Today, we started with grand plans, but found ourselves thwarted at every turn.

First, we headed off to the Musee d'Orsay on foot. It was a pleasant enough walk, and sunny, but when we arrived, we found it was closed on Mondays. Same thing at the Musee Rodin. So, we headed back to our hotel for lunch and to replan.

After looking things up online, we found that most of our plan wasn't going to work, as May 1 is a national holiday here, and most everything is closed then. So, M went off to get some groceries for lunch, but found that the boulangerie also serves sandwiches, and the line was out the door and down the street.

While the boys were eating, I ran out to try to get some few things (a camera for the Younger, a new Nike + sensor, etc.) First, I had trouble finding the store (it had moved) then I ended up with only one of the things I tried to get. Then I discovered that I'd walked about twice as far as I'd needed to (the store is actually very close to our hotel.)

Next, we headed to Saint Chapelle. It's a beautiful church next to Notre Dame. The boys oohed and aahed at the many stained glass windows, but while we were waiting in line to get in, it started raining. After that, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. That went ok on the way up, but by the time we got to the top, it was starting to rain and the wind was blowing pretty hard. We tried to have dinner in the restaurant on the first level, but they were booked for the first seating, meaning we wouldn't be able to eat until 9. Then we found the cafeteria was still open, but no longer serving hot food. By the time we left, it was pouring down rain.

After that, the Younger and I managed to miss one elevator down (the other two insisted on taking the stairs) and then I managed to have us miss a metro train. Otherwise, it went well, and all in all, we had a good day with only a few intra-faimly blow-ups.

Tomorrow, we head off to a small, French amusement park on the west side of the city. We'll see how that goes. They're having an "Americans in Paris" theme for the coming weeks, so that should be amusing as well. Hopefully I can upload this post and update tomorrow as well.

I hope this works. The blog entry I made last night didn't get uploaded, although it is somehow still lying around in the update tool waiting to go. I hope this is some effect of sitting behind the hotel firewall and that all will be fine once we get back home. If not, then drastic measures will need to be taken.

We didn't do much today. After a light breakfast at the patisserie (pastry shop) around the corner, we took a short walk to see a bit of the surrounding neighborhood. We chose the wrong street to go down, as it was lined with sex shops, but further on, we found a couple of places to get breakfast during the week as well as a boulangerie (bakery) where we can get some bread (but not on Sunday.)

Next we came back to the hotel to plan the week. The boys have insisted on being part of the planning, so we discussed the options with them. Then we walked to the Jardin des Tuileries near the Louvre. There, they have a place with trampolines set level with the ground. For 2 EUR, you can jump for 5 minutes. We got 10 tickets for 15 EUR (the discounted price) and the boys were disappointed when they ran out. The Older managed to smack himself in the chin with his knee trying to do a front flip, but after resting for one round, he was back at it.

We ate dinner in the gardens and wandered a bit before coming back to the hotel to rest, read and play. I went for a run this evening, but the Jardin was closed already, so I contented myself with making a big loop from the entrance to the Louvre to the point where the Champs Elysees starts to turn from park into shops and restaurants. There's something fun about jogging within sight of the Eiffel Tower. This is truly a beautiful city.

Tomorrow, we will probably start with the Louvre, but it depends a bit on when we get started. I'm not in the mood to rush the boys about if we don't need to, but I do want to make sure we see some things instead of sitting in our hotel room. The plan will help a lot, since the boys can always be moved to go to something they are interested in, and they fact that they took part in the process won't hurt either. Well, off to bed now. I'll try to report tomorrow as well.

Hello from Paris! We spent the day taking train after train to get here, but now we're settled in and fed, the fridge is stocked, the kids are asleep and the sounds of happy diners are drifting up to our balcony from the restaurant below.

We'll set off on our adventures in the city tomorrow, but for now, I'm happy just to be here. I really needed this break, and we're starting to really plan for the summer holiday, and I'm looking forward to that already as well. I guess that's a bad sign that I'm working too hard.

We ran into something interesting/slightly annoying today. Over here at least, credit cards are now asking for your PIN when you use them to buy things. In the past, you only needed the PIN to take out cash, and since I've never wanted to do that (because of the HUGE interest fees) I simply don't know the PINs for my cards. Fortunately, most places seem able to deal with my ATM card, and since I get paid later this week, we should have enough money in the account to cover this trip. In reality, the credit card does a full balance withdrawl from the account once a month anyway, so we need to have the money there in either case. It's not a huge deal, but I'm still not used to so many places taking ATM cards.

