Spring is here!!

I think this is the third day now where it has neither snowed nor rained, and it is just sunny and warm. I did enjoy the real winter weather when it was here but this sense of spring feels promising. Last week the clocks went forward - weird to be on 'summertime' when there is snow on the ground. Admittedly it is called Daylight Savings here. Lucas of course was hit by jetlag as a result of the extra hour, and getting him up and ready for school was challenging quite a few days this week. On Wednesdays when I don't have meetings I work from home, and so this Wednesday I was able to just let him sleep while I worked, and then took him into nursery around 10. It's nice for us both to have that break from the morning rush in the middle of the week. In the afternoon after I picked him up from school I had arranged with another mom to take our kids to the Botanical Gardens, taking advantage of the longer light. When we got there it was still light alright, but it was also insanely cold. We ran through the gardens for about 20 minutes, admiring a few frozen stalks, then got back into our cars and drove to the nearest cafe. We'll go again in April...

Friday evening it was drinks with junior faculty in the enormous university bar on campus. I had first declined the invitation because of my parental responsibilities, but then I realised kids are actually welcome here, even in drinking establishments. So Lucas joined in with serious conversation about tenure and wayward students. Pics above. He did go AWOL for a while which meant that all junior faculty had to suddenly jump up and go for a treasure hunt, and a fellow-Dutch mathematician found my boy at the ATM/cashpoint. Where else. He didn't get any money out though. Lucas realised that running off was a really good way of getting loads of attention, rather than being stuck at a table with juice and popcorn, so then we went home.

Saturday it was International Food Fair at the local primary school. If we stay here, and stay in University Housing, then that would be Lucas's school. We went along to enjoy the fair, there are so many nationalities at the school because of the University, and it was a great event. There were food stalls from all over the world, and fortunately for Lucas there also was free pizza and ice cream. Then we went and played in the playground - pics of that and the school grounds above.

We then visited a Dutch professor of Chinese whom I had met a few weeks earlier. He and his wife live in the posh part of university housing where I have also applied for. They do indeed have a great place, which was of course a destruction zone in no time thanks to my boy's energetic explorations. Look mom, sugarpot - crash. They were very tolerant of it and we managed to stay over an hour, while Lucas munched biscuits and smeared chocolate all over their sofa. They recommended a Chinese supermarket not too far away, so when Lucas needed a nap (read: when mommy needed Lucas to have a nap) I plonked him in the carseat and drove off. The supermarket was an amazing place, tons of stuff in a little shop next to a petrol pump, and I shopped for oyster sauce and dumplings while Lucas slept. In the evening I had some colleagues round for dinner so it was quite the sociable day!

Today we are going to the zoo with another Dutch friend and her children. I do mingle with non-Dutch people, honestly, I guess that it feels like such a surprise to meet other Dutch people in a small university town in the States that the obvious response is to arrange to meet up. I am planning our Sinterklaas party already! (non-Dutch readers will have to google this cultural reference. I mentioned Sinterklaas to a non-Dutch person the other day, who said with great disdain: oh is that that Dutch festival where all the white people blacken up and pretend to be the slaves of the white guy with the beard? I did feel a little shamed by that, especially as that does seem to be the essence of it. Anyway - I'll be sending my pepernoten requests in November.)

Just a housekeeping note to finish off: some of my "followers" have queried if they can have automatic notifications when a new blog appears. I haven't found out how to do that so if any of you readers out there know, please post a comment. See you next week - we're off to DC later in the week so I will post a full report when we return.