Being sick, sucks

Having a throat infection, is really boring! No-one visits you because you have some kind off contagious virus. After laying in bed for more then 12 hours, and 7 episodes of Will & Grace later. I was bored, normally I love not to have to wake up at a certain time and hang around the whole day.

I thought I could practise one of my favorite things in the world: EATING! After a bowl of cornflakes I found out that food and a throat infection is not a good combination.

Luckily I felt a bit better in the afternoon so I could spend some quality time with Mr. Hammond. I found out I really like the music of a margarine add.

Well to bed now, because tomorrow is jet another Christian holiday, Whitsun (has something to do with remembering the Holy spirit) and of course that also means for me that it is a work day!

It's a cats life

What do you do when it is 23C? Most people sit outside, but not me I still had to do some work. I looked outside my window, and there was a 'strange' cat in the garden. Most people might know my parents have 4 cats. One is trying to move in here, and I think he's going to succeed.

But here's a little quiz: which of these cats did we not chose to come live with us?

Smart(ie)

I went to do some shopping, and there he was... a new duck in the pond! He looks really though and a bit overweight, but he is sweet. He even followed me to the supermarket, well not all the way to the supermarket. He followed me to the roundabout. Because he is so smart, I decided to call him "smart(ie)"

Huge meringue, half meringue

Just when I was planning to go home, Dennis called. I haven't seen him for ages because he sort of lives in Venezuela. But now he is in Holland for 3 days and he decided I was going to be the third person he was going to visit, yes yes :)
He had 2 nice surprises, one he finally got a real tan, and second he brought huge meringue!

After half a meringue I got a sugar overdoses and was wondering if you could balance a meringue on your head. The answer is yes, should you do it: No!

After catching up quickly he had to go visit his parents, and he is flying back the day after tomorrow :( But he did invite me to come over to Venezuela.... The only problem is that I don't have time and flight tickets are extremely expensive in our summer holiday. Anyone who wants to sponsor me?

Jazz festival

From Thursday to Sunday it was Jazz festival in Breda. I am not a big fan of jazz music, but I do like hanging out with friends, drink some beers and see what people dare to wear when they are over 60.

Thursday was the busiest day, but we had great fun. There was a nice band who covered 70 music, only Anoushka and I thought the (male) singer was a bit over the top and not such a great singer. After making a bit fun of him people behind us got annoyed.....maybe they didn't find a parking space at IKEA that afternoon, or maybe they just didn't like our little impersonation of the singer?!

After a short visit to Lars and Ivar's party on Saturday, where I was most amused by a very cute cat named Kees. We went into the city where we ran into Anoushka and after a short toilet-break I ran into my colleagues. Everybody was in Breda!

Sunday was I-have-to-study-but-I-don't-want-to-day. So Steve and I played some checkers and after that we played Monopoly, and let me tell you that both games were not lost by me :)

Hemelvaart

For everyone who doesn't live in Holland, last Thursday we had 'Hemelvaart' it's a Christian holiday where we celebrate (?!) that Jesus from Nazareth goes back to heaven. No-one really knows this, but what we do know is that we have the day of then! Accept if you work for IKEA...

I don't mind to work on this day, it's fun and I get paid 200%.

The only problem we have had for the last 2 years now in Breda, is that the IKEA is close to the motorway exit. So last year everybody who came from the motorway after 13h drove into cars standing still to get to IKEA and the rest of the furniture shops. This year wasn't an exception only that at 11.30 it was already necessary to send some people outside to make people park on places we want them to park (so not in front of the fire exit, or the elevator or in front of a lorry who came to deliver some more fresh food).

When I stepped in the car back home I turned on the radio. The presenters of the radio station (which is not the most serious station, but they love to do useless surveys) told me that for the fifth year in a row, peoples 'favorite' thing to do on 'hemelvaart' is go to IKEA!

Monday is dentist day

Monday morning 09.29h. I walk into the dentist practise. There he is my new dentist, he is smiling, I am too.

When I went to the dentist a month ago, he surprisingly said that my old dentist did it all wrong. I had braces about 8 years ago, and not only was there still glue on my front teeth. He also made the wrong decision with the type of braces, 2 teeth grew in a sort of triangle instead of next to each other. No problem I thought. The only problem was that now years later some kind of lighting has started between these teeth....

So this problem my new dentist was going to fix. He suggested to give me some anesthetics, I never had anaesthetise before so I agreed (life is short, you should try everything once). After one injection I didn't really feel anything change. So he gave me another injection with the announcement that this was the last one, he couldn't give me more because I am not very heavy. After this shot I felt that my lip started shake like it just caught Parkinson disease. This was apparently a good sign and he started to drill, suck, paint in my mouth. After a very entertaining 15 minutes (do dentist aways look this serious?) he said that there was something else in my mouth that not suppose to be there.

I asked if it was an animal, and if it was bigger then a guinea pig not to tell me. But with his lack of humour he immediately said there was still a piece of metal threat on the same side but upper side in my mouth. I remember complaining about bleeding gum around that area, but my dentist always said that was scar tissue. Okay fine, I couldn't see it and he studies quit some years to be a dentist...so I believed him. But no, the mental was stuck between my teeth. So there was more drilling!

Walking out there at 10am he said the anaesthetise would last for 2, maximum 3 hours. This basically meant no drinking in public, because I had no control over the left side of my face. After a few hours I got some feeling back in my mouth, this also meant I got nauseous and I got a bit dizzy ...
But after 14 hours, I still can't feel my tong, my left ear and my lip... maybe 2 shots were a bit to much for this tiny person?!

The first holy communion, exhausting!

