And now it's Winter

Last night neither one of us got much sleep because the wind decided to wake up and hold a party outside our building.

Unforeseen side affect of living on the tenth floor with lots of big picture windows: The wind doesn't think it has to stay outside. From the time we lay down until the time we got up, the wind cycled back and forth between medium to gale force. It sounded like someone had a popcorn machine at one side of the bedroom window and someone else was dancing on bubble wrap at the other end.

The popcorn sound comes from a unique feature to Dutch apartments. Instead of having to open a window, there are vents in each room that parallel the windows. So when you want fresh air, minus the chill and noise, you crack a vent instead of a window. Problem being, the vent also acts as a mini wind tunnel. Whether open or closed and it hollered all night.

The other end of the room is next to the neighbors outdoor porch which must have just gotten destroyed last night. It sounded like every piece of pottery and furniture she (Anika, we just met this evening in the elevator) had must have ended up ten floors below by morning. Matt told me that on the walk to the bus station this morning he passed a huge branch broken off of one of the trees lining the path. By the time I walked down there, 2 men with a little truck were cleaning up the wreckage.

It rained most of the day, making it the kind of day that makes you miss having a car. Regardless, I buried myself in scarves and sweaters, and went to buy extra towels and random organizers (at Ikea of all places), and trucked them home via the bus. The hanging closet space in our room is about a foot and a half wide, and the guest room has no wardrobe at all, so we're trying to make things functional without being too permanant since 6 months is already seeming to close in on us.

The extra towels are for the gym. Tonight Matt and I went to Special Sports for the first time as real live members. We had our intro last Friday, and we got put through our paces when all we really expected was a weigh in, safety talk, and a few "what are your goals questions". This gym (sports center or fitness center to the Dutch) is the first thing that I know for sure I will miss when we're state side again. Aside from the congregation, of course. I haven't taken any pictures there because we haven't even seen it in daylight yet. Our first visit, with a trainer named Guan, felt like a true workout. It took 2 and a half hours. They have a very useful system where you are given a "key" that gets encoded with all of your personal information, including how you did on a 10 -12 minute bicycle test measuring your max heart capacity and oxygen intake and usage, and a weigh in that tells you the muscle to fat ratio in every limb of the body, as well as in gross. It kind of reminded me of the Wii Fit balance board, but leveled up. Based on all of this, and of course, your actual goals, the trainer programs your key with a fitness program. Seriously. You take the key, plug it in to a kiosk that tells you what machine to begin on. Once on the machine, for instance, the treadmill, you plug your key into a slot in the machine (next to the iPod doc also built in) and it pops up your name and begins your program. None of this manually adjusting the speed or incline as you go. It just goes, and adjusts how ever the instructor has it programmed to. And at the end of the routine (we chose 45-60 minutes for me, and 60-75 for Matt since I take the longest in the locker room...) you go back to the kiosk, and check out. It tells you whether you completed your assigned excersizes. It tells you if you went above and beyond on any particular machine. It calculates all of your calorie burn, and tracks your progress. As Guan said, it's for lazy people. Its pretty amazing. To enter the gym, you hold the key near a reader, and then scan your palm to make sure it's really you . Yet, they charge .20 cents for a locker (smarties made it so that you can also put money on your key to pay for a locker with), and don't have a towel service. Guess you can't have everything.

We did a spinning class together tonight. My very first. It was hard, but really great. The bikes face a huge wall where the instructor can project whatever they want. I think that we were watching Koyaanisqatsi. That'll keep you moving fast. I was pretty intimidated by it in the past, and by the typical price for a class. Here, all of the classes are free, and they are all pretty amazing. Never heard of an Xco before, but they have a class using one here. It's sort of like a weighted tube that you shake around and move like a mariachi. Sounds easy, until you feel the weight of it. I've never been on a Power Plate before either, but they have them in the gym and in classes too. Matt says I'm gonna love it. They look to me kind of like the machine from Blast from the Past that the mom hangs out on in the bunker while sipping her martini. You stand on it and it shakes. The goal is to improve core strength, but I don't really get it yet. Oh, and our first time there, we had to squeeze our way past some people talking to each other across two tables (because we did our sign up papers in the full blown fancy pants restaurant). We found out later that the one who moved for us was this guy: Remy Bonjasky, "The Flying Gentleman". Those links are for you, Jared. Matt wishes you could see this place :) Glad he actually is a gentleman, and kindly moved aside for us to pass. Because I'm pretty sure he could have clobbered us, thoroughly, had he been touchy.

As we walked from the bus stop to a nearby cafe (Dixon's) for some late night soup and sammies, we saw huge stadium light set up and a truck all covered in lights saying "27.9 Miljoen". We couldn't get very close because they had it cordoned off. Turns out that they film quite often in Stadsplein, here by our apartment. This time, a commercial for the local version of the lotto. The had cars speeding around a handful of men dressed in old time butler gear, and carrying heavy looking metal chests. In fact they just shut off the huge lights a few minutes ago. Which is a good thing, because they had my kitchen lit up bright as day, and the glare came through the bedroom curtains. Not another sleepless night, please... And the rains back in earnest. That I can sleep through, just so long as the wind stays elsewhere.