Going Dutch

Goodbye for now.

2008-08-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a slice.

One last post.

2008-08-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'd been putting this off for the last few weeks, always thinking I'd get to it eventually. Knowing that as more time went on, the less relevant a final post would become, also provided little incentive. I'd more or less resigned myself to the fact our blog had ended without that symbolic last post until we discovered this when we woke up today:

For those astute readers out there, you can probably guess where it's filmed: our now beloved Den Haag.

In the flurry of everything that's happened I never really had any second thoughts about leaving. I had always wondered how I would feel, whether I'd have some sort of cultural crash or whether I'd be ecstatic to be home, but the truth is I didn't really have any feelings on the matter. In a way it just felt like we were heading out on another small trip (the kind we had grown accustomed to) and would return back within a few weeks.

Of course, I was certainly happy to be home and spend a couple of days with family. More than anything I was excited to begin building on the incomprehensible experience I'd had inside and outside of school. Still, when the inevitable question would arise and people would ask "how does it feel to be back", I'd give my typical shrug and reply that apart from some small differences (the size of a coffee; the fact that the waiter interrupts you constantly when eating out), it doesn't feel like much.

I have slowly started to regain some time to myself (we finally have internet in our home!), and in due course, small moments of reflection have set in. Maybe these sentiments are a result of the slowing pace of things, or perhaps they stem from the fact that I'm currently in another new country, flat-broke and without any real prospect for a job.

I'm not a huge Coldplay fan, and know relatively little about Anton Corbijn (the video's director), but for both of us this morning this video was perfect. Without getting too sentimental, suffice it to say that it was a nice treat to see so many scenes that had been part of our daily life for one year. For the most part, they were all there. Even the timing was something we could relate to (those orange flags are a dead give-away that it was filmed in June during the height of Euro Cup madness).

There was so much we enjoyed about living in Holland, just like there is about living in North America (yes, I'm doing what most Canadians shun: generalizing Canada and the United States as one place). While I will always try to replicate a bit of the European pace of life, I have to admit that I'm constantly amazed by what a Cosmopolitan city like San Francisco can offer.

And so, one last time:

Doei!

Paris to Calgary in 24 hours

2008-07-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

We flew out of Europe from Paris. In order to get to the airport in time, we had to spend one night in Paris. Obviously, we didn't complain. Weight is a huge issue when you're moving across an ocean. It is so expensive to bring your stuff, so you have to be certain that what you pack is worth it. We shipped three boxes, and then brought everything else on the plane.
Obviously, weight is a huge issue on a plane, too, so we used every last gram, without going over, and our carry-on bags were like bags of lead (cause the airlines never weigh those). Hauling around this crap was not easy. In fact, it was exhausting and we had to stop for breaks everywhere.

In Paris, we had to gets this stuff onto the metro. A major problem was the elevator was broken, and we had to get all this stuff down three flights of stairs into the depths of the earth. We had too much stuff, so Ross couldn't lift his huge suitcase, and my backpack was so heavy, I physically couldn't bend over without falling. In other words, we were like the epitome of tacky tourists. Ross had no choice but to drag his suitcase down the stairs.

Out of nowhere, this man picks up the suitcase to help us out. He must have seen the Canadian flag on my backpack, because he started talking to us (in French) about Canada. He didn't know any English, but I was able to determine that he was in Canada about 20 years ago, it snowed and he saw a grizzly bear. Every time he said "Grizzly" he would claw up his hands, hunch his shoulders and bear his teeth. This considerate stranger saved the day.

Paris was stinking hot. We weren't really prepared for it, but it was nice.

We walked through Luxembourg Gardens which is so, so nice. Everybody was just hanging out and enjoying the heat. Eventually we made our way to Napoleon's resting place. Not too shabby, Nap B.

Later we met up with Berton & Yuko, our friends from The Hague who were there with Berton's parents. We sat outdoors at a café, drank lots of French wine, and sadly said goodbye ... for now.

The next morning, we were homeward bound. I'm including this photo because I'm almost positive I left my wallet at this seat. :(

And then next thing you know we were in Calgary in all of it's pre-stampede glory. It was quite the shock. Literally we were in the fashion capital of the world one day, and then 9 hours later we witnessed a Western-wear fashion show. Surreal.

I think the expression on Ross' face says it all:

Last look at The Hague

2008-07-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Moving from The Hague was hard. Everything happened so fast in the end, it is now a blur. I know that you can never have enough time in a city, but I really didn't feel we had enough time in The Hague at the end. Abi was visiting, and we weren't able to hang out with him without putting him to work (and he was so great about it.) Thank you, Abi.

The same goes for Ross' parents. They were there to see Ross' graduation, and be on a holiday, but they also got put to work. Thank you, Jill & Gordon.

Maybe it was because we knew we were leaving, but the city seemed especially charming. The annual sculpture festival was starting, and many strange things were popping up, like the sandcastle cityscape of The Hague, and a gigantic Styrofoam iceberg floating in the water outside the Parliament buildings.

I don't think we ever took the beauty of the city and the country for granted; it was always beautiful to both of us; but in those last few days and weeks, it was almost painful.

I know one day we'll be back.

Breda

2008-07-13T13:31:00.001-07:00

The final day trip we took in Holland was to Breda, a beautiful city in the southern part of the country. We went with Ross' parents and rented bicycles and toured through the gorgeous and immaculate farmland in rural Holland for about 3 or 4 hours.

Amidst the farms would be small towns, a castles and the odd chapel. It was so pretty, and tranquil and ... perfect.

The town of Breda itself is really nice. If I was to live in Holland long term, I would probably consider setting up there; it's small, but lively with amazing restaurants and shops. It also doesn't seem to be as crowded as The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The Museum of Graphic Design just opened there, so if you're in Holland and care about design, then you might end up in Breda.

If you get a chance, rent a bike!

Dooi Holland

2008-07-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is going to be quick ...

Ross & I have left Holland. It was a ton of work, and a tearful goodbye, but the time came. We do plan to do a final post, but now is not the time.

Then somewhere between Charles De Gualle Terminal Three in Paris and Calgary International, I lost my wallet containing every important piece of information pertaining to both Canada and Holland. You name it, I lost it, as well as a totally rad Frietag wallet that I scored in Rotterdam. So, those first few hours on Canadian soil were not spent relaxing and enjoying my family, but on hold calling several Lost and Found departments on both sides of the Atlantic. (This even included speaking in French (!!!) to an employee in Paris.) No luck, but I have taken all appropriate measures to protect against identity theft.

We're in SF, and house hunting is way harder than expected. To get an apartment here, you have to provide all information about yourself, short of your fingerprints and names of childhood friends. While I'm at my new job (which is great) Ross is pounding the pavement and checking out very expensive tiny apartments.

Once we find a place and get internet, then we will update.

Also, I was kind of toying with the idea of continuing blogging this next adventure ... we'll see.

June

2008-06-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

June's blurry. Here are some of the more memorable events.

The weather is not-so sunny, but it's warm.

The new season of herring was celebrated with a public festival at Scheveningen.

Dutch people love black licorice candy (drop).

Tanya and Abi visited for a few days. Abi just moved here for school, and Tanya lived here for a semester a few years ago, so she remembered her way around. It was really fun.

The Euro Cup was (still is) on. Holland was doing amazing, and this city was cra-zy! They've since been eliminated, but there are still remnants of the fever.

Everywhere there are backpacks hanging off the flag poles of houses. I thought this was connected to the football games, but I was wrong. These backpacks mean that someone in that house just graduated highschool. As in, "I don't need this anymore!"

There was a celebratory BBQ with Ross' classmates on the weekend.

Guess what the Italians made:

P-A-S-T-A
Guess what type:

G-N-O-C-C-H-I (that is a truly amazing 'H')

My younger brother Colin was here this last weekend.

Among many activities, we went to the beautiful and un-Dutch-like Maastrict in the very south of the country. It was so hot when we got there, and then it wildly stormed in the early evening. It was so warm, though.

Waiting for the first storm to pass.

Waiting for the second storm to pass.

Waiting for the third, and largest summer storm I've ever been caught in, to pass.

We only have a few more days left in June, and this country. It's going so fast.

Type & Media Eindexamen

2008-06-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Here's some more photos of our final exam yesterday and the posters everyone made.
It was easy at times to loose track of how privileged we were to have such an amazing body of faculty and students so seeing everyone together yesterday was absolutely awe-inspiring. It's rare to see so much talent in one room.

I could not imagine a group with higher standards than TypeMedia 07/08. At times this became incredibly stressful but everyone grew so much because of it. The quality of work speaks for itself I think.

And of course, we were all so happy to be done so were ready to relax in the warm weather with all the students, our teachers and some drinks.

Introducing Foxtrot

2008-06-18T02:58:00.000-07:00

After 10 intense months of work culminating in a final two week push with 1/10 the healthy amount of sleep, I am finally finished the Type & Media course that I came here for.

The examination went exceptionally well for all the students and we are all ecstatic to be done and able to return to (semi) normal lives. At the same time, it's a bit sad to know it's over. We've all become incredibly good friends and the year far surpasses any of our expectations.

So, without further adieu, here is that mysterious project that I've been working so hard on for the past 4 months. My typeface is comprised of 10 corresponding weights that allow the designer to scale up in point size without affecting the stroke width of the letterforms. This means that the designer has more tools to create degrees of emphasis in a text. I also designed the upper/lower case with basic punctuation for an italic and heavy weight. Click the image for a bigger view.

This is the 2m x 1m poster presenting the typeface for the examination and exhibition. I had the idea that it should be an advertisement to sell something (inspired by certain 19th century ads I referenced throughout my project) so I decided to make the entire poster a personal ad. The text is comprised of my favourite things people were looking for in a man/woman as posted on the New York Times personal site and Craigslist.

And here is the character set showing all weights and styles:

That's it!

Hup Holland Hup!

2008-06-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

If you're a soccer fan, you're probably aware that the Euro Cup is currently happening, and last night Holland defeated Italy in a very important match. Italy, being the world champions, is tough team to beat but the boys from Oranje did it.

We had the game on, but I wasn't watching it the whole time. Luckily I didn't need to: you see, I was able to follow the action as I could hear the reactions of everyone else in The Hague through my open windows.

Immediately following the game, the honking started. I'm not sure what time it stopped, but I do slightly remember hearing our neighbor's after party at about 3:30 in the morning. I woke up to the strangest music. It was like he was playing a record of the Dutch national anthem.

The next game is on Friday. It's going to be a big one.

PS:

2008-06-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Big News!

2008-06-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

We're counting down the days left of our time in Holland:

10 days until my final examination
21 days until graduation from Type & Media
23 days until Grace's final day of work
25 days until we leave Europe
1 Month until Grace starts her brand new job as a design fellow at Chronicle Books in San Francisco...

Wait, wait, wait. San Francisco? What happened to a nice trip to Italy before heading back to Vancouver to find jobs and settle in once again?

Well, Grace had the bright idea a few months ago to apply for the Chronicle Books fellowship program (like an elevated, paid internship) in San Francisco and after two rounds of short-listing we finally received news last week that she had been chosen as one of over 80 applicants.

So, after a big change of plans, we are currently looking into possible employment options for myself, and generally figuring out the chaos that will be the next month of our lives.

We have no idea where we'll live nor what to expect, but we're starry eyed and incredibly excited to be moving to San Francisco for at least the next six months.

At the same time, we're a tad bit sad that we won't be able to see everyone in Calgary, Fruitvale and Vancouver, but of course, you are all welcome to visit us in sunny San Francisco once we're relocated and things settle down.

On the bright side, at least it's closer than Holland.

