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 :)

Ange's visit

Ange arrived on Sunday from her secondment in Vancouver. We of course took her to an Argentinian steakhouse (the old Amsterdam favourite).








After a couple of days of exploring the city Cherilyn-style this is what Ange looked like. Note that she is fading into the couch...

Monday Road Trip with Dad

On Monday we got up early (although not as early as we'd intended) and headed for the Delft province. This is where they hand-paint the Delft porcelain tiles, vases, etc.

We went to the sole remaining factory and painted a tile each.

Then we went on a wander through the museum part. There were heaps of really old Delftware that were pretty impressive. There are also some special Christmas things they do every year. The Christmas plates have been produced since a long time ago (can't remember exactly but it was ages...) and since then they have added some christmas bell ornaments and other things too.

Here's me with the Christmas plate display - different every year.

After a spot of shopping at the giftshop, we headed to their cafeteria for some pie and coffee. Dad had some Dutch apple pie (and so did I). It was so yummy!!

Dad's visit - the relatives continue

On Sunday we headed out to the other side of the family, in a little town outside of Haaksbergen. Dad decided he knew where it was, so we drove for 20 minutes before we realised we were going in the wrong direction and had totally missed our turnoff.... but never mind.

So we arrive at Gerard and Annie's house and there is already a piece of cake sitting in front of each of our seats. It was coconut and it was goooooooooooood......

But I digress.

Here's Annie and I

And here's Franz, Gerard and Dad

Gerard is Caroline's dad's brother, and neither he nor Annie speak English. Well, not much. I think at the end of the day Gerard did say to us 'Thank you very much'. They were very worried about the english-speaking visitors arriving and so had convinced 4 other relatives to come along so that we could have translators!


Here's Dad with Josie

And me with Ine and Nardy (Ine is the wife of Franz, in the photo above)

We had such a great lunch (and afternoon) and then some of the honorary translators took us to Jeroen's farm (he is possibly the son of one of Caroline's cousins... at this stage I'm getting really hazy on all the connections...). We saw a little calf that had been born at 10.30 that morning! It was still all covered in goo, sitting in a little stable in the dell. Very cute, and very interesting. We went into the barn where all the cows are living for winter. They were mostly very curious about us and were sticking their heads out into the middle area. I reached out to touch the head of one of them, and it stuck its tongue out and tried to lick me! So I got scared and pulled away. And then after that, none of them would let me near their heads. I wanted to pat a head, but oh well. (Such a city girl here!) Then, Ine was scaring the cows (accidentally) with her umbrella. It was certainly a strange sight - 50 huge cows all jumping in unison.

After that we went back to Gerrit and Josie's house for coffee, cheese some leftover easter eggs and more biscuits. We didn't even need dinner that night because we had so much snack food and coffee! Franz and Ine live next door so Franz brought over his computer and showed us lots of the family photos that he has been collecting (including wedding photos of relatives basically as far back as cameras were in existence - very impressive).

This is the only group shot we got from Gerrit and Josie's house - unfortunately that's me looking like a zombie in the middle.

We were there until about 11pm, and Gerard and Annie had come with us so they were out very late too!

Here's my favourite photo of the day - Annie hamming up to the camera with her dish brush and the rest of us cracking up. So much fun!