26th January

There are lots of different names for this day in Australia...Aboriginal Sovereignty Day, Australia Day, Invasion Day.

26th January means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

People hailing from 111 different countries officially become citizens of Australia today.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra holds a Sacred Fire Ceremonial Gathering and a Corroboree for Sovereignty.

1000s gather in locales around the country to Look Up and Smile.

Sydney enjoys the Big Day Out.

I sit inside on the other side of the world and wonder what I'm missing again.

So I plug my headphones into my laptop and listen to one of my favourite songs, From Little Things Big Things Grow, by two of my favourite artists, Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly.

http://www.aboriginaltentembassy.net/music/Paul_Kelly_and_Kev_Carmody_-_From_Little_Things_Big_Things_Grow.mp3

This beautiful song was written for Vincent Lingiari. To read more about him check out:

http://www.vibe.com.au/vibe/corporate/celebrity_vibe/showceleb.asp?id=372

All things festive!

The time between my last post and this post has been festive indeed! Shopping, Christmas breakfast, Christmas presents, Christmas dinner, more Christmas presents, a road trip to Copenhagen via Hamburg and finally NYE in Breda.

Christmas day was chilly and my new year's resolution is to have the next one at home where the sun shines and lures my glow in the dark white body down to the beach. It was still a great day with lots of presents and a champagne brekky while talking to my family who were no doubt working on their tans at the same time. Nico and I braved the winds and went out for a Christmas stroll and coffee. In the evening it was down to Panningen for perhaps the best meal I've had since arriving here!

On boxing day we hauled our over eaten selves into the car without any winter tires and headed to Hamburg. In the city centre we saw a replica of our Christmas tree.

Hamburg is a shopper's paradise. Unfortunately we arrived in the evening and left the next morning so we missed the shopping hours. I think that was well planned by Nico.

We made it to Copenhagen late in the afternoon of the 27th although it felt like it was about 8 in the evening because it was so dark. We got a parking ticket on our first day there which was a lovely post-Christmas present that hasn't been paid for. I expected Copenhagen to be very proper and really clean but it's not all that! It reminded me of a cross between Amsterdam and London. Different parts of the city had some peculiar odours floating around which were peculiar in a not very pleasant way. Again, it's a city with some great shopping but I didn't buy a thing! We wandered around and saw the sights, including this at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon:

Yes. That is our picture of the Little Mermaid!

We visited Copenhagen's version of Nimbin:

And we got stuck taking photos for about 400000 people at the 'New Harbour' after they saw what a good picture we took:

We went to the coast and looked for Sweden:

And pretended to be windmills:

And after all that we drove home, went to the gym, then got ready to welcome in 2007 in Breda at Jurgey's NYE party:

And although this photo looks civilised, it is almost 1 pm on 02.01.07 and I have just about recovered from NYE.

Christmas is coming!

I love Christmas. I love presents. I can admit it! But I don't like the cold northern hemisphere weather and anyone who is anyone knows that Christmas = sun and beach and days of eating, drinking and being merry.

But when in Rome and all that.

So Nico and I took a trip to Aachen for the Christmas market. This was my 3rd Christmas market in as many years. The first was Prague and the second was Budapest and the third was Aachen. Different countries but very similar Christmas markets. Lots of people, mulled wine and sausages. And very, very chilly.

Mmm, mulled wine...and maybe too many sausages judging from the chins hanging over my scarf.

The city hall marked one end of the market.

And the cathedral the other.

When we were driving home we decided to go the the 'drielandenpunt' where the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet.

Unfortunately I couldn't get my legs around the pole to be in all three countries at once.

This place is also the highest in the Netherlands. All peaks around the world are indicated and it's no different here. Silly tourists taking photos are also noticeable.

It was a tough climb.

Yep, all 322.5 METRES of it!

Happy week leading up to Christmas to everyone! And here's to the next one being in warmer climes!

Spammed!

Could my wonderful gmail account actually let spam into my inbox?

That was my thought this morning when I logged on to my email and saw the sender 'Colleen' and the subject 'Offer Letter' and an attachment.

