Monday, February 28, 2011

Football, or Something Like That

It was rainy and cold, nevertheless, yesterday we attended our first European soccer game, which coincidentally was also our first ever. Naturally we were cheering for N.E.C. (the home team) as we sat in a semi-covered (seating is covered, but the field is open) 12,500-seat stadium watching them do battle against the visiting team F.C. Utrecht. Lasting 90 minutes, it was a solid game that ended with a tie.
N.E.C. football club logo

The whole event was a great deal of fun and is something we will surely repeat. Afterall, tickets are affordable, the park is just a short bike ride away, and, as this was only the first game of the season, there will be plenty of other opportunities. Plus, as a point of comparison, stadium food or sport food at (least at) Goffertstadion (Gofferts stadium), is extremely reasonable, with prices ranging from 1-3 euros on a variety of drinks, sides, and an assortment of sandwiches, some of which looked extremely appetizing. Furthermore, now that we know the stadium has covered seating, Farrell will be sure and take a few pictures at the next game. Let us know if there is anything else you would like to know. If you would like some general information on our local footbal club, browse the wikipedia page here.

Until Next Time,
Jessica

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Edinburgh Concert Photos

Hello all!

I just finished sorting, uploading, describing, tagging and geotagging three new sets of photos. All three are from a concert Dad, Jessica and I attended together in Edinburgh, Scotland on New Year's Day. Although six bands played during the "One Day" (1.1.11) Hogmanay celebrations, I have only finished processing half of them so far (my three favorites).

If you are interested, take a look at the sets for the bands below. I was quite happy with the quality of some of these photos, and will be updating or supplementing the Wikipedia pages of all three bands with these (Creative Commons licensed) pictures.

Lau - A three-piece rockin' Scottish folk band. They have a great level of energy on stage, and are clearly passionate. In some regards, they remind me of the Avett Brothers, especially on stage. [set] [slideshow]
Julie Fowlis - Gaelic Singer Of The Year appointed "Scotland's Gaelic Ambassador" by the Scottish Parliament. [set] [slideshow]
Daniel Thorpe - 2010 BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year with a good sense of humor and a comfortable stage presence. [set] [slideshow]

Farrell

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Photos -- Arnhem and the Water Museum

Greetings!

We thought we would take a break from processing the holiday pictures to allow for something a bit more recent (or, in this case, much more recent). Anyway, as mentioned last week, these are pictures from our trip to Arnhem last Friday (February 18th) in which we visited a local museum and outdoor park. Enjoy!

You can find the full set here, or start viewing a slideshow of large photos here.

Until Next Time,
Jessica and Farrell

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Edinburgh New Year's Photos

Hello all!

I found enough time on Jessica's laptop today to finish adding descriptions to another set of pictures. This set starts off with our initial exploration of Edinburgh during the day, and again on the Royal Mile at night. We greet the new year at Edinburgh's Hogmamay celebration, with 80,000+ other Scotts and party-goers from around the world. I managed to get fairly close and photographed 3 of the 4 primary stages, of the 6 total stages playing at any given time. Overall it was a great night, with some exceptional modern Scottish music of a traditional style to top it off, and a good start to 2011.

You can find the set here, or start viewing a full-sized slideshow from the top here.

Farrell

Saturday, February 19, 2011

The Ides of...February?

As the title suggests, February has turned out to be a particularly busy (annoying) month, with perhaps too many unexpected complications. Oh, don't worry! It's nothing too serious, but rather all the little annoying things that could go wrong did.

Aside from having to finish up exams while our new classes were starting, Farrell's bike broke. So, we shared my bike, and if we had anywhere to go together then Farrell had to hop on the back and I biked the two of us. However, soon after someone accidentally injured my tire in the bike parking lot (apparently someone dominoed the bikes and my tire was scraped with a kickstand), but it still worked! That is until the next time Farrell hoped on the back, which prompted the tire to blowout (explode). At that point we were down to zero bikes, and it is also around this point that Farrell's laptop died.

It was expected. His laptop was old and had been thoroughly (continuously?) used over the years, especially if you consider that he is a computer science major and likely uses his laptop even more than the average 20-something individual. So, we have been sharing my laptop, which would not be such a problem if we did not have all of our class readings on the computer. Fortunately he'll have a new laptop soon...hopefully. :)

Now, as for more fun things, we visited our Latvian friend Sandra in Ede (the Netherlands) and had dinner with her family. Ede was a small, but interesting little town near the "Heather fields," which as their name suggests are huge open fields filled with heather. It was pretty in the cold grey, but it is supposed to be just beautiful in the spring/summer. Interestingly, the fields are near a Dutch military base and they use the fields for practice. Needless to say we cannot wait to go back when it's warmer.

For more recent fun, yesterday we went to Arnhem and, using our museum cards Frank got us (they allow us free entrance to some 400 museums in the Netherlands), we visited the Water Museum there. It's kind of hard to describe, but it was a lot of fun. Plus, it was situated in this large park/woods, so of course we walked around on the trails for a few hours. It was pretty cold though and is now turning colder, despite the comparatively mild weather we have had over the past few weeks. There is even supposed to be some snow Sunday, though not much. Hopefully it will warm up by next Sunday though -- that's when we are going to our first "football" game. It's Nijmegen vs. FC Utrecht and we are excited! We will try and take pictures of course, assuming it is allowed and not raining.

Anyway, we will continue to keep you posted. And as for the photos, we ask for your patience once more, since that has been permanently put on hold. (Farrell does not have a laptop, remember?) Still, we will do what we can. :)

Until Next Time,
Jessica
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