I've been a bad blogger...

I've been absent for a week. Shocking.

But there is a good reason. Other than it is stinky hot here in Amsterdam (and I am not a hot weather girl) and that we are now only 7 days (eek) from getting the keys, I decided to move the blog from blogger and have been busy setting up a new "home" for Number Seventy Five at squarespace.

Blogger was a great starter platform for me and I know 100's of high profile blogs who very happily reside on Blogger forever but I needed a bit more flexibility and control over the design. I'm a control freak, what can I say? So after, considering my options and soliciting advice from those in the know I switched over to squarespace. It seemed like a good time to also get my own proper grown-up address for my random witterings as well.

So (drum roll please) without further ado I redirect you to www.numberseventyfive.com for all updated posts and also a new section on all the weird and wonderful projects I am and will be undertaking.

There is a further section coming soon (ish), but with the big move coming up in the next couple of weeks it may take a while for it to materialise.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, google readers etc. Since I began this blog back in March I have had:

580 Visits, from

330 Visitors, from

35 countries, generating

1,112 pageviews

I would hate lose any of you in the switch over. Come on over...

Souvenir Foto Friday: Amsterdam in Motion

Assignment 6: Blur on Purpose

I read the assignment notes for this on Flickr before the notes went up on the Souvenir Foto website; and I had a little panic.

Blur on purpose? It was like a return to the dark days of childhood photography. Handshake, cutting off people's heads - not good. How on earth would I blur on purpose without it looking like I gave the camera to a small child?

So I hit the internet, ah google, my old friend.

What I discovered was that there is a whole movement of photography dedicated to blurring on purpose. While the photographs I found were stunning, details on technique were not very forthcoming.

I did discover that it was all to do with playing around with shutter speed and aperture. Which meant I had to learn about shutter speed and aperture. Which meant that, three months after getting the camera I was finally going to have to break out the instruction manual.

Dammit.

The instruction manual was informative. It certainly told me how to set shutter speed and apperture but I still didn't understand what I was doing.

Next stop, the Digital Photography School . I read up on Shutter Speed and Appertures. Then moved on to Aperture and Shutter Priority Modes.

Now we were getting somewhere.

I had been particularly taken with a Blur on Purpose photo I had seen during my research, (now regretably lost in the internet) a black and white shot taken in Japan which showed blurred movement on a crisp background. I knew I wanted to do something like that, which would mean playing with the shutter priority mode, which blurs movement.

I took myself into the centre of Amsterdam and positioned myself on a busy cross roads. Then I just started clicking. I aimed for dense crowds and bikes. I shot at eye level and from the hip to see which came out best. I varied my shuttter speed until I found one that let in just enough light while still giving a good blur of movement, 1/20 on a very bright day.

In post-processing the black and white wasn't quite working for me though. It looked good but the bike wasn't quite right. When I had looked at the photo, the bike had seemed ethereal, almost ghostly and I wanted to play that up. So I cropped it down and layed the holga-ish effect from Picnik over the top. And it worked.

I am particularly pleased with the crispness of the shadow on the ground against the blur of the people above.

The original of the photo is in my photostream.

Restaurant Review: La Place

It has to be said that Amsterdam is not a city that lunches. Obviously, people eat lunch but if you are trekking around time and want something other than soup, salad or a sandwich but you don't want a full meal then your options are going to be a little more limited.

Step in La Place eateries. La Place have quite the coverage in Amsterdam. Not only do they run the catering in two major department stores (V & D and De Bijenkorf), but they also service several major workplaces. Lucky workplaces.

It is self service, but certainly not the self service I recognise from British department stores. At La Place everything is divided into zones. A salad bar zone, and what salads! Grilled veggies as far as the eye can see. huge bowls of leaves and wedges of tomato. A grilled meat bar, a grilled fish bar. Some locations have a pizza oven, some a stir fry bar. A soup station, juice bar and drinks bar are all within striking distance. Just pick up a tray and load up. The best thing is that everything is prepared right in front of you - fresh, fresh, fresh.

