Cleaning and football

Today has been a very hot day. Not only is it impossible to sleep at night, you need to cope with the heat during the day as well. I'm super tired because I couldn't sleep last night. I went to lie in the couch for a while but it wasn't that much better.
I got back from the gym not that long ago and now I've been vaccuming and mopping the kitchen floor as it looked horrible. I really just feel like lying on the couch for the rest of the day.

Tonight it's the World Cup final between Spain and Holland. Of course I want Holland to win since this is where I live. It will be crazy around here. I think we decided to watch the game here at home since it's probably the best if you actually want to see anything. We will probably go out for a walk afterwards to see all the crazy people roaming around. On Tuesday they're going to have some kind of party in the city, even if they don't win. It'll probably be fun.

Hup Holland hup!!!

The beach

Today me and Anna went to the beach. We were going to ride the whole way there and according to Google maps it would only take about 20 minutes. However, we didn't really find where to go and Google was wrong so we couldn't go the way it wanted us to go and there weren't really any other close ways to get there. So after about an hour we decided to take the tram the rest of the way. When we actually came to the beach it was quite alright, not too crowded and the water was nice. I'm happy with the day: got some sun, a swim and some exercise. Perfect.

Salmon

Lately I've been completely out of ideas of what to have for dinner at night and I really don't feel like anything. Today I got a good idea from my supervisor. I ended up making salmon and a salad.
Here's the 'recipe':

Salmon
Onion
Tomatoes
White wine
Salt and pepper
Herbes

Put everyting in aluminium foil and wrap it up. Bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

I just made a green salad with ruccola, tomatoes, cucumber and avocado. To this I also hade some nice bread.

I was very happy with the result. A glas of white wine as well and the evening is perfect.

Wine by the canal on a Sunday afternoon

Yesterday we went to Anna and Harmen's place to enjoy the sunshine and some delicious meringues that Anna made. They live on a houseboat so it was fun to sit there watching all the people driving by in their boats. It was also really nice just sitting there in the sun playing games and talking about life. Something I can definitely do more often.
Sunshine really makes you happy. Vitamin D for everyone. =)

The view from the boat

The Swedish girl

I had a great time last night. Met up with Marlie and we went to just have some wine at a place at Rembrandtplein. After that we went pubhopping a little bit. We ended up at this little bar with rarely any people but the guys in the bar were so nice and funny and the music was pretty good.

Sometimes it's nice to live in a foreign country because you get attention only for being Swedish. When the barmen found out that I was Swedish they went and got a massive Swedish flag and had that in the bar for the rest of the night. After a while however they went and got the Dutch flag as well. We didn't end up dancing that much but we did have fun and met a lot of different people.

2-1

Well, that turned out well. Only saw the first half and then I lied down on the couch to get some sleep but it was pretty much impossible when Holland scored because people outside were screaming. So I didn't get that much of a nap but I think I'll be alright for tonight anyway.

Now, I'm gonna make some dinner and then I'm gonna get ready for the evening. I'm going out dancing. It's gonna be hot and lovely.

Today's song:

Heat and football

My God, it is hot!!! 28,5 degrees in the apartment and 32 outside. I'm sweating without even moving. It's nice though so I shouldn't complain. I wish it would be cool at night though because it is really difficult to sleep when it's this hot.

The Dutch people are crazy when it comes to football. I was just outside going to get some stuff from the store and there were people everywhere, probably going to watch the game somewhere. And they were all wearing orange. It's like walking around in an orange meadow or something.

Now, I'm gonna watch the game so that I can join the conversations tonight. I think they will lose but it would be fun if they win.

Amsterdamse Bos

Today has been a lovely day so far. The sun is shining, no clouds in the sky and it's about 25-30 degrees. We went for a ride to Amsterdamse Bos today. We were lying in the sun for a couple of hours and we also went for the first swim for this year. It wasn't that warm but it was nice.

I'm now exhausted after the bikeride and I'm just gonna relax for the rest of the day.

Hope everyone else is enjoying the sunshine as much as I am.

Midsummer

Yesterday it was Midsummer's eve, which is suppose to be the longest day of the year. However, I think this year that day was a bit earlier this week, but I'm not sure. I didn't get that much of the Midsummer spirit this year as they don't celebrate it here in Holland. I did however get some summer feelings as we went to the park to have a barbecue. Very nice.

