On bicycles, a random act of sweetness, more eating, more working, and coping with a sense of "homesickness"

(Dry-tech -- David demonstrates he has a sense of humor even on very long work days...)

We have begun tech, which means we now commute each day to Utrecht to the Beatrix Theater, where we will open on March 9th. The commute is about 45 minutes by car, if there is no traffic. The journey is much shorter by train, about 20 minutes -- given all our bags, computers, and other myriad of work items, however, David and I have not taken this shorter mode of transport. But then again, today marks only Day 2 of tech, so we may still make the journey by train yet. It's early days.

(David standing in for "Johnny" in dry-tech... this is the moment when Johnny is lifting Baby...)

We have battled with people getting sick in the cast from the start of rehearsals, and this continues. It's winter, after all, and the flu seems to pass along readily. Sickness, thus absences, in the company means rehearsals and tech get compromised -- when cast members are not available to do their own plots and require swings, inevitably the show needs to backtrack to accommodate the people when they come back to rehearsal. David missed 2 days of rehearsals last week, too, having developed a fever from the flu. Fortunately he is all better and healthy now, but as this is the first rehearsal period where he has fallen ill, it was alarming. Other creatives have suffered illnesses, too, along with the cast, which indicates how strained we are with work, how much rest we are lacking and how fragile our health is at the moment. This Utrecht production period is the shortest we have ever done. The pressure for time and its impact are showing in the team. And the winter in Northern Europe with little sunlight doesn't help.

Luckily, I have not gotten sick yet. Very healthy indeed, albeit exhausted at the end of the day. Knock on wood!

In spite of the sicknesses and the time constraints and pressures, the show is taking shape and the set, which has a few new components, looks beautiful. I have gotten used to hearing the show in Dutch, even. We have discovered a nice cafe next to the theater where we can get a hot, healthful lunch, which means I don't have to cook every single day. As much as I like cooking, these mornings, I am starting to want to spend that extra half hour getting more sleep from time to time.

So it all continues.

Surprisingly, David has been suffering from homesickness for New York. Surprising to me because David had always wanted to live and work in Amsterdam. These days, we come home to our Amsterdam house and David yearns for New York. We have been enjoying Amsterdam as much as we are able, but the lifestyle here and the general lack of sunlight -- ever -- is getting to him. Everything is easier in New York, and more plentiful, and it feels like a distant oasis to us in wintry Amsterdam. It's not that it's cold, but it's always dark. The Amsterdam we have come to know is in the spring and the summer, which is brilliant, like a paradise. While the canals, the historic houses and the city still retain its romantic charm, Amsterdam in the winter hardly sees sunlight. Recently, we've heard of several people killing themselves by stepping in front of trains -- and Dutch people tell you this as if it were a natural phenomenon in the winter. I think this must be due to people being more prone to depression with less sunlight.

Also, we have just moved to a lovely apartment in New York, set it up only to leave it, and so we long for our more familiar things. The turn-around between Toronto and Amsterdam was very quick and intense, and we left New York without spending quite enough time at home.

All this being said, I still think it is special living in Amsterdam, if these days a bit more than David. I love our canal house, I love my pink bicycle, and I enjoy the routine of spending our one day off a week doing the grocery shopping. And I found myself the recipient of a lovely random act of sweetness -- someone put an orange flower on the headlight of my bicycle. Behind one of the petals, it says "Write down something that makes you happy and go for it." This made me very happy, and it seems the perfect bloom to decorate my pink bike.

We are still getting used to riding our bikes around Amsterdam. The best time to ride our bikes around, we have discovered, is at night, when there are few cars and cyclists around. (We are currently detoxing and not drinking alcohol, so we ride sober, don't worry.) We rode to a restaurant the other night, along the canals, and it was wonderful. I did take note that I should not wear slim fitting dress when riding to a restaurant... next time, I shall dress more appropriately.

(Looking onto the kitchen at the Restaurant De Kas...)

Food options in Amsterdam, even in winter, continue to be far better than those in Hamburg, which is what we consider to be the bottom of our culinary experience abroad. To point -- we finally made our way to De Kas, where we've wanted to go for sometime. De Kas is a greenhouse-turned-into-a-restaurant, which uses local, organically grown produce as well as vegetables harvested on its own grounds. The restaurant has a set menu created from its daily harvest. For me, De Kas has been the most special restaurant we have been to in Amsterdam, from freshness of its produce to its appealing and bold simplicity -- the dishes are simple, but full of flavor and beautifully presented. It's a little bit out of the center of Amsterdam, but it was well worth the trip.

I still have hopes of spring coming early here in Amsterdam, a spring full of light and bloom that will make us forget just how dark it is at the moment. Until then, at least I've got my orange blossom on my bicycle.