Once you have paid and collected your cuttlery then you can choose your seating. Today I was in the V&D on Kalverstraat and scored an outside table in the glorious sunshine so that I could watch the world go by beneath me. If the balcony is full or the weather a little less clement then sitting inside is no hardship underneath the glass roof (pictured above). If you are meeting someone there then there are rooms named after nearby streets, "I'll meet you in Damrak..."

Over at De Bijenkorf, following last year's major facelift you can sit in differently themed areas all showcasing designer furniture from the furniture department below. Eames chairs, Tom Dixon lighting. Or sit out on the new roof terrace secluded from the busy streets below, snacking on sushi before heading back down into the chaos of central Amsterdam.

Tomato Chutney

I know, I know. The whole point of chutney is to preserve the last of the season's bounty and we are supposedly at the beginning of summer. Which is all well and good unless you find your husband hunting desperately through the fridge for the last scrapings of a jar he has already finished. Then there is the sad, disappointed little "oh, I'll just have mayonnaise then..." and you find yourself whipping up a batch of tomato chutney for the store cupboad.

1.35kg RipeTomatoes, chopped (I used Roma)
225g Onions, chopped (I used red)
175g Sugar
150ml Red Wine Vinegar
12g Salt
1 tsp Paprika
1/8 tsp Cayenne Pepper

Place the tomatoes and onions into a heavy bottomed saucepan, cook over a low heat to release the tomato juices and simmer for 20 - 30 minutes until tender.
Add the salt, paprika, cayenne and half of the vinegar, continue to cook gently for 45 minutes or until it begins to thicken.
Add the sugar and remaining vinegar, stirring until they are fully dissolved.
Continue simmering, until the mixture becomes thick, stirring occasionally.
Pour into jars which are either fresh out of the dishwasher or sterlised. Don't forget to label them with the date you made them.
Store in the cupboard for 3 - 5 weeks to allow the flavour to develop.

Makes enough for two 300ml jars.

Souvenir Foto Friday: Long Live the King

I missed Souvenir Foto Friday last week - shocking. Luckily I got my assignment in on time - I just didn't have enough hours in the day to post it up here.

So, without further ado I give you Assignment 5 for Souvenir Foto.


Following on from last week's assignment to shoot a letter. This week we had to shoot a word. The more advanced in the group will be doing this as a diptych, and if I had more time last week I would have tried it but I just couldn't get my head around stitching two images together. Nor was I able to find a scene with a word and an appropriate image which I could shoot as is.

For my word I chose a local grafitti artist, Laser 3.14. In a city which is best described as graffiti tolerant Laser 3.14's work is prolific throughout Amsterdam. Snappy one or two lines of what has variously been called, poetry or prophecy sprayed on temporary structures all over the City. People have taken to "collecting" shots of these phrases, cataloguing the ones they spot on the website.

This particular word comes from the phrase "Elvis versus the disdained" which is sprayed on a Salvation Army charity clothes bin near our house. I cropped it and added a boost effect from picnik to pull out the bright contrast in the colours and the variation in paint density from the spray can.

A photo of the full phrase is in my photostream.

Matryoshka

A very kind friend visited Moscow recently and brought me back my very own Russian Dolls. I was expecting the traditional red and yellow ones but I love these so much more. I can't stop looking at them, picking them up and stacking them.

Busy doing nothing

I'm back. But frantically busy. I should go away more often though it seems... I have been tagged by the lovely Flora for a meme. Bonnie stopped by to see how I became an expat in Amsterdam. Jonathan liked my Woody Allen in New York experience so much it has been included in a database of honeymoon experiences (I wonder if I should mention to him that I wasn't actually on honeymoon at the time? The honeymoon was a whole other adventure...)

I'm feeling the love people, feeling the love.

In other news, I am thinking of switching the little old blog to squarespace instead of blogger so that I can put some ideas I have into practice which are not achievable on blogger. Any thoughts?

Other than that, its going to be a busy couple of days, just look at my to do list:


So please forgive me if posting is a wee bit sporadic for the next few days. Normal service will resume...

Away

I am away this week for work so no posts this week.

I'll be back when my nose lifts from the grindstone...

Souvenir Foto Friday

Because X is a dichotomy of a letter. It has many meanings and interpretations. It is a spy letter, sneaking round corners, hidden in disguises.

