C’mon Dutch Summer!

It’s inching towards May and we’re still wearing our winter coats…ok and we’re still keeping the heating on most nights. I’m dreaming about those warm summer nights in Amsterdam when the sun stays out until late, lights glisten off the canals and it's natural to grab a bottle of wine, a few friends and dangle our feet over the side of the canal as a pre-going-out ritual, which often turns into an all-night affair. Those days are soooo close! Summer, come out come out where ever you are!

Fields of Flowers

The Netherlands is wavering somewhere between the chill of winter and the warmth (hopefully) of summer. This means there are plenty of rainy days, random sunny ones that almost instantly default back to the rainy ones and the official welcome of Spring and the opening of flower season. Last spring, before my mom and I hopped over to Venice for Mother’s Day, Christian and his dad took us to Keukenhof, basically every gardeners idea of paradise, about a 30 minute drive outside of Amsterdam. Only open for a few weeks during the year, Keukenhof is a colorful outdoor spectacle of endless rows of flowers of all kinds, especially good ol’ Dutch tulips! My mom was absolutely over-the-moon-in-love with this typical Dutch experience…and ordered about 100 tulips to be sent to her in California to make her own mini Keukenhof.

This year, Keukenhof will be open to the public until May 20^th. I hear there are also buses every 15 minutes from Amsterdam Airport. Up for a color splash of deliciously smelling flowers? Head out to the flowery fields of Keukenhof! 

We're off to Maastricht to hang out with Christian's family for the weekend, hope yours is a good one! :)

Hiking from the Sky to the Sea

After living in Amsterdam for nearly 4 years, visiting my home in California gets more special with every trip. But that also means that every time I go there, I realize how lucky I am to have been from such a beautiful place and it gets harder and harder to say goodbye. This last trip, I flew out sans the Dutch boy at the last minute (I bought a ticket on Friday, flew out on Saturday!), mainly to see my family but ultimately to be with my best friends and to support one of them during a difficult time. After two weeks of laughing, hugging and lounging, I left feeling unbelievably happy and fortunate to have friends like these...as if I didn't need a reminder of their sheer awesome-ness. *End sappy-ness here* ;)

One thing I’ve learned while being away is that California has some of the most amazing sunsets and colorful in the world—setting up to watch a good sunset quickly became one of our favorite pastimes (especially at the beach!) during our 10 years as friends. Phrases like ‘let’s go watch the sunset in Laguna’ are commonplace after ‘wanna go to the beach?’ or ‘where are my Rainbows?’ It's no surprise that, together with advice from these best friends of mine, Christian chose a sunset in Laguna as the place to propose last Christmas.

Naturally, we squeezed in some sunset explorations on this trip too. The first led us up a hill with 360 degree views over Orange County—beautiful. The second hike led us to a place we’ve been plenty of times—the beach! Few things can be better than watching a sunset over the Pacific…watching it with best friends is the icing on top of the cake. Even a seal plopped on the rock next to us to enjoy the sunset too!

And these last two pics courtesy of my best friend Ink ;)

...and then 15 minutes later--colors!

A weekend of the "best-I've-ever-had's"

After spending 2 weeks in California and immediately jetsetting off to Sweden for work, Christian and I spent most of the weekend inside cuddlin' and snugglin' and really just doing nothing. However, we did manage to leave our place for a few fun things!  


*Once the clock hit 4PM at work on Friday, the sales department whipped out a DJ, turntables and a makeshift minibar...yes I partied at work...then I made Proscuitto & Parmesan Pasta which may have been the tastiest pasta I've ever had, I cannot take credit for this so thanks Val! 

*Saturday night we had a little date night first with a cocktail at Canvas followed by a delish dinner at De Ysbreeker along the Amstel river...this place immediately jumped to one of my favorites in town! And the grilled artichoke may have been the best I've ever had ;).

*Sunday afternoon I took Ellen's advice and Christian and I treated ourselves to brunch at G&T's Really Really Nice Place in the Jordaan (which is really, really called that too..hehehe). It was amazing. The mixture of 5 EUR bellinis, cozy decor, friendly chats with the Icelandic bartender and our Italian-British waiter and the mmmmmmm delicious food meant this was probably definitely one of the best brunches I've ever had...and I could have lounged there all afternoon. I can't wait to eat brunch there again...and now Christian is in love with eggs benedict...silly Dutch boy has been deprived that dish most of his life!


Yep this weekend had plenty of best-I've-ever-had's!!

*And last night, Christian and I joined some friends and danced our butts off all night to DJ Steve Aoki at Paradiso. 

Today is a mixture of sleep, sleep and more sleep...and enjoying my pics from California! My best friend Ink took this pic while we were watching the sun go down over Orange County a couple of weeks ago. Our other friend Smitty is quite the philosophical type and said this quote about our best friend moment watching the sun go down...I loved the quote so much, it gave me goosebumps so I just had to include it too...thanks for the wise words Smit!

How was your Easter weekend? :)

Happy World Pillow Fight Day!

Yep! WORLD PILLOW FIGHT DAY! Awaken your inner child, grab an old pillow and time to battle! Pillow fights are taking place in cities all over the world today, check here to see if there’s one near you…and if not, it’s never a bad idea to ambush one of your friends when they’re least expecting it :).

Here’s some pics from last year’s pillow fight in Dam Square in Amsterdam! It was way too much fun…

Sleeping in a Swedish Castle

What do you get when you combine a group of young foreigners, a nightly open bar and a castle surrounded by water? A DAMN GOOD BUSINESS TRIP! My team from Amsterdam joined our coworkers from Stockholm, Berlin and Warsaw for a 2 night conference and meet ‘n greet at Vaxholms Castle, just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. And yes we slept IN the castle! The castle is actually a fortress that sits in the middle of a pristine blue lake with views to the small, forested town of Vaxholm. Once we arrived, we were treated to an open bar and dinner served in the dungeon…too cool! Each morning we awoke to the smell freshly baked bread and at night, the hallways and spiral staircases were lined with twinkly candles, leading us from one room to another. However, we there to get plenty of work done so during the day we got to know our fellow Swedish, German and Polish comrades, pounded out issues and participated in teambuilding events and icebreakers. On our last night, we mingled with our newfound friends over a 6-course meal including lobster bisque, goat cheese and honey tortes, halibut with dill-crème sauce and banana ice cream…oh and the wine glasses seemed to keep refilling themselves :).

Since I had just gotten back from California the day before I left for Sweden, I was pretty traveled-out but an open bar and tons of laughter seemed to keep me up late enough to cure my jetlag almost immediately. Although my inability to sleep past 5AM each morning allowed for my own wanderings around the castle grounds at sunrise snapping away pics with my iPhone…sometimes jetlag ain’t so bad! Luckily we had a few hours to kill before scurrying off to the airport and headed straight for Stockholm to enjoy some beers under the Swedish sun. I had been to Stockholm once before with Christian when we were studying in Finland after taking a 17 hour party boat from Helsinki and loved how colorful Sweden is. Actually the Nordic countries are pretty unique compared to the rest of Europe. The people are extremely friendly, the air is incredibly crisp and fresh and the cities are centered around anything and everything involving the sea—not to mention the streets are so clean that you can practically lick the ground you walk on!

I thought about two things while on the plane back to Amsterdam—how great my two days in Sweden were and how the sights of lakes and trees really gave me the itch to revisit Finland, I think I’ll pay Finnair.com a visit tonight :).