Monday, January 14, 2008

Our first Holland movie experience

Kristal, Hannah and I hopped on the metro last Saturday afternoon to make our way to the center of Rotterdam. We decided it was finally time to visit a movie theater to see "National Treasure 2 - The Book of Secrets" First, the building looked large but there where only 7 theaters in it, we quickly found out why. We walked into theater 1 and found ourselves at the base of the most ginormous screen I believe I have ever seen. It was a bit larger than a typical IMAX screen. We then turned around to see row after row of stadium seating. I think that it seated about 2 1/2 times the number of people that a theater at the Cinemark does in American Fork. It was awesome! We have heard about dubbing vs subtitling before our experience but this just confirmed it. The dutch people do not like watching dubbed movies. Childrens movies are often dubbed since they do not all speak english and they may not be able to read yet but everything else is in English with Dutch subtitles. When I went to purchase the drinks and popcorn, they asked if I would like sweet or salty popcorn. I suppose the sweet was like kettle corn but I chose the salty.

As for the movie itself. Very Good!!! I was not disappointed and I am anxious for the 3rd "National Treasure". Hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Foods the Kids Love

The diet of ourselves as well as the kids have changed a bit to encorporate dutch foods. I figured that I would write about a few of those foods. I think the overall favorite is stroopwaffles and stroopkoekens. The stroopwaffle is featured in the movie "The Best 2 Years", if you have seen it, you should know what I am talking about. They are basically 2 thin waffle-type cookies that have a layer of a caramel-type stuff inbetween them. Stroopkoekens are basically the same thing that have thin butter cookies instead of waffles.

Another favorite is hagelslag. They are chocolate (chocoladehagel) or fruit (fruithagel) sprinkles like you would see on cake in the states. You spread pindakas (peanut butter) or chocolatapasta (Nutella or hazelnut spread) on a piece of bread and then sprinkle the hagelslag on top.

Pancakes are also popular. They are actually more like crepes but a little thincker. At ward function we had the pancakes and they baked apples or cheese in some of them to give different tastes. You could also take a plain pancake and add fresh fruit, whip cream and syrup sprinkled with a little powder sugar on top. MMMM leker!

We all like the cured meats. Cheese and cured meats are very popular and you have a lot of choices in the stores. We just had a sausage that you slice up and cook in a grill on the stove and we eat it while it is still sizziling. Gouda cheese is big because it comes from the town of Gouda, Netherlands. We will probably go to the cheese festival in that town this summer.

The popular dutch foods are very good and we have found that we love most everything. They eat a lot of meat and potatoes which makes us feel more and more at home.