Congratulations Grace!

Berlin walls

2008-06-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

I spent last week in Berlin with Ross' class. When we weren't attending a typography conference, we were sightseeing and discovering why young creative people flock to the city.

Easily the most famous thing about Berlin in the wall that once divided the city. Although Ross doesn't remember when it came down, I do. I was eight and as my family watched the news together on tv, and I remember my parents telling me to remember what we were seeing, because it was very important. I always did remember the event, even if I didn't understand what it really meant until ... well ... until this past year.

Berlin's most famous wall may no longer be standing, but it didn't take long to discover that there were no shortage of fascinating walls around.

There were walls full of expression,

scarred WW2 walls,

big grey Nazi walls,
big, sober, Socialist walls,

muraled walls that remind us of the promise of socialism,

windowless walls,

pastel tiled walls of the metro,

wall of shoes,

type walls,

Frank Gehry walls,

walls housing art,

walls of lead books,

walls of glass at the Reichstag,

walls containing space for anyone,

et cetera.

This brick path throughout the city marks where the Berliner Mauer once stood.

Some portions of the wall are still standing. One section stretches for a kilometer and is covered in paintings and graffiti. It is a monument to personal expression.

I already want to go back.

Misc.

2008-05-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

I guess we've been kind of busy lately. Ross has been working on his typeface day and night, and I don't really know what I've been doing exactly, but clearly not blogging. I still don't have anything to say, but thought I'd post some photos from the last couple weeks.

A tourist shop in Amsterdam:

A park in The Hague:

Zebedus, my favourite café in The Hague. It's part of an old church that is, in my opinion, the best place to have lunch on a Saturday.

They have the best cappuccino.

Scheveningen

A performance I watched the other night.

A typical Dutch snackbar, selling deep fried snacks, herring and patats (fries).

Last night's sunset over the canal at the end of our street.

That's all.

Ceci n'est pas...

2008-05-18T08:14:00.001-07:00

These are not green grapes; in this country they are white grapes. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense since the wine made from these grapes is white and not green. Red grapes are still called red grapes. But you know black grapes? They're really dark and juicy, and the same colour of blueberries? Well, here they're called blue grapes, which again makes sense since I just said they're the same colour as blueberries.

Anyway ... Ross is very busy right now so he hasn't posted about this really cool workshop that he went to a couple days ago. Keith Tam, another of our former professors from Emily Carr who is now teaching in Hong Kong, also is currently touring some students around this part of the world. His students along with Ross' class gathered at Scheveningen to participate in a workshop hosted by Underware, which is a major type design studio in The Hague.

Their mission was to carve the phrase "I know what I know" into the sand in both English and Chinese script into the sand in characters about one meter high. The results are very cool. Unfortunatly he forgot his camera, but Underware's documentation of the project can be found here (it's called Sandman), and I recommend checking it out, as well as the documentation of the other workshops they've hosted, too.

Scheveningen

2008-05-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

It's like summer here. The days are really hot, and the nights are warm and the beach is popular.

At Scheveningen, there's a long strip of tacky restaurants that all have the strangest names. Many of them suggest a that Scheveningen is in the tropics. Although the beach is huge and beautiful, the water is still the North Sea. The beach might be packed, but no one is swimming.

Here's some of the best:

Copacabana

Mambo
Cocomo

Buena Vista

Bora Bora

La Bamba

El Niño

Blue Lagoon

And my favourite riduculous restaurant name, BooNooNooNoos

We went back to Scheveningen as the sun was setting for a little BBQ with Ross' classmates.

It was real nice. The last time we were at a beach party was a going away shindig for us in Vancouver, and the cops came by and poured out everyone's booze and put out fires. I prefer this much, much better.

Like a Record, Baby

2008-05-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

. . . or maybe more like a revolving door.

Graham and Laura left Holland for London on Thursday morning, and immediately after saying goodbye, Ross boarded a train to Amsterdam and met up with some other familiar faces. I joined later on, after work. This is what happens when you move to a foreign country; you become very popular!

First, Laura & Graham: The remainder of their holiday consisted of using our apartment as base and making day trips to different parts of the country. They even went to a few places that Ross & I haven't been yet, like Haarlem and Dordrecht (where Graham's father was born.) In the evenings when I was finished work and Ross was finished school we'd hang out on as many patios as possible.

This is precisely why I think Holland is such a great place to visit. There is so much to see in such a small area, (big-little country) that you don't spend a lot of time getting around, and day trips are cheap and fast.

They had a great time, as did we. We even persuaded the non-beer drinking Graham to have a Belgian beer. Is it still considered peer pressure if you know it's for the best?

And then on to the other travelers:
Our former Emily Carr profs Clément Vincent and Paul Mazzucca are currently leading a gathering of ECI (oops, I mean ECU) around on a Euro-trip. They started in Amsterdam and are working their way south to end in Paris. Aside from Clément, Paul and Paul's wife Caroline, Ginger and Chloe were the other familiar faces in the crowd

We went for very good Indonesian, and otherwise just hung out for the day. Fun, fun.

Laura & Graham Go Dutch

2008-05-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ross' sister Laura and her boyfriend Graham are currently visiting us. They were supposed to be here for the Queen's Day mayhem, but due to a hiccup in their plans they arrived one day later than planned. But we've been able to make up for lost time and there's been no shortage of activities.

The four of us stayed in Amsterdam this weekend (it was cleaned up) and did all the usual wonderful Amsterdam stuff. The weather was so warm and it seemed as though the whole city was just hanging out and enjoying the weather.

The best thing we did was rent bikes and hop a ferry to North Amsterdam and cycle through the Waterland area for the day.

The Waterland area took us through about 40 kilometers of old towns, along beautiful dikes and we finished the loop six hours later through pristine farmland.

Every moment was perfect. The scenery was breathtaking and the weather was gorgeous. It was a truly memorable day for all of us.

Koninginnedag

2008-05-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

April 30th was Koninginnedag, the day the Dutch proudly wear orange and celebrate the Queen's birthday. It's actually not the current Queen's birthday, but her grandmother's. But instead of changing the national holiday with each monarch, April 30th is the day any Queen's birthday is celebrated . . . and is it ever. We had heard stories/warnings, but obviously you have to see it to believe it.

The party starts the night before. Because The Hague is the royal city, there is a huge celebration the night of the 29th, called Koninginnenacht. The entire city centre becomes the party with djs set up in squares throughout, and a huge fair. You just kind of wear a paper crown and walk around and dance and walk and dance, and walk and dance, etc.

And then the next day (the real holiday) we journeyed to Koninginnedag's ground zero: Amsterdam. I had heard many stories of the sea of orange that would greet us once we stepped out of the train station.

We traded the crowns for these bril and wandered and watched Dutch people having the time of their lives.

Singlehandedly the craziest/most bizarre/fascinating thing about Koninginnedag were the party boats. Anyone who owned a boat found a dj, invited all their friends, blasted techno music and danced like orange maniacs. The bigger the boats, the bigger the party. There were so many boats on the canals that you couldn't even see the canals. The people watching was amazing.

This one's for you, Dad:

Another funny feature of Koninginnedag are the vrijmarkts (the free markets). On this one day, anyone is allowed to set up shop in the centre and sell their crap. So in the midst of the party, there are all these garage sales. At the end of the day, some people just walk away from their crap, and that's when the real deals are to be found.

Because of all the crazy partying, and all the abandoned vrijmarkts and all the people who just don't care, Amsterdam was disgusting by about 5pm. We could not get over how much trash was on the ground. The entire city was a dump.

Regardless, it was so, so fun.

We love the European "entire city is a party" parties (and we've definitly been to a few good ones.) I'm going to miss them.

Sightseeing IV: Rietveld-Schröeder Huis in Utrecht

2008-04-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

Saturday we took a 45-minute train to Utrecht, a city with a large and lively student population, to see the Rietveld-Schroeder House. Speaking of students, we met up with Jeff, the familiar face above, whom we know from Emily Carr. He's an industrial design student who is currently on exchange in Eindhoven. I would say it's a small world, but it's actually it's just a small country.

We went for a guided tour of the Reitveld-Schröeder House, which should be familiar – maybe only vaguely – to those of you who took Design History as the de Stijl home constructed in 1924. This house is famous for it's interior that transforms from closed, private rooms to open and free-living space by use of sliding doors, walls that run on tracks, and windows that open as balconies. All the furniture was custom made for the house, and designed for modular living (for example, many furniture items had more than one purpose.) Being inside of the house was stepping into a breathing Mondriaan painting. Sorry, no photos allowed.

When it was designed eighty years ago, the concept was revolutionary. It was fascinating to visit, if for no other reason than when we studied it in school, I remember thinking it was in the middle of nowhere, in a city I'd never heard of, and would never see it in person. Well, here I am.

Our ticket also included admission to the Dick Bruna Huis, a museum devoted to Holland's – if not one of the world's – most famous creator of children's stories.

A graphic designer by trade, he is most famous for his character of Miffy, a simplified bunny with many animal friends. His books have been translated into more than 70 languages around the world. It was a really cute place.

But the highlight of the day was the city of itself. In addition to the usual canals, Utrecht had huge public squares, interesting shops, and wharves below street level where people sat and ate and relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful weather. It's a great city to visit.

Sightseeing III: Hoge Veluwe & the Kröller-Müller Museum

2008-04-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I got up bright and early to venture to the other side of the country to visit De Hoge Veluwe National Park, which at 55 square kilometers is the largest park in Holland. It is home to many animals including some endangered species of deer, and wild boars.

The park was originally the private property for a very wealthy German-Dutch couple, the Kröller-Müllers. He was a hunter, and she an avid art collector who wanted a museum to display her incredible collection, and hence the Kröller-Müller Museum was built in the heart of the hunting grounds. Around the 1930s the land and the collection of the museum was donated to the Netherlands and available to the public.

Since the park is so large – and most of it inaccessible by car – there are nearly 2000 white bicycles for guests to use, for free. Nearly every major European city has a bicycle sharing program of some kind, and I even think Vancouver was testing something out when we left, but this was the first time I've ever used a free public bicycle, and it was great! You just pick one up at the entrance, ride at your will, park it when you need to stop, and get on the bicycle closest to you when it's time to go again. Brilliant!

The Kröller-Müller collection is incredible. There are Mondriaans, Monets, de Chiricos, Legers, Picassos, and many other important regional artists who created avant garde Modern art, but it's largest draw card is the Van Goghs. The collection of Van Gogh paintings and drawings is second in the world only to the eponymous museum in Amsterdam, but there was one obvious advantage to seeing the Van Goghs at the Kröller-Müller: the the crowds are smaller to non-existent.

I liked to take the photo of the man in the orange pants:

Easily the most unique part of the Kröller-Müller museum is the sculpture garden. At the back of the museum there is a huge natural park filled with installations and sculptures of famous artists of the 20th century. Some of the sculptures were in plain sight, but others were somewhat concealed by the environment, and you had to search to find them, like this rock wall in a forested area.

The one below was one of my favourites. Sitting in it's own pool of water and designed to catch even the slightest breeze, this object was continuously spinning and moving like a swan.

Another of my favourites was Kenneth Snelson's needle tower. Constructed using only cable, tubes and geometry, it is a freestanding tower that appears equally solid and fragile.

And when you stand directly beneath it and look up, this is what you see:

I spent hours at the museum, and it's my new favourite (although I sill love the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona.) It's not so easy to get to, but if anyone ever has the opportunity, I couldn't recommend it more.

Afterwards I jumped on a bicycle and pedaled for about 25 kilometers of the huge park. The landscape changed so much during this time.

