Amsterdam shenanigans with mum

It was time to show mum the Netherland’s star attraction: Amsterdam! As a tourist, you visit to see the red light district and coffee shops, but once you live here you realize Amsterdam has almost nothing to do with all of that debauchery. I like it for the endless number of beautiful canals and bridges, the older Jordaan area, the Chinatown and the hundreds of old bars and beer cafes. This is the side of Amsterdam I was more excited to show mum.

Once we arrived, we went to our favorite cafe: Small World. It’s run by a guy who’s actually from Melbourne, so it’s nice to go in there and order an Australian style coffee and talk in a stupidly occa way to the dismay of other Dutch customers (although most of the customers are Australian/Brittish, I used to think it was silly when people would move to another country and then find a favorite pub or cafe because it was like one at home, but now I can totally understand.)

So we ate some delicious foccacia sandwhiches, met our friend Amanda (from Canada, living in Amsterdam) and headed over to a local food and clothing market where you can feast on small samples of cheese, bread and sweets.

At the local markets with Kaushik and Amanda, mum took the photo. Need I say, not our hats?

It was time to do a few “touristy” things with mum, so Kaushik went off with Amanda, knowing very well he would be seeing the same touristy things a few more times with other friends and family when they visit.

Our main agenda was to see the Van Gogh museum. Having read Lust For Life (a biography about Van Gogh, written in romanticized way) I was pretty excited to be seeing his largest collection of paintings. We were also very lucky because they had a special exhibition on where you could view one of his most famous paintings, Starry Night. This particular painting is often touring around so it’s often unlikely you would see it if you came to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

Let me tell you though, I feel so lucky to have seen it. Tears actually welled up when I saw it for the first time. Seeing his actual brush strokes, all at once I felt emotion and empathy for him, living such a tough life, feeling unappreciated for all the passion he put in to his work. The beauty of this painting up close in real life is immense. I looked over at mum, I think she was pretty much feeling the same.

I even took a sneaky photo of it while upstairs:

Starry Night, Van Gogh

Ok ok enough wanky art talk, it was time to meet up with Kaushik and our friends, but mum bumped in to an old friend along the way!

A shocker of me, but the only one of us in Amsterdam together

Pretty mum on a pretty canal

So we all met up at The Cotton Club which is a gorgeous old bar in Amsterdam which has live jazz bands playing. We had a few drinks there, listened to some live jazz and had a few laughs, then headed over to Chinatown for some dinner.

Adam, Grant, mum, me and Amanda

After dinner it started to get dark, so we decided to have a quick walk through the red light district. Regardless of how I started this blog entry, you can’t really bring someone to Amsterdam and not show them the spectacle of half naked women in windows!

However, having gone through this area a few times, the novelty wears thin and it becomes quite depressing. Mum didn’t need to go through a few times for it to have this dark effect on her. To quote from her holiday diary she kept:

“….suddenly the beautiful Amsterdam of daylight hours was transformed into a seedy, plastic side alley of sex & sadness. The girls standing in the doorways had faces devoid of emotion, maybe thats how they cope with the river of staring eyes that flow past their doorsteps. I was left sadly wondering what had lead them to the time & space that they now occupied.”

The good thing about the red light district set up though is the fact that the women have actual legal rights, insurance etc which you wouldn’t receive in a “normal” prostitution setting. I don’t know what will happen to them when the red light district is eventually shut down all together, which looks like is on the cards.

Gah, I don’t want to end on a dark/weird note! We had a beutiful day regardless. The weather was perfect for walking around taking in the sights and it was great for my mum to meet some of my friends.

Mum comes to visit

For her first trip overseas, my mum came all the way to Holland to visit me! She arrived in the morning and after a cup of tea and some grilled cheese sandwiches (it was so unreal and lovely to be sitting at my dining room table together), she was keen to head over to the Keukenhof; an annual flower show in The Netherlands.

Big props to her, the last thing I wanted to do after 26 hours in transit was attend any kind of event which would involve social, standing and walking skills.

