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Squares (Or: A Chicago pizza pie)

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Niki

This past Christmas, Marco and Roger came with me to meet my parents in Chicago for the first time. The very first night we were there, we ordered pizza.

It’s a family sized pizza, since we wanted leftovers the next day (of which there were plenty!). And the pizza made Marco drool. He was reminiscing about it a week or two ago, specifically that the pizza was cut into squares not slices.. If you look closely, you can see the square cuts.

Of course, I had no idea that about 36 hours later (give or take a few) I would be engaged. The proposal happened while unwrapping gifts Christmas morning. I really had no idea. Even when someone at church accidentally almost gave it away at the Christmas Eve service… I was totally clueless and said “No…? We’re not getting engaged until later in 2012.” Oh how little I knew.

As Marco mentioned, there was a lot of scheming going on. He actually called my parents a month or so prior about the upcoming engagement, and my parents actually wrapped up the ring box in a stocking for the dog. They knew I’d help unwrap the dogs present. And then of course there was also the scheming being done for my mom’s Christmas gift – a new netbook. It was very hard to concentrate on her unwrapping her gift, since I was spending too much time staring at my new ring!

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: , | 3 Comments

Jackets (Or: Statue of Liberty in October)

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Niki

The air is getting cold here. (Well, we’ll ignore the fact that it is forecast to be pretty warm Sunday, comparatively.)

I didn’t wear a jacket today. (But I definitely pondered one.)

I didn’t want to put the heat on. (But I did.)

At some point during my videochat with Marco today, I was reminded of the October 2010 trip with Marco. He visited me while I was studying at Rutgers and we went to New York City a few times. Including my first time seeing the Statue of Liberty.

Of course, I forgot how much colder it is out on the water. Marco asked me if I wanted a jacket a few times, but I said no. And then we got up on the ferry…

and yep, I sheepishly asked if I could borrow his jean jacket (and he said yes!) So I spent most of the ferry ride wearing an oversized jacket. It was nice, if I do say so myself.

And here is a view of the New York skyline from the ferry. Good times.

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July (Or: Crowds, police, and heat)

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Niki

Lately it seems that it has gotten colder. October is definitely here. I even had to pull out my jacket once this week, as the mornings are getting rather cold. I suspect by next week I will be wearing it every day, unfortunately.

So I was looking at the July 4 pictures Marco and I took of NYC in 2009 (previous post). Heat! Warmth! …and way too many crowds.

See? I wasn’t joking about the crowds. This is part of Times Square, after the fireworks ended.

This was one police meeting area in the early afternoon of July 4. All I remember about this picture is right before that, Marco had made a joke about donuts. 😛

Categories: Holidays, Marco&Niki | Tags: | 2 Comments

Blue art (Or: The Hague pre-dawn)

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Niki

Marco took this picture on his way to the airport to catch his flight to the States. As you can tell, he was up early to make sure he did not miss his flight! I believe the art is/was near the public library (Openbare Bibliotheek Den Haag).

Categories: Culture | Tags: | 2 Comments

Changes (Or: The dreaded “female touch”)

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Niki

From Marco…

Niki’s arrival is coming closer and closer. And with that, the changes to my apartment.

My bedroom will be redone (it currently has a one person bed and obviously I’ll need a bit more closet space). But the biggest changes will be in my living room. I will be getting a new pair of couches (the current ones are at the end of their life cycle) which I am totally cool with.
But beyond that..we’re going to have to try my single guy’s room into a couple’s room. As you can see in evidence A below – the picture of my DVD cabinets I have a large collection of movies.And while Niki’s fine with that and is looking forward to watching (some of) them with me, is she okay with adding another one of the huge cabinets, letting it dominate one side of the room? Well, it already dominates one side..but maybe they’ll conquer another wall as well..

Then there’s evidence B. My tv set-up. There’s an xbox, dvd player, blu-ray player and even an old vcr which isn’t even hooked up anymore. (And actually another dvd player that isn’t working/not hooked up)
Not pictured is the stereo that connects my 5.1 sound system.

Continue reading →

Categories: Apartment, Marco&Niki | Tags: | 6 Comments

Butterfly effect (Or: Appetite for Destruction)

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Niki

From Roger… (!!)

Let me paint a picture. 1987, just got out of the ‘brugklas’, and school was starting again.

I had a new class-mate. We did not really hang out much that year, since loads of my brugklas mates were still in the same class, including a friend I had had since kindergarten so I did not really need new friends.

We part ways the next year since I went to a different class. Then Appetite for Destruction happens.

Significant in many ways.

For one, it is arguably the best album in the history of rock, but also since I was one of the first ones that had the album in my ‘circles’.. (yeah right like i was ever part of any circles). I did not have a cd-player yet, so I purchased the album (that was the era when people paid for music, you young folk!) on cassette tape (uhm, look it up on Wikipedia, young folk!).

The other significant thing that the album made happen was sort of like a like a butterfly effect.

