Easter & the Paas Haas Taart

Vrolijk Pasen or Happy (Second Day) of Easter! Easter is celebrated with two days here in the Netherlands. First and second day, similar to Christmas. Today is the second day of Easter or Pasen and we're spending a relaxing day at home playing board games, drinking tea, and enjoying our day off from work.


In keeping with a Pardo family Easter tradition, I baked my mom's Easter Bunny cake. I had fun decorating the cake with Jaap's nephews and showing them how to decorate the Easter Bunny (Paas Haas) in my broken Dutch. It was a hit with the nephews and it made me think of my mother and family all day. :)

Tijn on the hunt

Baby Simon and Opa

Blindfolded Mees playing Jasper's Paasquiz

Our American-British-Dutch Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was a multi-cultural affair sharing our American traditions with Dutch and British friends in Maastricht. Our international Thanksgiving celebration was a beautiful day. Good friends, good company, lekker food, and an abundance of reasons to be thankful and grateful this year. As the Dutch would say...het was gezellig!

Busy kitchen at the height of the preparation madness

It was my first Thanksgiving away from home and I'm sure the first of many to come. Special thanks for our hosts Pete and Jacob! (These are two of the first people I met in Maastricht while following my first Dutch course). Well done with the turkey and coordinating our amazing feast. It was delicious.

Classy table

Thanksgiving was not just a gathering of Americans. It was a collection of American, British, and Dutch friends. All bringing their own food and fun to the gathering. 

Me & Angela giving thanks for good sparkling wine

One of my favorite traditions lived on at our celebration: Giving thanks and saying what we are grateful for. 

The dessert buffet

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without someone passing out on the couch. Here's Pete enjoying his post-Turkey eating coma. 

And of the course...the best thing about Thanksgiving....GAMES! (Minus the screaming and yelling of family members). New places, new people, new traditions. All in all a wonderful day with friends and love.

Cooking with the Jansens

Tante Coby, me & Trees

Yesterday was a very special treat. Jaap's mother has been giving me Dutch lessons a few times each month. I travel to Oirschot for the afternoon or she comes to Maastricht. We practice my Dutch, sometimes I help her with her English homework, we have lunch, and usually end the day with a little bit of shopping. :) This week was a special lesson. Trees arranged for me to have a cooking lesson with Jaap's aunt and godmother from the Jansen side, Tante Coby. (Tante means aunt in Dutch). What a treat! She showed us how to make erwtensoep, a Dutch pea soup. I felt like an anthropologist. How many American expat women get to have these experiences? It was great.

We had a lot of fun and even though it wasn't our typical Dutch lesson, I had to practice speaking in Dutch because Tante Coby really doesn't speak English. As soon as we got to her house Jaap's father said, "And now we speak Dutch!" And so it began. I did the best that I could and was actually surprised how much I was able to communicate. It was really good practice for me. We talked about cooking, food, our families. It was pretty basic, but good practice. I'm grateful to have Jaap's parents who switch over from Dutch to English so easily and translate for me. I started to realize how much my personality changes in these situations. I'm usually a lot more outgoing, talkative, and friendly when meeting anybody, but having to say things in Dutch makes me a lot more shy. It's strange. But, I do feel that my Dutch is gradually improving and yesterday was a great learning experience. 

I'm always impressed by how many languages Dutch people speak. It's quite embarrassing as an American sometimes. When we went to Germany, Jaap was told by a German waitress that his German was excellent. I was very jealous. And he does it like it's no big deal. We'll see what happens when we go to Paris. Haha!

A few hours from now we're heading to Amsterdam and flying to NYC. Woo hoo! We'll be home with the Pardos to celebrate Turkey Day and other Pardo traditions including cutting down the Christmas tree. Not to mention non-stop yelling and screaming at each other. Sorry, not yelling, 'talking'. Jaap brings earplugs when he visits my parents house. Poor guy. That's why I love him!