It was of course very beautiful as we expected, but we also got to have a peek inside a windmill! The turning sweeps (the blades) don’t look all that fast from a distance, but when you’re inside and look out the window, it’s just this constant whoosh whoosh whoosh which would cut your head off if you dared stick it out! To our amusement, there was also a man clomping around in wooden clogs who was tending the windmill, so I couldn’t resist getting a keepsake snapshot for mum.

Mum and the clog man

Once we exited the windmill, there were what seemed like hundreds of senior citizens being wheeled around by their carers and having their photo taken in front of the windmill! We had quite a giggle.

We also had fun in a petting zoo full of baby farm animals and we especially fell in love with one particular baby cow, he was just so placid and had eyes full of soul.

I could have stayed in that enclosure all day, but it was time to see some flowers!

Can you see the tiny bug?

It was so relaxing walking around in the quieter garden areas away from the big displays, we even found some toadstools which looked like they came straight out of a fairytale.

The relaxation soon turned to fatigue so we eventually decided to head on home for dinner. We had some risotto ala Kaushik along with a celebratory glass of champagne, which was followed by a bath and then bed time for mum at about 10pm, she did so well, considering!

Mum stayed for nearly 2 weeks, so I will post our adventures in small installments

Koninginnedag (Queens Day)

Celebrated on the 30th of April, this is a day where the Dutch (and anyone else living here) get together to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (her birthday is actually on the 31st of January!).

Having said that, it’s more so a day of togetherness and fun which isn’t totally focused on the Queen.

I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this day because experienced Koninginnedag goers dub this event “insane”, “massive” and “messy”. The day certainly was those three things, but I had the most fantastic time! It’s like a giant street party with people selling their old possessions on the side of the road, buskers playing live music and DJ’s on podiums making the giant crowd dance like idiots.

Our friend Amanda had gone to the effort of organizing a cupcake and cocktail stand which made the day even more authentic. She even let me bring in some coconut lemon kisses I baked to sell at her stall! It was funny watching random people coming buy and eating my treats, nodding their head in appreciation.

Once she was done with her stall a whole group of us wandered through the streets and stopped off at the DJ podium I mentioned earlier where we screamed along to Rage Against The Machine and did the running man to 90’s songs I can’t even remember (too many curb-side cocktails were consumed).

There’s not too much more to say about the day, other than the fact that pretty much everyone dresses in orange (Netherland’s favorite color) and the vibe on the streets was so peaceful and fun. I couldn’t imagine this kind of event in Sydney without bogans causing trouble in their Australian flag capes.

At the top of a bike parking building in Amsterdam, you can see all the people streaming out of the station behind us

Even the dogs dress up in orange!

There is a bridge behind these people, it took 20 minutes to cross it!

Amanda's cupcake stall

Amanda

My coconut and lemon kisses

Party boat!

Who likes to party? I'm not sure if that old man next to me does....

Boys will be boys

Happy birthday to me

Yes, that’s how far behind I am with posting! My birthday was on April 25th!

My day started with opening presents from Kaushik in bed, then remembering my mum’s presents tucked away in the spare room. Kaushik made me a delicious breakfast and then I called mum who was celebrating my birthday with my cousin at her house, which I though was sweet. They all sang me happy birthday (mum, her boyfriend Mark, my cousin Kim, her little boy Jak and Kim’s husband Nic) to me which made me a little teary eyed hearing all their voices so far away, but my birthday wouldn’t have been complete without it!

Then it was time to pick up some bits and pieces for my party that afternoon, but not before a coffee from one of the only good places in Den Haag: Bagels and Beans!

Our friends arrived in the late afternoon so it was still nice and warm; good weather for a few coctails and champagne! Then we were off to Scheveningen to have dinner and appreciate the best sunset I’ve seen at that beach, absolutely beautiful.

At Scheveningen, from L-R: Grant, Amanda, Nikki, Aidan, Liz and Colin. We first met Colin and Liz thanks to a mutual friend of ours in Sydney who told us to hook up, then we met the rest of this lovely bunch through Colin and Liz!

