A Day In The Life Of Kate

At some point, I think this blog got away from being a place where I could write down what was happening in my life and became more of a place where I talked about what I am thinking about. Generally I like blogs where there is a little bit of both going on.
So I thought today I would write about what my typical week in the Netherlands has looked like for the last 5 months. It seems like a good way to go back and reflect over the last half year on the first day of my 4.5 week vacation (whoo whoo!!) My schedule will change a bit post-vacation. I won't have my Dutch class anymore. I will have a set day of the week that I have overblijven. But for the most part, this is what a week in my life looks like:

Monday: Wake up at 7:45, make the kids lunch, get them off to school.
Back home at 8:45 in time to quickly check my email before heading to Saskia's (my neighbor who is so wonderful and has tea with me for an hour every Monday morning to practice my Dutch).
From 10-2:45, I do a random assortment of things. Sometimes skype with Maggie, usually get as much of the family's laundry done as possible (which often means about an hour of ironing), catch up on emails, work for the Chattanoogan, drink another cup of coffee, scan the NY times.
2:45 Pick up the kids from school, take them home, and make them a snack (which means a sandwich, normally with chocolate sprinkles or choco-paste on it, and a piece of fruit). Force the kids to eat their fruit. Clean up the kitchen from the mess I have made all day as I make coffee, breakfast, and lunch.
3;30-5:30 Sometimes play with the kids. generally try to get them outside if it isn't raining. Sometimes read my book while the kids play outside. For some reason, i think Monday (or Thursday) is usually my hardest day with the kids. They are the grumpiest. They want attention but only ask for it by being naughty. It's exhausting.
5:30 I pop popcorn, and we sit on a blanket outside (unless the weather is gross) and eat popcorn together. Tessel gets mad at anyone who takes more than 1 piece at a time. Hidde sees how many pieces he can throw in the air and catch in his mouth. Friso is content to eat and then run back to whatever game he was playing.
6:00 I start anxiously looking for Babs. She shows up sometime between 6 and 7. I set the table before she gets there and change into my practice clothes. Once she's home we have a short de-briefing of the day ("hidde now like cheese. tessel took a nap. friso got angry and hid out in his room for half an hour...") and then I leave at 6:45ish for frisbee practice.
7:20 - I bike the 6 or 8 km to amstelveen and meet Suz. we go in her car towards frisbee practice in utrecht.
8-10 primavera practice. it's our only practice of the week so we try to jam a lot into it.
10:45 arrive back in amstelveen.
11:15 home again. work for the chattanoogan\
12:00 talk to erik for a few minutes. off to bed.

Hmmm...I was planning on writing out every day of the week, but Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are really pretty similar as far as the day goes. Usually I have overblijven once a week (which is worth a whole separate blog post that I hve been meaning to write for 4 months, but basically is when i go chaperone school lunch). Tuesday nights were also my dutch class, also in amstelveen. From 7-10. and thursday evenings generally the one night of the week when i stay home and have dinner with the family.

Wednesdays are my free day. For the first 3 months I was here, I had to work every other Wednesday afternoon, but I have had every Wednesday free for a while now. I don't know that I consistently do any one thing with my wednesdays. Sometimes I head up to Groningen on Tuesday night and see Erik all day Wednesday (maybe I do this once a month? maybe not even that often). Sometimes i go into amsterdam and stay up late with tom and fred playing settlers of cataan. sometimes i have had friends in town. sometimes i haev just gone home after class on tuesday night, slept in on wednesday, and wasted most of wednesday afternoon doing who-knows what? sometimes i go to ufo practice on wednesdays in utrecht.
it all depends. it is the nice thing about the free day. the luxury of doing what i want in the middle of the week.

Friday is also very similar to Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, except Tessel is done with school at noon, so I usually only have a few hours to myself in the morning and then i go pick her up. She plays really well by herself, so she'll often amuse herself all afternoon or take a nap or occasionally paint or color with me. Then the rest of the afternoon is the same. And, during the school year, I would take Hidde to hockey in the afternoons.

The amount of free time that I have during the week is quite crazy. Usually 2 days a week I am free from 8:45 -2:45. Then Fridays from 9-12 and the other overblijven day from 8:45-11:45 and then again from 12:30-2:30. I am fascinated by what I seem to not get done during that time. Sometimes I study dutch. Sometimes I read. I am not really sure. I feel like a lot of that time I am just on gchat or facebook stalking. It isn't something that, in principle, I am particularly proud of. I feel like I want to be doing other things with that time. But I haven't really figured out what those things are that I want to be doing. perhaps taking an online course. I definitely wish I was disciplined enough to be spending quite a bit more time learning dutch. I also hope that i can discipline myself more now to make one morning a week be a morning when I go run a track workout of some type. We have the european championships in just over 2 months, and I am woefully out of shape. Hopefully the vacation will be a good time to throw every day and also get some good workouts in with the boys and jeltsje. I have lost weight since I have been here, but I think I am actually much more out of shape than I was a year ago.

Weekends vary a lot. I am usually at a tournament at least once, if not twice, a month. If not, there is either a competition day (a really weird dutch thing that is sortof like league, but it only happens 4 sundays, spread out over 3 months, and you play 2 really long games). there have not been many weekends when there wasn't something frisbee related. I am basically always with erik on the weekends. we're often at his parent's house in utrecht just chilling out with his family. sometimes in badhoevedorp with my family. sometimes in groningen. it makes for a slight strange life in some ways. we travel almost every weekend, so that can be exhausting. plus, i think it is strange to have zero pattern. i know that is sortof the point of the weekend, but it is a bit weird to sometimes not know on thursday night where I will be all weekend. Yet, overall I like hte variety it provides. i like being in amsterdam occasionally to hang out with my friends and i like being in utrecht to be with his family (mostly because then we get yummy food and i get to play board games all weekend with his sisters and neighbors) and i also like going and hanging out at his house in groningen and enjoying the communal living that he participates in. so...it's sortof win-win-win. but it does make it hard to explain what a "typical" weekend is like for me.

the last few weeks I have become more interested in really enjoying the artistic culture of amsterdam. i went and saw a play at an outdoor theatre and went to a drama festival with tom for his birthday. i also went to the rijks museum a few weeks ago and finally got my own museum pass (thanks lily!). i am not so artsy, but i am amazed by all this city has to offer. and when i can get past my loathing of big crowds (lately i have really hated them and would just prefer to stay in a be cozy with a few close friends), i have enjoyed all the events i have gone to. and every time i have gone close to the older parts of amsterdam i realize how much there is to explore there that i haven't even seen at all. so yes - definitely want to hit that much more very soon.

but now i am headed into the start of a very long vacation. and i plan on enjoying every minute of it. off to drink more coffee...