Newsflash
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 22 February 2007 16:35:14
Wow, almost a whole month has gone by? I hope I can update more often than that in the future!
Firstly, I just wanted to point out that the Dutch certainly like to do things differently. One big difference is dogs. You can take your dog almost anywhere - to work, on public transport, to the beach, into restaurants (and by the sign of the person holding their dog while on the elevator, we think you can even take them into the cinema too!). There is just the odd shop that dosen't let dogs in, but apart from that, they can roam free. This continues to bring a smile to my face it does, however, mean that you are forever looking at the ground trying to avoid all the little presents that they leave behind.
The language here continues to be a source of amusement. For instance, my boyfriend was drinking what he thought was juice - it turned out to be straight cordial.
One very surprising thing were the public urinals. They aren't just for the public, they are in public AND they are only pop up at night so one minute they are there, and the next they are not. Very interesting indeed. Here is a picture I took of my boyfriend demonstrating how it works:
We are sharing a house very close to my work and a very short walk from Scheveningen beach. It dosen't matter how cold it is, if the sun is out, the beach is PACKED. This is when the boy and I trotted down the beach for pancakes one Sunday:
I have been working fulltime which has left very little time for me to travel but on the odd occassion, we do leave town for a day on the weekend. Last weekend we went to the cute little town of Delft. It was here that we realised Carnivale was on. I'm sure this has some history behind it but it just seemed like a good excuse for people to get dressed up (in mostly fluroscent colours) and do lots of drinking over the weekend. Here are two girls, dressed up for Carnivale, in front of the large town square at Delft:
It was also in Delft where we discovered the most fabulous machine. You could type in, via touch screen, the address of the place you needed to go and then it would print out (in colour!) a free map of your destination and how to get to it. Genius. Here is the boy collecting our map:
Last weekend I also found out that.......... hold your breath...... it's really exciting............. that I have been accepted into a voluntary organisation to go and do some work in Ghana for a few months. I have to plan this around people that are coming to visit me so I will probably be leaving around June/July.
Now for some random snippets of information:
My grandfather is on the improve still and I think he is possibly out of intensive care now so it's good news on that front.
On the flip side of that, my pet mouse that I left in Australia died the other week. Very sad indeed. He/she had run a good many miles on its treadmill. He/she died a happy little mouse.
My parents are coming in mid-April and they have entrusted me to organise their whole two week holiday which is going to be a surprise for them. I love international mystery tours!
On Valentine's Day, besides dinner, I got beautiful red roses that sat on my desk (I'm a very lucky girl!):
That will do me for now. I'll be back soon... I promise.