It is a soft slide of the tongue to the teeth, Xylophone
It is religion and symbolism, Xmas, Christ on a cross
It is treasure, marking the spot, X
It is a promise, X, drawn over the heart. I cross my heart…
It is a declaration; mark an X next to the candidate of your choice
It is a negation, X, you got it wrong.
It is direction, X, North, East, South and West
It is affection, X, I kiss you, X, I miss you
It is the tipping point of a decision, X, a crossroads, which road will you take?
It is a gasp and the catch at the back of the throat, seX

This is my submission for Assignment 4 of Souvenir Foto. Simply to shoot a letter. This X was taken from directly above as I stood on the tram tracks, hoping that a tram wouldn't suddenly zip round the corner and squash me flat. Mission accomplished.

ATTENTION: Delivery Companies in Amsterdam

Yes, I am talking to you. You, delivery companies in Amsterdam. You, who take my money, whisper promises of delivery and, well, quite frankly... fail to deliver in all senses.

We've already discussed one of you here, and now I have another one to add to the list. Oh, yes, you better believe there's a list, and chair delivery company, you are going right on it.

You see, I am a trusting type. So when you take my money and tell me you have two chairs in stock and will deliver one of them to me on Friday I believe you.

When you don't deliver on Friday (after I have spent the whole day waiting at home), you can understand why I might be a little miffed at having to chase you down through multiple phone calls.

I appreciate your view that the store shouldn't have promised delivery without checking with the delivery company but really, shouldn't someone have let me, the customer, know? Luckily for you I am a generous, patient, and I believe I already mentioned, trusting, soul so when you tell me you will call me on Monday to arrange delivery for Wednesday, I believe you.

When Monday comes and goes I start to lose faith a little, but joy of joys, you call me on Tuesday to arrange delivery between 10am and 12pm on Friday.

Ok, its not what we agreed the previous week, or indeed when I handed over my hard earned money to you, but the end is nigh. I can forgive you.

Right up until yesterday when you call me again to apologise, somewhat profusely, that you cannot deliver my chair as it is on a container ship about 3 weeks away from the Netherlands - probably. You can deliver me a spare chair in the meantime and swap it when mine gets here but... you can't quite guarantee when that will be. About 3 weeks... probably.

By this point I am losing the will to live. No really, how hard can it be? You had two in stock when I paid you in full for the chair. You promised to deliver in a week. Two weeks down the line I have no chair, no idea what happened to the ones you had in stock and my future potential chair is currently bobbing towards the Netherlands on a container ship.

You are on my list.

Warning: Coffee table company - I am planning to order from you in the next 48 hours. Your delivery service better be flawless. There's this list, you see, and believe me, you do not want to go on it...

Sjilpen*

Do you tweet?

I didn't really get the concept (and I'm sure I still don't) nevertheless, I entered the world of twitter some time ago and I am plodding on through.

I initially followed contacts from blogs I liked but increasingly I am branching (heh!) out and I have started to follow a couple of twitter feeds in Dutch. My Dutch is not good by anyone's standards but I am most confident reading so 140 characters is perfect for me. Often I will follow the links and start reading full articles in Dutch which is even better.

I'm not sure if helping people learn another language was one of the goals twitter set themselves when they set out to conquer the social media field but its certainly helping me.

If you want to follow me on twitter, there is a link in the right hand column which will take you to my feed.

If you are already on twitter, leave me a comment and let me know.

Do you tweet? If so what is the biggest advantage of twitter for you?

Note: As I was writing this Maryam of My Marrakesh tweeted a link to 20 Interesting Expats to Follow on Twitter. What do you think? Are there others you would add?

* to twitter, tweet or peep in Dutch.

Flowers

Last Friday's flowers are still going strong.

I survived.

Image from here.

Another trip to IKEA, successfully completed with only minimal wallet damage - damn, the as is section and their irresistable white enamel jugs. I am fine tuning the items for delivery and also the logistics of getting the stuff from the store to No. 75. Progress.

Need it, Use it, Love it.

It's a mess over here. We are up to our eyeballs in packing boxes and piles of stuff.