There was wooded areas,

marshland,
meadows,

and sand dunes? What the!

Wide open spaces of nature void of people is not what generally comes to mind when I think of Holland, but it was really nice to be by myself in nature for a change.

(Luckily I didn't see any wild boars, or I probably would have had a heart attack.)

Two Months!

2008-04-19T00:27:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday marked the two month point for time remaining in the course. Yikes!
It's hard to believe how fast things are going now as we're getting close to finishing, especially with the ridiculous amount of work to do. Speaking of which, I'm hoping to post some of it soon for everyone to see. I'll see what I can do.

With a week in Berlin coming up at the end of May and a visit from my sister at the beginning of the month, the time leading up to June 17th is going to go crazy fast.

We've already begun tentative plans for our return, but will wait until everything is firmed up to risk too much excitement (or disappointment?) amongst our dedicated readers. Suffice it to say that despite how sad it will be to leave, there is a lot that we have come to miss about Vancouver.

Stay tuned for more information from the only source that brings you up-to-date information on the Democratic nominees' race to the White house...(and your favourite Expatriates).

One minute of one day

2008-04-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Sightseeing 2: Bollenroute (or, Flower Power)

2008-04-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

April and May are really special months in the Netherlands because it is the time of year when the flower fields are in full bloom and the fields between Haarlem and Leiden burst into of beautiful stripes of pink, purple, red and yellow.

As you probably know, flowers are big business in Holland. Over €500 million ($750m USD) worth of bulbs are exported worldwide from this tiny country, and it all starts in the fields. Although tulips (tulpen) are the flowers most associated with this country, any Dutch person will readily tell you that the tulp originally came from Turkey. I've heard it from so many people that I believe it!

The Keukenhof – the largest garden in the world, and one of the largest tourist attractions in Holland – is situated amongst the fields. The Keukenhof is open for only eight weeks of the year, yet it attracts nearly one million visitors. Now, that's flower power! My mom and dad visited when they were here and were amazed and delighted, even though they were snowed and hailed on.

Ross & I opted to see the flowers the way the locals do: by bicycle. We rented these orange Dutch-pride beauties from the gates of the Keukenhof, and took off on the bollenroute (the bulb tour).

Like many of our experiences in Holland, at first the bollenroute was incredible confusing and overly complicated, and we spent a good part of our time backtracking and looking at the map. But (also like many of our experiences in Holland) once we got the hang of it, our frustrations eased into a memorable experience that made the struggle beyond worthwhile.

In the fields were tulips, daffodils and hyacinths. The scent as we made our way along the roads was so fresh and so beautiful. Photos can't really do the experience justice.

The Bollenroute took us through 30 kms of fields and beautiful small towns over the course of 4 hours. What took us so long? Well, mostly we had to stop to take photos around every corner . . . and we were riding into a very strong wind most of the way . . . also, Ross can't pass one of these signs without stopping:

But mostly we were in absolutely no rush, and we leisurely enjoyed this wonderful part of Holland.

And remember: the tulip originally came from Turkey.

Sightseeing 1: Gemeentemuseum

2008-04-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

Time is cruising along and we have been in The Hague for nearly eight months, meaning there's only three left. It's disappointing to to admit that although we've been excellent tourists and explored many foreign cities, there's a lot of things in this city that we haven't seen or done yet. Doesn't that it always happen that way?

I've made it a priority to try to do something different every weekend until we leave, as a way to cross some items off the big, long to-do list. Ross is currently in full swing with his grad project, which gives me a great excuse to go out and explore on my own, and look at some of what I've previously overlooked.

Just down the street from where we live is a cluster of museums, The Gemeentemuseum, the GEM, the Foto Museum and the Museon, which are – respectively – the City Museum, the Museum of Contemporary art, the Museum of Photography, and I don't really know what the Museon is but I think it's something like Science World.

So, I decided to start my mission at the Gemeentemuseum. This is the home of a huge collection of Piet Mondrian's work. But this year the entire collection is on loan in Germany, so that kind of sucks. People always speak so highly of this building's architecture and I've never really understood why. With it's yellow water-stained brick exterior, I thought it kind of looked like a gross reptile.

But then I went inside, and I realized I was so wrong. This building is so exciting!

Primary colours, black and white, rectilinear lines, 90° angles . . . if you're familiar with Mondrian's work you would recognize the architecture as a compliment to the visual forms found in the artist's later work; I couldn't imagine a more appropriate building to house the de Stijl collection. The hallways and staircases featured exciting installations, such as these murals by Sol LeWitt.

Walking through the gallery was really fun.

I was impressed! There was lots of work by artists that I haven't really seen before, such as Nan Goldin and Gerhard Richter, and this one:

I instantly liked this gigantic photo light box because it looked like Vancouver, and I'm embarrassed to admit that I had to read the credit before I realized whose work it was. Duh. Jeff Wall. Shameful! I can't believe I had to go all the way to The Hague to see work by one of Vancouver's most famous artists.

Although the Mondrian collection is in Germany, they still kept the jewel of the crown: Victory Boogie Woogie, the last piece the artist created before he died.

Then I got kicked out because the museum was closing. I'm going back today because there's a huge exhibition of Lucien Freud's work that I didn't even get to. Lesson learned: don't overlook what's just down the street!

Part I: Amsterdam & The Hague

2008-03-31T14:39:00.001-07:00

So, two weeks ago my mom and dad arrived in the lovely Amsterdam after the never-ending journey Ross already mentioned. They stayed in Amsterdam for three nights, and Ross & I stayed with them for one.

With them we did the typical Amsterdam stuff: Anne Frankhuis, The Van Gogh museum, beer and bitterballen in a brown café, and just strolling around the charming streets of this beautiful city.

This was the view from their hotel room:

It didn't take my dad long to realise how amazing Belgian beer is:

The weather was hot one day, and rained the next. I don't think we saw back-to-back clear days the whole time they were here.

This is how you move furniture in Amsterdam:

Ross & I left my parents in Amsterdam to come back to work and school. They stayed a couple extra days before coming to The Hague for the second leg of their holiday.

The weather here was terrible, and we ill-advised my parents to rent bikes while they were here. We thought it would be fun to ride to the Noordzee on bicycles. Yah, it's real fun to be on a bicycle while tiny pieces of razor-sharp hail are firing into your face.

But they found inside ways to keep them self busy, including the amazing Panorama Mesdag, the M.C. Escher museum, and a demonstration on how to make Delftware among other activities.

One night we went for rijstafel. Indonesian food is the best part of Dutch cuisine, so it's a definite must when visiting. Rijstafel is a feast of about 20 small sample dishes of spicy, sweet, and savory Indonesian delights that all come out at once. It's quite the meal (although maybe too spicy for our guests.)

After The Hague we boarded an early train to Bruges. One thing is certain: the Partridge family does not travel light!

Part II: Bruges

2008-03-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

As Ross already mentioned, Bruges is gorgeous. It is like a fairytale European city. Almost all of the center has remained intact from it's medieval history. When walking through the maze-like city, it's almost impossible not to stop and pull out your camera every 20 steps.

The weather was terrible, though. It was windy, cold, and we even had snow!

But the weather doesn't stop the healthy tourism industry of Bruges:

We found enjoyable ways to keep out of the cold:

Other fun activities included playing in wooden toy stores; sampling delicious treats in chocolate and candy shoppes (which are every other store), and eating waffles. To work all this off, we climbed the 300 and something incredibly steep, narrow and dangerous stairs to the top of the bell tower in the Grote Markt. After that workout, we treated ourselves with some fries.

Here's some photos of the beautiful Bruges:

Enjoy the time? Yes, we did.

Part III: Lille & Flanders

2008-03-31T13:51:00.000-07:00

We left Bruges on Easter Monday for Lille, France. Almost everything was closed that day, but luckily this wonderful creperie was open. And no, we probably didn't need wine with lunch, but it seems like such a shame to have a meal without wine when you're in France.

English is spoken a lot less here than it is in Holland, as my mom discovered. When she ordered a decaffeinated tea, she received a café au lait. A very good café au lait.

Ross already mentioned we went to Vimy Ridge to see the Memorial, but here are a few more shots:

Almost 12,000 names are carved into the monument, and these are the names of the Canadian soldiers in France with no known grave.

We were fortunate enough to get a guided tour through the tunnels constructed by the soldiers in 1916/17. It truly was a moving experience.

The memorial is also worth seeing at night, when it is dramatically lit. All around it was an incredible day.

The next day we drove to Ypres, Belgium, a city flattened by four years of battle from 1914-1918. The city was completely restored to it's medieval architecture after the war, and it is impossible to believe the entire city is less than one hundred years old.

It was in this part of Belgium (Flanders) that John McCrae wrote In Flanders' Fields, and there are endless amounts of cemeteries and monuments commemorating those who died in battle. We visited a few cemeteries including Tyne-Cot, the largest of all the Commonwealth cemeteries. At Tyne Cot, 12,000 graves stand, enclosed by a wall bearing 35,000 names of Commonwealth soldiers with no known graves. This was about one-third of the cemetary:

We also visited the Brooding Soldier monument at Passendale, dedicated to the 2000 Canadians who lost their lives in the first gas attacks.

Most of the battlefields have returned to farmland, but for areas that have remained untouched, the scarred terrain still tells stories exploded grenades and brutal trench warfare.

Lest we forget.

Part IV: London

2008-03-31T13:46:00.001-07:00

From Lille, we boarded the Eurostar to London. What a ride! My dad timed how long it took to go under the English Channel, and it was only 20 minutes.

Again, London's weather was hit and miss, but we were used to it by this point. We were only there for a few days, but I'm proud to say we got quite a bit done!

It was such a treat for me to be in an English-speaking city again after seven months! I was reading everything I could see, and thought everything was so funny.

On the first day, we strolled along the South Bank of the mighty River Thames, climbed to the top of St. Paul's cathedral, and came down just in time for our tickets to Mamma Mia! at the beautiful art deco Prince of Wales theatre. The show was very fun, the perfect end our first day in London.

At the beginning of day two we stood in the rain for two hours to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. I'm glad we saw it, but I couldn't but think the whole hour-long event was a tad over the top. Afterwards we went to the British Guards museum, and later ended up at the British Museum, which contains very little of Britian's history.

It's collection includes the Rosetta Stone, friezes from the Pantheon, ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, and huge quantities of ancient Egyptian artifacts. It's fascinating, huge, and strange to think all these items ended up under the same roof.

Here's my brother Colin admiring a sarcophagus. (Colin's the one on the left.)

The third day we boarded a big red tour bus with my Grandma Partridge's cousin June, and her daughter Gill. Even they learned a thing or two about their own city on the tour. We stopped at Westminster Abbey, and the tower of London, and took a River Cruise up the Thames. Here's everyone enjoying themselves:

Last but not least, no London experience would be complete without taking the Underground

and these:

(See, I told you we did a lot.)

a note for our readers

2008-03-27T11:36:00.001-07:00

We've noticed that the last few posts have been receiving comments posted automatically and which seemingly link to a virus. We will try to delete these comments as they appear, but just in case we miss them before you read, if you see a comment that asks you to click 'here' (or anything similar) DO NOT CLICK.

Some familiar faces.

2008-03-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

Last week, Grace's parents made the long trek to visit us in the Netherlands. It's normally a long flight, though the extent of their travels redefines what it means to have a long and exhausting day of travel. As they live in Fruitvale, BC, they had to drive 3 hours to Kelowna, fly to Vancouver, wait for their flight, and then fly the 10 hours to Amsterdam. All-in-all, the whole thing probably took about 16 hours by the time we reached the hotel in Amsterdam.

