Joppiesauce

So, it's our second real day in Utrecht, and instead of waking up at 1:00 p.m. like I did yesterday, I woke up at 9 a.m. It would seem that I was improving, but sadly, I was only up and functioning for a couple of hours. We ended up taking a walk and then falling asleep in these fantastic lounge chair things at a local park. I've never really experienced jet lag before, and it's super weird. I mean, it's not like I'm falling asleep standing up or anything, it's just more of a dull fatigue that makes everything seem monumental. For instance, I was trying to find sugar in the supermarket, known as Albert Hein, and I ended up throwing my hands up in despair because I simply could not locate it. Someone else had to end up getting it for me.

The sugar debaucle occurred after a lengthy stay at a local cafe where one of our sandwiches was forgotten by the staff and we ended up staying there for hours playing chess and then a completely ridiculous game of Scrabble. Apparently it is a language specific game, which would explain why there are 18 e's and 10 n's in the version we played.

One valuable lesson learned about Holland today is that it is far more economical to buy your food and cook it, which is one reason why the exchange is such a sweet deal. We purchased bread, wine, hagen slag ( a chocolate sprinkle thing for bread which Emma is wild about) licorice, some randomly weird milky juice, and many other things including this magical sauce known as joppiesauce, and it was far less than the lunch we had at the 3 hour cafe. I have no earthly idea what is in joppiesauce, but I love it. We dipped cheese in it, apples, all kinds of things to see if it jived, and it did. It's a magical sauce we have decided, and I wish I could bring home a vat of it.

My daughter has rediscovered board games. It's hilarious because she keeps bringing out these games for us to play that could be really great, but the instructions are all in Dutch and make no sense. If we are lucky, instructions will be in French, which is a lot easier for me to deal with, and we actually have a chance of playing the game properly. The board game cake topper came today though, in the form of this game called MEXICA that was at the cafe. It was some sort of Aztec empire game, but it was really confusing and there were no instructions at all. She tried to make a go of it. but it didn't really work out.

I do wish that we had put together some kind of reality show based on this experience. Things come up every day that I think Joe American would find interesting. Also, I'm dying to see the Dutch family's reaction to our house, which they will be getting to at about 10:00 California time. I am really scared that they won't like it, due to the pesky animals that populate it. I got an email from Andy saying that the kitten, Daisy, attacks and destroys anything he is reading. She will be the only animal in the house, but I just know she will drive them crazy. Also, my heart breaks for our dog, Tuvik. Apparently Andy, who is watching our house, tries to take her on walks, but she keeps coming back to the house hoping that we will have returned. How sad will it be for her when she sees my car roll up in the driveway and four strange (to her) Dutch people get out?

Oh well. I'll just keep riding my 3 speed Dutch bike, drinking killer, creamy Dutch beer and hope for the best.