Tea

I drank a lot of tea today. I never used to be a fan of tea. It's not that I hated it, I just didn't prefer it...then I moved to The Netherlands. You see here they drink a LOT of tea and coffee. It's just what they do to be social. They don't say, "let's visit", it's "let's have coffee".

Well, I started with asking for coffee all the time because I enjoy coffee a lot but unfortunately, if I drink it at night time I tend to have a hard time falling asleep and that's the main time they sit down to drink it. So I had to adjust. And what I discovered is tea is great. It has so much variety. Just today I had three different kinds (orange, strawberry and spice) It's so much fun to try out the different flavors. I think my favorite so far is spice.

Plus, somehow tea seems healthier to me than coffee. I don't have any scientific facts to back it up, I just don't feel as "ick" when I drink tea. Don't get me wrong, coffee is wonderful in it's own right. My goodness, I wouldn't remember a bit of London the first time around with out it! But there's also that awful after taste and semi-headache that comes with drinking too much of it at the wrong time. Tea doesn't have that.

Although I'm now finding out (at 11:30pm) that it contains enough caffeine that after 6 cups in one day it can have a coffee like effect on my sleep. darn! Oh well. Another annoying disadvantage to all this tea is, my teeth have lost a lot of there Crest-Night-Affect-ness. boo! But other than that I've really learned to appreciate tea and all it's variety. Now all I have to do is learn how to limit it enough to get some sleep!

The blahs...

regen regen
ga toch weg
kom pas terug
als ik het seg...

I'm so ready for summer! It's been grey and not really cold but not really warm for a few days now. I got my bike back though which I'm happy about. Rotterdam has this new thing where if you park your bike anywhere other than on a black parking place they take it away and you have to pay €15 to get it back! The dumb thing is, they're doing construction and pulled up most of the parking places so there are not enough places to park! *sigh* Oh well...at least it wasn't stolen. But I was without it for almost a week because of Good Friday and then the two Easter days. Plus, I have to buy a new lock for it because they cut mine, so that will be expensive. Oh well...like I said, at least I have the bike back safe and sound. But all that aside, Easter was nice and spring is here! woo hoo!

Baby Pictures

I finally got a couple pictures of Liz's baby so here they are *smile*







Isn't he beautiful? Definitely a Staub :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Italy

Well, I had an amazing weekend. I took a trip with my friend Anna Maria to Italy. We flew into Pisa and spent the day there


Here's me in front of the tower.


A city street in Pisa.


The weather was beautiful and we lounged around on the grass around the tower for awhile and just soaked up the sun.


I then went up to the top of the tower. That was so crazy because you could actually feel the lean as you were walking up the spiral staircase!


When we'd seen all we wanted to see in Pisa we took the train to Florence. Isn't it a beautiful city?


One of the first things we visited was the Cathedral. I honestly think, from the outside, this cathedral was the most spectacular building I've ever seen in my life. This picture doesn't come close to doing it justice...it really took my breath away.


This is the ceiling of the dome of the cathedral. Absolutely amazing as well.


This is me at the top of the dome.


Later we went to the Accadamia and saw The David by Michelangelo. The detail of this work of art is unreal especially because it's huge. Something you definitely never forget.


This is a bridge in Florence. It actually has little shops on it, very cute.


Sunday we took the bus to a little beautiful little town on a hill outside Florence called Fiesole.


We sat on the top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the houses and hills below for most of the afternoon. It was so wonderful and relaxing.


It was a good trip and I look forward to returning again in the future.

Yea!

I have a new nephew! *big smile* Hunter Mitchel Staub. He was born around 6am (U.S. time)7lbs, 6oz. and 20" long. Everything went really well and my sister Liz and the baby are resting now. I'll post pictures of him when I get some. Praise God!!

London!

Well, London was wonderful. It was very different being there by myself, but I had a good time. I flew in late Friday night. The flight was super short (about 40 mins) which was very nice. Once I got there it was too late to do anything though so I just found my hostel and went to bed.

I got up Saturday and did a little shopping on my way to The National Gallery. I got to spend a couple hours there which was very nice. Plus, it's free of admission so even though it was a weekend it didn't feel at all crowded because there were no lines.


This was a storyteller I happened upon while I was inside the museum. She was very interesting and animated. I would love to do something like what she was doing!

This is me in front of the Gallery

After I was done there I made my way to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I did have to pay for that but it was worth it to me. It was a very neat tour and it made me want to definitely come back sometime in the summer to actually see a show there.


You can see The Globe in the background.

Then I went next door to the Tate Modern museum. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I never thought of myself as a real "fan" of modern art but this museum gave me a whole new perspective on it. I loved that there were so many hidden messages and meanings behind each piece. My favorite piece was Hyena Stomp by Frank Stella and the reason is because the artist was thinking about syncopation when he painted it. I just thought it was the perfect image of syncopation.


This was a man outside the museum, you'd think he was a statue if you didn't know better. Very fun.

After I was done there I went across the river to St. Paul's Cathedral and there happened to be a mass going on so I sat in for that. It was very neat. I'm not catholic, but I think their services are absolutely beautiful.


There's St. Paul's behind me.

Sunday I mostly just wandered around the Subway system, lol.




Which is a lot easier than trying to figure out which way the cars are coming from!




I did manage to make it the whole weekend without so much as a close call. I was only able to do that by looking back and forth about six times both ways before crossing the street as my brain simply doesn't comprehend the cars driving on the left side of the road! lol.

I visited Harrods only to find out they're closed on Sundays. Oh well, it's probably for the best since I would've been tempted to spend more money than I needed to, hehe. I then headed out to the airport and back home.


There's my plane. I actually got to use stairs on and off the plane for the first time! I've always wanted to do that.

I really enjoyed myself. London is a wonderful city and I can't wait to go back again.