For the last week and a half we toured them through Amsterdam, the Hague, Delft, and then took the train down to Brugge, Belgium and Lille, France, where we spent the last few days. Grace and I had never been to Brugge, though we were determined to get there before we head back to Canada. If European cities could receive awards it would get the prize for most picturesque city in Northern Europe.

Here's the family in Brugge:

And here's some proof of how lovely Brugge is:

After a few days in Brugge, we took the train to Lille, France which was to act as our home base for two days of road trips to some historic World War I sites in France and Belgium. This provided the opportunity to cross yet another 'to-do-before-we-go' off our list.

For all Canadian readers, you should recognize this monument:

In case you don't recognize it, the incredibly large monument featured in the photo is the Vimy war memorial, located just outside Vimy, France, commemorating all those who fought and died in the battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 and the rest of World War I. For a country that is not known for monuments of any sort – let alone monuments of this scale – this is truly special. In fact, it is so massive, and so well thought out, that I am confident in saying it stands among the great monuments erected by Louis 14th and Napolean.

It was a real priveledge to be there so close to the anniversary of the battle on April 9, 1917, as the recent snow-fall and general environment around the site were likely as close as we could get to understanding the atmosphere leading up to the battle. The precise time we were there (mid afternoon) combined with the time of year meant that the sun was in the perfect position to shine through the monuments two towers, creating a spotlight on the center-piece of Canada mourning her lost:

I am certain this is no coincidence. Rather, this is design at its best and most essential. The architect, Walter Seymour Allward, knew where the sun would be late afternoon during the weeks around April 9th and built the monument accordingly. Moreover, beyond being immense for immense sake, the size and position of the towers play a role in establishing the effect shown above, and this would have all been taken into account when designing the monument.

Here's some more photos of the site, including one showing some of the remaining trenches around the area:

The next day, I took the train back to the Hague while Grace and her parents carried on to the second site on their trip, the memorials at Ypres, Belgium – the heart of the Flanders region. Today, they took the train to London where their trip will conclude. That means Grace will be back on Sunday, and you can expect a further update (and more photos) upon her return.

Oh, and in case you didn't get the hint: if you ever find yourself in the area around Vimy, don't hesitate; go.

R.I.P.

2008-03-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

These past few weeks have been busy! Mostly Ross & I have just been getting ready for the arrival of my parents, so we've been working every spare moment to clear our schedules. In the midst of it all, his bike was ruined.

We went to a theatre for a lecture by a designer a couple weeks ago, and when we came out, his front tire was bent, and the spokes were broken. He had to get the bike home by balancing it on the back tire and walking it the whole way. We took it to a repair shop to get fixed, and – not so suprisingly – it's a special tire because of it's braking system. The quote to fix it was €250 – €300, when we paid €75 for the bike to begin with. It was a sad time. Ross really did have a beautiful bicycle.

So, what do you do when you need a fiets in The Hague? Well, Ross called our old friend Terry, the eccentric man who lives in an antique store, who sold us the bikes in the first place. Ross went for tea, was serenaded by piano and traded his old frame for a new old set of wheels.

It's a lovely, brown ladies Dutch cruiser that I think is actually smaller than my bicycle, but it will work for the next couple months.

And we found out what happened to his bike in the first place: apparently there's a mechanical gate in front of the theatre, and it just happened to be activated at some point during the night, and Ross' bike just happened to be in the way (we just parked our bikes in a crowd of 3o or so, and neither one of us noticed a sign.) The force of this gate destroyed a few bicycles that night. Sadness.

Two birds, or something like that.

2008-03-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was able to cross two things off of my semi-existent, ever-growing, list of things I'd like to do (in general as well as before we head back to Canada).

Tonight I was able to see a show by the Icelandic band Múm at the world famous Paradiso in Amsterdam. I missed Múm when they performed at the Icelandic music festival in the fall, as we opted for Patty Smith at the Crossing Borders festival with my brother. After seeing both, the decision was a good one, but that shouldn't undermine the incredible experience of seeing Múm live.

And to top that off, it all went down at the Paradiso, an old church that was transformed into Amsterdam's version of the Commodore Ballroom. Every aspect of the sound was perfectly balanced. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera so this post will have to remain a bit anti-climactic for the majority of you. However, it was so good that I think I'll be taking a couple of hour long train rides to see a few more shows before we go. I'll be sure to remember my camera and document the stained glass next time.

As seen in The Hague

2008-03-03T12:31:00.001-08:00

Houseboats!

There are plenty of these in Amsterdam, but I hadn't seen any in The Hague until last week. These one are just a couple streets from mine & Ross' apartment.

This kind of looks like a flooded trailer part, but it's highly coveted living.

Smurfen!

2008-03-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

I have no idea if this is news at home, but 2008 is the year of the Smurfs' 50th birthday. They are from Belgium, so it's kind of a big deal around here. For example, at the start of the year, Brussels had a huge public celebration with a gigantic Smurfberry cake. The photo above was taken in the Comic Strip Museum in Brussels.

Albert Heijn (the Safeway of Holland) has a Smurf promotion. For every €15 you spend in the store, you get a little plastic toy Smurf. They come in sealed yellow plastic, so you can't pick and choose, you just get what you get. I wasn't really paying too much attention to it until Ross brought this home the other day:

And now I'm obsessed. This marketing scheme is shamelessly working on me. We've since added this guy to the collection:

And here they are together:

Here's all of the 15 collectibles:

And the one I most want is (obviously) Smurfette, or as she's known around here, Smurfin. I'd also like a Papa Smurf (Grote Smurf), and a Brainy Smurf (Brilsmurf). I'll keep you posted as the collection grows, cause I know you're all as excited about this as I am.

Syntax and Colours and Lions, Oh My!

2008-02-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

A long overdue update from the past few weeks:

My final project is well underway and keeping me busy day and night. I think I should be able to post some images soon. Apart from the project, we've attended a few lectures that, while always educational, aren't always the most riveting of experiences. This was certainly true of a week long workshop given by Miguel Sousa from Adobe. 6 hours a day for 4 days we sat on uncomfortable stools taking in details of type development and production. Miguel did an excellent job and the experience was incredibly valuable, but unless you are someone who gets excited by command line programming (which I am not) you'd have been tired too. Here's proof:

Another exciting event that occurred about a month ago, centered around a trip to the studio of this designer:

For those of you who don't know him, Rick is a very important person in recent graphic design history, namely for being a founding member of this magazine and studio:

If you still aren't sure, maybe you'll recognize this well-known poster:

After a morning visit to his studio in Rotterdam, we had lunch, visited a Modernist architectural relic, then made the short walk over to this place:

That's right ladies and gentlemen: Studio Dumbar! Perhaps one of the most noteworthy studios in the world, they do work ranging from cultural clients like the Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, the Dutch Police, and big time corporate clients like KPN. In my opinion, the diversity in clients and projects they take on is a big reason why they have been so successful. It seems strikingly rare that a studio's mandate is to work with both cultural and corporate clients. Not only that, they insist that each designer on staff MUST work in both sectors. Here is an example of why Dutch design is so highly regarded (sorry for the bad photos):

Keep in mind that these posters are for the Amsterdam Symphony. It's rare to see such vibrant and daring work done for a client that is so deeply rooted in history and tradition. I'm used to seeing the usual stuffy earth tones with some sort of nature motif applied to this kind of work. In my opinion, the need to move beyond conventions and expectations based on the way something has been portrayed in the past is a typically Dutch approach to Design. You don't have to go far to see other examples of this. In fact, the design of the cars and bikes for the Dutch Police (also by Studio Dumbar) are a perfect example of how daring they are with such conservative clients.

For more of their work, including what they did for the Dutch Police visit their website at studiodumbar.com

On a totally different (and considerably more recent) note, those crocuses that Grace documented a few weeks ago have spread like wildfire and now blanket this field in purple.

Since Grace's parents will be visiting in two weeks, I really hope this is a sign of things to come. Maybe that tree in the top right will even have some life on it. Maybe.

As seen in The Hague

2008-02-24T01:11:00.000-08:00

Canadians!

As seen in The Hague

2008-02-24T01:02:00.001-08:00

This is a bad photo, but I wanted to post it anyway. What you're looking at is basically the Dutch equivalent of a minivan. A Mama and Papa are each have a kinder on their bicycle. Mom has the baby strapped to her chest, and the Dad has a little seat at the handlebars for the toddler. We see this everyday, every time we leave the house.

What happens if they have more kids, you ask? Well, as you can see, the Mom has room for one more on the back of her bike, as would the father. Sometimes you see two little seats – one in front of the other – which would be the solution for twins. And of course, children get their own bike as soon as possible. There are also variations of a wagon-like bicycle which are handy for transporting numerous children and animals.

And what about helmets you ask? Well, we're in Holland, my friends.
Helmets are for tourists.

Nothing new

2008-02-24T00:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't been doing a great job of posting lately, but there's just nothing really to report. Ross is busy with school, and I'm just working. I'm currently finishing a 400-page book about the importance of alliances – something I've come to learn as integral to the Dutch business model. This book should be quite a nice portfolio piece for a couple reasons. First of all, there are many diagrams and figures I had to complete by hand. This was a challenge because I'm not an illustrator, but I'm quite happy with how they were resolved. And secondly, I think this book looks better than it is because it's in anther language. When you're not distracted by how dry the text is, you just see the design.

The most complicated illustration required me to create an expressionless, simplified person that was neither a man or a woman that had both dreams and realizations at the same time. Why this was so hard for me, I'll never know, and when you see the result, neither will you. Every time I came up with something I was happy with my employer would say, "but that's a man." And back to the drawing board I went.

Here is a glimpse into my process:

And the chosen person in context:

Yup, it's a stick figure. Can you believe I even went to art school?

My valentijnsdag gift to Ross

2008-02-17T04:27:00.000-08:00

As you can imagine, we've taken thousands of photos over the last six months. After awhile, they all start to look the same . . .

Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd!

2008-02-16T06:01:00.000-08:00

Today is important for two reasons:

1. It's Ross' birthday! So far, he's done homework most of the day, but we're going out with his classmates for dinner and cake after. To say Happy Birthday in Dutch, you say Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd, which is actually congratulating the person whose birthday it is. So, congratulations Ross.

2. Today is our 6-month anniversary of arriving in the Netherlands. I can't believe it.

Valentijnsdag

2008-02-16T05:31:00.001-08:00

Valentine's Day has come and gone for another year, and no, it is not a big deal in The Hague, despite what anyone may tell you. People kept telling me that it's getting to be a bigger deal each year, and although this may be true, it came and went without almost any mention.

A few people told me that they think it's commercial and foolish – exactly what I heard about Halloween. I guess I just love commercial holidays. They're fun.

This is what I got for Valentine's Day this year:

Yup, my name carved in stone!

See, when we decided to come to The Hague, I wanted Ross to name his typeface after me. He thought I was joking, but I wasn't. I really wanted a typeface named after me (and still do). I've come to terms with the fact this isn't going to happen this year, and this is his compensation.

In Ross' stone-carving class, they each had to pick one word to carve, and he chose my name. Isn't that romantic? Although I choose to believe it's his ultimate devotion that drove him to create this, it's worth noting that the letters g, r, a & e are some of the most formative letters of a typeface. So, maybe my name was a convenient choice.

Regardless, I love it. No one's ever carved my name in stone before.

What's so foolish and commercial about that?

Bookbinding Workshop Part 2

2008-02-16T02:09:00.000-08:00

The second half of the bookbinding workshop took place Tuesday evening. By then all the glue from part one was dry, and we were ready to glue the block to the cases.

