How we spend our time

We are not finding Eindhoven as family-friendly as Almelo, at least not the area we are living in.  If we were inclined to shop, then there would be plenty to do.  Seth hazards the hypothesis that since buying a nice car or building a nice house is not so much a priority in the Netherlands, more money goes into discretionary spending like clothing and gadgetry, and boy, you can tell.  There are so many clothing stores, electronics stores, shoe stores (especially shoe stores), and little tasty tidbit stores that I've started cataloguing the Starbucks effect.  Didn't I just see that store a block ago? 

Boo's first happy experience with a carousel.  There was a time
when she would not go anywhere near a carousel horse, but
now it's one of her favourite things. 

We do indulge in a little bit of shopping, though not that kind.  There is an open air market in the square across the street every Tuesday, so we wander through that to buy our produce, some fish, and some wonderful pastries.  When the market is open, so is the carousel which thrills Boogaloo to no end.  We also hit the grocery store two or three times a week (at least).  We've noticed that the Dutch don't really believe in family-sized packages.  For instance, milk doesn't come in larger than half gallon containers.  By the same token, produce seems to spoil rapidly, so it's no good stocking up.  Consequently, we wander down the street to the Jan Linders on an almost daily basis.    

Boogaloo observes the fish in the canal that runs through central
Eindhoven. 

Walking is probably what we do the most of.  There is a lovely greenway along the Dommel River that ends in a children's park and wildlife preserve just outside the high school.  I would go there every day, but it's about an hour's walk which is a long time for little feet (and little bladders, and since they don't believe in public potties for Dutch parks, we don't go there very often. The Dutch have come up with an ingenious system for managing the call of nature.  You can go into any public place you want to use the "toiletten," but you have to pay 50 cents.  Some of the gas stations let you use the 50 cents to buy something in the convenience store.  The only problem with the green way is that it's surrounded by apartments and schools, so ducking in and borrowing a potty isn't a possibility.) 

The greenway by the Dommel River. 

"What is it?" Boogaloo said, and I had no answer.
 It sits in the middle of the canal, and evidently it moves, but I don't know what it is. 

The Van Abbe Art Museum, which we have not been in, but
which Boogaloo loves for the horses. 

More breathtaking greenway by the Dommel River.  An elderly gentleman on a bicycle who spoke no English told me that this kind of park is called a "Park Frank" or German-style park.  Of course, I also thought he told me that there was no slide at the end, and there was, so take my understanding with a grain of salt. 

The greenway is dotted with weeping willows, possibly my favorite tree on earth.  If it were just more convenient for small children, we would spend all day every day there. 

We've just discovered another little park on the other side of the shopping center, but even that is half an hour away.  Sometimes I wish we could just borrow the grass in the churchyard across the street for an hour or so, but they have it all fenced off.  I get the feeling that a lot of university students (Eindhoven is a university town) have borrowed the grass before. 

When we aren't walking, we're mostly at home in our little apartment. Boogaloo spends a little time on the computer each day improving her vocabulary. She just mastered the use of the mouse which means she can direct her own course. She likes that. She's also discovered that she can climb up on the window sill, so now she uses it for everything from a bed for her animals to an imaginary mountain to climb (we had to put a stop to the mountain climbing. It was making me nervous.). We hunted down a toy store at the top of one of the malls across the street and bought her some sidewalk chalk and bubbles which keep her entertained on the patio.



Boo stands proudly among her pictures on the patio.  Our patio is
now so full up of pictures that we're waiting for a good rain to
erase it all so Boo can draw again. 

Boogaloo masters the mouse on Starfall.com.  What you see in the cups in a Dutch food called "vla," which
we suspect is American pudding in cartons.  It's very tasty and comes
in an amazing array of flavors, and like most of the food out here, it's
pretty cheap. 

Once Seth comes home, and he often comes home early, then we hop in the car and seek out some of the local sights. We found an open-air historical museum last week, but it was closing as we found it, so I have no pictures as of the moment. We also found historical caves outside of a neighboring city, but we didn't find the touring schedule until they were closed, so we hope to take that in before we leave too. In spite of our bad timing, we always find something worth seeing. In place with this much history, it would be impossible to go a day without finding something. 

The artwork over the doorway of the Church of St. Joris (St. George).