A quiet weekend at home

As much as I love traveling, weekends at home in Switzerland are pretty good too. I know, you're probably thinking "Of course weekends are good when you live in Switzerland." It's true, but sometimes it's really nice to have a normal weekend, where you do boring married people stuff and enjoy the weekend days as they roll by.

Switzerland in general is really into wellness and health, so Friday night Basel had a company run for all of the major employers in the area. Being the team player he is, BK ran four miles with his team. I cheered him on, then we enjoyed visiting with his team and hanging out for the evening.

Saturday we slept in...sort of. It was forecasted at a 90 percent chance of rain all day, with the exception of from 6am to 7am. So being the dedicated pet parents we are, BK and I got up at 6am to walk the dogs hoping that we would avoid the rain. All that to say, it rained the entire time we walked in the morning, then didn't really rain any more all day. On the bright side we were able to go back to sleep and have a slow start to our day. We had lunch together, ran errands, did a couple more dog walks and really enjoyed our day.

We went to dinner at a really unique place in Basel with some new friends who also recently moved over here. Acqua is an old water mill (or something like that) that has been turned into a restaurant/lounge. The food was really good and the ambiance and atmosphere was great. We really enjoyed the company as well. It was fun to hang out with fellow Americans who have also just relocated...it's nice to compare notes and share our experiences. Somehow BK and I ended up staying up until around 2am, which is quite abnormal for us, but we were able to talk and FaceTime with family, so that was fun and nice to catch up.

Acqua dining room

Sunday was somehow very typical of a Sunday in the US. We went to brunch with our neighbors, then enjoyed the our afternoon lounging around catching up on shows that we like. It seems like we should be outside doing something active, but sometimes it's nice just chill out.

Ahhhh...nice and relaxed. Time for a new week :)

Amsterdam: not the city you think it is

So I've gone a couple days without blogging and I have guilt about it, but I have to get over it and move on. It's a work in progress.

BK and I ventured off to Amsterdam last weekend for a long weekend. A four day weekend in most places seems to be the perfect amount of time for us as we visit new cities for the first time. We're making the most of living in Europe and are pretty much traveling to a new country or place every three weeks or so. I'm really excited about our next trip because it's with BK's sister and brother-in-law.

Amsterdam was probably our favorite city we've traveled to so far. I feel like we say that about every new place we visit; maybe that's because we're settling in to traveling so much? Amsterdam was great- extremely walkable, beautiful architecture, and lots of stuff to do.

We started our weekend out with, what else, but a tour. We did a tour of the Red Light District Friday night when we arrived in Amsterdam. This was a great way to hear about the history of the city and kind of get the lay of the land upon arriving. The tour was good, and I found the whole Red Light District very interesting. The Red Light District is a very small part of Amsterdam, but it's probably not what you picture. The girls are all behind windows and if you want to go in, they have a bed and sink in the window area. Kind of weird. We heard that it's about 50 Euros for 15 minutes. After we did our tour BK and I staked out a place at a local bar and did some good people watching.

Red Light District

The next morning we headed out on a "Cheese, Clogs and Windmills" bike tour. We biked around Amsterdam, then headed out of the city to view some of the old levies, house boats and Dutch farmland. We also stopped at a great little family-run farm that makes Gouda cheese and clogs. It was a bit touristy, but the cheese was really good, and we bought a pair of clogs as a keepsake. The only downside was that it rained the entire time, but luckily the bike company had rain gear for every one on the tour.

House boats on our bike tour

Aging Gouda cheese

After our tour we went for a massage, then had a great dinner on a canal cruise. I'm always a little unsure about set dinners, but this tour was really good. When we placed our dinner order they placed it at a local restaurant then stopped by when it was ready, and we got it directly from the restaurant. The cruise lasted around three hours, during which we saw many of the canals and various parts of the city. It gets dark around 10:30 or 11:00, so there was plenty to see, including a very pretty sunset.

Canals of Amsterdam

Saturday seemed to be the day that I had scheduled everything, so Sunday and Monday were more laid back. We did a lot of wandering around the city, shopping and seeing random sites around the city.

The one thing I did have planned on Sunday was a visit to the Anne Frank Museum. I would highly recommend this museum. There's not that much to it, but it's a bit surreal to be in the place where the Frank Family was actually in hiding. I only say that there's not much to it because the house is actually empty. After the family was discovered and sent to concentration camps everything in the house was taken by the Nazis. When the house became a museum, Otto Frank's wish was that it remain empty to signify the void that was left by what was taken from the family (including everyone's life). It's a powerful statement and one that definitely has an impact. The museum also displays the original diary and a number of writings from that time. The one piece of advice I have for this museum is to buy tickets ahead of time. If not, you will wait in at least an hour long line; whereas I had purchased tickets before, and BK and I walked right in.

Like I mentioned, Sunday and Monday were much more laid back. We did some shopping in the 9 Streets, which has great boutiques and shops. We also did a lot of just wandering around enjoying the sights and sounds of the city. I captured this picture one afternoon, which I felt like got a lot of Amsterdam- bikes, bridges, a canal and houseboats.

Bikes, bridges, canals and house boats

I have no doubt we'll go back to Amsterdam before we leave Europe, and probably even after that. We would love to ride bikes more around the city, and there are also a number of great museums to go to as well- we didn't see any of those. I honestly feel like we just scratched the surface on this one, but at just an hour plane ride away, I'm sure we'll have more time to explore here.

And they say you can't do anything with flank steak...

Today was a normal day for me. I was excited to hear all the news from the US, but for me, my day consisted of German class, lunch with BK, walking dogs, German homework, groceries, walking dogs again, then dinner. I need to post about Amsterdam, but today's post is about grocery shopping. I used to be the annoying American who couldn't speak German. Now I'm the annoying American who tells everyone that I'm learning German, so bear with me as I try to tell you what I need and/or want.

Today I went to Migros, the local grocery store in which I like to shop. I found a recipe on Pintrest that I knew I wanted to make to give us a little taste of home: Grilled Steak with Roasted Jalapeño Chimichurri. This involves both flank or skirt steak, as well as jalapeños- I wasn't sure if I could find either of these things here.

When I got to the meat counter I saw flank steak and knew it was what I needed, but the butcher was not convinced. I showed him the picture of what I wanted to make and he then tried to convince me that it was filet. Um, no...not buying filet in Switzerland. Meat is seriously expensive here. The butcher tried to explain to me that with skirt steak you have to soak it in water and do all these other things to make it edible. So not the case. And yes, I totally told him that I was from Texas and knew what I was doing with it, so it would be fine. They laughed at me and said okay.

I'll be honest, because of them, I doubted myself on whether or not I had purchased the right thing, but it all turned out great! It was something new and different to try here, and we pan seared it in our apartment, which was also very different from the US. I am still not sure what kind of pepper I bought, but the chimichurri turned out very well, and had quite a kick.

Here are my results. Yum!

I am tempted to take this picture back to Migros just to let them know that yes, you can in fact do other things with flank steak, besides make soup. The Swiss are missing out as far as I'm concerned.