That one kid that I did not really hang out with when he was in my class all week long got wind of the fact that I had the GNR tape as we now like to call it. He asked me to borrow it and the rest is history.

Marco and I quickly became best friends. Together we have been through a lot. The butterfly effect I meant was that if that album did not happen to be in my possession we would not have started to hang out, would not have bonded over wrestling, hockey, music etc.. we might not have gone to the US to go to said wrestling and hockey and who knows, Marco might not have ended up meeting the lovely Niki.

So on this, the 25th anniversary of Marco and I meeting, his life is about to change again, this time really for the better, when his fiancé moves across an ocean, to a different continent to be with him.

And perhaps all because of one cassette tape.

02-10-2012

Roger

Categories: Friends&Family | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Packing (Or: She’s about to take over)

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Niki

From Marco…

So my trip is almost coming to an end (I’m leaving on Tuesday) and obviously I’m not thrilled about it.
But unlike pretty much all of the previous visits (both mine and Niki’s) this time it feels different.
Of course there’s the fact that we both know it’s going to be about 70 days until we’re together again. I think it will be one of the shortest periods between seeing one another (I think the shortest was in 2009). But most important, we know this will be the last time I fly to the Netherlands without her.
The last time we have to say goodbye at the train station or airport.
Knowing that makes it a bit less sour and annoying.. 😉

One of the worst things at the end of each visit is packing up my stuff again, back into my luggage. It’s always a sad moment…


But this time it was a bit more amusing and maybe..dare I say…entertaining.
We spent some time this weekend packing up some of Niki’s belongings to see how much suitcases and such we’re going to need at the end of this year.
It seems that if I manage to bring as little as needed then we just might be able to squeeze everything into three pieces of luggage and two-three items of carry-on.  Cool.

I am bringing some stuff over already though. Just some books, some spare shoes and such.
That means the moment is here. She’s about to take over my closets, impose her will on the layout of my apartment.. oh boy. I’m looking forward to it 🙂

Categories: Marco&Niki, Moving | Tags: | 2 Comments

Bugs (Or: Is your butt on fire?)

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Niki

A few days ago I wrote a blog post for Niki that I sent to her even before I came over. Today I’m writing this life, while tied to her fridge. No, just kidding..I’m lying down on the floor as I often do at her place.

For a week or so I wanted to write about the crazy subject of bugs. I have several fun memories of Niki attached to some of those sometimes bothersome little creatures.

There’s the one about her first day in the Netherlands ever. We went out for a walk, and ending up on ‘ het plein’ which is a famous place in The Hague, right next to the Binnenhof. The statue of ‘Willem de zwijger’ is in the center of the square.  As you might recall there is a copy of that statue in New Brunswick where Niki studied.

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Countdown (To: The Dutchie invasion)

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Niki

Categories: Marco&Niki | 4 Comments

Election day (Or: Strategic voting at its finest)

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Niki

From Marco…

Wednesday we got to go vote for a new parliament/house of representatives and cabinet. A few months ago the coalition that formed our cabinet fell apart, forcing new elections.

First of all, let me explain how it works here. There are 150 spots in the parliament (or as we call it “tweede kamer” – second chamber) We go vote for one of the many parties that are vying for these seats or chairs as we often refer to them. There were 21 parties this time around iirc, but only 10 of them got a seat.

Translation: Polling place entrance. (Lit: Entrance Polling Place)

To be able to form the cabinet (the group of ministers/secretaries and prime-minister) you usually need to have at least 75 of the seats. It’s nearly impossible for one party to get this.
So they form coalitions. Which is not always easy, several parties have to try and come together, try to form a coherent plan etcetera. Last time around that took ’em six months or something. And well.. yeah the coalition fell apart after two years.

So we voted again yesterday. Interesting to me was that one party, the SP (socialist party) was doing great in the polls up until about three weeks ago. Since then they’ve gone from the predicted 30+ seats to 15, which is the same they had in 2010. It seemed that while their plans were alright, the party leader just wasn’t able to bring it across.

Compare that to the PvdA (partij van de arbeid, labor party) who did the complete opposite. They were around 15-20 seats a few weeks ago and soared to 38 in the end. Though I do think that they ended up with a lot of ‘strategic votes’.. Just like the SP they are (slightly) left wing.

From the get go it was obvious that the VVD (liberal party so slightly to the right) was going to be one of the two largest parties this time. So in the end, when the SP was in the ropes and the PvdA was a few seats behind the VVD..it makes sense to vote for the PvdA to make sure at least one of the left parties is close to them in size.

Anyways, they’ll start with the talks to form a coalition now.
We’ll see how that goes. It’s not always a foregone conclusion that the biggest parties end up working together.

Anyways II, yes when I went to vote I did think “Last time I vote without Niki here. I wonder if she’s allowed to vote here at some point”
I’m not 100% sure actually. I sort of assume that you’re allowed to vote here after spending X number of years in the country. But again, I’m not sure. I guess we’ll have to look it up at some point. 😉

Categories: Culture | 4 Comments

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