Bowen by the tiny instant barbecue

The weather wasn't great

sickie

I got summer feelings when I saw how good the weather is and how hot it is outside so I decided to go to the store right across the street and buy some fresh fruit. If I can't enjoy the nice weather of this day at least I can enjoy some nice summer fruit to get that summer spirit. And there are a lot of vitamins in fruit so hopefully I'll feel better.

What's better than fresh fruit?

The weekend

Hi everyone,

Today I'm at home. I'm not feeling very well unfortunately. Hopefully it will go away soon though so that I can enjoy the beautiful weather.

I thought I'd put up some photos from the weekend when I was in Sweden. I didn't take that many photos however but at least a few. Had a lovely time at home. It's always nice in my hometown during summer.

Charlie trying out her new babysitter and Ludwig playing Charlie

Charlie and me, super happy. It's been a long day, time for a nap

On Saturday night it was time for some partying with Elin

Sweden

Tomorrow it's time to go back to Sweden for just a short while. I'm going tomorrow afternoon and coming back on Sunday evening. I'm mostly looking forward to seeing my little niece but of course it's gonna be great to see the rest of my family and my friends as well.

Karlskrona is where I'm going.

Strawberries

We've just eaten the first strawberries for this year and they were delicious. Expensive but delicious. Yum.

Go-karting

Today I'm really tired. Slept more than necessary so I shouldn't be that tired I suppose. My arms and shoulders ache from go-karting yesterday. It was my first time doing that and I was a little bit scared in the beginning, especially since I had to change karts twice because they didn't work. But when I actually got in to it, it was so much fun. I really want to do that again. I didn't end up winning (surprise, surprise) but at least I didn't come last. :)

Optiver weekend

Last weekend we were with Bowen's work in Ijmuiden aan Zee. Optiver (Bowen's company) have team building events every year and the partners are allowed to come along as well. It goes on from Friday night until Sunday morning/noon. Dinner and party on both Friday and Saturday nights and then team activities during the day on Saturday. This year the theme was heroes, so every team was named after a "hero". All kinds of different heroes such as Michael Jackson, Albert Einstein, Jackie Chan etc. We were in the Richard Branson team. Wouldn't be my choice of a hero but oh well. Below are some photos from the weekend. It was good fun and we were very lucky with the weather.

Friday Night

Welcome drink (Mojito)

Dinner and party


Capoeira performance


Brazilian dancers

Saturday day







Everyone

Saturday night

Arriving to the fortress with the 'water taxi'


Dinner and party

P.s If you click on the photos they get bigger.

Holland

Sometimes, this country and the fact that I can't communicate in the way that I want to, drive me crazy. The power went off last night. I just turned off my computer and went to turn the light on in the bathroom and then it just said 'poff' and everything was off. We went to try and fix it but we weren't able to. Similar things have happened before but we've always managed to fix it. Since it was Sunday evening and we were going to bed anyway we didn't really worry about it. However, I called the landlord at 8:30 this morning, stayed home all day waiting for them to come and fix it. After several hours I've had enough and I called him again. He didn't answer (as always) and later on he sent a text saying that they will come and fix it at 18:30 tonight.

So here I am at Coffee Company getting "free" electricity and "free" internet, worrying about that the food in both the fridge and the freezer are gonna be bad after almost 24 hours without cooling.

The O.C.

Yesterday I went and bought the first season of OC on DVD. I saw an add this week that it was only 15 euros and I've been wanting to see it for a while. I used to watch it when it was on TV but I kinda forgot what happened so I wanted to see it again. However, in the store that I went to the first season was only 10 euros. Bargain!

Rhubarb pie recipe

Yesterday was an alright day. We didn't really do that much. We had a lovely dinner including good steaks and mashed potatoes. After that we had delicious rhubarb pie. This pie is really good.

Dough:

3 dl flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 dl sugar
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
grated rind of one lemon
1 egg
50 g margarine or butter

Filling:
500g rhubarb or sour apples
1 dl sugar
1 tbsp potato flour

Mix the fruit with the sugar and potato flour (you can also use corn flour). Mix the ingredients for the dough. Everything but the butter is suppose to be in the dough.
Put half of the pie dough on the bottom of a pie dish, put the fruit on top and then the rest of the dough. Bake for about 10 minutes. Take it out of the over and shave the margarine on top of the pie. Then continue to bake for 10 minutes. Oven at 225 degrees Celsius.

