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!

 

Did you know...?

Did you know...

...baked beans come in glass jars in the Netherlands

New Year

Happy new year (althought rather delayed).  Hope everyone had a good Xmas break.

So, what's been happening my end?  Well, things have been really, really busy, hence the blog silence of late.

Had a great Xmas break, never seems long enough tho, but since I've been back in the Netherlands things have been non-stop.  Never been to sooo many New Year's celebrations in January, there were at least 2 or 3 a week for the first two weeks!  So much for laying off the snacks and alcohol after Xmas!

Other than that my schedulde has pretty much looked like this:

Mon - Work, Dinner, Dutch lessons
Tues - Work + squash
Wed - Work + table tennis (tafeltennis)
Thurs - Work + learning Dutch + resting
Fri - Work + squash
Sat - cleaning, shopping, socialising
Sun - learning more Dutch, squash + watching mythbusters

Pleased to have found plenty of sports to play!

Fijne Kerst Happy Xmas from the Netherlands

Will anyone read this blog post? Doubt it, while you’re all enjoying your Xmas holidays already some of us are still working hard. Things I’ve learnt about working in the Netherlands:

1) 52% tax… what? Yes, I hadn’t realised how cheap the UK was until I moved away. My gross salary here is greater than my old salary in the UK but my take home pay is the same…?! Shocking. The UK is cheap but I figure you get what you pay for… the country is a bit of a dump in comparison!

2) Compulsory stuff… yes, pension and health insurance NOT optional.

3) BANK holidays…. If they fall on the weekend you lose them, so while you guys are all putting your feet up and getting all festive with your Fri 23^rd and Mon 2^nd bank holidays in lieu, spare a thought for me, slaving away!

So, as Xmas fast approaches, please take a moment to reflect upon these differences and count yourselves lucky. On the other hand, I’m having more fun than I was in the UK so that makes it all worthwhile :-p

As they say here "FIJNE KERST"... have a great break everyone x

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!

What a busy but excellent week

Had a fantastically busy week:

Mon - went to play ice hockey in the evening, the hockey itself was great (but I hate ice compared to wheels, too damn slippy and it made me miss roller hockey even more that I was already doing), but it nearly killed me getting there with my enormous hockey bag on my back (big enough for me to fit in and yes I have tried) and my hockey stick in one hand, precariously balanced on my bike, cycling for 15minutes in the rain.  15 minutes doesn't sound long but half way there I had severe back, shoulder and chest pain!  It only took 2min to kick in on the way home!  Won't be going again, too impractical to reach.

Tues - had my work Xmas meal.  Great night, we went on an outing (uitje) first to the university observatory where we viewed jupiter and it's moons, very cool.  Had a lovely meal (I really, really miss cider here tho, I'm not a beer drinker so I'm finding the pubs rather restricting) and I must remember to ask for my meat well done, everything comes rare and bloody as standard here, hate my meat half alive on my plate!

Wed - At work in the afternoon I had a FOUR hour web-editing course.  For all you guys at Warwick, you are never, ever, ever to complain about SiteBuilder ever ever ever again, Sitebuilder is literally a palace of dreams compared to whatever they call their old fashioned system.  I genuinely feel like I've woken up and it's 1998 and I have to try and use the internet... I was hoping I would learn new skills in this job but now I'm worried in my next job I'll look like a total Neanderthal from being used to working on this old thing... WYSIWYG?!  What's WYSIWYG they ask?!  Blimey!  Not only that, but they're all still working on office 2003.  It's nearly 2012 right?!  ARGH!

Thurs - I had my first actual proper Dutch lesson (I'll do a separate post all about language, this could be a biggy!)... After my weekend in Antwerp and practising in my drunken Dutch at my Xmas do where I feel I absolutely blew people away with my "would you like some water, it is cold" and "why is mummy washing the dog?" sentences (good huh?) I was BRIMMING with confidence.  That was until I turned up to my lesson on Thurs where the bloke talked to me in Dutch the entire time (what was he thinking?) :-p  More to come language wise, I'll check back into this later!  Right now, confidence not so brimming, perhaps I need some more gluhwijn?

Fri - Was at a medical conference all day, felt a bit out of place, I've never heard anyone speak so openly and unashamedly about vaginas for a whole hour.  Other than that I'm now left wondering about a whole variety of diseases and also wonder how many mice the med. dept get through here each year?  The food on the other hand was brilliant (I will also post about food later, the food here (esp the snacks) are AWESOME (I wonder how much weight I've put on?)), I had a nice evening meal too.

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?!