Nijmegen, NL, at Christmastime

Remember when we drove to the Christmas markets in Köln, Germany, the last day of November?  After spending the night there, we decided to NOT stay and do more of the same but to visit Nijmegen on our way home.  It's a city in the Netherlands we've had on our back burner for a long time, population 165K, because supposedly it's Holland's oldest city, celebrating it's 2000th year in 2005..

Like always, we headed straight for city center, where everything was decked out for the season...

...and because it was Saturday, the market was in full swing on the city square.

Pay attention to how close the church is.

We love to arrive in these cities at koffie-break time.

So right there midst all the market stalls, we spied this Atlanta Grand Café and Restaurant.

You know me and how I make connections.  It was a no-brainer.
Having lived in Atlanta for 25 years was not for nothing.

From there it was a short walk to the church through the market square...

...past the Weigh House (Waag) from 1612 and through the city port/gate.

And past 2 of the city's iconic statues!

The one right in front of the church is Moenen by Piet Killaars.

The lady is Mariken van Nieumeghen from a 15th century legend.

And because it was right there in front of us, we visited the Sint Stevenskerk from the 16th century.

 What a grand church from the outside.  So majestic.

But OMG, when we walked inside....it was the polar opposite of the Köln Cathedral from the day before.

Wonderfully bright and inviting.  The sun was streaming in everywhere through HUGE, unstained-glass windows, right on the magnificent organ pipes!

Did I ever mention I am a glutton for wood!

And these salmon colors!

As far as European churches go, this is one of my favorites thus far.

But that may be because the one in Köln really did depress us the day before!

Once outside again, we immediately saw a Zwarte Piet (Black Peter).

Remember that this was December 1 and Sinterklaasdag is December 5!

Speaking of which...yup, he was all over town in store windows.

Not hard to get into the spirit of things!

This is how it's done in the Netherlands!  HA!

By now we had walked through city center and were on our way to the railway bridge.

A pedestrian, cycle and train bridge, to be exact. No cars allowed.

Isn't that fun!

Daddy and daughter making a great memory!

All good things come to an end, they say.  We had to go back down!

But not before watching these 2 guys push their bikes up the side bike track.

From on top of the bridge we had seen a castle in the distance and headed for it straightaway.

It's the Kruittoren from 1425...

...and sits in this lovely Kronenburger Park.  

Black swans are rare in the Netherlands, so we were lucky to see one.

 By then we were ready to go home.  Enough is enough.

(I'm guessing you're saying the same thing.  HA!)

I even got some fancy weathervanes!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Today is my turn at Vision and Verb again...on The Answer is Within You.  You might be surprised by how I found an important answer to the beginning of my new year!  Here's a clue:

Hope you're all off to a great New Year!

On Sense and Sensibility

It's my turn again today at Vision and Verb where I spend a few minutes talking about being sensible. Have you noticed how easy it is to see how others should be sensible but...when it comes to ourselves, it's another story altogether.

In our household these days, both of us are being sensible, after hitting each other over the head with a baseball bat! First, Astrid:

ASTRID: After 2 years working at JEWE, the area's wood factory that makes cabinets and doors, Astrid has had enough. It's hot in the summer, cold in the winter. They wear earplugs all day because the machinery is LOUD. And while she has great camaraderie with the guys, the work is too darn heavy for her body and age. If she only did the controling, which is her job, she'd be fine. But as a team player, she's always willing and ready to pick up the slack whenever someone is off...which is often.

The good news is that the 7-day job she had before JEWE, 2 years ago, was at SystemFarma, a pharmaceutical company that packages medications for patients...the only one of its kind here in The Netherlands. Her manager told her to contact him if her new job at JEWE didn't work out. Astrid never forgot that and wrote him when she got to the end of her rope a couple weeks ago. They basically hired her on the spot! The longer story is quite amazing...and the fact that she got a 6-month contract starting 1 December is even more so. In today's economy here, you're lucky if you get a 3-month contract. So we are top-of-the-world excited. She'll be controling again but in an environment that is totally the opposite of JEWE. I am soooo happy and excited for her.

Ginnie: My story is similar, in that I quit one thing...school...and am hoping now for a more productive Dutch-learning situation. It's a longer story than this but after a good foundational first half of the course, learning a lot of Dutch, the curriculum started veering into a different direction altogether: how to do job interviews, preparing for the workplace, learning about Dutch culture (e.g. how and where to register a newborn baby, filing a police report), politics, etc., etc. The more restless I became, the more unhappy I was...especially as we started entering the cold and rainy months of the year (on my bike!). I was too often saying "I'm too old for this!" Whenever that happens, stop and listen, Ginnie.

So I did. I stopped. My advisor told me the direction wasn't right for me and my age but they had nothing else to offer me. It quickly became a no-brainer. Just quit, Ginnie, and stop spinning your wheels. What I have here at De Lindeborg where we live is a community of men and women who will LOVE to teach me Dutch while joining them in their activities. Conversational Dutch. THAT'S what I've wanted all along.

So as you see, this part of the post is simply informative, telling you about two big changes in our lives that will hopefully bring some "easy listening" in the days to come.

**********

Now switch gears. Can you believe I've been here almost a year? I arrived here 5 December last year...on Sinterklaas day, the Dutch traditional day for the giving and receiving of gifts, NOT on Christmas day, which is one of the most sensible things I've ever heard. Separation of Santa Claus and BabyJesus!

Add to that another sensibility: Sinterklaas arrives by steamboat in The Netherlands 2 Saturdays before Sinterklaas day so that the kids will see him and know he's here and is watching and not forgetting them. That was this past Saturday this year! And because Gorinchem is a harbor city, I got to see it with mine own eyes.