Saturday evening Steve and I went to Antwerp to go see the new film 'The number 23'. Metropolis cinema is huge, that also means their buckets of popcorn are huge :)

That was the entertainment for the weekend, because Sunday we had to attend to my nephews communion. After a 2 hour mass, everybody was happy to get out of the church (who doesn't love cold and hard benches?!) When we returned to my aunt & uncles house, the highlight of the day for my nephew came. PRESENTS! When people did their first communion in my class years ago they all got a bike and (a lot) of money. Time hasn't changed much jet....

After discussing all the diseases in the family, and they discussed all the bad qualities of all the family members who weren't there. It was time to go home. Coming home at 6pm I was tired! I never knew family visits were so exhausting...

May holiday in the UK

After leaving at 7am sharp, I found out (after 10 minutes, that I left my phone on the bed). After quick thinking I decided that I needed my phone. I decided to run back and get my phone. To make a long story short, I ran back to the flat and then to the station (even got lost on the way to the station!). I ran up the stairs at the station and there it was the 07.30 train... yes I made it! But no, for the first time since the new time table of the national railways the train left early! Only 30 seconds but I could have made it.... it's not that we couldn't catch the next train, I was just very annoyed because I ran more then 3 kilometers (and everybody that knows me, knows I am more a cycle person then a running person!)

After that everything went fine, check in, security, flight, hire car we even found the way from Birmingham to Steve's parents immediately. And that was the start of a great holiday!

After arriving in Malvern we almost immediately went to the forest with the dogs. I was looking forward for to see some bluebells, it appeared that we came in the right week! There were loads of bluebells :)
After coming to Malvern for the third time I thought it was time to do some real sightseeing around area. So Wednesday we went to Wales, to be more specific we went all the way to the coast, to Aberystwyth. When we arrived there after a 3 hour drive, I found out that people in Wales were not the prettiest people in the world and they walk around in a bikini when it is only 23C...bit to chilly for me to go sunbathing but Aberystwyth was nice. Of course being in the United Kingdom I couldn't resist to eat some real English things, fish and chips with pees, not out of a newspaper but on a normal plate.
After Aberystwyth we went to Devil’s Bridge, which is absolutly amazing! Not only did they build three bridges over each other there (?!) You can also walk down the hill and see a waterfall falling down almost right next to you, absolutley gorgeous!
Thursday we went to Iron Bridge. Which I can best described as a very picturesque village with a very scary teddy bear shop!
In the evening we went to Worcester to go out with Kate, Ally, Jazz and Rob. After spending some time in one club we decided to go to another club. Big mistake! When we got in there Kate and I soon realized we were the only one wearing jeans....and on top of that I wore Converse. I definitely missed the dress code there! Apart from that the woman who were there were a bit "strange". If you go to the toilet you don't expect that some blond lady with way to much make up asks you if I think her hairextensions look good and if I could rearrange them a bit?!

Friday it was the day of Luke's birthday party. Steve, Ben and Luke formed a band for this occasion. That meant Steve had to go practise in the afternoon, we first went to Kidderminster to see how nerves Luke was for this gig. After a little practise in the garden 'The Band' left and I helped make a lot of food (specially a lot of sandwiches!) with Luke's family. Who had some troubles believing that almost everyone in Holland owns a bike.
Luke's 21st birthday party was really entertaining, the 5-song-gig was good. Some things when a bit wrong but overall they rocked. Although I didn't really know anyone, and I couldn't really understand anyone (People from Kidderminster speak 'Kiddy' that's a world away from English ) But after a few drinks everyone was social and were willing to dance. All good things come to an end, the party ended early (at midnight!)
After a week of sightseeing we took it easy on Saturday, untill Heather suggested that we could go ride the ponies :)
I never did that, but this was going to be the first time. I got the nice and calm pony, and Alan walked next to him to ensure he wouldn't go anywhere with me screaming on this back. I had great fun , we walked trought the forest. We saw some agressive sheep. It was a really nice day.
In the evening Rob came around, and he did his usual thing (ordered pizza). We watched some snooker, I finally understand the rules of the game! After some packing I went to bed, because Sunday was the day we had to return home :(

Sunday morning we had to leave early, because we first had to return the hire car to Birmingham Airport. From Birmingham Dave brought us to Coventry, because we were quit early we thought it would be nice to eat somehting at the city center of Coventry. We soon found out there is absolutely nothing in Coventry! Although this winter IKEA is opening their first city center store of the UK in Coventry (my question would be, do they know where the city center is? We didn't find it...)

After a short flight we landed on Schiphol airport, when I got out of the plane the first thing I saw was clouds filled with rain. I went to England "The country of rain", I come back to Holland: rain.

Queens day in Amsterdam

Finally it was spring holiday!
This week Steve and I would go on a holiday, but April the 30th is not a day to go on a holiday, it's a day to go out party all day! It was Queens day, this day we celebrate our queens mum birthday (?!) We don't nationally celebrate our queens birthday because that's in the winter. Queens day I normally start with walk around in Etten leur where we normally have a fair, and after that it's time for a beer and some live music.

This year I wanted to go to Amsterdam, Roland and his friends would also come to Amsterdam so that was arranged. Steve also wanted to come along and see this queens day happening. After arriving in the capital around 2pm we found out that because of the good weather more than 1.3 million people were in Amsterdam. It was crowded, very crowded but we had fun. We couldn't find Roland after walking around for more then a hour. We decided to have a drink and walk around the canals. Orange is our national colour and I can honestly say I had never seen so many orange boats, orange dressed people and I even saw a little dog with dyed orange hair! We finally found Roland and his friends, who were not dressed in orange! We had a good time and around 6ish Steve and I decided to go back to Leiden.





When we arrived in Leiden it appeared that there was not a lot going on anymore so we decided to call it a day and have a good night sleep. Because tomorrow morning we would fly to England....