A Few Updates

QUESTS
Earlier in this blog I announced a number of quests I was undertaking. They may not be biblical in proportion but I view them as important nonetheless.

First, I am trying to track down and pictorially capture the sister of my old BMW that I saw but failed to successfully photograph on our last visit prior to moving. Not the most beautiful of unicorns, but she still has special value and I must have her. I first spied her parked in a roundabout in front of a business building down the street from the Den Bosch train station. Beautiful snapshot location. Guessing she belongs to a woman (I later saw a female driving her off into the late Dutch sunset - swoon) that works in the building I have visited the site several times at similar times of day. No luck so far.

Second: Macaroni and Cheese, in the same box. This quest is as of yet also unsuccessful. No, I do not expect to find Kraft here. But these people enjoy pasta, obsess over cheese, and value thrifty convenience - something is not adding up! Granted, my grocery store search field is thus far fairly narrow. I'm still optimistic.

PHOTOS
Though cumbersome, I've tried to take my camera around with me on bike rides and errands. Favorite photo subjects so far are buildings, street vendors and of course, fietsen (bicycles):


This is an example of a style called omafiets (grandmabike). Not in great shape but I thought it was thoughtfully placed in front of a brick staircase leading down to a canal (not pictured). Since the fietsen here have so much character own their own I want to just capture their profiles and immediate background rather than try to make an overly artsy, complexly framed shots.


Dit is De Markt mit bloeme. A little tough to see at this resolution but this flower cart was one of the last vendors remaining in the town square yesterday evening. On the left is Town Hall, still sporting its Oeteldonk decorations. Dead center is the mouth of our street called Vughterstraat. We're about a five-minute walk from the Markt.

LANGUAGE
Finally I wanted to give an update on my Dutch-learning. At numerous suggestions I purchased level 1 of Dutch Rosetta Stone (Thanks, Mom & Dad! Seriously). So far I have found it both easy to use and very helpful. If you aren't familiar it employs a refreshing mix of vocabulary, listening, reading and speaking exercises based on picture-voice association. The narrators are supposedly native speakers, and compared with television and people on the street I can safely vouch for that authenticity claim.

The repetition, review, and building block style are nothing new to me after studying Spanish and Russian in high school and college. The program has brought back memories of the logical layout and progression of lessons, grammar worksheets, partner speaking exercises, etc. The amazing part is I feel like I've covered more ground in just a week than I would have in a quarter of classes (Honestly RS is not paying me).

My first "milestone" was a conversation situation where slides of two people in a campsite moved across the screen. The people looked at the camera and addressed Me using a mix of questions and answers I've learned up to this point. Without any other prompt besides timing, I was supposed to ask and answer appropriate questions with appropriate pronunciation. It was fairly short exercise but after making it through successfully I was a little surprised to feel a genuine proud sense of accomplishment. I still have a long way to go before even having a basic conversation with a live person, but this was just Milestone 1.