home on your own. It's pretty intense.. ahh! They have 4 levels. So if we find it to be really good we'll just keep going. I'm so excited to start! Eric and I will do this session and then Julia will follow. 

5) Amanda and John, my team mates who are still in Ohio arrive in less than a month! I can't wait to have them here! It feels like a huge chunk of me is still in Ohio! I can't wait! and then Bernie and Roxi will follow a few months later in January! Please pray for all of them!

So, those are the highlights! It was a fun day finding out about lots of things! 

i don't like dam square

So I decided that I'm going to shy away from dam square from now on. The last two times I've ridden my bike through that part of town (very busy and touristy) I almost died... twice. Today was pretty close and horrible. A car pulled up in front of me to my left (as I was riding by) and before I knew it the passenger side door flew open. I came within centimeters of slamming in to the door. All I could muster was a wimpy "ahhhyiaaahh," as I slammed on my brakes as hard as I could. Nothing else came out, I couldn't breathe. The girl behind me almost crashed as well, and she let him have it. He just laughed a crazy weird laugh and I wanted to punch him. I got my voice back a couple blocks later and almost turned around to go give him a stern talk and then I heard my mom's voice in my head and thought better of it. Thanks mom. Well, I just thought I'd share my most recent biking adventure with you, since the end is happy: I'm alive! Good night all!

at the wheel with the dutch flag behind me!

captain menno!                                       

inside. it was so quaint. could sleep alot of ppl.

allie and gloria loving the wind (and a cookie!)

the view as we pushed off

when the sun comes to amsterdam you.. sail!

This weekend, in an attempt to be culturally relevant (!!) we accepted our dear friend Menno's invitation and joined him on his wonderful sail boat for a restful Saturday on the Markenmere (Marken Lake) just to the north east of Amsterdam. It was just what the doctor ordered! Sun, wind, lunch on the boat, water, exploring a small fishing town called Marken, keeping the kids from falling overboard. In all, it was a 10 hr. adventure on the water and quite exhausting! It was so good to have some silence and be out in beauty and just be a part of the wind and the world.  There were tons of boats out with us due to a 24 hr. sailing race that was going on. All the boats in the race had gps systems which would log the distance they'd gone. They just had to be back at a particular port at 22:00, and then they would decide the winner by the distance on the gps. A quite intriguing race! 

I'll add some pictures here so you can see some of the fun! It was also the day of public transport usage. We (Allie, the Pickerills, and I) left the house at 9am. We biked 30 min up to the main train station where we caught the #32 bus out of the city, switched to the #30 bus which took us to a small fishing town where Menno met us with his boat. That also meant we were biking home at midnight through downtown Amsterdam.. pretty crazy! Especially when you're swerving around people who've had too much to drink and can't tell a bike lane from the sidewalk, let alone the street! I'm happy to say I didn't hit anyone! 

Sunday I woke up with a mad headache and a sun burn! I went to the Utrecht Vineyard, my first time there since officially living here now! It was so fun to be there! It felt like home in so many ways. They even have coffee time like Joshua House! I got to see lots of our friends from the Amsterdam small group, enjoyed the dutch worship (I'm starting to pick up a few words!) and even bought a dutch Bible to help with my language learning. A very sweet woman named Ina, translated the message for me. I sat next to her and she whispered it in my ear! That got me so excited for our church and how we'll eventually have sermon translations into English! Everyone was so warm and very welcoming! I'm so thrilled we get to work along side Utrecht in this adventure!

So, it's now Monday and it's almost been two weeks since I've been here. Man, does the time fly! So far today I've had some down time to read and think, went to the grocery, called our broker, again.. and again about the apartment.. I'm still waiting! Ahh!! Help me God! Now I'm going to do some language school research. So, that's the scoop! Just wanted to fill you in on the news!  I had my first hint of missing home last night so I looked at some pictures and reveled in the amazing community I come from! Love you all!