This stage of bookbinding is very fast, but is stressful because a lot can go wrong. You only really get one chance to correctly put the book into it's final resting place, so it's crucial to be precise to the millimeter.

I was quite impressed how well everyone did. There were no catastrophes.

Ross definitly got an A for effort. Not only that, he provided an excellent example of how much glue is "too much glue."

Everyone put a lot of consideration into their paper and cloth selection, so each ended up with a beautiful, personalized sketchbook.

It was definitly very fun for me to share my knowledge of bookbinding, and maybe it's something I'd like to teach again in the future? We'll see.

Ross' classmates all pitched in and surprised me with this book as a thank you. It's a comprehensive collection of the best Penguin covers.

It's not just a great resource, it's also really well printed.

A thoughtful gift & an excellent keepsake. (No relation to the author on the left.)

Bookbinding Workshop Part 1

2008-02-10T04:04:00.000-08:00

Before Ross and I left Canada, I made him a sketchbook specifically designed for him to draw type in, with pages that alternate between grid and tracing paper. The intention was that he could make sketches on the grid, and then rework successful attempts on the tracing paper.

Some of his classmates expressed interest in this sketchbook and asked me if I'd show them how to make books. After some easy organization, an informal bookbinding workshop took place yesterday in the Type & Media studio.

There were nine of us all together, and despite some of them partying too much the night before, they were great students.

Even Ross learned how to made his first (and last?) book.

Bookbinding involves many precise steps, and it's something that definitly takes a lot of practice. I've never really taught anyone how to do it before, so this was a new experience for me, too. I had to think about and articulate steps and processes I usually just do.

The Italian gals, working and playing.

When you bookbind, intensity is measured in millimeters.

The second half of the workshop takes place tomorrow night, when we will glue the book block into the cases (the pages to the cover). Stay tune for the amazing results.

Bookbinding makes you so hungry. It's true. Focusing on millimeters takes a lot of energy. So after the workshop we got lunch to-go and took advantage of the 14° weather.

Crocuses (croci?) are blooming everywhere, and the birds are singing.
Spring has sprung in The Hague.

This winter was a piece of cake.

Book book!

2008-02-07T11:47:00.001-08:00

My How to Make Books Book has arrived! And great timing, too. This weekend, I'm teaching a handful of Ross' classmates how to bind books.

This beautiful publication, made by Purgatory Pie Press features clear step by step instructions accompanied by helpful and delightful illustrations for making several different types of books.

I've been waiting for this book my whole life.
Isn't it nice?

Finally.

2008-02-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

I tried herring today.

I know, I know, it's taken me almost six months to work up the nerve to take part in the typical Dutch tradition of snacking on these little fish, but I was unable to bring myself to try it on my own. Honestly, (and this is coming from someone who loves fish) it looks and smells disgusting.

Today my employers had some at lunch and offered for me to try one of those slimy little suckers. I didn't want to be rude, and I was really curious, but I think the real reason I tried was because I haven't had sushi in almost six months, and I was desperate to satisfy the craving.

Usually the Dutch tilt their heads back, hold the tail, and just lower the whole raw thing in. It kind of looks like they're just swallowing it whole. I don't know why they do it this way, but I'm convinced it has something to do with the smell, although I have absolutely nothing to base that assumption on. I didn't eat it this way. I put it on a wasa cracker. I didn't add onions, although I was offered some.

The first bite was good! So was the second. The third was alright, and the fourth wasn't bad. The fifth took a turn for the worse, and the sixth was pretty gross. The seventh, eighth and ninth were not enjoyable, and the last few were downright disgusting. The more I ate, the smaller my bites got, and the closer I kept getting to the tail. I found the tail disturbing. In fact, I'm kind of gagging right now just thinking about it.

So no, it did not satisfy that sushi craving.

Below is a herring stand in Rotterdam. It's hard to go far in Holland without running into one of these. They're kind of like Holland's equivalent to Tim Horton's. Holland loves it's herring, just like Canada loves it's Double-Doubles.

(gag)

Invasion of the Hatchback

2008-02-03T01:36:00.001-08:00

I love a hatchback. France is kind of like the land of hatchbacks, and I think that's part of the reason I like it so much. Holland has it's fair share, as well. Imagine my delight when I looked out my window and realized the whole street was lined with them.

(Click on the image to view it larger. If you can handle it.)

Dooi CabFab

2008-01-30T11:50:00.001-08:00

Last week, my employer at my second job offered me full-time work. Although working at two different Dutch design studios has been a great experience, I knew it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

I told my employer at Job #1 on Monday. My contract states I have to give one month's notice, so I was expecting to start full-time at Job #2 on March 1st. But . . . things are really slow in the studio right now, and she decided that for me to start February 1st was better (honestly, I had no idea she was that willing to get rid of me! :)

So, today was my last day. It felt strange. It was such an accomplishment to get the job in the first place that I can't believe I just left it. We had tea and cake with some members of other studios and I said my thank-yous and goodbyes. It really was a fantastic experience in an amazing place. I can only hope I am fortunate enough to work in such a creative environment again.

Here are some more photos of the beautiful factory:

Goodbye CabFab.

Open Dag 2008

2008-01-27T04:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was KABK's annual open house. I met up with Ross who was hanging out at the type & media studio. Students and staff were easy to spot with these bright yellow t-shirts with either K, A, or B on them.

KABK students , or fans of a certain Swedish pop band?

Here's some Type & Media students, hard at work.

When he's taking a break from foozball, this is where Ross works.

Open Dag's wayfinding.

Obviously we were interested in the undergrad grafisch ontwerp.

Overall I found the graphic design department to be very expressive compared to ECI's. The use of typography and printing techniques were varied and experimental. It was really interesting to see the strengths of another school's program. It made me think about the strengths of my education.

A full circle

2008-01-26T04:05:00.001-08:00

Three years ago, I created the book, Typography for Bowlers.

Last night I went bowling with the typographers.

Disco bowling was pretty much the same as any other time I've been bowling with one exception: the shoes. This bowling alley was so relaxed about the shoes! Usually it's like trying to cross a border just to get your footwear, but here you just chose your own pair, and wore them wherever you wanted. I'm pretty confident we all could have worn them home and no one would have noticed.

The bowling alley had more of a lounge aesthetic, as opposed to the florescent lighting/molded plastic 70s aesthetic that I associate with the sport.

"Disco" is kind of a misnomer. "Techno" is definitely more accurate. Or, Dance Mix '92-Bowling if we want to get specific. Here's Ross' classmates pumpin' up the jam.

(Pump it up. )

A slice of my life's work is now complete.

Three-legged dogs ... forbidden – what?

2008-01-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else agree there's a little too much information here?
Is that highlight really necessary?

legal!

2008-01-21T01:35:00.001-08:00

Ross & I have both received our residency permits, meaning we are legal residents of the EU until September.

I never thought I'd be a resident of the EU . . .

The Paripve Family

2008-01-20T05:12:00.000-08:00

We ordered a pizza the other night, and supposedly this is my name on the bill.

Either this is the worst spelling attempt at 'Partridge' in the history of all Partridges, or we ate the Paripve's pizza.

Kijkduin

2008-01-19T06:12:00.000-08:00

We rode our bikes to Kijkduin – The Hague's other beach resort – to look at the dunes. If you spoke Dutch you would notice I just made a pun. Kijkduin literally translates to "look dune."

. . . anyway, there is currently an installation of 150 glowing balls in the dunes. They are LED powered and their colour is constantly evolving. The largest ball has about a 1.5 metre diameter, and some of the smaller ones are buried in the sand.

The blackness beyond the balls is the Noordzee.

Focus Films?

It was so pretty.

Spam for breakfast?

2008-01-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

Apparently the email as work has a small problem with receiving junk. Here's my inbox at 9:00 am:

Every single one is offering me pills, free Adobe products, or specific advice on how to please my woman. Yikes!

Heart-Warming Small-World Story

2008-01-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

When we were in Vienna, Ross' classmate (who is from Vienna) gave us the heads up on a few great coffee shops to hang out in. One of them, Das Möbel, is both a coffee shop and a design store. The interior completly changes every few months, and if stocked with the fresh work of local designers. Everything in the café us for sale and has price tags hanging off it.

Obviously we loved it.

The art on the wall was also hip and strange, and Ross told me it looked like the type of art I made. I corrected him and told him it was the type of art I wished I made.

After three days in Vienna, Ross' classmate and his girlfriend from Berlin joined us. She mentioned something about Das Möbel selling some of her stickers, and after some clarification I realized the art we admired so much was hers. Crazy, eh?

This delightful gal's company is called Can't have it? Stick it., and she creates stickers of things that people might desire, but aren't able to for one reason or another. Like a plant that your apartment might not have enough light for. Instead of just wishing for the object, you can stick an image of it to your wall. It's the next best thing!

Her website is here. Buy something now before she becomes recognized for the genius she is, and the price of everything doubles.

Type Walk

2008-01-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

We spent Saturday in Amsterdam, for no reason other than the fact it's not even an hour away. We did a "Type Walk" which means we walked around and looked at the typography on the old buildings.

This is what all those Dutch type masters are living amongst:

And my favourite: the canal names.

Show Time!

2008-01-08T11:10:00.000-08:00

Starting tomorrow and running through the end of Friday, we have presentation week at the Type & Media course which means that everything we have been working on since September should be (relatively) finished and compiled in some sort of informal presentation. For three days we'll meet with the instructors individually to discuss the progress we've made, areas we're doing well in, and those areas where more attention needs to be paid.

I thought this would also be a good opportunity to share some of the work I've been doing up until this point. Some of it has been posted before, at various stages in its development, but there is certainly a lot that is new. Since describing each sketch would take a really long time, I'll just show photos grouped in sections by project. A representation of almost everything is here, with the exception of all of my calligraphy work, small assignments and any non-studio projects (writing, etc.). All in all it's about 80% of the work, though it looks like a lot less I think.

Type Cooker
These are a bunch of sketches made from constraints we were given. Constraints could be things like the length of the ascenders or descenders, the amount of contrast in the letterform (difference between thick and thin strokes), the width/proportions of the letters, special considerations (like cut-out counters, only drawn with straight lines, must contain 1/2 ligatures, etc). Here they are in chronological order:

Contrast exercise and resulting alphabet
Starting with a drawing of a 'regular' contrast letterform (tupe for reading), we had to do a series of drawings to arrive at a low contrast (thick = thin strokes) and a high contrast. They are shown in that order. From there we had to take the regular contrast and extend it out to a full lowercase alphabet. This part was done quite quickly over the course of a week or so, so it's quite rough.

Monogram
It's mostly finished now...

Drawbot/Programming

Plantin Revival
The project that occupied a huge part of our time since September was a project to digitize/revive a typeface that already exists in hot metal (ie: pre-computers) format. Using a book printed before 1940, we set out on the task to make a typeface revival of the typeface contained in the book. This was basically a primer in many aspects of type design, from type technology and production concerns to font management and design strategies. It also helped us learn by uncovering the hidden logic in an existing design.

In some ways, you could say that the process of designing type is full of small decisions a designer has to make, which, to the vast number of people, are quite inconsequential. It is when these tiny decisions are multiplied thousands of times on a printed page or a public sign that the decisions made previously start to become apparent in the way the type works as a whole. Good type usually has a hidden logic.

My project was a revival of Monotype Plantin from the early 20th century. Here are some of the results:

some Cyrillic and Greek accompaniments:

In the coming weeks I'll start to create a proposal for my final project which will take up almost all of my time here from mid-February till July 1. I'll keep you posted as things develop.

You Asked, We Answered

2008-01-05T15:55:00.001-08:00

Alright, it was actually just our parents who requested more photos, but here you are: photos that didn't make the first cut.