I am being absolute in my resolve not to take any rubbish or clutter with us to Number 75. Which just seems to make it all take twice as long.

To steel my resolve I am muttering "Do I need it, do I use it, do I love it?" at everything. Even the cat is looking worried.

What are your packing tips? How do you cut the clutter?

The Anatomy of a Cake

Recipe here.

Souvenir Foto Friday

You may remember, back in March the lovely husband bought me a new camera for my birthday. Its a fantastic camera and I am taking more pictures than ever with it. I have no camera training and have always been a "point, shoot and pray" kind of a girl but over the last couple of years I find myself increasingly drawn to photographic art and have really wanted to develop my own skills.

So when, Miss B of Le Blahg, opened her "Photo School", I wanted in. Unfortunately, it came at just the wrong time for me, we were away in America, so I missed the first two assignments. But I am in for the third.

Joining a group like this one, focuses my attention on taking good photographs. It gives me a subject to look for and encourages me to try out new techniques. Plus, its free. Win, win, win.

Without further ado, I present my submission to the Week 3 assignment, the subject of which was numbers and viewfinder cropping...

COUNTDOWN

Cross processing sharpened the numbers, rounded corners to make it look pretty on the blog. Effects added via picnik.

It isn't the project I wanted to do, very much my second choice. I had really wanted to take shots of all the different styles of house number in our neighbourhood (and I will), I just ran out of time this week.

Book Club: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

I attended a book club last night as part of my "need to get out more" plan. I had only attended a book club once before, in England, where I turned out to be the youngest there by a good few decades. It was not a success. But, nothing ventured etc. So I signed up for the first available book club (there are a few running for expats in Amsterdam) on the grounds that I had already read the book and therefore there was a good chance that I would be able to contribute to a discussion.

Last night's book was The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid. I admit, I was slightly nervous going into the discussion. I found the book utterly brilliant but it deals with difficult and challenging issues which can provoke and polarise people. Generally, my two conversational rules with strangers are to avoid religion and politics. This walked into the bear pit of both. Fortunately, the book group consisted of smart, intelligent women with a lot to say. I needn't have worried. Not that I agreed with everything everyone said, nor they with me, I'm sure. However, it felt as though everyone in a group of 15 or so chipped in an opinion at some point. Opinions which made me think, or made me reavaluate, or made me say "oh, I never thought of it that way, I wonder if that means...". In short, I loved it. Today, I am still rolling around the following questions:

- Did the protagonist's relationship with Erica reflect his relationship with America?
- The protagonist changed his personality to fit into the role required of him by others, boyfriend, employee etc. When he returns to Pakistan, does he change his personality again to fit in or are we seeing his true personality?
- The concept of fundamentalism is not given a structured definition in the book, is it referring to religious fundamentalism or something else and if so what?

I am a book hound, reading one to two books a week (it is my most expensive vice). I did English literature to degree level and have a real passion for books, all books, any books. What I realised last night is that since we moved to Amsterdam I had got out of the habit of discussing books. The lovely husband doesn't read fiction (he loves non-fiction, history, political biography), whereas I used to discuss books all the time with friends and we would swap them amongst ourselves I don't have that network here and so my book discussions have somewhat dried up.

Next month the group are reading The Shack by WM Paul Young and the following month we will be reading The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. I'll let you know how it goes.

This is where we are...

With just 37 days until I get my hands on those keys things have stepped up a notch in the preparations. You may remember that we had already survived round one of the sofa delivery debacle, which gave us a grand total of 3 pieces of furniture (we already own a guest bed). We needed, and indeed still need, more. So at the weekend we ramped up the purchasing. Our tally so far:

• One sofa and armchair - already ordered for delivery the week after we get the keys... hopefully.
• One bed, boxspring - ordered to be delivered the day after we get the keys.
• One quilt, we already have pillows
• One DVD player - which may or may not be on its way to the UK depending on whether the Company sent it to my delivery address or my billing address. Their confirmation e-mail was unclear on this point and they have been incredibly silent since I asked for confirmation and provided them with a copy of the order. Am I to be cursed by deliveries?
• One desk chair with a E50 discount as it is the end of the line (hurrah, I would have bought it full price anyway).
  
