Austria Ski Trip 2007

Some photos from our ski trip to Lech with Isi and Lachie earlier this year.

Our little Christmas Tree

Bought our Christmas Tree yesterday. It was an exorbitant 4 euros. It's a cute little thing that has lights and we got chocolate balls wrapped in gold foil decorations. Edible Christmas tree decorations....what a fabulous idea! Whether or not there will be any decorations left on Dec 25th is another thing. Maybe we'll have a bare Christmas tree with little bits of scrap foil around it. The evening of 5th December is when the Dutch celebrate Christmas (Sinterklaas) with their families and the kids get their presents. We'll be going to a Christmas Party on that night with other expats in the neighbourhood. It's a dinner party and everyone has to bring a national dish. We're doing a main dish and I must admit, it was a struggle coming up with an Aussie national dish. We don't have a barbie as we don't have an outdoor area with our apartment, bangers and mash seems rather boring...a lamb roast, perhaps?...but at 35 euros a kilo lamb is a luxury item over here, and kangaroos are hard to find here. After flicking through many cookbooks, I think we'll make a big beef pie. Four 'n' twenty, that's as Aussie as you can get, right?

Sinterklaas and Zwarte Pieten come to town

Paul and I went to the Market Square today to watch the arrival of Sinterklaas on his horse and Zwarte Pieten (gliding down from the rooftop of the town hall) in Den Bosch. Halfway through November there is a big spectacle when the Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands. Television crews await his arrival from Spain at a port where he docks his steam boat full of presents, Zwarte Pieten [Black Piet] , and his horse. They are welcomed by a huge crowd of children and parents.

Sinterklaas simultaneously arrives at every city or village in the Netherlands. Suspicious thinking children who understand the impossibility of simultaneous sightings of Sinterklaas discover that this grand event unfolds with the help of "hulp-Sinterklazen" (people who help Sinterklaas by dressing up like him). Sinterklaas goes on a tour through the village accompanied by several Zwarte Pieten, who throw different types of sweets around and on the ground for children. After this day, Sinterklaas begins his assessment of all the children's behaviour in the past year, and proceeds to hand out presents. It culminates on the evening of December 5.

Sinterklaas is said to have originated from St. Nicolaus, the Bishop of Mira, Turkey, who did good things for children. Instead of living in the North Pole as the American Santa does, Sinterklaas lives in Spain, it seems. How it came to be that Sinterklaas lives in Spain is a mystery, but hey, it beats the north pole!

Autumn Photos of Den Bosch

Danny, Dinner, Disco, Dit..

Dan came over for the weekend. Got a few pics from last night. The boys went for a picturesque bike ride in Vught and then after a quick freshening up back home, we headed out for Dinner in Den Bosch. It was a lovely meal that ended with armagnacs and cigars. Yesterday was the first day of Carnivale (starts on 11/11) which will go into full swing in Feb next year, when the whole city gets dressed up, with lots of live music, singing and merriment. So there were lots of strange costumes and live bands around town yesterday. After dinner we passed a few bars with Carnivale people inside and loud dutch music blaring out. We decided to go for a quieter post-dinner drink. We ended up at 'Dit' which is a hip and quirky little bar. It was Silent Disco night, lots of dancing and no loud music so you can chat with your friends without having to yell. Everyone got a set of headphones and the live DJ music was played through the headphones. It was a great concept and a lot of fun.

The WES cycle

Most of this blog so far has been about holidays, travel, food and friends. So I thought it appropriate to write a post about the more mundane aspects of our life, which quite frankly, accounts for most of the periods in between blogposts. In general, it's what I call the WES cycle. I've made that up, but essentially WES stands for Work - Eat - Sleep, and that sums up a lot of our days. As some of you may know, Paul works near the Dutch-German border and commutes 97km each way to and from work. I work in Amsterdam and that's 90km each way. So, between us, we travel 374 kilometres every day. Actually, that's the first time I've done the sums and it sounds nuts, huh? It's fair to say that we are not a carbon neutral couple. The travel time varies. 'I will never complain about Melbourne traffic again. All I had to do was travel 200km return. Easy, right? 4 hours and counting, probably an hour to go' (Source - text message from Cessy stuck in traffic jam yesterday)

Because of the commute and the nature of our jobs, we generally leave around 7.30 in the morning and get back around 8ish at night. Dinner is usually relatively quick and easy and quite late and then we spend a few hours in our favourite places.... Cessy on the couch in front of the plasma and myself on the internet because I'm a facebook addict. Then we're off to bed and ready for the next WES cycle.

Our week also has a regular pattern:
Monday - Yuck! - Have to cram our Dutch homework when we get back from work and 5 days until next weekend.
Tuesday - Long! - Straight after work, go to Dutch class from 8-10pm, get home 10.30, dinner at 11pm and straight to bed.
Wednesday - Tired! - Because yesterday was a long day.
Thursday - Wahoo!! - Almost weekend and late night shopping today.
Friday - Fab! - The weekend is just around the corner.