Prague

The St. Charles Bridge. If you're not familiar, look up INXS's Love Will Never Tear Us Apart on YouTube, and you'll understand why Ross chose to serenade me/all of Prague with this every time we strolled across.

Josefov (Jewish Quarter)'s famous cemetery

Frank Gehry's Dancing Houses

Stare Mesto's Main Square

Kraków (pronounced Krakov)

Sometimes I couldn't tell what year it was.

Moments after this photo was taken, Ross spit this treat out of his mouth, and threw it all in the garbage, claiming it was the worst thing he's ever tasted.

I'm not sure it was the worst thing I've ever tasted, but it might have been the saltiest.

I couldn't believe this girl was laughing and not crying.

A Trabant, the car of the Communist era. We saw many of these around Kraków, and many, many more in Budapest.

That tiny orange car is parked on the sidewalk.

What bars are called in Poland:

An art store:

A hostel with a sense of humour:

Budapest (pronounced Buda-pesht). Budapest is actually two cities on each side of the Danube River, Buda and Pest. In the late 1800s, they joined to become the capital of Hungary.

Ross & I and a huge Soviet soldier

Ice Skating

The man behind the magic.

We are so cliché.

Buda castle.

Vienna

Candy houses

Bagette + sausage = Eurodog

Ross can't resist a beer with good typography.

Ross & Berton enjoying Vienna at it's best: in a coffee house.

In Austria at New Year's, pigs are symbols of good luck.

Ross & Berton & a big red dot.

The end.

We probably aren't going to post anything else about our holiday because there's just too much to say.

Home(?)

2008-01-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

We're back in the Hague safe and sound after an exhausting trip that included a 6:30am flight back. We thought we'd stay up all night and catch a cab to the airport around 4:45, but, as you can imagine, it wasn't a very smart decision and we slept the majority of the day as a result.

We spent the last week in Budapest and Vienna, and since we have quite a few (27) photos to show you, I'll try to keep my writing short. Suffice it to say that as far as I am concerned, if you can only visit two cities in continental Europe, they should be Paris and Vienna. In Vienna, everything just makes sense.

So, in some sort of chronological order – with commentary interspersed throughout – here are a few photos from our trip to Prague, Krakow, Budapest and Vienna.

Prague

I think we mentioned that we went to see a Czech hockey game. The tickets were $12 for the best seats in the house – a nice surprise after being used to NHL prices.

In Prague, as in Krakow and Budapest, there are many relics and/or traditions left over from the Communist era. One that we particularly liked is a wall of graffiti known as the 'Lennon Wall' (referring to the Beatle, not the Soviet leader with a similar name). It's basically a wall that was used to advocate for peace and freedom in the 60s and 70s. Even though Communism no longer exists in the Czech Republic, the wall continues to be used as a symbol of peace in the world.

And lastly, our trip to Prague would not be complete without this:

One of the many beers of choice in the Czech Republic is none other than the original Budweiser (not to be confused for that cheap rip-off known only to marketers as 'the king of beers'). At the cost of $1.50 CAD for a .5 liter pint, this stuff is consumed like water in this part of the world. It's no surprise that the Czech's consume more beer per capita than any other country in the world.

Krakow

Krakow is home to the second oldest university in Central/Eastern Europe and boasts none other than Copernicus as part of its alumni. Some 500+ years later, the original building is now a museum which houses the earliest known globe containing an image of North America (though, at the time is was placed south of India). Here is the courtyard:

We might not have had a traditional turkey for dinner, but we were able to consume copious amounts of this on Christmas Eve/Day:

Jealous?

On a more somber note, one thing Grace and I were able to do on our trip was something that I have wanted to do for quite some time which is to visit the Auschwitz memorial museum at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. For the most part, we were reluctant to take many photos, but this one, taken at Auschwitz II (the second and largest of the three camps that made up Auschwitz) somehow summed up my experience. In the last days of the war, as the Soviet army approached the camp, the Nazi's blew-up or burned most of the barracks and gas-chambers to get rid of the evidence of what took place. As the wooden barracks burned away, what remained were the somber brick chimneys, scattered endlessly for as far as the eye can see.

Budapest

Perhaps fittingly, the next part of our trip was to Statue Park, a place where old relics and statues of the Soviet era have been brought together for display purposes.

Budapest was quite cold, so our photo taking was kept to a minimum.

Vienna

One of the things that makes Vienna so incredible is it's cafe/bar culture. I have never seen such a diverse number of cafes and bars that were all equally amazing. One bar, Das Mobel, changes its interior design every few months as groups of local designers contribute furniture and lighting to the space. All the elements are for sale.

And last but not least, we spent our New Years in Vienna dancing to Gloria Estafan while thousands of fireworks we being ignited by mischievous children everywhere.

Happy New Year!

Our Christmas

2007-12-25T09:30:00.001-08:00

We took advantage of the fact there was no where we could go, and slept in. After a lazy morning, we left the hostel, prepared to wander around the city, which we assumed we would have to ourselves. As soon as we entered the streets, we realised we were missing the party! There were people (mostly families) everywhere, and all headed to the town square.

Krakow has what's considered the largest town square in Europe, and is the host to a huge Christmas market. We assumed that like last night, the market would be closed, and again we were wrong. It seemed to be the thing to do! Everyone was drinking mulled wine, bartering for goods, riding in horse-drawn carriages and listening to the accordian quartet play "Flight of the Bumblebee " every four songs. By now, we've probably heard "Flight of the Bumblebee" forty times. It was quite a nice treat for us, as we didn't have the Christmas to ourselves like expected. Later on in the day we overheard some carolers.

We headed to the old Jewish city, which we assumed would be open today, and wanded amoungst the 500 year old cemetary, and through the streets "Schindler's List" was filmed on. This city is stunning. Sometimes it's impossible to tell what year it is, and I mean this in a good way.

We have had a very memorable Christmas, and hope all of you do, too. Now we're going to drink some vodka. . . after all, we are in Poland.

Krazy for Krakow

2007-12-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

It's 8:30pm on Christmas Eve and we're currently sitting in the lounge of our (surprisingly nice) hostel in Krakow. You might want to know why we are sitting in the hostel at such an early hour on Christmas Eve, but truth be told, Krakow is not the most metropolitan place we've ever been and the city completely shut down around 5:00pm. That's ok with us though, as the historic city's charm that we came for is present at every corner.

So far I've been dragging Grace from Christmas market to Christmas market. It works out well as she gets to browse through the handmade Christmas ornaments and I get to eat. And I am glad to say that there is as much to eat as there is to look at, which makes me a very happy traveller.

The food is very hearty, consisting mainly of meat (duck, pork or sausage), stewed cabbage, and potatoes. For this reason it is a perfect remedy from the chilly weather and one of the reasons why I think travelling to this part of the world at Christmas was such a great choice. And if the food doesn't warm you up, there is a never ending supply of hot mulled wine to be consumed, which makes me an even happier traveller. Oh, and then there's my new favourite drink, hot rum, or Grog as it is called in Czech culture.

Enough about food. We arrived in Krakow early this morning after an overnight train from Prague where we spent the first three full days of our trip. Prague is even more beautiful than it is made out to be, and at Christmas time the entire old center is packed with christmas markets. As well, for a city that is commonly said to be frustratingly over-touristed, the cooler weather seemed to keep a majority of visitors away and at times we felt like we had the whole city to ourselves.

The weather has also been better than expected, with temperatures hovering around zero and no snow (though, I secretely wished to see Prague covered in it).

In two days we're off to Budapest then to Vienna for the remaining three days of our trip. One of my classmates has booked a flight to meet us in Vienna for New-Years which will be a nice treat.

Hopefully everyone at home is enjoying themselves. It's certainly a different Christmas for us, but one that we hope to hold on to for years to come.

Merry Christmas!

And we're off

2007-12-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night, we will be in Prague. After that, we will be in Kraków, Budapest and Vienna. We might be able to to post over our holiday, but maybe not. If not, we'll see you in the new year.

Merry Christmas.

Twenty-First Century Christmas

2007-12-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

The sky is clear and blue, the sun is shining, and it's 3° outside. Yes, it's Christmastime in The Hague. The prospect of snow isn't a reality, as everyone knows it rarely snows in Holland anymore, due to global warming – at least this is what we've been told. At first Ross and I were somewhat surprised that the general public acknowledges global warming so frankly. After all, in North America "climate change" is something that people are aware is likely happening, but the topic is always followed by examples of unusual weather patterns in the past. Not in Holland, people. Al Gore has won a Nobel Peace Prize, and we're having a Globally-Warmed Christmas.

This doesn't mean White Christmases are a thing of the past. There are still efforts to re-create the effect, however most of this is made of plastic. I've seen many Christmas Trees with cotton, or stuffing on their branches that almost looks like real snow if you're standing on the other side of the street and squinting.

Yesterday I was riding my bike down a popular shopping street, and suddenly it started snowing!

It was coming from this machine on a lamppost.

It was a kind of foam, but it didn't disintegrate. It was very popular with everyone on the street, who took photos in the snow, and tried to play in it. The snowball fights were as successful as throwing a handful of feathers at someone. Whatever the snow was made of, I'm certain must be terrible for the environment, and possibly one of the reasons there will not be real snow this year.

In a different part of town, a public skating rink is set up. I read about it on the city's website, and marked in in my calendar as something Ross & I should do. I was expecting a big open rink, kind of like the one at Olympic Plaza in Calgary, or the one in Central Park you see in movies. We saw the rink yesterday, and it's basically a frozen-over kiddie pool.

As we stood there watching five kids barely move, Ross noticed something strange about the ice – it wasn't ice. It was white plastic. This means there was no chill, no shine, no ice-smell, no sounds of blades scraping, no snow-plow stops, and kids could comfortably do things like this:

I since removed this activity from my calendar.

Inside our home, this is as Christmas-y as it gets. Since we're going away in a few days, we don't have a tree. It's been kind of fun getting all our presents and cards in the mail. We're opening them later tonight over Skype with our families.

Merry Twenty-First Century Christmas, everyone.

Sometimes it's nice to have breakfast for dinner

2007-12-10T11:52:00.000-08:00

I decided I wanted to make pannekoeken for dinner. For those of you that have never been to De Dutch Pannekoek House (play the music), a pannekoek is kind of like a crêpe in that it is much larger and thinner than the pancakes we know. They are topped with savory or sweet toppings, like ham and cheese, or nutella. They are also served with stroop which is a thick, sweet, molasses-like syrup.

On my way home from work I picked up the necessary ingredients (pannekoek mix, eggs, cheese, ham) and headed home to start panne-cookin'. When I was one block from my house, my groceries (that were hanging off my handlebars) got caught in the front spokes of my bicycle, and abruptly stopped! I was luckily going slow enough that I didn't fly over the handlebars.

I looked down to see what's happened, just as a puff of pannekoek mix settled. There was egg yolk dripping through the bag – which now had a collection of holes in it – onto the sidewalk. I decided it was probably safest to walk the rest of the way home.

Here's the damage:

My bicycle wheel destroyed this carton of eggs. I don't even know where the part of the carton that was torn off went. You might think five eggs were broken, but it was actually only three. Eggs here come in sixes and tens – not a dozen. (Small fridges, remember?)

It also ripped into this box of pannekoek mix. Luckily the mix was in a bag inside this box. Unluckily the pressure of my bicycle spokes caused both ends of said bag to burst open.

But not everything was destroyed. Luckily the Kerstboom-shaped cheese I bought survived relatively unharmed. (This was the only item I really cared about anyways.)

