Whiskey tasting and health care

Last night Charles and I went to a Whiskey Tasting in Leiden at this pub with a coworker and some other random people. It was really a lot of fun. I have done wine tastings before, but never whiskey. It was different, but definitely enjoyable.

In other news, I had my first experience with the Dutch health care. On Friday I went to the doctor because last week Charles had a skin infection and he seemed to have passed on a bit of it to me. Charles had a good experience with this doctor and I figured it would be best to get acquainted so I decided to go in.

In the US, I probably would have made an appointment with my dermatologist straight away, but here you have to see a general practitioner first who will refer you to a specialist. The office about a 5 minute walk from our apartment and it was quite nice although the building and equipment seemed older than my doctor's office in the US. The doctor prescribed me some antibiotics for the skin infection and also filled some prescriptions for daily stuff I took while in the States. Afterwards I walked about 2 minutes to the pharmacy and was pleased to find out how cheap filling all my prescriptions were. Even though this pharmacy did not take my health insurance, everything was much cheaper than in the US. So there might be something to this whole socialized health care thing after all.

We have bicycles

After this weekend Charles and I feel just a tiny bit more "Dutch." Why? We got bikes! I received my bike when we got our sea shipment from the US, but Charles was bikeless until this weekend. When he just couldn't take being left out with respect to the most preferred mode of transportation in the Netherlands, he went to Mega Bike and picked up a basic model for about 250 Euro.

So this weekend we rode around town instead of relying on the Rotterdam Metro. My bike is pretty much a road bike that is capable of being used in the city so it can be pretty brutal on the cobblestones outside our apartment. Charles, on the other hand, got a typical Dutch model with the curved handlebars, comfy seat, and rack on the back for bags. We also purchased a nice thick chain lock so no one can steal our bikes and throw them in the canals. ;)

Today's Art Pictures

We've been super busy this week because we FINALLY received our sea shipment of furniture and other miscellaneous stuff from the US. We've been unpacking almost nonstop but this place is starting to feel like home.

During the last post, I promised pictures from the Today's Art festival in Den Haag. I didn't take many but here we go...


Projections on the buildings = art


A pretty neat installation near the Spui


A crazy gold machine that functioned like a mechanical bull


Charles having a beer on the Spui


For the full set (not too many more) see here.