That's Patrick up the back there in white, another mate of ours (we met him at Oktoberfest!)

Axel and Mar, we met them at an expat drinks get together

Kaushik, you romantic so and so

Once the sun went down it all became a little bit chilly so we caught the bus back to our apartment for more drinks and shenanigans. Colin even made a video about my party, to the smooth and sensual sounds of Ween. Ha!

Thank you everyone for making my day!

Trash for treasure

Back in Sydney, one of my favorite times was council clean up time! Mum would drive us both around and we would pull over to the side of the road when a nice pile of junk would tickle our fancy.

We even once wheeled a couch from one end of our street to our house, to the horror of a guy on a bike who stopped to help us!

Call me a hoarder but you will be pleased to know that when Kaushik and I move in to our own place back in Sydney we will have a beautiful green velvet couch, a round breakfast table with orange vinyl spinny chairs, an antique dressing table…..to put it simply I’m set up furniture-wise because of these glorious council clean ups.

Our move to The Netherlands had me wondering (among other things of course) about whether they had council clean ups here and I began having the most amazing dreams about myself coming across a giant stash of goodies outside someone’s house which would have me waking up in the happiest of moods.

I would have this dream about once per week, then a week before my birthday it came true!

Coming home from work on the bus, I eyed off a giant pile of  ’stuff’ outside someone’s apartment, just down the road from ours. As soon as I got home, I greeted Kaushik and told him of the exciting news. He rolled his eyes and told me to call him if I needed help bringing stuff home (which I later took him up on the offer).

I rode down to the apartment and saw people bringing more and more things out, so I asked them if they were indeed throwing all of this out and whether it was okay to rummage through?

“Sure, go for it. Just keep the pile tidy.”

“Of course, thanks! Doing some spring cleaning?”

“No, our aunt died. Just getting rid of her stuff.”

Oh…I felt a tad guilty, getting all excited about this deceased woman’s belongings being thrown on to the side of the road.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be going through her stuff?”

“It’s fine, it will be thrown out anyway.”

Hmm…I thought about it for a moment….but then came to the conclusion that if my lazy relatives chose to just dispose of my belongings on to the street, that I would be more than happy to have some excited young lady come along and treasure a few pieces of my life.

As another lady going through her things said to me “Imagine that, your life on the side of the road?”

I did imagine it, such a shame. She was certainly a snappy dresser, which I took advantage of. She was also a doctor because an entire filing cabinet filled with old documents and medical cards from the 50’s or 60’s was included in the things being thrown out.

I gave her clothes a wash and as I was hanging them out to dry, I noticed these little additions she made to the clothes: they were tabs of material with snap buttons on them to make it easier to hang clothes up to dry, rather than using a peg. It made me quite melancholy, this simple yet thoughtful addition to her clothes which her relatives wouldn’t have even noticed. I hope she knows that I noticed, somehow.

Here are some photos of what I scored, thank you Geertje, it was much appreciated! (Geertje is what I’ve chosen to call this lady, it’s an old fashioned Dutch name)

My pile of treasure!

A selection of my favorite pieces of clothing from Geertje

Some agendas (an open up calendar/diary) from 1959!

A letter and envelope set

I pinched a few medical cards from the filing cabinet

Prague in pictures

Our trip to Prague was actually quite some time ago, much before Paris in fact.

I didn’t get around to posting a long-winded story because the film from the trip was processed at different times yada yada then I forgot all together….so because details about the holiday are a little vague, I will just concentrate on photos for this post.

I can tell you though, it was a beautiful place. So old and well preserved, considering the wars it has lived through.

It was snowing too which added to the beauty of it all. We mainly walked around the city, crossing bridges to different quarters and taking in the scenery.

I would have to say that Prague has the largest number of beggars I have come across. They generally sit on their knees with their forehead resting on the cold ground and their hands out in front, ready to grasp any coins donated. Sadly, I got all too used to seeing this sight.