Despite all the adversity, I still managed to whip this up:

Holiday Pannekoek.

PS: I learned to not do that again.

Even underwear is confusing

2007-12-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

Ross & I are going to be spending the Christmas holidays in Eastern Europe. That's correct, we have chosen to go to the coldest part of the continent during the coldest time, just as we chose to go to Spain in August. We live for extremes, people.

For this holiday, we needed to get some long underwear. Wherever we travel, we always spend lots of time on foot, so we figured we had better bundle up. We went to Holland's equivalent of Wal-Mart, Hema. Hema isn't exactly like Wal-Mart in that it only sells the store brand. For example, you can't buy Maybelline make-up at Hema, you can only buy the Hema brand. Hema also seems to be classier than Wal-Mart, kind of like a mix between Wal-Mart and The Bay. Anyway, we went there today to buy our long underwear.

Not surprisingly, this proved to be twice as complicated as it should have been. We found the Hema-brand long underwear divided into three categories: Men's, women's and children's. They were packaged in sealed boxes, and we scoured the box for a size. After we couldn't find anything, we decided it must be one size fits all and bought a ladies top and bottom and a men's top and bottom as well. Almost immediately after paying for these, Ross noticed in tiny letters on the back of his box (in the barcode) that his top was a XL and his bottoms were an L. Anyone of you that has ever seen Ross knows this is a bit excessive.

So, back to the section we went and tried to find something more appropriate. I had a S top and an L bottom, when I think an M would have been best for both. After looking through all the boxes, it became obvious that Ms do not exsist. In Men's sizes, nothing other than Ls or XLs exsist. We concluded all the underwear was unisex, and the smallest size was labeled as "children's", the two biggest were "Men's" and the middle two were "Women's". The fact they went to the trouble of differentiating by gender made it twice as complicated as it should have been. Why didn't they just label it as "Adult, S, M, L & XL"? We exchanged our purchases, and both ended up getting "Women's" Ls for both top and bottom.

When we got home, we thought we should test out their warmth, and realized we accidentally bought three tops, and only one bottom. Will the adventure ever end?

A cause for celebration

2007-12-07T11:24:00.000-08:00

For the first time since the end of July, I have worked a full work-week.

I now work my regular job on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and my new job on Thursday and Friday. I really feel it is quite an accomplishment to be working full-time in my field, in a country that speaks another language. Finding work was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Everyone can expect the job hunt to be time-consuming and a kick to your pride, but the extra step of translating every piece of info I could find was a huge necessity that I didn't account for.

Job#2 is with a small group of people and run by a husband and wife team from a studio in their home. The husband is the founder of a very well-known and successful graphic design studio, and the wife is an established interior designer. Their intentions with this new (yet to be named) studio is to bring together the two disciplines and offer a service that doesn't just create commercial spaces, but also provides all the graphic material that accompanies it. For example, a new store opened today that the studio designed both the identity and the interior simultaneously. A very good idea!

I'm quite excited because I've wanted to try some environmental design but didn't know how to get into the field. Well, here I am, and I still don't know how I got here.

Working in Holland is not as easy as I thought it would be. I'm not talking about my qualifications, I mean just being at work is harder than expected. In Job #1, it's just the owner and I and – when she's not on the phone, or no one is visiting – English is the language spoken in the studio. Even then, sometimes it's really challenging to express ourselves and have one another understand. In addition, all the projects I have worked on are in Dutch. One of the first thing we were taught at school is to read the text before you design with it. Well, I read it, but understanding it is a whole separate task. I can't take anything for granted; every minor detail takes an effort to understand. (One day when my boss was in a meeting, I spent easily ten minutes trying to figure out how to send an email, and discovered it only after translating all the menu choices.)

At Job #2, there six or seven people and obviously they all speak Dutch. It's quite isolating to be the only one that doesn't speak a language because I am left out of every conversation that is occurring from large, important discussions, to asking if anyone wants some coffee. (FYI: Usually I can understand the later, but it takes me a few seconds to comprehend and by the time I turn around to answer, the asker has scurried off to the kitchen.) Obviously, I don't get any of the jokes.

I don't mean to sound as though this is traumatic or depressing. Obviously it gets kind of lonely, and I'm frustrated at myself for my lack of contribution. It's a new experience for me, and I don't think it's a bad one. I don't expect everyone to speak English just because I'm around.

On a brighter note, my comprehension is definitely improving. Now I can usually understand what people are talking about, although the specifics are lost. I've learned that Dutch-speaking people, just like English-speaking people, also have plenty of meaningless conversations. This might not sound like breaking news, but for the last 3 and a half months, I have listened to every conversation around me so carefully that each deserved to be quite profound. Well, it turns out all this time people were talking about rush hour, their cat, and stupid movies.

How nice it is to hear this! I'm sure this might not sound like anything too exciting, but I haven't overheard (and understood) someone else's conversation in all this time. As a result, I haven't joined in on a conversation, either. It's a small thing, but it wasn't until I couldn't that I realized how important it is.

I'm not joining in, yet. I usually just sit there and listen, and listen, and don't speak unless I'm spoken too. I feel bad interrupting a conversation to speak English. (Think about it, I have no verbal cues to know when is a good time to change topics.) I am looking forward to that day when I can actually contribute something worthwhile. I imagine my audience will be as surprised as I will.

The Dates Have Been Marked.

2007-12-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

If ever life over here gets tiring, lonesome, drab, etc. I have something to look forward to with great anticipation.

The series of dates I referred to above are May 2 - 18, and, as many of you may know, these days mark the first time ever that the World Championships in Hockey will be taking place in Canada.

Why is this so important? Well, as some of you may also know, I have become quite a hockey fan in the past couple of years and since I cannot watch any games over here, I have made it a routine to check my NHL hockey scores before moving forward with any other aspect of my day.

Unfortunately, this morning routine usually causes the day to get off to a bad start as my team – the Calgary Flames – are, well, not doing so well (as I'm sure any of you Canucks fans most certainly know).

But alas! Just when I was beginning to lose faith in the sport as a whole, I found myself in the middle of a conversation with an Austrian and a Slovakian about the greatest country in international hockey. At first I was delighted to be able to talk sports with someone and not have it be football (though this is also very interesting). However, the more the conversation unraveled, the less apparent their reverence towards Canadian hockey became.

This was not something I would let go. Their reluctance to admit the true dominance Canada has on hockey became an issue of Canadian pride. And this I had to defend.

Luckily the issue was resolved (it was always friendly, of course) and we are now invited to the house of a Slovak national to watch the World Championships take place in Halifax and Quebec City. The only problem will be getting through the remaining 148 days until the first puck drops.

In the mean time here's some riveting tid-bits on Canadian hockey:

1) Canada has 552, 040 registered hockey players. Compare that with Russia who only has 77,000

2) Canada has over 3,000 indoor arenas. Compare that with Russia who has only 142. I wonder how many 'ponds' we have?

3) We rank first in total overall medal count (44) in the World Championships, and have won the highest number of gold medals (24).

4) Women's team won gold in all but one (where they won silver) World Championship tournament between 1990 and 2007.

5) 50.2% of players currently playing in the NHL are Canadian. The next highest representation is from the States with only 17.7%. From there it drops off dramatically.

5) 2006 was a shameful Olympics for Canada, yes, but 2002 was great!

Pakjesavond

2007-12-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

It's December 5th, meaning that tomorrow is none other that Sinterklaas' birthday (it's the reason he comes all the way from Spain, you know.) Tonight is the traditional night for exchanging gifts delivered by Sinterklaas and the Zwart Peiten. The way children let Sinterklaas know they would like some gifts is to sing Sinter-songs loudly up the chimney. Ross & I don't know any, so I don't think he's coming to our house tonight.

But he did the other day! From the time he arrives in late November until December 6th, he can leave little treats in your shoes for you to find when you wake up in the morning. And on Saturday morning Ross & I found chocolate letters in our shoes!

Chocolate letters are a Sinterklaas tradition. Usually you receive the first initial of your name, like I did.

So far, Pakjesavond is quite balmy. I'm only mentioning this because I know you're all freezing, but it's currently +12°C, and it's 9pm! Who needs presents when you've got beautiful weather?

ribbon b

2007-12-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

This is a first attempt at using the ribbon program I wrote (remember those colourful squiggles from a few days ago?) to create actual letters. You can start to see where I'm taking this. Ultimately I'd like to have alternates for each letter that connect with other letters to form continuous ribbon strings, but that is likely a very long time away.

Grace Speaks Dutch?

2007-12-02T22:05:00.000-08:00

No, no I sure don't. But I am committed to studying.

I found this site, Laura Speaks Dutch that full of themed, five-minute-ish podcasts I can download to learn Dutch. Originally it was created by a man to teach his girlfriend the language. Isn't that nice? What's even nicer is that it's useful for anyone. His pronunciation is very clear, and he repeats words often so you don't have to keep stopping and starting it.

Me, I've downloaded some lessons and practice while Ross is writing calligraphy. Doesn't our house sound like so much fun?

M is for My Monogram

2007-12-01T15:22:00.001-08:00

It's still a bit flimsy in some areas, but it's getting there. I also made a version that strings together to form a series of repeating shapes. The string version could be used to make things like traditional printers borders.

Crossing Borders

2007-11-30T02:02:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we attended the third annual Crossing Borders, a poetry and music festival held in The Hague. The theme of the week-long event is bringing together artists whose work blurs the definitions of music, poetry, art and performance, to celebrate and create dialog about the intersections of what are usually categorized as distinct genres. The most obvious example is the poetry of songwriting, but as we found, there are many others.

Some of the guests who's names you might recognize are: Rufus Wainwright, Salomon Rushdie, Chuck Palahniuk, The New Pornographers, Vic Chestnutt, and many, many, many more. Some artists sang, some read their poetry, some did both. Most of the poetry readings were followed by an interview, which was a really nice touch.

With Brian, we bought passes for the Thursday and the Saturday. The pass gave you access for any of the scheduled events for that particular day, meaning you kind of jumped around from room to room at your pleasure.

The first reading we attended was Richard Hell, who is best known as a former member of the the band Television. He read some articles he's recently written for a paper in Colorado I think it was, which discuss his aggressive thoughts on God. After he sat down for the most awkard interview on earth.

This photo is not really accurate as it suggests those two were somewhat relaxed with one another, and it kind of appears as though the interviewer is almost actually looking at Richard. The interviewer seemed only interested in discussing the one thing Richard Hell did not want to: Television and the birth of the New York Punk scene. Richard compromised by charismatically telling funny party stories from that time. It was cute, but I'm glad this was the first thing we saw.

After we listened to Gerard Malanga read some of his poetry. Gerard is a poet and a photographer that is best know for being Andy Warhol's right-hand-man in the days of The Factory. As a photographer he specializes in portraiture. As a poet, he does the same.

He was such an engaging reader that immediately following, we ran down to the bookstore and bought one of his anthologies. We asked him to sign it, and he took it upon himself to edit the mistakes!

We then saw Akron Family play probably the funniest and least-pretentious show I've ever seen. Their set ranged from hippie-folk to freestyle rap, and even included a children's song about a bear getting honey from an enchanted forest. Super fun.

Saturday we went early to get seats for one of the the most talked-about performers of the festival, Patti Smith. She was entirely captivating. In her incredibly thoughtful performance she read poems by Sylvia Plaith, Allen Ginsberg, and paraphrased Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be". My most favourite part of her show was when she acoustically sang Lou Reed's "Perfect Day", with us – the audience – joining in for the chorus. It was very reminiscent of Buffy Saint-Marie's impromptu "Up Where We Belong" at our graduation ceremony.

