Sal's Corner

The weather outside is frightful...

Another day in our Netherlands life.  It just seems that it never stops raining, today it rained, and rained, and rained, luckily it cleared in the evening jsu tto have some friends over for grilled burgers.  I wen to the nice and expensive butcher shop and still the meat tasetd funny.  Oh well... In the afternoon I wen with my son Andrew to a dairy farm about 5 mins awa that makes cheese, this place sells cheese, fresh milk, and eggs, we bought only cheese, one that was 2 yrs old, it had a strong flavor, but it was nice, anyway, anther day in our netherland life...

Andrew outside the dairy place, it was raining, and therefore you can see Andrew wearing his gull rain gear, a sight that probably many Texans dream off.

Andrew trying to pet the cows, which actually he has done before

Here I am in my rain gear getting ready to go outside to run some errands

Sustainability

Here I am writing again.  I have been blogging for about 3-4 years and most of my blogs are about economy, finance, and related themes.  Now that we are in Europe I will keep writing about these topics, but i will do so within the contextof our trips and adventures.  So I'll start by saying that being able to experience life from the trenches inEurope is a great opportunity, for one it has given me an appreciation for the conveniences that we have in the US and even when I lived in Mexico.  Here in Holland I bike to work for 10-15 mins to the train station (and I get really upset when the train does not wait for me).  But anyway, after biking for 15 mins, I get on the train and ride for another 35-40 mins, my commute does not end here.  Then I walk for another 10-15 mins to the office.  My point is that cars are expensive to own (gas is approximately $10USD/gallon right now), taxes are expensive, and places to park are scarce.  

Everybody talks about China and India becoming wealthier and increasing their standard of living, and while this is true, I do believe that we in the USA will have to curb our appetite for energy and other resources (i.e. water).  It is simply not sustainable, and our thinking is sometimes limited to what we can see, but we do not see the ramifications, so while India and China and other countries will start buying more cars, air conditioners and many other things that we now take for granted, this will have implications that we cannot see right now.

While visiting Brugge we stayed at a small bed andbreakfast that was close to this park.  On our way back from downtown Brugge, we stopped by so the kids could play, they enjoyed rolling down the side hill of the mill that you see in the back.

 Here we are having breakfast at Mrs. Paule Marie's B&B.  The kids loved the food, and staying at B&B's is an excellent and very affordable way to travel in Europe.

Hey, What are you looking at??

This picture was taken inside the "Holly Blood Chuch."  This church keeps a relic of what is belived to be the blod of Jesus, the relic is displayed alomst every day, and visitors are allowed to see it and touch it.  The church is located in downtown Brugge.

From Brugge we moved to Brussels, where we spent 1/2 day and we did some quick sightseeing including this structure (kind of ugly).  This is called the Atomium, and was built in 1958 for the Brussel's world fair, close by is a small park called "Mini Europe" that containes replicas of all the major ldnmarks throughout Europe.

 

Are we really in the end game?

A couple of months ago I read a book by John Mauldin, titled "End Game," if you care about your future and your kid's future I recommend that you get a copy and read it as soon as you can.  The book describes how the US and other developed countries are coming to the end of the game, we can no longer borrow money and soon, those who we owe money to will start asking for it.  The US has a debt of approximately 14 trillion dollars, it collects about 2 trillion in taxes and we have a deficit in our budget, wo how are we exactly going to pay for what we owe??  Inflation is the answer, the dollar and other fiat currencies are doomed.  Being in Europe is not salvation either, I foresee the Euro stopping to exist in less than 2 or 3 years.  I hope I;m wrong but unfortunately I do not think so.  But enough of my ranting, since I also want to use my blog to keep record of our trips to Europe, let me share a few pictures of Brugge.

 

Here's Gianna helping a craftsman blowing glass.  This man works as a nurse at night, but this is his true passion, blowing glass, unfortunately, his job has been outsourced to... you guessed it, China, he told us how after 9/11, his glass shop was empty and from then on it went downhill.

This is the main plaza in brugge, we spent about an hour here resting and buying "belgium fries" from a grumpy person that yelled at me, customer service in Europe is almost non existent.

Here I am with the love of my life in the Brugge Market tower.

Walking back to our lovely "Bread and Breakfast" and the kids getting tired by the minute, luckily we made it wihtout having to carry anyone in our shoulders

Visiting the "Half Moon" brewery, I don't need to say more, cheers!
 This is Ghent, a really cute city, very gothic, unfortunately the weather was not very nice

Our New Life in the Netherlands!

After a year of hibernation I decided to get back to writing.  There are plenty of thoughts in my mind and now I also have new adventures and pictures to share with you.  I have moved with my family to the Netherlands, we arrived here on July the 18th and we have almost settled into our new home.  The first week we spent in a hotel in Amsterdam while we were getting out house ready to be occupied.  That week Marci did a lot of sightseeing with the kids and the got to visit Ann Frank's house, the van Gogh museum, the Rijk museum, and other pounts of interest.

"Here's Andrew and Annelise on the plane getting ready to take off"

Here's my 4 kids in front of "Amsterdam Centraal" on the day we landed in Amsterdam.  I must also say that it took the kids about 5 days to get adjusted to the new time zone.  Someone told me that the rule of thumb is that it takes you about 1day per time zone to adjust when you travel to a different place, and since Amsterdam is 7 hrs ahead of Houston, I guess that would be about right.

After 3 weeks of being in the Netherlands we ventured into Belgium.  We took a couple of days and visited Bruge.  Bruge is a small town, with a medieval flavor, it is surrounded by a canal that make it seem like a castle and a moat.  We had a great time visitng the Chocolate museum, the half moon brewery, the main plaza, and a few other site.  Marielle wanted to visit the french fries museum, but it was not worth it, although we did get to eat "belgium fries".  I will post more pictures as soon as I find our camera.