On a nicer note Prague is also famous for it’s jazz, so we visited U Maleho Glena Bar & Jazz Club on our last night there. I would recommend booking a seat because it’s quite popular! We managed to score some seats once a few people left who were strangely not enjoying the music. I don’t see why because it was a very impressive performance; fusion, fast paced type of jazz playing numbers by artists such as Coltrane and Brother Jack McDuff.

Anyway, I will let my pictures do the talking. Enjoy xx

Easter weekend in Paris

I’ve been slack again, haven’t I? Two reasons are that:

1. I was waiting for my films to be developed  2. Slothful behaviour  3. You probably don’t really care (not a reason, just a fact)

Anyway….

Netherlands is such a central place in Europe, I’m not sure if the Dutch understand how lucky they are! You are able to catch a train for about 3 hours and arrive in Paris, which is exactly what we did for our Easter long weekend.

After dropping our bags off at Hotel Vivienne (which has the world’s smallest elevator, it’s pretty much a coffin) we walked around the neighbourhood on what was a deliciously warm and sunny day. Our first stop was the square situated near the Louvre….

…and then towards Pont Neuf which has a view of the River Seine. My first sight of this river is one of the most memorable I have of Paris and I’m afraid my photo does it zero justice!

River Seine

We toddled around more, past the Notre Dame (there was a lengthy queue so we didn’t venture in) then to Place des Vosges which is a beautiful park where people sit around to chat or have a bite to eat.

Place des Vosges

Notre Dame

Kaushik had looked up a South American cafe where they roast their coffee beans right in front of you in the shop so we stopped off there for one of the most delicious coffee’s I’ve ever had.

We also spent some time shopping around for a nice collared shirt for Kaushik to wear for he had booked us a seat at an authentic French restaraunt which surprisingly had vegetarian options. The food was lovely and fresh, albeit the portions. Kaushik’s meal was fit for a small village in Botswana (needless to say Kaushik is not a small Botswana village) and mine was the cliche of a fancy French entree. Desert more than made up for my portion size: we shared an apple tartine and chocolate fondant.

The next morning we walked over to the Louvre and surprisingly didn’t have to queue up for too long to get in.

Waiting in line for the Louvre

We looked through a selection of artifacts from Greece and Egypt which included a real mummy and we also looked through the “classics” which I can only take so much of…I’m not big on neoclassical art, thankfully nor is Kaushik. However we of course had to see that one painting of a very famous lady, or is it a man? Who knows, but it’s true that the Mona Lisa’s eyes do follow you depending on which side of the room you stand on. It was quite funny to see people taking long armed photo’s of themself with the painting and then just walking away without even looking at  the painting itself properly.

Just a side note, on your first Parisian trip you literally tick off things in your head of “ok yep…seen that, what amazing famous structure/artwork/promenade will I see next?”. Well the Eiffel tower was next and I couldn’t wait.

I saw it’s beauty while exiting a nearby metro station. Walking up the stairs to the street I could see the characteristic top of the tower and with each step I got higher, more was revealed and I couldn’t believe I was seeing it for real.

But you know us, hunger was still more important than seeing the Eiffel Tower up close, so we picked up some Turkish haloumi wraps for lunch and then headed to the Park which sits underneath the tower itself. A delicious lunch with a beautiful view of the tower and a little entertainment too; we got to watch con artists at work. These particular cons are girls in gypsy type attire who go up to people, ask if they speak English and then proceed to tell a sad story of their life and then ask for any spare change. It doesn’t sound like a scam until you have read research about these women which explains they live in comfortable homes, but their husbands/fathers force them to beg because quite frankly, it works. When she approached us to ask if we spoke English, our response was “Nee!” which is of course Dutch for “No”.

So we escaped another scam (so common in touristy European cities) and went for a walk further away from the Eiffel tower to try and take some photos. As you can see, it’s hard to have a proper photo with it (especially because my old film camera is already automatically slightly zoomed in) unless you walk quite far away or take multiple shots like these:

Onwards, our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe and then a walk down Champs Elysees where we sang the theme song for this famous stretch of road.

