Frantic februari

Wow, yeah, so I'm not doing such a great job of blogging lately, my apologies!  But februari was heel druk (very busy).... and yes, I now write in a strange mixture of Engels-Dutch - you should see my emails to Dutch people (besides, some Dutch words just look better than English ones... for example "appel"  "wafel" "appartement" etc, my spelling in English is certainly going downhill!

So, my excuse for the lack of blogging activity is the fact that during februari I was actually only at home for about 9days in the whole month... I spent the first week with the nuns on my intensive Dutch language training course, then it was my birthday and I spent a long weekend in Maastricht with Rich (it was their "mardi gras" carnival... ik was een kikker) and the last week of feb I was away at a conference in Zurich.  Zurich is beautiful but you certainly pay for the experience, around £7 for a cup of coffee and the conference meal (3 (tiny, tiny) courses) cost £70!!  I wasn't even full afterwards!  So I'm glad I got to see it on a work trip as I definitely wouldn't go back for a holiday, not when lunch prices are like evening meal prices!

A really busy but interesting month!

Here are some pics of the crazy carnival:



Unfortunately I have no pictures of Zurich as my camera was stolen on my last day :-(  Terrible timing as two days later I managed to explode the back tyre of my mountain bike, so it's been an expensive couple of weeks.

Well, the problem is that work trips go hand in hand with free food, free alcohol and no exercise so I'm feeling pretty unhealthy right now.  I thought I'd give up alcohol for lent but then I realised that St. Patrick's day is in the way and that would be a great shame!  Also, in an attempt to make up for the lack of sport and too much eating, I set my alarm 45min early every day last week planning on going for a 30min run before work each day, however, each time the alarm went off I just switched it off and went back to sleep again... this week I didn't even bother!

I did have a sporty weekend tho, Sat I went for a 2 and a half hour cycle ride (I cycled to the Hague, ate dim sum and cycled back again!) and Sunday I got my ass kicked in a squash tournament!

Until next time....

Another fun packed weekend

Had a fantastic weekend with Rich, he arrived nice and early on Fri evening and got to meet all my work colleagues, I then took him to see the wonders of our canteen where we had a couple of snacks before hiring a bike for the weekend and wandering back home. We then went for a nice evening cycle ride and stopped off at our favourite place for dinner, Easie (a great noodle bar) and then stopped for beers at a crowded and old fashioned bar in the south of the centre.

Sat we took it easy, we went to the new observatory musuem, went for a mooch around the markets, had coffee in the bar above which Rutger Hauer was filmed in the movie Soldier of Orange. After this we went to Naturalis, a very impressive museum! Then we had friends over for dinner in the evening.

Sunday, I suggested a gentle bike ride to the beach, the sky was clear, the sun was shining! I thought it would take about 50min but it was actually a LOT further. We were actually heading to the Space Expo European Space Station museum but it took an hour and a quarter to get to Noordwijk centre just for us to find out it's not in Noordwijk centre but about another 20min away and by that point we were freezing to death, so we cycled another 15min to the beach, stopped for a coffee to warm up, and then took a look at the beach. Despite temperatures near freezing the beach was heaving! We were too cold after an hour and a half cycling to walk along the beach, so what did we do? Spent another hour and a half cycling home! So instead of my original plan (50min cycling, 2hours in the museum, 50min cycling back) we ended up going for a 3hour cycle ride only stopping for 10min for a coffee! Whoops, I felt really guilty. Not only that but the sunshine didn't last, it was cloudy and freezing all the way home, not to mention windy! Oh well, nice to get some fresh air! We did have a really nice late lunch when we got back to Leiden and at least we made the most of the railway bike rental for Rich!

 

What to do, what to do?

My blog post title reminds me of those vultures at the end of the jungle book... the ones that hop around going "whatchya wanna do?"  "I dunno, whatchya you wanna do?" and so on.  Gotta love them vultures.

Yeh, I've been really spoilt for choice this weekend (my last weekend in NL before heading back to the dready midlands for Xmas).  Here were my options:

 Deventer - they have a Charles Dickens festival once a year this coming
 weekend, looks weird but wonderful:
http://www.dickensfestijn.nl/

I'd love to go but it takes over 2 hours by train and I've heard you have to queue for over an hour to an hour and a half to get into the streets to see :-(



 Dordrecht - I'm going there on Sunday with friends, they have Xmas markets and it’s not too far away.

Valkenburg - this is near to Maastricht and they have what looks like a beautiful Xmas festival inside a real cave!  But again over 2 hours away and queuing to get in.


 Playing squash in Warmond - Sat they have a ladies day... I'm missing sport so much I'm genuinely starting to feel ill!

So I think the plan is Leiden market Sat, shopping, cleaning etc then squash, then feet up, then Sunday Dordrecht!

Mijn fijn weekend met Rich

Had a brill weekend with Rich.  We went to Antwerpen for the day on Saturday.  The trains were jam packed, I think Belgium must be a popular weekend destination for Hollanders esp at this time of year.

I was expecting Antwerp to be a lot smaller but it's massive, like a capital city and the architecture was beautiful.

The Xmas markets were nice and the mulled wine (gluhwijn) much cheaper than back in the UK but believe it or not, although it sounds more exotic to head to Antwerp for Xmas markets, the Brum one is much bigger and better, the one in Antwerp didn't sell Xmas decorations or toys or trinkets or much food.  In fact watching this video made me miss Brum (which I didn't think was possible!!):

Other than that, bought an enormous Nepalese jumper as thick as a sheep and warmer than my coats, that ought to help in my freezing cold office, and I practised more Dutch in Antwerp than since I've been in the Netherlands ("hoeveel kosten de chocolade appels?" for example!).

Oh and also, I've never seen a "fresh" hot chocolate before (I imagined hot choc with fresh cream) but no... it's a massive mug of steaming hot milk with chocolate on a stick on the side.  If I hadn't seen someone else order one I would have assumed you ate the chocolate on a stick, but you stir it into your hot milk!  Never had the chance to try one (I was having a regular hot chocolate when I saw someone else being served this), can't wait to have one at some point tho, hope they do them in the Netherlands, suppose I could always dunk my twix into a glass of milk but it just wouldn't be the same right?!