After Patti, we saw Andrew Bird, who is probably the most talented human I've ever been in the same room with. His performance consisted of himself recording and playing back his music, and playing again with the recording, and recording that, and playing it back, etc. Using his feet to control the recording and play-back, he builds a song that is layered and gives the impression that there are many musicians on stage, when it's really just him. Not only is he an incredibly talented song-writer and musician, his timing is impeccable, and his whistling abilities were out of this world. And, on top of it all, he had a fever!

Please, buy tickets if he comes to a town near you!

I should mention

2007-11-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

that I got another job. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I'll be at my current job. Thursday and Friday I'll be working as a designer at a different studio.

Yay! Full-time employee!!

Also, here is a kalender I made for a bookstore.

Warning: this post will bore some readers.

2007-11-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

Just in case some of you were getting anxious to see some of my latest squiggle drawings made with Python, I thought I'd make a post dedicated to it.

I realize that an entire post dedicated to programming probably isn't that appealing to a wide range of our audience so, just for you, I've added this special introduction:

I've never been all that interested in the whole LOLCats (type in lolcats into Google if you don't know what I'm talking about) thing, nor have I ever found it remotely funny. That is, until now.
Erik van Blokland introduced us to LOLCat programming language, a functional language some guy created to write functions and programs for his computer. Here is a sample showing some LOLCat programming language. Keep in mind that this actually works as a functioning language.

HAI CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!
1 VISIBLE VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10?
KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
K THXBYE

I bet if I told you that Python (or other programming languages) will play a critical role as a tool for design innovation (and innovative design), you'd probably laugh at me. However, I am absolutely certain that using programming as a tool is already (and will continue become) an incredibly valuable tool for designers, both in terms of generating form, as well as within the design process itself. For instance, take a look at this:
To make this in a program like Illustrator would be near-impossible (if you think you can do it, I challenge you to). However, after writing a simple code (with the help of Just van Rossum), each of the images above can be generated in a fraction of a second, and are totally unique from one another. The final result of this will eventually be a typeface that uses python to generate continuous ribbons in the form of lettershapes.

At the conference we attended in Antwerp in early November, one of the key lectures was on the role of Python as a design tool. The presenters developed an interface/interpreter called Nodebox (http://nodebox.net/) which can be used to make things like this:

This is a typeface which can be customized to varying degrees of 'evilness' and was made entirely in Python.

Here is another example where they wrote a code that creates a 'mood-board' like collage drawing images from Google based on specified key-words. The relevance of something like this to visual research is quite obvious I think as the placement and scale of images are all determined by the relevance of the image to the key-word entered.

A final example by the same group creates colour charts based also on key-words specified by the user.

Sorry, people . . .

2007-11-26T11:38:00.000-08:00

Way back when I first posted our mailing address, it turns out that it was wrong! Eek! I know, I know. But that's mostly because we were very confused and many things on our mind, and didn't understand what our address even meant, let alone were able to identify that there was something out of place.

So, this is our correct address:

2e Schuytstraat 31
2517 XC The Hague
The Netherlands

If you have sent anything to us, I'm sorry to say we have not received it (and if we had, we'd be jerks to not aknowledge it anyway). So, update your address books!

Brian Went Dutch

2007-11-26T06:13:00.001-08:00

Ross' brother was visiting The Hague from Oslo for the past five days. Here are some of the things he did:

He went for coffee at the Kicking Horse Café, Holland's only outlet of the Canadian coffee company.

He tried on some wooden shoes.

He saw the Noordzee.

He went for Mexican food in Delft. You might think that was an usual choice of restaurant, but when you haven't seen a burrito or a piña colada in three months. . .

He played with his brother in Rotterdam's most dangerous playground.

He went to the fun-but-complicated Comic Strip Musuem in Brussels, Belgium.

He sampled Belgian beer. Here he is trying to decide which to taste first.

And so much more!

In fact, he may even write about it on his own blog, Your Way to Norway. While you're there, I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you clicked on the ad so he can afford his final two weeks in Oslo.

A Smiley Face?

2007-11-24T15:58:00.001-08:00

You should all be relieved to know a small goal was achieved this afternoon: I've now seen the Bryan Adams space on the Rotterdam Walk of Fame.

It's live . . .

2007-11-21T00:19:00.000-08:00

Here is a website I made at work for a Dutch photographer. (I don't like the photo on the opening page, but it was the photographer's choice.)

It's my first website! How exciting. And no, I didn't do the programming. I think it's better to leave that to the pros ( . . . Abi).

Great news!

2007-11-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

An employee from the cable company came by today to fix our TV. We actually didn't know there was something wrong in the first place. Because we only received a few channels and they were all in Dutch, we haven't watched any TV for the past two and a half months. But then we got a new neighbor in the apartment next door, and she thought there was something wrong, and we should be getting more channels.

The main hook-up for the entire building is in our apartment, so we've had people from the cable company coming by lately to figure things out.

Anyway, to get to the point, we now have 38 channels of Dutch, French, and British television! It's so great! I watched Sesamstraat (Sesame Street – supposedly it's the best way to learn the language), Food Poker – a British show that combines two of Ross' passions – and what I'm most excited for, the Dutch version of Project Runway, Project Catwalk. I don't know what they're saying, but juicy drama is a universal language! I'm hooked!

Sinter-chaos

2007-11-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

I have a really funny video of the mayhem before the Sinterklaas parade, but Blogger is having problems posting it. So, I'll just give you a play-by-play.

It starts with someone throwing mini cookies into the crowd, which encourages children in their weird costumes to run from the other side of the street to collect them.

The kids were picking them up off the ground and putting them in their mouths. As they were doing this, more and more cookies are hitting everything in sight.

To express his joy, this kid starts bouncing around in a strange Zwarte Piet jig-like thing, as the young child in the background crawls under a car for a cookie.

I pan the camera and catch this kid in the red hat, just as he's about to throw a handful. He's scanning the crowd for a target, and when he sees me, he takes aim. . .

and fires! At this point, there is much jiggling of the camera, as I'm being pelted with cookies. (Note that other kid on the left. I don't trust those eyes.)

The mad dash for cookies is now taking place directly in front of me.

This little "bull-in-a-china-shop" gets in on the action. I think she ran from across the city when she heard there were cookies up for grabs. Look at the determination in her face: she only has one think on her mind. Cookies.

In the meantime, a hailing of cookies continues to spatter upon me.

This little girl is witnessing the measures her competition has gone to, to get the prize. Apparently there were cookies behind my feet, and that hell-bent little blond girl isn't just climbing all over my feet to get the cookies, she pries my legs apart to climb through.

As I'm losing my balance, I turn the camera to see who's throwing cookies at me, and it's that kid with the untrustworthy eyes! I knew it!

And now he's all shy. He knows I have evidence.

Blondie resurfaces from under the crowd's feet, no doubt with a Sinter-sack full of cookies. The competition on the left knows that although she's the one wearing the fancy costume, Blondie is the reigning champion of the cookie-scramble.

After this, Blondie skips away, like a sweet little girl.

The End.

Sinterklaas is in The Hague

2007-11-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

I recently noticed a poster that read Sinterklaas was going to be on the old shopping street close to our home, today at 1:45pm. When the time came, I convinced Ross to put aside his homework so we could go see Sinterklaas.

Sinterklaas is a very special man to the Dutch. He is not what the Dutch call Santa Claus; they are two different people. In fact, Santa is here too, but according to my work mates, "nobody believes in him." Sinterklaas, on the other hand, is the real deal.

Every year around this time, he arrives from Spain on a steamboat. He lives in Spain the rest of the year, and if I was Mrs. Claus, I'd be pretty jealous. I've never been to the North Pole, but I've been to Spain, and I'm pretty sure I know where I'd prefer to spend my time off.

Sinterklaas' journey here is tracked on the news, and apparently he has terrible luck every year, and something always goes wrong. In previous years, he has had the map upside down, or was going in the wrong direction, or has forgotten all of his necessities back in Spain. Somehow, however, he always manages to get it together just in time. Once his steamboat arrives, he is publicly welcomed by the mayor of a different Dutch city each year. I don't know where he arrived this year, but he made his way to The Hague today.

But Sinterklaas is not alone. First of all, he rides a beautiful white horse named Amerigo. Also, he has many helpers, known as Zwarte Piets. Zwarte Piets wear 16th century colourful Spanish clothes, but their most recognizable feature is their black faces. Supposedly they are black because they have the task of climbing down the chimneys and they are permanently covered in soot.

For us sensitive North Americans, the idea of seeing white people paint their faces black seems . . . hmmm . . . "inapropriate", but it's all a part of the Dutch holiday spirit.

When we made our way down to the street, I don't know what we were expecting, but I definitely didn't expect for all the kids to be dressed up. Some of them were dressed as Sinterklaas, but most of them were dressed as Zwarte Piets, complete with painted black faces.

We had been warned ahead of time by our Canadian neighbour, but it was still quite surprising to see these little blond-haired, blue-eyed, black-faced kids.

All the kids had Sinterklaas sacks, and we learned later that the Zwarte Piets hand out cookies. (Or, if you don't have a Sinter-sack, the Zwarte Piets will just throw cookies into your purse :) It was pretty chaotic. Obviously the kids were really excited. As everyone was waiting for Sinterklaas to arrive, many of the kids started throwing cookies at each other (see video.)

Finally, the event started to happen. I thought Sinterklaas was just going to be saying hello, but it was a full out parade! There were hundreds of Zwarte Piets singing, dancing, playing music, and throwing cookies in my purse.

This one grabbed me and started dancing and automatically posed for the photo:

It was by far the most chaotic, dangerous parade I've ever seen. The street was so narrow, I think it's a Christmas miracle that no one was run over.

Finally Sinterklaas arrived, on the beautiful Amerigo. Note that Sinterklaas is in much better physical heath than Santa Claus.

For someone that spends all year in Spain, he's pretty pale. Sinterklaas must be wearing lots of sunscreen.

It was very fun.

a byte or two

2007-11-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

One of our other assignments currently is to create a monogram containing our first and last initial (RM). This has nothing to do with my actual monogram but it was a funny bi-product of something I was doing. I'll post the actual monogram in a few days or so.

R

2007-11-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

Since Grace has made a few posts recently about the misconceptions people have of what is prototypically Canadian (see her last post + anything about Maple Syrup), it seems fitting to make a post that shows that the opposite is also true.

Tonight four of us were eating dinner before our night lecture when the shows Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm came up. Berton and I, being the only North Americans present (Mathieu is Swiss and Gus is Brazilian), were the only ones who knew what these two shows were and so our enthusiasm was quite evident I think. When we tried to describe Curb Your Enthusiasm, the obvious starting point was to say that it is based on the personality and life of Larry David "the guy who co-wrote Seinfeld".

Unfortunately, neither Mathieu nor Gus had ever seen Seinfeld, so the comparison was completely missed. To Berton and I, this was totally shocking. Seinfeld was in many ways a generation defining show and, like the Simpsons, has even been responsible for the introduction of now common phrases into North American speech.

On another note, I promised I would post some photos of my first venture into stone carving. This is the second assignment and it's currently in progress. I was hoping to finish it yesterday but we couldn't carve due to a big assembly of ambassadors who had a meeting scheduled at the school. Since our carving creates a lot sharp and repetitive banging sounds for hours on end, the school administration asked if we could postpone our class. Anyway, the assignment is to carve a capital R as this contains all the essential shapes that one needs to carve the rest of the letters. It works out well for me since I get a nice little initial out of the deal.

On the bike-ride home after our lecture in Delft, the Buitenhoff (parliament building) was nicely illuminated so I took a photo of it. See for yourself: