German celebrity sighting

I got back late last night from a great weekend in Cologne (minus the cold rain; I swear it follows me wherever I go). I haven't had the chance to go through my photos, so I'll just give you one story for now and you can check back for the rest of the goods.

Saturday night, I was at the apartment of a friend of a friend and we turned on German Idol (or Deutschland sucht den Superstar). The next day I was at a cafe (okay, it was Starbucks. Go ahead and judge me) and I saw a couple guys walking by. One of them had this deep forehead wrinkle and I was thinking he looked like this guy I had seen the night before on German Idol who also had a remarkably fat head. I was thinking maybe it was just a German thing and then I looked at the other guy. He was wearing a trucker hat like Ashton Kutcher circa 2005 and happened to have another distinct face, as it reminded me of a couple people I halfway know.

So even though there wasn't anyone with me to confirm the sighting, I'm 100% positive I saw Marvin Cybulski and Pietro Lombardi. Even more positive than the time I saw an otter in the Brazos, and I'm pretty sure about that.

Forehead wrinkle.

And trucker hat guy. He apparently forgets lines to songs almost every show.

I haven't felt this connected to an Idol since high school when we used to drive around Mansfield looking for Kelly Clarkson's house.

Fifty-five matchboxes

In honor of my trip to Germany this weekend, here's some German you are almost guaranteed not to be able to say correctly. Sarah, the German intern, gets great pleasure hearing me try to say this. Mainly the second part; the first word's just fun.

fünfundfünfzig streichholzschachteln

If you think you've got it down, feel free to send me a recording of you saying it, and I'll send you back one of Sarah laughing. (She actually makes me say streichholzschachtelchen, which just adds the chen ending to matchbox, making it cutesy and feminine and harder to say, but Google Translate says that means match shaft moose. But you can try that one, too.)

Some kind of medicine

I've been fighting a nasty cold for about a week and at the pleading of my poor chapped nose, I finally broke down and bought some cold medicine. At least, I bought some kind of medicine based on the few Dutch words I thought I might need to know. I knew koud means cold (though it actually means the temperature kind, which my sickly mind didn't think of), congestie means congestion and keel means throat.

I ended up with these.

Citrosan: Koorts en pijn bij griep en verkoudheid.

Strepsils: Sinaasappel & Vitamine C bij beginnende keelpijn.

Now I know verkoudheid is the word for cold, as in the sickness, but it has "koud" in it, so I figured that was good. Plus, I knew griep was probably flu because it's la grippe in French. 

Sinaasappel is orange and keelpijn looks like throat pain = sore throat?

So now that I've had the opportunity to translate them, Citrosan is a lemony drink that's supposed to get rid of fever and pain associated with colds and the flu, and Strepsils is an orangey sore throat drop. If I don't feel better tomorrow, I might have to go to an actual drug store to try to get rid of this congestion. I don't think my coworkers appreciate me becoming a mouth-breather. Does anyone know the Dutch word for Dayquil?

Springfield clothing

(This has nothing to do with The Simpsons. Sorry to disappoint.)

I haven't done much shopping since I've been here, besides the obligatory supermarket runs twice a week (I say supermarket because "grocery store" is a completely foreign term to the Europeans I know). So on Saturday,  I wandered through the center hoping to maybe find a bag, some boots and something cool to put in my apartment when I get home and become an adult. Two out of three's not bad.

I did go into some smaller stores, which I usually avoid because overeager cloggies working on commission intimidate me, but I ended up at a department store for my new boots and bag.  It was some combination of initials. There are a lot of those here, besides the obvious(ly awesome) H&M. P&C maybe? V&D? Doesn't matter.

The bag is from this cute brand called Springfield. It's called Cheeks, presumably because that's what it hits when you walk.

I might have to go back to get this sweater and this dress (a girl can dream of warm Texas weather, right?).

Leftovers

There were a couple days while my parents were here that I didn't bring my big clumsy SLR camera because we were staying around Den Haag (and my mom was taking plenty of pictures for both of us). So here are just a couple I took with my phone on those days. My poor little iPhone was excited to just see some action now that it's been on airplane mode for 6 weeks.

This is in the Ridderzaal, or Knight's Hall, at the Binnenhof. We took a short tour, which the guide and other Dutch guests were nice enough to do in English. On Prinsjesdag (Prince's Day) each year, the queen comes and sits in that throne and says what the government policy will be like for the next parliamentary session. 

And apparently the Dutch are a little cheap, because when the next monarch (it'll be a king next) takes power, he won't even get a new throne. They'll just use the same one and change the B on it (for Beatrix) to W for Willem-Alexander (which will actually be a recycled W from a previous Willem). What a tough life.

On Monday, we went to Delft because it's too charming (and close) to miss. And my mom bought a genuine Royal Delft plate, double wrapped in bubble wrap for the plane ride home.

Ok, I think I am officially done with my parents' visit. Now back on to boring everyday Dutch life.