Against my usual 'delete it' instincts, I opened it.

It was indeed an offer.

USQ has let me into their MA in Applied Linguistics starting in March 2007 and with a 'Commonwealth Supported' place, which means the good old Aussie Government will pay 2/3 of the fees for me. This doesn't mean, however, that they will get my vote in the next election!

So gmail has pleased me once again for not letting in any spam. (Unless of course I fail all my courses then this post will be changed to an 'I hate spam' post and I'll have everyone imagining that I never even contemplated doing an MA.)

Naughty or Nice?

5th December marks 'Sinterklaas'.

If you've been good all year, you get some presents, like the first letter of your first name made out of chocolate and a poem written about you to make fun of your idiosyncrasies.

If you've been bad, you get a bundle of sticks or a bag of salt.

But if you've been really, really bad, you get thrown in Zwarte Piet's gunny sack and taken back to Spain where Sinterklaas lives.

Hmm?

I might have to give Sinterklaas the head's up and tell him all the really, really bad things I've done this year!

Sinterklaas and his un-PC helpers arrive in the Netherlands by steam boat in late November.

A couple of the hundreds of Zwarte Piets.

Sinterklaas also has a horse, Amerigo (and a police escort here in Eindhoven). I forgot to leave a carrot out for Amerigo last night. That trip to Spain is looking more promising!

Presenting Leiden!

Most impressive city in the Netherlands? Most beautifully preserved architecture in the Netherlands? Most breath taking views in the Netherlands? Windiest city in the Netherlands? Best tour guides in the Netherlands?

After spending a late afternoon / early evening sojourn in Leiden, in my humble opinion, yes is the answer to most of the above! I'll let you decide on your own yes's and no's.

I did it!

Phew. With a day to spare I am officially a winner of the 'write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days' NaNoWriMo challenge. Final wordcount: 50 067. Words worth reading: *shudders*.

Achel

That's the name of a quaint little town in Belgium that we rode to today.

Yes, we rode our bikes to Belgium today!

We left at about 11.30 this morning and got back about 6 this evening. The ride was about 70kms round trip. It was mostly through beautiful forests with the occasional 'fiets cafes' for all the cyclists and walkers.

Of course, as I hail from a big and borderless island, it's still exciting for me to cross into another country by car or on foot or by bike!

Ahhh...the novelty will never wear off, I'm sure!

That's me and my trusty steed just in Belgium.

And here's the border police...

In Achel there was a castle that had been built in the 12th century. Unfortunately they had renovated it a number of times since then which included painting and plastering over the original brickwork.

Close up you could see underneath some peeling paint and the original brickwork was beautiful.

I won't even tell you what we ate for lunch but think of about a metre of bread with a sausage, some onion and sauerkraut. Mmm!? Of course we started lunch with a yummy dark Belgian beer. Now that was gooooood!

On the way out of town we spotted a shop so we had to go in. What a great thing that this is what they sold...

You can't go to Belgium and not buy a few chocolates! So now I'm off to enjoy them with my tea.

A bit slow...

And the 30th of November is how many days away?!

I'm going to be adding my word count to this little widget every day (or more than once a day if I'm really procrastinating). The date above won't change (editing a post doesn't change the date) but those numbers will!

Not so simple equations

1. What's 50 000 minus 2037?

2. What's 30 minus 10?

The answers are:

1. The number of words I have to write.

2. The number of days I have to do it.

At least I know I'm good at procrastinating.

NaNoWriMo. I love you.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, a few days ago it was happy birthday to me!

And even though I turned 31 I am still quite spoilt.

These were all my birthday presents along with all of the emails and well wishes and a JT CD which isn't in the photo because it was pumping through the stereo! I'm such a pop princess sometimes.

Nico took Friday off and after chatting on the phone to my parents for about an hour, we went to Nijmegen for lunch. Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands but then depending on who you ask, Maastricht is the oldest! I love both of these cities and it's true that both are really old! Nijmegen is on the Rhine and it is still a busy waterway for transporting goods. We saw a bunch of cars on a bunch of boats coming from Germany and quite a lot of traffic as we dined at the water's edge in a 'gezellig' restaurant.