Having said that we're still enjoying the novelty of living in Europe. We love that Paris is 4 and a bit hours away, Brussels is just over an hour and everything seems so close. I've realised that coming from Australia, sometimes we suffer from 'Isolation Syndrome'. ie. 'I'm so far from the rest of the world syndrome'. Since moving here, it's been really evident that most Dutch people consider Australia as a dream country, a land with beautiful landscapes and nature, wide open spaces, abundance of resources and relaxed people. Of course, we're biased and despite being far from the rest of the world, Oz is always going to be our Numero Uno.

Good Times with Family

My brother and sis-in-law spent four days with us in Den Bosch. They did a lot of sightseeing in Amsterdam during the day, and at night times we had some lovely meals together. Irv and Shaz took us out for a great dinner on their last night. We went to De Kas restaurant in Amsterdam which is a converted nursery and grows a lot of its own produce that they use in the daily menu. The restaurant serves organic food and the setting was very funky. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and they flew back home last Saturday to return to Oz.

Maritime Festival

Mel spent the weekend with us recently during the Den Bosch Maritime Festival. The canals were packed with boats, the streets were crowded with visitors, locals, beer tents, and musical groups performing from the Maritime community. The lively festive atmosphere was contagious. I have 'borrowed' a few of Mel's photos for this blog.

Honeymoon Part VI - Isle of Capri

Our final destination was the island of Capri. We were not sure whether we would make it to Capri. The weather was rough at Positano, and the small ferry to take us to Capri was being thrown around by the waves. During those rare moments when the sea calmed, passengers would then literally sprint onto the ferry before the next session of huge waves that made the boat inaccessible again and the power of the waves would throw up the passenger landing attached to the boat. So there we stood, watching groups of people ahead in the queue sprint onto the boat. I completely freaked out watching a really old nonna and nonno scuffle onto the boat at an incredibly slow pace, hoping they would not get swept by the waves or fall over or slip. Paul, of course, thought this adventure and action was fabulous and wanted to take a video to 'capture the moment'. I guess OH&S is not as important in Italy.

Well, we did eventually make it to the boat and headed off to Capri. It was well worth the trip. We stayed in Anacapri for two nights and went on some lovely walks along the coast of the island with spectacular views of i Faraglioni (steep rocky islands near Capri). We also went on a small fishing boat to the blue grotto. You have to lie flat in the boat, as the entrance to the grotto is really small. Unfortunately, a large wave came as we were leaving the grotto and Paul was centimetres away from getting his face smashed into the top of the grotto entrance. After all the boats had left, Paul swam into the grotto for a second look.

It was fun to window shop and people watch at the shopping and restaurant areas in Capri. The island was covered with designer boutiques, trendy bars and restaurants, Jackie O sunglasses and a lot of white linen clad glamour babes.

We stayed in a villa (second photo from the top) which was the former summer residence of Queen Victoria of Sweden. She bought the property and spent many summers in Capri when her health was failing.

Part V - Amalfi and Ravello

Despite being an overcast day, our trip to Amalfi and Ravello was indeed special. The bus drive from Positano to Amalfi was a steep clifftop drive and although a bit hairy at times, it was an hour of breathtaking views. We visited the cathedral of Amalfi (bottom photo). Paul's cousin told us that Ravello was her favourite place on the Amalfi Coast, so we heeded her advice and went there. In Ravello, we went to the Villa Cimbrone, with its magnificent cloisters, beautiful gardens and the Terrazza dell'Infinito (Terrace of Infinity). Gore Vidal once described the Terrace as the most beautiful panorama in the world. Since it was a cloudy day, we felt like we were swimming in the clouds whilst standing on the terrace. The top 3 photos were taken from Villa Cimbrone. In the evening, we had pre-dinner drinks at Palazzo Sasso, a super-glam hotel famous for its views and apparently was in a book or magazine of 1000 places to see before you die. So I guess we've got 999 more places to go! The night ended off at Cumpa Cosima, a famous pasta restaurant in Ravello (photo in Part III blog post).

Honeymoon Part IV - Positano

We spent 3 nights in the stunning city of Positano. Our hotel, just like all the other buildings in this city, was built into the cliff and although it was a bit of a climb to get to the hotel the views were well worth the effort. One of the highlights was hanging out on the Spiaggia Fornillo (beach) and then taking a small boat belonging to the restaurant Da Adolfo, to their beachside restaurant in Laurito. We had a delicious seafood lunch and spent the rest of the day lying on the Laurito beach, swimming and reading. The above photo of Positano with the red flowers on the right, was taken from our bedroom balcony. We were thrilled that our balcony had such a maginificent view, and enjoyed a bottle of champagne on the balcony, compliments from the hotel. On our last day in Positano, we decided to do a day trip to Amalfi and Ravello.

Honeymoon Part III - Food Glorious Food!

Food highlights included pizza by the meter & Quattro Gusto (Four Corners) pizza from Vico; taking a private boat to go to a secluded beachside seafood restaurant at Positano; home made platter of 7 types of pasta from Cumpa Cosimo in Ravello; and lots of Limoncello!