Happy Thanksgiving!
From the dates of these few blogs you may be wondering if it's only on weekends that I go out and adventure or seek out fun things. It is true, and since my weekly work life is not very exciting, I will spare you of those details.

Saturday morning was lovely, I was finally able to sleep in until I was woken up by a telephone call informing me that there was mail waiting at the reception for me to pick up. I was overjoyed to find that I actually had two things, one of which contained a pair of wool socks that I am ecstatic about seeing as the pairs I brought somehow have quickly developed holes. After reading through everything several times I met Zach for lunch. Lunches on the weekends are special for me because I allow myself to make "American" sandwiches. It's the one meal where I don't try to be Dutch and eat only a piece of cheese on my buttered bread, but load my bread with mustard, meats, cheeses, and vegetables. Then I have a second bun with peanut butter and jam, which my colleagues are thoroughly disgusted by and always remark about. The only reason I know that they comment on it, is that they always give me strange, disgusted looks and say something in Dutch and the word 'pinokaas' which is peanut butter. I respond with, 'nay! Zo lekker!'. They don't believe me when I say it's delicious.

After lunch and several detours, Zach and I finally began our bike to the waterway past Nunspeet. We quickly (30 minutes of biking) arrived in Nunspeet and after stopping at the information center decided to walk around the city center before continuing on. All of the coffee shops and roadside restaurants were filled with people simply watching by passers like us meander our way through the traffic. We walked through the city making stops here and there to look at things. Grocery stores are of particular interest as we wander up and down every isle, specifically looking for Stroopwaffles which are a cookie type treat with a delicious sweet syrup in the middle of two waffled crackers, looking at all of the unfamiliar brands and foods that the Dutch/Europeans have came up with. After spending time in the grocery store we continued our walk through a pedestrian shopping area where we found a carnival! The carnival was set up in a small square right in front of the town office and there seemed only to be two types of people there-very small children and their parents. We were clearly out of place, but we stood and watched the children's faces on the few rides and laughed at them screaming in terror. One boy yelled the entire duration of the ride at the operator, from what we could tell he was the only one not enjoying the ride. We found a donut/fritter frying stand which we could not resist purchasing apple fritters from. A friendly planter nearby was used as our seat and we indulged in our 1.50 Euro fritter. However, it was not what we expected. We thought that, like the apple fritters in Tim Hortons or somewhere, bits of apple would be dispersed throughout the dough. This however was not the case and instead the fritter dough surrounded a giant slice of warm apple in the middle. With a bit of icing sugar it was nearly the same.

Zach and I walked back to the train station, where we had locked up our bikes, and after being winded (literally) by a train that passed us, we continued on to Vreeweg which took us to the waterway that is connected to the North Sea. It was such a beautiful day, the only sunny one all week, and so we decided to sit by the water and watch children fly their kites, feed the ducks, and watch the boats go by. There was a family which was of particular interest to us who had three separate boats. I was trying not to watch them as they unloaded everything from the boats onto the dock, but couldn't help but look when suddenly there was a splash of water and someone yelled, 'JONGE!'. A young boy had somehow fallen in the water. Zach and I were less than sympathetic unfortunately and found the situation hilarious so we were forced to attempt to hide our laughter. As the sun began to set we decided to make our way back home so that we would be in time for supper. I had noticed a different path back to Elspeet on our way to the water, so I naturally suggested trying to take that route. Which was a good idea, until the signs pointing to Elspeet disappeared. We thought we were going in the right direction until we found a sign for Elburg 6 km. Elburg is about 20 some km from Elspeet. The signs had misled us and we had just biked extra kms through dairy farms. They were beautiful, don't get me wrong, but when you're in a hurry to get home because if you don't you won't be fed, it was slightly disheartening. We quickly redirected our path and biked like the wind. We made it back at 6:59 pm and the cooks were not impressed. That is until we told them our story, people find it quite humorous when we take the wrong path and end up in the wrong spot. Nonetheless, they happily served us a plate full of food and desserts after our explanation.

Today was very relaxed. It was a beautiful day again so Zach and I spent the afternoon sitting outside in the sun. I came across a website the other day that challenges you to write a list of 100 things in one sitting so I decided that was my goal for the afternoon. I played a few Yahtzee games and then got to work. The website stressed you number 1-100 before beginning so that you're not always wondering how far you are. I think my list was called 100 Things I Want To Do This Year. As I'm sure most of you can imagine I only made it to 24 before I gave up and decided to take a nap on the bench. Supper was eaten with the 'bartender' (he's more of a manager) Gustas, who is from Greece, and then Zach and I cooked the one piece of thanksgiving dinner we were able to find. Corn on the cob. We searched for yams and were unsuccessful, so we went to a corn field and, ahem, borrowed some cobs of corn. Unfortunately everything in the kitchen had been turned off so we had to cook them in the microwave but they looked delicious when we took them out. We returned to Zachs room and watched the Nightmare Before Christmas while eating the corn we were so proud of. The proudness diminished though when we bit into it and realized that this corn was not for human consumption. It was not juicy in the slightest, and had the strangest flavour to it. The only explaination we could come up with was cattle fodder, which seems like a waste. Neither of us were able to eat our entire cob unfortunately and as a result our thanksgiving 'meal' didn't really exist.

It is bedtime for me now though. Tomorrow I work in the kitchen helping with dish washing. The only bad thing about that job is that hours. I only work during the meal times, so I have about a 2 hour break in the middle of my work day, and then work until about 9 pm. Ah well, we shall see what new adventures tomorrow holds. The internet wasn't uploading the pictures properly, but there soon should be some pictures to accompany this blog. Doei!