Queen's Day celebrations

Queen's Day starts on the evening before - so we had some drinks at Claire's house in Amsterdam to warm up.

Everyone dresses in orange, so the boys procured a few orange tshirts while us girls got orange headgear. Check out how cute we are with our headbands!!

We had a great time - we went to a square where there was a street party and rocked out.

The next day there was a concert in Museumplein, so we headed down there.

I've got my hangover glasses on...

Muiderslot Castle and Volendam village

On Monday Claire and I ventured out to Muiderslot castle. Its a pretty small castle but a great example of something really really old.

Look, it even has a moat!

Here's me outside the front.

It was pretty cool to stand inside something which has been standing since 1200 and something. (Although its recently refurbished and has been added onto about a million times since it was first built).

The only bad thing was the large school group of very annoying dutch children.

The funniest part - we took the guided audio tour (in English of course). The English of this was pretty bad - sometimes there were lots of words but they didn't make much sense! Clearly the person who wrote the script seemed obsessed with the ceilings (which in all honestly looked the same as each other). It was classic!

After the castle we headed out to Volendam - this adorable little dutch village on the coast of the Zuidersee. There are heaps of little souvenir shops and so we shopped up a storm - gifts as well as stuff for us. It was great! I love souvenir shops and so I was like a kid at christmas, darting in and out of the stores while Claire begged me to stop for lunch!

It's Puppy Time!

This is Joreck! He belongs to Yvonne and Wix, some of Caroline's relatives. He is 8 weeks old and he is so cute! They have stone floors and Joreck spent most of the afternoon slip-sliding all over the lounge.

Aw, look at that face!

He already knows about where food goes - he wants whatever Yvonne's having!

Farewell BBQ at the boys' house

On Friday we had a farewell barbeque at the boys' house. Claire made this whopper bucket of her special punch, complete with vodka-soaked apples. They had a kick!

The actual physical barbeque-ing was less than ideal... Most of the food we ate got fried in the frypan - the bbq didn't work very fast! I think we needed to start it a little earlier in the day.

Here's Cherilyn and I later on in the evening...

A bunch of us girls got Kyryll to take us for a ride on his scooter - very fun but very scary!

Snoop Dogg Concert in Amsterdam

Last Thursday tickets went on sale for a 'surprise' concert by Snoop Dogg in Amsterdam. So we got tickets! Jen, Cherilyn and I headed down there to get all ghetto.

It was a great concert - quite a small venue so we got a reasonable view of the stage. It was a mission getting our coats back from the coat check at the end of the concert though - no queue, so everyone was just pushing!!

Keukenhof with Vanessa

On Saturday Vanessa and I headed out to Keukenhof, the tulip gardens! It was a great day. So many beautiful flowers and a windmill too! Here are some flower pictures:

Throughout the tulip park there are these cute places where you can sit down and take pictures. So of course we did! Here's Vanessa in the purple room.

And here I am frolicking in the flowers!

After lunch we headed out on some bikes for a quick ride around the neighbourhood tulip fields.

And here are my wheels for the afternoon!

Birthday Bash and Vanessa Visit

For my birthday Vanessa took the day off work and flew over from London.

Karen, Claire and I went out for lunch to this great Chinese restaurant - the atmosphere was so relaxing, it was like a day spa. We had some super food before heading back to work. On the way there was a promo girl handing out tiny cans of Coke Zero for free - Happy Birthday to me!

I look like a giant holding the wee can!

A group of us went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant (we had to search and search to find one that had nachos - I love nachos!). We had frozen margaritas and some delicious pina coladas. Cherilyn and Claire decorated the table with balloons - and tied one to my wrist too.

After dinner we headed out to Boom Chicago, the comedy club. The Late Nite show is an all-improvisation show where the cast are also drinking. It was much funnier than the show we went to with Scott - not sure if its because I had been drinking or because the cast had been!

Here's Vanessa, Kyryll and I at Boom Chicago-

Afterwards the others headed out to a club but Vanessa and I hit the hay - we had a big day ahead of us the next day!

Sunday with Shando

On Sunday Shando and I headed up to Enkhuizen to the Zuidersee Museum. It's a collection of really old buildings which has activities and little stores within it. Its like an old-time village.

You have to take a boat from the railway station to the ticket office, and then across to the museum.

Here's me on the boat to the ticket office -

These cute little houses are hundreds of years old. It was amazing to see the tiny little houses where people spent so much time - there's not much room in there!

And what Dutch village would be complete without a windmill!

The cute little streets with the canals and bridges - so adorable!

We stopped off at the candy store for some boiled sweets -

And stopped and tasted some of the cheese from this amazing store!

Half way around the village we came across this guy playing the accordian - oooh, what a stud!

(I was scared of him, but Shando took a picture)

Here's another picture that Shando took - the accounting records from a hundred years ago! HAHA - she's an accounting nerd :)








What still surprises me about Europe is how old everything is! Like this building - over 300 years old and still being used!



After the Zuidersee Museum, we headed over the Dijk. This is what the Dutch use to keep the sea off their land (two thirds is under sea level). It was quite windy...

And the sky was kind of scary!

Weekend with Ange - Saturday

On Saturday Shando and I packed up the tiny car and drove down to Zeeland - yes the right one this time. It was (officially, actually) the place that our country was named after. Hooray!

On the way there, the weather was so lovely and we came across this cool area so we stopped and went for a bit of a walk around. It would have been awesome in summer.

We walked along this little path out to the pole in the middle. It was really windy!

Then we went to this really lame water park (sorry Shando!) in Neeltje Jans where we learned about the deltawerken and the way the Dutch keep the sea off their country.

We walked along the sea wall (and saw the gates).

Afterwards, we went back to Kinderdijk (where i took Dad) to see it at sunset. I felt a bit sorry for this poor guy who was near us... we were waiting for the sun to set and he was too. He looked semi-professional - he had a tripod and everything. We were being loud and obnoxious and quite clearly standing in the right spot, because he edged closer and closer to us. When it got to the point where Ange was trying to take photos using my head as the tripod, I think he must have been struggling not to laugh out loud.

Cath's departure

Cath, one of the South Africans also on secondment here left on Friday, so we had to celebrate/comiserate this properly!! (her secondment was only three months)

Here's Cath looking happy she's leaving us...

We kicked things off by getting together a posse and heading to a little Italian restaurant. Not a very good italian restaurant though - the waiter starts by announcing that even though he is the waiter, he does not look that old (which was incorrect). I wish I'd got a photo but was freaked out by him quietly asking me which of us girls had a boyfriend and then mysteriously disappearing once the guys showed up!

Here's Cherilyn and South African Claire




And here's Kieran and the back of Cath's head

After dinner we headed off to the ice bar - it has a cold room where the bar and the walls are all ice, and there are statues that are ice too. They give you jackets and gloves and shoes (if you need them)

Here's Ange and I with some frozen fruit dacquiris

Here's Ricketts continuing the trend of the Auckland boys holding handbags...

Here's Kieran in Cologne back in February...

Anyhoo, here's Cherilyn geared up for the ice bar

And here it is! Not as impressive as I expected... kind of just a big fridge...

Here's some of the crew inside the ice bar...

And our frozen glasses - they were made of ice too!!

Here's me with Cath and Ricketts

Here's Kieran, Claire, me and Cath

This guy was H.O.T! Cath loved it :)