Life: Idiotropic

Happy Thanksgiving! It seems weird to say that today. If it wasn't for Arianna coming home wearing a paper bag vest and headband with a feather in it, I probably would've forgotten. Not that we'd forget Thanksgiving entirely. It's been on my mind for weeks with invitations out and food planned. I even bought two cases of pumpkin to ensure that last year's pumpkin fiasco didn't happen again. But, Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here. The kids are all in school. Kirk has to work. There is no football game. And I'm not going to cook all day just for Kirk and the kids to come home tired in the evening, eat, and go to sleep. We can do that any day and holidays are special.
Last week during one of Tiara's ballet classes, mom and I tried this little restaurant in the Sittard markt that I hadn't been to before. It was sandwiched between two other narrow little buildings and didn't stand out as anything special. Boy was I wrong. The atmosphere was great. They took our coats and hung them immediately. Nice music played. There was white linen on the tables and white candles lit around the room. We had an appetizer and a glass of wine then and knew that we had to come back.


So we planned to have dinner tonight - adults only - kids at home. I didn't think that Sittard would be crowded on a Thursday night, but all the open air parking lots were full. I'd forgotten that Thursday is the night that shops are open until 8. So we parked in the garage nearby.

The streets were full of people at 7:30 when we arrived at the restaurant. Shoppers walked by with bags in their arms. It was a nice night. The menu, of course, was only in Dutch, but I've read enough Dutch menus now to figure out quite a bit of it and the waitress spoke very nice English as most Dutch do. I think I ended up ordering the best items on the menu and I do plan on going back again... the food was the best I've had in the Netherlands. I had a very good duck salad to start, then the "Haasfilet ingerold met salie en pancetta met stampotje van boerenkool" for dinner. The rabbit was flavorful and very tender, served over mashed potatoes with pancetta and celery with a very good brown gravy. For dessert I had the "Warm taartje van chocolade met citruscompote" - essentially a very good molten chocolate cake with a citrus chutney almost on the side. YUM. They serve their cappuccino with freshly baked biscotti. That earns restaurant points right there.

So, dinner was fabulous and we were ready to go home. We got back to the garage at 10:30. The garage closed at 10. Never mind that there were many restaurants opened in the markt and a lot of people out. For some silly reason, this garage closes completely at 9 most nights and at 10 on Thursdays. There was no way to get the car. I called the number and got a very nice recording in Dutch, but no option to get a hold of a real person, so no option to get Kirk's truck.

We walked back to the restaurant. They were cleaning up to close, but let us come in. The waiter kindly called a taxi for us. The chef invited us in to sit and offered a drink "on the house." He said he'd drive us home himself, but he didn't have his car with him. So many here take the bicycle to work... and with parking the way it is, who can blame them!

Eventually the taxi came - it was a BMW. Everything here is either a BMW or Mercedes. I've even seen a Mercedes garbage truck. Crazy, but true.

[The next morning we were able to get to the garage at 0700 when it opened and got Kirk's truck out with no problem. It only cost 7 Euro too. They only charge for the time the garage is actually open, thank goodness!]