On the Champs Elysees, with view of Arc de Triomph

We then decided to take a boat tour which stretches down The River Seine and took us past even more beautiful monuments and another view of The Eiffel Tower which I never got tired of seeing.

Now I think there must be something wrong with me because I can’t for the life of me remember what we had for dinner that night! Never mind, on to our last day in Paris. A grim way to spend the morning was in Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery in eastern Paris to give Jim Morrison’s grave a visit. Even though I’m a fan of his music,  I wasn’t overly fased and found it all a bit tacky, especially seeing people wer’e standing on other people’s graves to get a better view to photograph old Jimmy’s grave.

Onwards to a much nicer activity of visiting Montmartre; a popular city for working artists and also used to be a hang out jaunt for artists such as Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Salvador Dali. And if I had done my research properly I would have discovered that the cafe which was used in the movie ‘Amelie’ is also situated in Montmartre.

The Sacre Coeur Roman Catholic church would be one of the main attractions in Montmartre and was worth climbing all of the steep hills and hundreds of stairs to get to. It doesn’t look like all of the usual churches in Europe, it kind of reminds me of a Muslim temple.

We had one last impressive monument to visit and that was the Pantheon, located in the Latin quarter of Paris. It is used as a burial site but was originally built as a place of worship. It is said to be spectacular inside, but we unfortunately ran out of time and had to head back to catch out train home.

Now that we have the general sight seeing “out of the way”, I’m truly looking forward to visiting Paris again to soak up more of the culture and atmosphere. Parisians didn’t live up to their cliche of being rude either. So long as you start a conversation with “Bonjour! Pas les vous anglais?”  (hello, do you speak english?) and don’t just expect people to talk to you in English, then you shouldn’t have any problems. Parisians have a right to be proud of their city, it’s one of the most beautiful I’ve ever visited.

Veluwe: Valentines, Van Gogh and a Very cute squirrel

Not that I’m complaining, but we had been doing lots of out-of-country holidays lately and decided to spend our Valentines weekend in Holland! So, Kaushik rented a car and we drove (well Kaushik drove..I handed him water and cookies as needed) about 2 hours to our rented cabin in the province of Gelderland.

It was a lovely scenic drive, which along the way we managed to spot a man wearing clogs! The Netherlands is often a cliche of people wearing clogs and growing tulips, but the only people you see wearing clogs these days are farmers or people living in rural areas. So yes, it was quite a treat to see and one which I greeted with an enthusiastic “Oh my god that man is wearing clogs!!!”

Once we arrived at our cabin and packed our fridge full of copious and probably un-necessary amounts of food, we hopped back in to the car and drove to Veluwe which contains the national park, Nationaal Park de Hoge Veluwe.

There wasn’t much daylight left once we arrived at the park, but we were still keen to check it out so we went on in (there is a 7 euro entry per adult) and helped ourselves to their courtesy bikes provided.

I can’t tell you how amazed I was at the ever changing landscape of this national park! One moment it looked like you were in a dense woodland in the Netherlands (funny that!) but then the trees would clear, sand would appear and it seemed like you were all of a sudden in the middle of an Australian desert. Keep riding, then you’re in Africa! It was amazing. And this was only seen through our short 10km ride that afternoon, I couldn’t wait to come back tomorrow and see what else this landscape had to offer.

Tired and hungry, we drove back to our cabin and dined on some obligatory romantic wine and cheese, it was Valentines day after all! Then it was time for dinner which was a delicious mushroom risotto ala Kaushik, and then I made a ridiculously decadent chocolate fondue with strawberries.

We also watched a particularly unromantic and heavy film called Children of Men. It was a fantastic movie, one which involved me yelling and sitting on the edge of the couch, but not one I would recommend if you’re in the mood for a chortle.

Good night!

