First Beer

There is no legal drinking age in Amsterdam, so I decided to let Mason try his first mug of beer. Of course, he chose the biggest size!

Just kidding! We went to The Dam today for some pizza and they served Mason his apple juice in a big beer mug. I thought it looked hilarious so I made my friends get their cameras out to take pictures for me.

Inauguration Party

We went to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday with a group of American friends. It was nice to be able to watch it with everyone. Here is a picture of Gabrielle and Mason watching together (thanks, Torrey!).

Imagination

I have none. No imagination here. I was the kid on the playground giving blank stares to the others that were "pretending to be aliens" or "pretending to ride unicorns". What is the point anyway?

I've never enjoyed reading fiction much. If you are going to read a book, isn't it better to read something that you can actually apply in real life? Why would you want to read something that is not real?

I started looking into learning activities that Mason and I could do together. My first inclination was to find all the books/software that will teach him how to read and write and do math.

I could teach him everything I know, but that is limitted. How do I teach him to think past what is known?

I forgot about something I had read a long while ago. Quoted from Albert Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." I do believe you can be a scholar by learning everything factual. But, you will never be extraordinary. You will never come up with ideas that others laugh at, such as the existence of black holes, which will later be found to be proven by science.

Now, I have a child that is constantly coming to me and begging me to use my imagination. He lives for pretend play. I want to do this for him, but how? Is imagination something that you must be born with? Or is this a learned behaviour?

I swear I am not a robot. Did i lose my imagination? Was I supposed to be taught this and never learned? Or was I just not born with an imagination?

Regardless, I will research ways to encourage imaginative play. Isn't it sad that I have to have someone tell me how to be imaginative?

Land of the Free

Who says the USA is the land of the free? Here, you can indulge in prostitution, if you like. You can smoke marijuana, if that is your cup of tea. Best of all... I found out today that it is LEGAL to download copyrighted material on the internet (this is illegal in the US). Yes, Curt/Dave I know you are jealous of me right now, but I don't have time to think about it. I'm too busy watching my free, downloaded, completely legal movies :P

War Zone

In case you thought I was exhaggerating when I said it sounded like a war zone on New Year's Eve. Please check out this video and see for yourself. Also note that these fireworks are being let off by a bunch of drunk people, not professionals. Oh, and notice that the fireworks are not just shooting up, they are shooting off to the side. I'm surprised there aren't fires breaking out everywhere and people in the hospital.

New Year's in Amsterdam

Seriously. They are not messing around here. I thought I would bring in the new year with the same old tradition I have used since Mason was born, going to bed at 11:00. However, I was in for quite a surprise when I almost had a heart attack from the noise outside. Apparently, everyone in the whole city buys fireworks and shoots them off. It was crazy. It sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone. I jumped out of bed to look outside, and people were out in the streets everywhere setting off fireworks. It was really not even safe to be outside. One of my friends said she saw people pile up a ton of fireworks, and then set a bon fire on top of them.

The picture above was taken by Efe's co-worker from his downtown apartment. I wish I could take credit for it, but I really stole it from him (thanks, Roger). You can see from the picture that there are fireworks going off from a ton of different locations. Crazy dutchies.