It’s been a couple months since our last update so it’s a bit of a long one. Things have been going great on this side of the Atlantic. We are really starting to acclimate now that we have been here for a few months. We have the basics down like where to get groceries and have found some restaurants we love…even if the service is terrible. Work is also going well for both of us.
Some other highlights from the last couple months have been a trip to Geneva where my EA clients are now based out of, a trip to Antwerp for Kindra and I with a friend from her work, a visit from the Long family, a quick trip for me back to Portland and LA and a visit from Henne to meet family including his father in Spain.
Geneva was brief and work related so not too exciting. The city itself is beautiful and exudes money as there is a lot of it there. Everything is very nice and clean with a lot of Gucci type stores. The new EA offices are located in the center of town on a beautiful square with several restaurants and pubs. Not a bad place for an office.
Our Antwerp trip was a quick train ride into Belgium, only about two hours. Once there we had a great lunch and walked around the city intermittently stopping for different types of Belgium beer and random food. On our way out we did a bit of food shopping as Belgium is known for good food and Holland is not. I randomly purchased a jar of Duck Comfit and I have no idea what to do with it. Kindra finds this disgusting but I’m sure it will be good.
Towards the end of April Jim, Deb, Kate and Matt came over. It was the first visit to Amsterdam from family or friends and it was really nice to see some familiar faces (just so Ben doesn’t complain I should mention he did visit us first but in Dublin not in Amsterdam). Also a lot of fun to show friends/family the city and life you have been trying to describe for the last three months.
I’m not sure how to describe Queen’s Day but it is like a bigger happier Mardi Gras without the nakedness. Literally every street in the entire city of Amsterdam is packed to the gills with people celebrating and singing and drinking and wearing tons of orange. It is utter mayhem but an extremely jovial form of it. The Dutch manage to stay safe (relatively) and happy (for the most part) despite hours and hours of drinking and having canals everywhere without safety rails (we did see come swimmers…which is gross). See the photos for a better idea of this day as it is hard to describe.
Overall the visit from the family was great and everyone, including Kindra and I loved Queen’s Day. Another bonus was David Miller, a great friend of ours that is studying in Spain, came up for Queen’s Day as well. It was great to see him and if you are interested in an update on him he has a blog as well (http://www.catalonic.blogspot.com/).
Just a few days after the family visit and Queen’s Day I traveled back to the US for E3, a giant video games expo in LA. I was able to leave four days early and spend sometime in Portland. It was great to see a bunch of old friends and just being back in the city for a few days was great. Unfortunately, Kindra couldn’t come which would have made it perfect. I’d like to say a huge thanks to Chris and Jean Raih for putting me up for four days.
After Portland I flew to LA for three days to go to E3. It’s a bit overwhelming with lots of neon and geeks but an interesting thing to see if you work in gaming. I, being a rather large geek myself, fit right in and loved the game demos.
When I got back from the US we had four days before we left for Spain with Henne. We flew into Alicante and then headed to Torrevieja with Henne’s father Nico and his wife Silvana. Torrevieja is a beach front town that is almost entirely made up of people that are either on holiday or retired. For the most part people are either from England, Germany or Holland with very few Spanish people. As such it doesn't feel very Spanish.
The weather in Torrevieja was beautiful and it was great to meet both Silvana and Nico. Before retiring to Spain Nico was a boxer and bar owner in Amsterdam that has been attacked with an axe, shot at people, won 101 of 104 boxing matches and will readily admit that he generally only needs one punch to win a fight. He is 78 and would be quit possibly the tannest person I have ever seen if it weren’t for his even tanner wife Silvana.
After two days in Torrevieja Nico and Silvana drove us to Denia where we had booked a boat to Ibiza the following day. We had hoped to switch our boat tickets to a day earlier but it was too expensive so we decided to stay in Denia. We ended up at a hotel which turned out to be amazing. The hotel was called Las Rotes and it was located just outside of the city but had free four wheelers, bikes and scooters for guests so it was very easy to get around. The night of our stay the hotel was hosting a high school graduation that looked something like a Spanish version of The OC. We somehow managed to drink on the free tab of the high school kids so that worked out well.
The following day the three of us headed to the island of Ibiza. We spent the first couple nights and days in San Antoni (a town on the West side of Ibiza) which was great. We rented mountain bikes during the day and road down the coast to check out a few beaches. We ended up spending the day at an incredible beach called Cala Basa.
The following day we traveled back to Ibiza Town to look around for a hotel. We ended up being told about a random place in Old Town. Old Town is the original walled city of Ibiza. Back in the day everyone lived behind the walls of Old Town and were attacked every fifty years or so. Now it is a walled city within a city. The place we stayed was very low key. There was no concierge, front desk, phone or sign indicating that it was a hotel or hostel of any sort. Basically, I think we might have stayed in someone’s apartment but it was great and had a patio and pool with an amazing view of the city.
The next day we traveled back to Alicante where we flew out from the following morning. We arrived in Amsterdam to pouring rain and wind. Much like returning to Oregon from somewhere nice. We were lucky to have both Thursday and Friday off for Ascension so we have four days to get back into the swing of things before we go back to work.
Since it’s been awhile I’ve posted a few pages of photos. Take a gander at what interests you…or don’t. Hope things are well with everyone and we can see you soon.
LINK TO ANTWERP AND GENEVA PHOTOS
LINK TO QUEEN'S DAY AND LONG VISIT PHOTOS
LINK TO SPAIN AND HENNE VISIT PHOTOS
Enjoy,
Jesse+Kindra
During the week the weather in Barcelona was terrible. It was overcast and rainy. However, on Friday the sun came out and it was in the 90's for the whole weekend. This happened to coincide with the arrival of Kindra who flew down for the weekend. We had a great time and were able to check out the Gaudi desiged Parque Guell and a giant neighborhood party. We also spent plenty of time on the beach as this August was the wettest August in the Netherlands in the last 100 years. Not cool.
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