Next morning I got up pretty quickly for I was hoping and wishing to catch a glimpse of a squirrel (Dutch word: Eekhorn) which I had been told by my boss at work I would probably see. I was preparing some pancake batter when Kaushik called out “Look there he is!!” so I ran to the glass door and sure enough there was a squirrel, bouncing around in the distance! We went outside very carefully and left some bits of biscuit in hopes of luring him closer.

This did work, momentarily…he came right up to our cabin (with us inside excitedly whispering and dancing around) but he didn’t seem too fussed with said biscuit and he hopped away, breaking our hearts. So we snuck outside again and left little bits of banana in hopes that perhaps he had more of a sweet tooth. Which he did! He came back and we managed to take about 72 photos of him, this being one of them:

Aaaanyway I think I’m dwelling a little too long on him….he was just extremely cute, tiny and had pointed ears…I can’t help my excitement. So, we ate my pancakes and drove back to the national park for an epic 26 km bike ride!

Mind you, we did stop for lunch and a tour of the Kroller Muller museum which is situated in the middle of the National park. This particular art gallery is home to the second largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world, so we were naturally excited. Here we are with our favorites from this particular collection:

Back on to our bikes to complete our journey through the park where we faced very rainy and windy conditions! It was certainly hard slogging and a lot of work, but I found it really rewarding to push myself.

See what I mean about the ever changing landscape here?

An old hunting lodge situated in the park (yes the lake is frozen!)

Me looking very intelligent, making a hole in the ice with a stick

Ahh, we finally made it back to the car with thighs that felt like truck tyres! We finished the night off with some greasy chinese food to ruin all of the goodness we did for our bodies that day.

Oh and to cut a long story not very short, Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe has been one of my most favorite trips so far. I can’t explain how beautiful and strange the scenery was and I love how you could feel like you were in the middle of nowhere. I’m looking forward to going back when it’s warmer, but riding around in the rain was half the fun!

I’m still here!

I’ve just been busy…..and lazy with the whole keeping this blog thing updated. I have a feeling there have been 100086 other blog posts which have started like that, sorry for the banality.

Once I get around to scanning my latest roll of developed photos, I will post our latest adventures in London, Prague and Veluwe which is a beautiful national park in the Netherlands where we did an epic 26km bike ride.

In the meantime, you can have a look at what has been keeping me busy. Basically where I work, they have a lot of projects running. One of which is a website called Apple Pie Pussy, a website which sells jewelry, you perverts.

One of my bosses makes these necklaces, bracelets etc and I’ve been taking photos of them to be used on their website and magazines. The links to my photos are here (click on the products link under each category to see more of my photos):

here

here

here

here

here

and here (I wish)

I’ve been up to a lot more, but my work for those projects aren’t online yet. I really have learned a lot from working here so far, I try not to imagine if I didn’t manage to get a job over here.

Too much information

Okay, so the Dutch are known to be pretty relaxed with the whole nudity and sex thing. Some examples of this are:

• Pornography on free to air T.V (the other night was “fat” porn, don’t worry it was just the commercial for it that I saw!)
• The Red Light district of Amsterdam where ladies stand half naked in windows, basically advertising what they have on offer
• It is not unusual to see breasts in printed advertising
• Windows in the Netherlands are often quite large and curtainless….say no more

All of the above is totally fine with me because if you know me well enough then you will understand that I’m the type of person who scoffs at people for getting easily offended about such topics.

On the other hand though, there is one advertisement aired on Dutch T.V which really has  me feeling awkward and icky whenever it comes on.

Watch and squirm.

Too much information? I think, yes. Especially for a female, watching this makes you feel like everyone is finding about the secret life of Aunt Fanny. Plus, I generally don’t delight in imagining what other women’s treasure troves get up to during the day, because basically the camera angle used in this commercial is specifically what it makes you do! Unless I’m just some kind of pervert.

Give me the Beaver commercial any day! I can’t believe it was banned. Imagine if they aired the douche ad in Australia? Chaos!