Dim Sum More?

I have an arguably better picture for today, but this one just shows off my grey streak so well!  I'm (not-so-)secretly very very proud of my grey!  Just look, isn't it fabulous!  The greatest part:  I will never be "old" and neither will you!  I discovered I had grey hair when I was living in Germany.  That moment of finding your first grey hair (or a few more) will no longer be terrifying.  "Whatever," you'll be able to say, "Leila's had grey hair since she was 22, it doesn't mean anything!"  You're welcome!  :-P

Today I woke up and didn't want to get out of bed.  My dreams were holding me back.  But I had to so I did.  I got ready and hit the road.  I was supposed to meet with Aiste and Cristina at the Central Station to go to Den Haag for Grace's birthday.  I was late!  Then, I realized:  daylight savings time went into effect last night....  I was early....  I got some coffee and watched people rush through the station.  I think next time I have a few free hours I'm going to get my notebook and sit and take little written photos of people.  They're just too interesting.

The girls arrived and we headed off to Den Haag.  Grace and her boyfriend, Steve unexpectedly showed up to take the same train.  I don't know why this was unexpected since we all live in the same city and all wanted to go to the same city at the same time.  But, it was, so my girls and I had to be very sneaky because Grace's present wasn't finished or wrapped, and her card wasn't signed yet.  We managed though!

We went to a dim sum restaurant called Kantori in Den Haag.  So good!  Grace had 18 people there!  Mostly her Surinamese friends and family.  We ate for over two hours!  Dim sum, for those of you who've never had it, is a sort of side dish sampler.  Mostly it's little dumplings, steamed or fried, sometimes steamed or fried bread filled with pork or chicken, beef, shrimp, tofu, whatever.  You order lots of them (especially with 18 people!) because an order generally has 2-4 dumplings.  We had tons of food!  Fortunately, being a vegetarian (ok, pescatarian) I wasn't tempted by too many choices.  I didn't leave hungry though (I just didn't have to leave stuffed.)  My faaaaavorite were these fried dough balls stuffed with a sweet-ish tofu paste.  Grace's friends had never eaten tofu and were extremely unsure of it.  In fact, they didn't understand the concept of food with no meat in it.  :-)  Amazing.

After lunch we headed back to Leiden.  I walked slowly down the shopping street.  I'm still looking for shoes.  It was so cold and rainy today, I didn't went to be too long in the wet.  So I went shopping.  :-P  Got home, sort of soggy, and put on my big thick sweater, made some more chocolate chai tea and read De Bende van Anansi (Anansi Boys in English.)  Neil Gaiman,  'nough said.  I'm really pretty proud of myself, because I've only had to look up maybe 5 words!  If only this language were as easy to speak as to understand.  

Lolpod:  The head waiter walked into the back room carrying a cat.  We all just stopped eating and watched him.  Turns out the family lives over the restaurant and their pet escaped.  But...still, a waiter carrying a cat is NOT what you want to see in a Chinese restaurant.  Yikes.