I do, Fondue!

There's this little restaurant I'd love to tell you about. Definitely the most unique place I've been to eat, ever! On Saturday we had a 21st birthday celebrate and the night started out at Refuge des Fondus. To get a feel for this place imagine a hole in the wall restaurant that is actually quite popular, you can write on the walls, and it only seats about forty people.

We mapped out our route on we need to take and set off at 7:15 pm. Excited as we were to have a reason to celebrate we put on our fanciest dresses only realize that is not how people usually ride the metro, its more of a jeans/pants/street clothes dress code. It probably didn't help our case with the French people that we got off one stop before the red light area. Needless to say we attracted lots of stares and angry looks. We weren't about to pay for a cab so we held our heads high and continued on our way. The place was easy to find but already packed! No room for six girls. Set on our goal we waited outside only to be joined by a crowd of other people with their sights set on eating lots of cheese fondue.

An hour later a large enough group cleared out that we could get in the restaurant. Our time had come there was just one little obstacle to -literally- surmount. Half of us had to climb over the table to get to the seats that were against the wall. Moments later I was on a chair and yes, over the table with the help of a waiter. This place was already an adventure!

First course was appetizers and an apertif, a little cocktail that was delicious. Fast forward a bit and we are all dipping bread in cheese fondue and cooking meat in hot oil, family style, while drinking wine out of baby bottles. There was something about avoiding taxes if alcohol is not served in a glass.


Notice the baby bottles and bowl of raw meat - it looks like red sauce!

It was a cozy atmosphere because it was one long table and we met the Australians next to us. When they staff found out we were celebrating the entire restaurant sang a boisterous round of Happy Birthday which, was the most English I've heard outside our group since coming here. We thought everything was just about as good as it could get when they asked us what we wanted for dessert! I got chocolate ice cream and it came with a white filling and rolled in cocoa. It looked like a little Hostess snowball but a chocolate ice cream version.




Yum!

The Dutch & their bikes

Amsterdam has a population of about 750,000 yet has 1.2 million bikes! Never before have I seen so many bikes (or inhaled so much secondhand marijuana smoke) so this post is entirely dedicated to bikes.

Here is a bike parking area:

The bikes below are chained to the canal railing; many bikes are not chained to anything. Instead, they have a chain through the wheels so that they cannot turn without unlocking it. Someone said that on average they have their bike stolen every two years.

They bike out in the country too, of course!

I'm not sure how everyone finds their bike back at the end of the day. They have a bike parking garage by the train station but unfortunately I couldn't get a photo as my hands were full of baggage.

They created floating bike parking on the canal to accommodate them all.

And with so many bikes comes special bike lanes, bike road signs and...

bike traffic lights for busy intersections!

Child's Summer Dress

I have doing so much sewing lately! One of my most recent projects is a dress for a three and a half year old girl. This was the midterm project for my sewing class, everyone made clothing for a little girl my teacher knows through church who is in need of more clothing. I followed Simplicity pattern 3510. The pattern was pretty straight forward. All the tucks on the dress lined up without any problem. The only confusing part was the patch pockets. I used the Reader's Digest New Complete Guide to Sewing for instructions on rounded patch pockets. I am very pleased with how it came together!

Cutting Edge Children's Wear

I work with children for my summer job and have noticed an interesting trend in children's wear- light up shirts. I remember light-up shoes and I can sort of understand light up backpacks but light up shirts don't make much sense. It definitely wouldn't be comfortable to wear and little LED light lighting up a princess shirt doesn't do much to enhance its aesthetic value. It is interesting to see such an impractical trend take root. It's probably a good idea to leave this one at the store and hope it doesn't last long.

Crazy Cousins' Campout

Well, it's been awhile but that's mostly because I wasn't sure if I would be writing on the metropolitan blog if I'm currently living in the country. And also, I just don't always feeling much like doing anything besides eating and falling asleep after working all day. That may sound lame, but my cousin Janine and I wake up at 3:15am every weekday for work. Right now, I'm living with my aunt and uncle and their family plus my cousin Janine because her and I found jobs up here in Washington.
Just a few days ago the three of us girl cousin went on a campout. We went to Larrabee State Park for one night. Before we settled into our beautiful campsite for the night we met a motorcycle camper (the best kind of camper there is) who was going all the way from Florida to Alaska! He was also kind enough to exchange us quarters for dollars so we could shower in the morning. It was good to go camping and relax. It was a very nice campground for tent campers, which we were. Most of the RV and trailer spots were not as scenic and beautiful as the tent spots. Overall, I would definitely recommend the campground to you but hopefully you're a heavy sleeper because a train runs just outside the camp. I'm told that the train went by during the night but I didn't hear a sound. Our campout was complete with a campfire s'mores, a delicious breakfast, and some good campfire songs. Our favorite is:

Catalina Madalina, Hoopin Stina, Walla dina
Hogan, Bogan, Wogan was her name.

She had two hairs on the top of her head
One was alive and the other was dead.
Catalina Madalina, Hoopin Stina, Walla dina
Hogan, Bogan, Wogan was her name.

She had two eyes in the front of her head
One was green and the other was red.
Catalina Madalina, Hoopin Stina, Walla dina
Hogan, Bogan, Wogan was her name.

She had two teeth in the front of her mouth
One pointed north and the other pointed south.
Catalina Madalina, Hoopin Stina, Walla dina
Hogan, Bogan, Wogan was her name.

She had ten toes like me and you
But all ten toes were in one shoe
Catalina Madalina, Hoopin Stina, Walla dina
Hogan, Bogan, Wogan was her name.

Then one day a truck hit poor Madaline
The man had to buy a whole new machine!
Catalina Madalina, Hoopin Stina, Walla dina
Hogan, Bogan, Wogan was her name.