Posts Tagged With: Books

zaterdag (Or: Flying from LaGuardia to Newark)

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Niki

It’s been quite a random zaterdag (Saturday) already.

1. Shoprite trip — for random items including shaved steak and a refill on my flossers. You can buy packages with like 30 flossing heads in them. A bit of a panic for that, since I couldn’t find it right away. I hated flossing until I found these things (they look like a toothbrush) because it is the only thing that could easily floss my teeth.

2. Trip to the library to return 1Q84, which was a whopping 925 pages long and I never really opened. It’s by Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors. My favorite book, Kafka on the Shore (English version) is set in a small town library. I really should have picked out something shorter.

3. Put holds on two books in nearby libraries. Culture and customs of the Netherlands and My ‘Dam Life. I am grabbing the second one with some reservations, since most of the reviews weren’t that good. But libraries are free, so what the heck. I did enjoy The UnDutchables when I read it a few years ago, even if it is biased and exaggerated.

Why did I put holds on two books? I have a 4 day weekend coming up (Friday vacation, Monday is Memorial Day) and I figured in theory I might be bored and in the mood to read.

5. For a late Mother’s Day present I got my mom a downloadable version of King’s Quest (4, 5, 6) from gog.com. I have never used them before but she was able to download it and check out all 3 games. It was only $10 – worth it for 3 games that play on Windows 7.

6. Watched the NY Rangers beat the Devils, 3-0. Woot. They now lead the series 2-1. The coolest thing that came out of this game was Delta airline’s offer to fly Rangers fans from LaGuardia to Newark Airport for the game (a 17 minute flight). I wonder if they served drinks…

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | 6 Comments

Kids books (Or: I am a librarian after all)

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Niki

Today was the first day that I did not need to wear a jacket in the morning. Mind you, it was a bit cold and rainy, but it was worth it to not have to lug it home in the warm afternoon! And any day is a plus when you bring een paraplu (an umbrella) and end up not needing it.

One of the things I did on the last trip to the Netherlands was finding a nice old bookshop in the Hague. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of it. Roger and I found it first while we were wandering around (Roger even showed me his and Marco’s old high school on that trip). I then dragged Marco back to the bookshop a few days later.

One of the books I got there was a kids book from the “De Korenwolf” series which was the name of a fictional hotel that a family lived in. Here was the book I found (with an obligatory Google translated link). I’ll admit that I am still stuck somewhere in the 3rd chapter, but at least it’s more interesting than picture books. I’ll always treasure the Dikkie Dik books you give me, however, Marco!

It is definitely a challenge – I am by no means saying that I understand most of what is going on without pulling out a dictionary every three words – but it is at least a fun challenge.

However the REAL challenge is finding the time to sit down and hammer out a few pages after getting home from work!

Categories: Learning Dutch | Tags: , | 2 Comments

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