This is the drill: Sinterklaas has been coming by steamboat from Spain to The Netherlands for the past 600 years. Sinterklaas is Saint Nicholas, a bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey. Thus the garb that looks a bit different from our Santa Claus.

He was scheduled to arrive at our Gorinchem locks at 10 a.m. from our Merwede River. So Astrid and I high-tailed it to the river first to catch the steamboat coming in before it entered the locks. At both places we had prime spots for viewing and taking pictures. In fact, at the locks, in between the opening and closing of the gates, we stood dead center to get some of these up-close-and-personal images.
Astrid said we'd never get better pictures ever again. That's how close we were.

Once Sinterklaas hits land, he then proceeds on horseback to greet all the children (big and small) who are waiting impatiently, cheering and singing traditional Sinterklaas songs. Traditionally, the white horse named Amerigo comes with Sinterklaas on the steamboat. But since the littlest kids ask no questions, we bigger kids notice when one of the Zwarte Pieten (Black Peters) rides the horse into town to meet up with Sinterklaas at the harbor. In this case, the Black Peter (above top left) attending Amerigo all day happened to be a female version, which I quite enjoyed. :)

Speaking of the Zwarte Pieten, the Black Peters, who are the Moorish equivalent of Santa's helpers/elves in the States, here they are in all their festive glory. All along the route, as Sinterklaas walks through the crowds from the harbor to City Hall, they greet the kids, blow up balloons for them and hand out pepernoten. How can you not LOVE anything that tastes just like windmill cookies (same ingredients for speculaas)!


As Black Peters go, there's one for just about any duty you can imagine from being mischievious, fat and lazy, to climbing the chimneys, scooping up the bad kids into dufflebags, or being the right-hand helper of Sinterklaas himself. But the one I had the good fortune to see up close was Professor Piet. How 'bout that! My mom would have been tickled to death.

Sinterklaas, like Santa Clause, is all about children, of course. But here in The Netherlands it's also a bit like Halloween to me...in the Sinterklaas sense. Look at all the Zwarte Pieten and the bishops.

And because one of you liked seeing me in some of my recent collages, here's one of Yours Truly (below), thanks to Astrid. This time I have no pics of her because she was behind me all the way, taking pictures of me while I snuck in with the other photographers for the paper...because of my big lens. Astrid told me no one would question why I was there...and that's the truth! There's even one little image where I'm taking a picture of our city photographer, Dries, who happens to live here at our senior community, De Lindeborg.

[Remeber to click on any image to enlarge...and then click again.]

So now what happens that Sinterklaas has arrived...and the kids know he's on Dutch soil?! NOW is when they are allowed to put out their shoes for little presents until the Big Day on 5 December. Some kids will even put a carrot and hay in their shoes for Amerigo. Gotta keep the horse happy and well-fed for Sinterklaas, of course.

Guess what was in my shoes this morning after I got up: that would be a hazelnut milk-chocolate Sinterklaas letter 'G.' HA! G is for good! Yes, I've been a very good girl this year. So has Astrid. QUEEN just happens to be her favorite music group. She deserves Freddie Mercury's story "Under Review 1946 - 1991."

What a way to celebrate for both of us...being sensible about our quality of life. As Astrid says, "Just hit me over the head with a baseball bat." And as I mention on Vision and Verb, if the shoe fits, wear it!

**********

ADDENDUM: Remember Dries, our city's photographer who happens to live here at our De Lindeborg senior complex? I sent him the following collage yesterday because we kept bumping into each other on Saturday....

A few minutes ago, just after I published this post, he e-mailed me his own version:

And guess what he titled this collage: "Like a little kid!"
That just about says it all, folks.

Sinterklaas

Tomorrow, December 5th, is Sinterklaas day here in Holland, or Saint Nicholas Eve, when traditionally presents are given to all good children, large or small. Typically presents are wrapped ingeniously and are therefore called "surprises," accompanied by a poem that has to be read aloud before the gift is opened. You can read more about it here.

Astrid, the "Dutch girl" from my last post, was pretty insistent in saying we needed to go see Sinterklaas last weekend while he was in Amsterdam's posh department store, De Bijenkorf. It would show us a bit more about the tradition, from which our American Santa Claus comes.
So we went on Saturday afternoon and Astrid was right!
222 photos later, I had to synthesize this post down to the few I thought most accurately depicted this fabled man who came to Holland from Spain on his white horse (there in the background).

Part of the tradition is the Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) who are the mischievous helpers with black faces and colourful outfits, modelled after 16th century Spanish clothing, who assist Sinterklaas.

Why does he remind me of the Pope! (Hold that thought.)

I watched him reach out to every child who came to see him.

Ones who stood in line with awe (and weren't too old to disbelieve!).

He looked intently and very seriously into the eyes of each and every child.

I wished I could have heard what he said. And once hearing, translated it!

This was the wee-est child I saw...

...and look how she eventually clung to his fingers!

This little fella clung to his Papa's fingers! Which was just as good, I'm sure.

Now you will think this very strange when I say this, but I have tears in my eyes after this experience. I can't explain it but Santa Claus will never be the same to me any more. There's a bit of a holy mystery that will now surround our mutual "myths."

There's a bit of a holiness that surrounds our traditions, period, and why suddenly I am very thankful for them, in spite of how they've become corrupted over time. Maybe, just maybe, this could be a Holiday Season for us all to get reacquainted with what's important...and what's not?!