Well, now it's late, so I'm off to sleep. I plan to run in the morning, hopefuly around the Louvre. Can't beat that, really. Living in Europe certainly has some perks.

I seem to be picking up steam now. Work is going better, despite my continued feeling that I'm missing something. I'm running very regularly now and I'm doing a good job of keeping my snacking to a minimum and I'm feeling the difference. The sunnier weather doesn't hurt either.

M and the kids are happier too, with all the activities they've picked up in the past months. M took a photography class this past week, which she really enjoyed. Soccer will end soon, but swimming, art class, drama class, and scouts will continue for a while yet and Dutch classes have yet to start. Whenever we talk about going on a trip somewhere, the boys just want to stay home. Given their agendas, I'm not sure I blame them. Of course, once we get out of the range of the computers and video games, they have a great time.

Speaking of soccer, the boys' team won again this week. Now they are 2 points ahead of the second place team with two weeks to play. The Younger has really turned a corner with his play. He made several excellent stops and was really getting into the play this past week. Unfortunately, we will be in Paris for the two final games, and the last game is against the one team that beat us, so the championship will surely come down to the wire and we will miss it.

The Nike Run was also this weekend, and both boys ran in the kid's run. M ran the 1.5k with them, and all three had a good time, but many lessons were learned. The first was bring your own water. We're all hoping to run next year. I'm not sure how those logistics will work but we'll figure it out.

Our Trip to Paris is now less than a week away, and I've found that our tickets are strange. I'm torn between trying to sort them out before hand, or just jumping on the train and letting fate take it's course. The issue is that while the kids' tickets say from Hilversum to Brussels (and then on to Paris) ours say from Rosendaal to Brussels. I think the issue is that the high speed tickets (from Brussels to Paris) entitle the adults to travel anywhere in the Netherlands on that day of travel. I think we'll just jump on the train and see what happens. I have the confirmation of travel with me just in case, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Otherwise, things are relatively sane here. We worked out some issues with our car over the week. I had it in for service before Brugge, then something came loose underneath, and I had to take it in again to get that sorted out. On Saturday, we discovered a notice from the RDW (basically the DMV) that we needed our annual inspection by the 21st of April, but then later realized that our garage had taken care of that when it was in for service, so another large hassle was averted. But more to come I'm sure.

This was a long weekend. The Dutch do not get Good Friday off, but they do get 2e Paasdag (Second Easter Day) off. My boss told us all to work from home on Friday, so we were able to sneak away to Brugge (or Bruges, depending on which language you speak) in Belgium. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive and we had absolutely no traffic to speak of.

Brugge is a beautiful little European town. We wandered around oohing and aahing at the old architecture. We took a boat cruise on the canals and we saw the diamond and chocolate museums where we learned how these things are harvested and processed. We ate some aggressively mediocre food and we spent most of Sunday at a small sea park where we rode rides and watched dolphin and sea lion shows. We all had fun.

The best part about being there was being away from the Netherlands. The Belgians are much more service minded than the Dutch, and their language skills are most impressive. The boat tour was done in English, French and German with the driver switching seamlessly between each of the three. I think normally he would have included Dutch, but he checked at the start of the ride (in Dutch) and no one needed it, so he skipped it. As far as I could tell, he didn't tell any of the jokes in German, which is funny in its own way.

I also spent a lot of time while we were away thinking about work and being here. I've found myself stereotyping the Dutch very hard lately. Everytime someone cut a line or biked through a crowd of people watching a street musician, or were otherwise unconscionably rude, I find myself labeling them as Dutchies and thinking of it as a curse. Not very nice, I know.

Then on Sunday morning, I had a dream about standing up in front of all of these Dutch colleagues/neighbors/etc. and complaining to them that they hadn't really taken me in as a friend or let me into their society. The response back was that I haven't given them a chance. I haven't reached out either. In my mind, this whole "adventure" has been a temporary thing, and investing to make the longer term connections that last is not something I've worked on. From all of that, I realized that I'm really, really lonely here. There are a few people that I think I really could connect to, but they more or less work for me, so a close friendship is not something I can really foster. Outside of work, it's harder, since the Dutch prefer to socialize in Dutch, and we've decided to forget about learning the language. In any case, I doubt I could bring my Dutch skills up to socializing point in time to take advantage of them while we're here. Dutch society is tolerant, and somewhat curious, but also closed. It's not easy to get into circles that have already been formed. You don't feel like your neighbors want you to leave, but you don't feel like they care if you stay either. It's different and uncomfortable and a bit lonely.