• One set of Bemz covers for the, as yet, unbought dining chairs.

Which, I am sure you will agree, is progress. We have also:

• decided on a coffee table. An "opium table" rather like this one, but in natural wood, unless I change my mind and go for the dark stained wood, or the natural...

We have also chosen a television. And when did televisions get so expensive? I mean, really? We are not a tv watching household, more of a dvd boxset sort of a watching household. It galls me to spend this much money on something we don't use that much, but I have aesthetic issues. I simply cannot have a large lump of black plastic and glass as the focus of the room, so the television had to be as unobtrusive as possible while still being of a decent size to watch (which for the lovely husband seemed to mean 32 inch). The most unobtrusive I could find was a Samsung with a white surround, rather than black, however, it was way over my tentative budget. I just couldn't go there. Rather than bitch and whine about it (as I usually would), I took matters into my own hands and hit the internet. Having discovered it relatively cheaply in the UK and Germany I quickly worked out that no company would ship it due to size. Which meant hunting around the internet in Dutch.

I don't know what your experiences of buying online from Dutch companies have been like but my limited experience has left me frustrated and vowing never to do it ever again. It may be just my impression but online shopping has not really advanced here the way it has in the UK. The process is slow and complicated. One order required a bank transfer as a payment system rather than the more simple, plug in your credit card and away we go. Still, the lure of a cheaper product was too much for me and I hit the internet with a vengance. I started off with www.kelkoo.nl, a pricing website, to familiarise myself with the stores which stocked the tv I wanted. That worked well and I found it much cheaper at www.bestekeus.nl. It was still quite a lot though, so I pondered on it for 24 hours and tried again. This time I went to a dutch pricing site, www.beslist.nl who had a greater range of shops. The cheapest option on there was www.plasmadiscounter.nl. Joy of joys, they accept cards, no bank transfer hassle and they also promise to match the cheapest price you can find the product at. Hurrah. I am a happy bunny (well, as happy as a bunny still spending too much on a television can be). I'll let you know how the delivery goes. Maybe third time's the charm.

2e Pinksterdag

It is a holiday today in the Netherlands, Pinksterdag (officially today is tweede - 2e - pinksterdag) or Pentecost. I just couldn't resist the pink flowers for Pinksterdag.

Restaurant Review: Da Pino

At the end of last year a new Italian wine shop opened near us. This filled the Lovely Husband with unequivocable joy. He loves his wine, and has quickly bonded with the owner of the new establishment. One Saturday, some weeks ago, while the Lovely Husband was indulging his wine purchasing hobby, I got talking to the owner about Italian restaurants as they supply many of the top restaurants in the Netherlands. His recommendation was Da Pino on Overtoom and I had been waiting for a suitable occasion to try it out.

Just such an occasion presented itself yesterday when the Lovely Husband signed a new contract at work. A small celebration was definitely in order.

We strolled in the late evening sunshine up the Schinkel Canal to Overtoom (keeping our heads down as we passed the gym - pre-indulgence guilt, don't you know). There were no free tables outside so we took a table inside which was slightly warm for a summer evening but still quite pleasant and meant that we got to make friends with the house dog, Tartufo.

Da Pino had a lot to live up to, it came highly recommended and I already have a favourite Italian restaurant in Amsterdam (also local, La Favola). Having lived in Italy my standards for Italian food are very high.

I started with Swordfish Carpaccio, heavily flavoured with a good quality balsamic dressing. Before moving onto a pasta dish of perfectly made fresh ravioli filled with roasted aubergine and scamorza (Italian smoked cheese), which had been scattered with confit roma tomatoes and fresh parmesan. At the recommendation of our very knowledgable waiter I segued neatly to baked sea bass fillets which had been prepared en papillote with shellfish and more of the confit tomatoes served with rosemary roasted potatoes and a large side salad, both of which I barely touched, for shame. Desserts, while they looked lovely on the chalkboard, were not even an option after that and we gratefully paid the bill before rolling ourselves home.

La Favola, you have a worthy contendor for my affections.