Archive for December, 2007
War zone
I feel like I’m in a war zone at the moment, the number of fire crackers going off has increased to every few seconds! I’ve gotten used to it now though to the point it doesn’t scare me anymore and make me think a gun has gone off.
We stopped off at the supermarket briefly before [...]Machiavelli
Tonight we went to dinner at a friend of Alex’s, Ieke and her partner Andre. Ieke is vegetarian and since I’m not really a huge meat eater I really enjoyed the vegetarian meal we had for dinner.
After dinner, MORE Oliebollen (I’m gonna get so fat from these) and then I got introduced to the game [...]Vicki and Robert leave
In the morning once we got up (had a bit of a sleep in after the late night) I spent some time helping Vicki with her website. We were hoping to maybe do our private balance class, but we ended up spending too much time on the website and finally had to say goodbye around [...]
Forum people arrive!
Today I finally got the amazing opportunity to meet some long time forum friends. Vicki (Red) and Robert (Sigma) arrived first and I’ve known them for 4 or 5 years or so. Especially Robert who I’ve known the longest from the old forums before I started btstalk.com and before I was an instructor. Meeting them was like having [...]
Annelies
Today was an amazingly huge day. We (tried to) get up early for the 2.5 hour drive down to Zeeland where Annelies lives. Annelies is an old forum friend of mine that came and spent 3 weeks with me in Adelaide about 4 years ago. How time has passed but it’s funny how the memories [...]Out for a jog
Finally starting to really get over my cold and after all the food and festivies I’m bursting to exercise again. Hopefully I’m not getting too fat from all the good food here?
Alex has no full length mirrors, only a face height mirror so I have no idea how my body looks, lol! Nor does he [...]Christmas Day
Quiet relaxing day for Christmas Day which was nice. Much nicer than previous years I remember which used to involve getting up early, rushing to one set of parents house, over eating, rushing to the next family and eating more, then eating till you just feel sick. Stress, presents, expectations.
It was nice instead to spend [...]Christmas Eve Dinner
It’s a dutch tradition to celebrate Christmas Eve more rather than Christmas Day, so for Christmas Eve we had dinner at Alex’s place. Alex’s brother and family, sister and his dad all came over for fondu. First time ever having fondu for me. I had only heard of having cheesy or chocolate fondu’s, so having [...]
Madurodam
Today we met up again with Ben and his family and drove the hour and a half trip to Madurodam, which is a tourist part with minature replica’s of The Netherlands. During the drive we stopped at McDonalds first on the way, which pretty closely resembled McDonalds in Australia. The food though, like most other [...]
Alex’s brother and family
Last night we went to meet Alex’s brother, Ben and his family with his wife, Ineke and kids Sara and Benjamin. It was really wonderful meeting them and I felt so comfortable with them. Ben and Inneka both speak excellent English which was great although the kids can’t speak English, but they are beautiful children.
When I [...]Frost?
I don’t know if you can call this a frost, but by Australian standards it definitely puts a “frost” to shame.
When there’s dew overnight it freezes on top of the previous dew and it ends up with heavy layer of ice everywhere. You can’t quite see how white it is from the pic, it doesn’t really do it justice. Almost [...]
Dusseldorf
The trip to the Christmas markets in Germany only took about an hour and a half, which by European standards is a long drive……..but I think it’s cool that you can be in another country in such a short time! It only took 30 mins driving to get to the border, which was relatively non-descript. [...]
oh great
Now both of us are sick this morning……Alex is coming down with a cold aswell. I must have picked up some foreign virus on the plane. oh well, battle on hopefully.
Didn’t sleep well last night so I’m up earlier catching up on writing my blog while Alex sleeps. Lots of orange juice and paracetomol for [...]Quieter day
I rested for quite a bit of the day today as this cold seems to have gotten worse and it’s really taken it out of me. I’d have spurts of energy that would only last barely an hour but yet haven’t been able to sleep well though. I think I’m mainly over the jetlag, but [...]
Getting a cold
I haven’t been sick in ages, but I guess all the travelling has finally weakened me and I’m starting to get a cold. I hope I don’t get too sick! Maybe that’s why I’m feeling the cold so bad, cuz you’re more sensitive when you’re sick.
Today we went shopping and also purchased a Christmas tree….like [...]