That said, I've also realized what needs to be done at work. I've forgotten what it takes to run a project, and even though I now run a program (a whole set of projects) I can treat this program as a project too. It needs objectives and time lines and milestones. It needs logical reasons for making decisions and it needs regular reviews. This is something I can do, even if I haven't done it for a while. It's not even very hard, since if I set it up right, then I can delegate most of the actual work out to the project leads that work for my program. In any case, it needs to get done, and it's just a matter of taking the time to do it. I've already blocked two hours out of my schedule every day for doing this and I'm going to be hard about that time, otherwise, I'll never get this done. But at least I have a plan to get a plan now, and I'm looking forward to it.

In other news, I've been eating less and exercising more. I'm four weeks into tracking my diet and doing the interval program. I haven't been perfect every week, but I've done pretty well. I'm feeling stronger and lighter and sleeping better as a result. There's still a long way to go, but I see the first glimmers of a running habit forming. I found myself really enjoying my run this morning, which is a change from the dread and reluctance and pain that have been there the past few weeks. I'm thinking of finding a running club, or at least signing up for some community fun runs around the Netherlands. That will probably get me going more regularly, and I do enjoy running in organized runs.

Well, I'd better get some work done today. I have a pretty full agenda for Tuesday, and I want to have at least part of my plan thought through before then. I hope everyone had a Happy Easter and that Spring (or Fall for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere) is bringing you beautiful weather.

The last few weeks have been hard on me, and I think on M as well. Since coming back from holiday, I've had a long stretch at work of doing only what had to be done right then. This has eased up a bit in the last week or so, but I've still found myself stumbling from one thing to the next with no sense of control over by destiny. Not a good feeling.

I made a real effort to not work this weekend. It made me a bit crazy by Sunday afternoon, but I'm not so far behind that I can't afford to force the issue. Next weekend is a long weekend, and we need to figure out where to go to get away. Then, two weeks later, we'll be in Paris, so that should help ease the pressure a bit. Either that or it will ramp things up again.

I've also had the sinking feeling that I've been doing poorly at work and at home. This is difficult, since if at least one part of your life is going well, then you can use the energy from that to help in other areas. No such luck at the moment. M and the kids seem fine enough, but I discovered that we're very late with our life insurance payments and the trunk of our car no longer latches. All in all, I feel like I'm barely managing to do anything, and it doesn't feel good.

So, I had a nap this afternoon and thought about what was going on and what to do about it. In the end, it's up to me to take control of my life and my situation. I've been feeling victimized by everything everywhere, and that can't be. It's up to me to prioritize my work and to set clear expectations on what I will and will not be able to accomplish. It's up to me to organize my life at home, to engage with M and the kids if I need help. I hate playing the victim, but it's an easy game to get caught up in, especially here in the land of sharp elbows.

Anyway, I'm also starting to look into where to land when we come home at the end of 2010. There have been some interesting shuffles at my old place of work, and that might merit some investigation on my part. First, I think I'll dig out from under a bit. I need to take back control of my time and my schedule and build in some moments to reflect and think. I'm paid for that, after all, so I'd better be doing it.

In other news, the boys lost their first football match of this season to a team of girls. It was clear that the whole team was frustrated by the loss, and some of the boys really resented losing to girls. Our boys were unhappy about losing in general, and there was a bit of sibling conflict on the field as the Younger made a small mistake that led to one of the other team's goals. In the end, it was only 3-1, and the team played very well in the second half, so they had nothing to really be ashamed of. They were simply out played by a better team.

My interval training is going ok. I missed a day last week due to reasons that are not clear to me. It was hard to get going again this morning, but I'm glad I did. I'm also trying to track my eating again, as I'm as heavy as I've ever been now. In the end, the whole problem comes back to sleep and lack thereof. The moodiness you see above is also part of that problem, so I've asked M to help me get to bed earlier. So far, we've failed miserable with post midnight bed times for the last three days. This is a struggle I shouldn't have, since I'm much happier and more productive when I'm rested, so the excuse of staying up late to get more done just doesn't hold water.

On that note, I'll head that direction now.