Enjoy!

Boooored

Sitting at home trying to think of something to do. I do need to go to the gym but I feel really lazy. I've eaten almost a whole bag of chips though so I really should go. I'm trying to surf the net to see if anything is going on, but no luck there. I do need to go buy some things but once again there's the laziness. It's 20 degrees outside but it's too windy for that to feel warm.

Alltogether I feel very blah today. I'm gonna have a cup of tea and watch an episode of The City and see if that cheers me up.

Happy Friday everyone!

Unposted photos

Just thought I'd put some photos up from when we were in Melbourne and stayed at the Crown Metropol which opened just the week before we were there.

The hotel from the outside and from the room the kingsize bed with the bathroom in the background.

View from our hotel room. The weather is not that good but you can see the water over there.

We were only in Melbourne for one night but we managed to get a table at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant Maze, which is located in the hotel building. There are two restaurants actually - Maze and Maze grill. There were no available tables at Maze when we made our reservation so we ended up going to Maze grill instead. I think I probably would've prefered that one anyway so I was happy.

From the left: Bowen's starter - crispy softshell crab. Bowens main - roasted barramundi. My main - "Cape Grim", grass fed beef fillet from Tasmania with bearnaise sauce.

Everything was delicious. I don't think I've ever had such a tender piece of meat but my favourite was Bowen's softshell crab, it was really, really nice. I can definitely recommend this restaurant if you're ever in Melbourne.

Back in Holland

We got back to Amsterdam today. Arrived at Schiphol seven o'clock in the morning. So now we're trying to stay up as long as possible so that we will get into the new time zone easier. It is not very easy though. All I wanna do is go to bed and it's only quarter to five. We'll see how long I'll manage. So far I'm suffering.

Lovely Australia

I've said it before but I need to say it again. I love this country. Even though our reasons for going here this time were not fun, I've realilsed how lovely this country is. Not only is the weather good but the people here are just so nice. When I went to the hairdresser this morning there was another woman waiting. She started talking to me as if we've met each other before. Obviously I'm not used to people just starting to talk to me like this so I don't really know how to react but I just love it. It makes me happy for the rest of the day. The same thing happened yesterday in a store. At first I was surprised when the shop assistant started talking to me because I thought she had me confused with someone else. She found out that we were visiting Bowen's family and that we live in Holland. She thought living in Europe was very cool. I wish people could be like this everywhere.

New watch and haircut

We only have two and a half days left here now. Flying back to Europe on Friday afternoon, if everything goes as planned. Hopefully the volcano won't spit out more ash.

I've had the urge to buy a new watch ever since I saw this really nice Tissot watch in a store here. Yesterday I finally bought one. Found a Swatch which wasn't that expensive so I decided to buy it. Swatch is a good brand so I'm happy. I was looking for one with a leather strap instead of metal so that's what it is. It looks a little bit big on my tiny wrist but I think I just need to get used to it.

It feels like I've been shopping quite a lot down here but there are so many nice things so I simply can't resist.

I also decided to get my hair cut while I'm here. Mostly because I feel like the prices are better and the standard seems to be pretty much the same so alltogether I get a good deal. This time I decided to cut it short. I wanted long hair for a while but I got sick of it so now it's gone and I'm back to my normal length. Very happy with the result of this as well.

Now I'm gonna enjoy a lovely lunch made by my baby. Then we'll see how the rest of the day turns out.

Beautiful day at the winery

Today we've had a great day. The weather was really, really nice and we've been outside for most of the day. We went to Red Hill and had lunch at a winery. The view was spectacular and the food was good. Even though the wind was a bit chilly the day was almost perfect. After lunch and a bottle of sparkling wine (shared by three people, not just me drinking it) we went to have a look to see if we could see any kangaroos. Luckily we managed to find a whole bunch of them. They were quite far away though so I didn't really succeed in taking a good photo. Haven't seen any, except for at the zoo, so it was pretty cool to see some.

View from the restaurant where we had lunch

Red Hill Estate sparkling wine


Kangaroos (unfortunately this was the best picture I could get)