The Secret to a Sweet Night

After a delicious chocolate mousse for dessert, our Saturday night just got sweeter and sweeter as the evening progressed. We headed to the Phillips Stadium in Eindhoven to watch a friendly, Socceroos v Holland. After a not so sweet moment with the Dutchies scoring a goal in the first 10 minutes, things picked up again and one red card, a penalty goal by Kewell and a header by Josh Kennedy later, life was sweet again. And lol! It got even sweeter...we met some of the Socceroo players after the match. We took some photos as evidence and congratulated them on a job well done! The moral of the story is, next time you need something sweet to happen in your life, or the Socceroos to win their match, down a chocolate mousse and the rest will follow.

Eating Expedition in Dusseldorf

Last weekend, we went to Dusseldorf to watch the Aust v S Africa rugby match with a friend, and to also embark on an eating expedition. Whilst the boys watched rugby, the girls went shopping in Dusseldorf. It was also a carefully planned eating mission involving yum cha, German food and trying out two Japanese restaurants. There are 3,000 Japanese living in Dusseldorf, the second largest Jap community in Europe after Paris. It was so delicious, we had lovely sushi, sashimi, takoyaki, katsu curry don, tempura, teriyaki and green tea ice cream. Yum Cha was also very good quality and true to its nature, very affordable too!

Up, Up and Away

Some photos taken last week - Paul went ballooning with his colleagues from work.

Rotterdam Air Race

We have been laying low the past few weekends and pottering around the apartment. Paul's been watching a lot of the Olympics and I'm addicted to a 1000-piece jigsaw of a Van Gogh painting (quite tricky because half the painting is blue and all the pieces look the same!!) Our last trip was a weekend away in Rotterdam last month. I've uploaded a few pictures on the blog.

We're trying to see more of the Netherlands so organised a weekend away in Rotterdam, known as an architecture mecca. It is a city that is still undergoing continuous construction and development as almost no buildings survived WWII. We coincided the trip to Rotterdam with the Red Bull Air Race. Although it was overcast, it was still exhilirating to witness the roar of the planes, watch the planes do half cubans (loops in the air) and understand a bit about the scoring system and the rules/penalties. I never really think about these pilots as athletes but I realised from watching the race and listening to the commentators that these guys are truly athletes. They need to, for example, have a strenth/weights training regime to cope with the G forces during the half cubans.

We also did some fun sightseeing in Rotterdam including going to the Kunsthal (Modern Art Museum), up the Euromast tower (the highest tower in Holland), travelled via water taxi along the river which was great fun and had some delish food including yum cha and seafood at Hotel New York.

Next weekend we're off to Dusseldorf. Can't wait. Apparently there is a large Japanese community there, so we're looking forward to some great Jap food. Something we miss terribly over here.

Dan, Diarms and Shaz come to visit

We had great food and great company this weekend. Danny, Shaz and Diarms came to visit us and we had a lovely night in on Saturday, enjoying wine and home-cooked dinner. It's always nice to have a dinner party with old friends. We took a late night stroll around the city before tucking into dessert.

Ship in a bottle museum

On the way back from Edam, we went to the maritime city of Enkhuizen. We bought some takeaway fish and chips (and pickled herring) and sat at the harbour and watched the boats going in and out. We also visited a cute ship-in-a-bottle museum (top photo). It was a really fascinating museum ranging from the tiniest bottles where you had to use a magnifying glass to see the ship to huge wine vats with extravagant ships. We bought two bottles to bring back to our home and they now have a home on our bookshelf.

Beach at Bergen aan Zee

Our first time hitting the beach in the Netherlands left us quite impressed. A wide stretch of white fine sand and some trendy beach shacks/cafes right on the sand with cushy lounges for chilling out. A couple of chilled beers and the weekend newspaper....almost feels like being back in Oz.