After lunch we drove to the largest National Park in the Netherlands: the Hoge Veluwe. In the middle of the park there is the Kröller-Müller museum which holds the best collection of van Gogh paintings. It was donated to the state by an old, rich shipping magnate family who acquired a huge collection of art.

You can drive to the museum or you can use, for free, one of these:

Of course we took the bikes. It was a 10km ride each way and I have never seen so much wide open space in such a small country before.

The first kilometre or so was on a cycle path in the middle of a forest. We were surrounded by huge trees in all their autumn glory! This led into low lying scrub and shrubs which then turned into sand dunes and what looked like a mini desert?! After a while we hit forest again and in a clearing in this forest was the museum.

We wandered through the museum at a snail's pace. There was so much to see and so few people! There were sculptures and paintings from all over the world. There were also letters and diary entries from the family. And of course there was a cafe where we got a nice warm cuppa and an appelgebak!

In the evening we met Jane and Edwin at the Effenaar in Eindhoven for a couple of drinks.

It was a very happy birthday for me.

NaNoWriMo November

Today marks the last day of freedom.

From the 1st to the 30th November I will be attempting to write a 50 000 word piece of fiction.

So will a whole bunch of other people around the world as part of the National Novel Writing Month.

Why?

Why not?

The main rule is that you start on the 1st and you finish on the 30th.

The reward is that you actually do it.

Will I write anything worthwhile? A bestseller?

Highly unlikely.

But if you're really lucky, I'll post some of what I write on here!

So if the blog is empty for the next month, you know it's because I'm pulling my hair out trying to finish my very own novella!

Dutch Home

The Words on a Page

I've always enjoyed books more than films.

I love that blank pages get filled with lots and lots of words.

What I love even more is that those words convey so much: drama, comedy, life, death, love, hate and everything in between.

And even more than that I love that I get to play a part in all of it. A great writer for me allows me to get caught up in their world. Maybe they envisaged their main character with red hair, but for me he has black. Maybe his colleague reminds me of a guy I once knew at school and so he takes on some of those quirky traits that my long lost friend had.

There are always extra dimensions in a book that each reader imagines in different ways.

There are no sounds or images in a book, just words on a page.

I like films but usually I'm not as moved as often as I am with a book.

So a really rare thing happened last night when I watched Shooting Dogs.

It's not a pretty film. It is based on one of our generation's most shameful events and our chosen inability to react to it: the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

And what's perhaps scarier than those events (and the failings of world governments and of the UN) is that we don't seem to learn anything from it.

I'm usually a believer in the good of humankind but then I'm confronted with something like this and I wonder.

What is wrong with us?

25 bottles of beer...

and a couple of bottles of wine.

It's been a weekend of eating and drinking with friends.

Friday night saw us going out with Jane and Edwin to celebrate that Jane and I are finally gainfully employed...at the same language school in Vught.

When I went to reserve the table for the evening I was ready with my Dutch sentence: Ik wil graag een tafel reserveren voor vanavond voor vier personen om half acht.

The guy at the restaurant stopped me halfway through in English.

I asked him if he would speak in Dutch: In Nederlands?

He quickly replied: I don't speak Dutch.

Me: Neither do I.

Him: I'll get a Dutch speaker for you!

Out comes another guy who speaks Dutch so I can reserve in Dutch!

We met at 7.30 and got the 4 person house special which included lots of yummy Indian delicacies.

Yum.

Then last night we had Patrick and Sam over for dinner. Patrick and Nico know each other from their university days. Sam is the American half of Patrick who speaks rocking Dutch and funny southern US English.

We spoke about grammar, Campina, separating milk, kosher milk, lexis and many other nerdy things while appreciating white wine, red wine and a few bottles of beer.

Feelin' the lurve, all y'all.

Would you marry any of them...or grammar?

OK, you had to be there.

The aftermath.

NEWSFLASH!!

Australia's next top models have been announced!

And the winners are...

The one on the left came in second as she just couldn't strike the same natural, photogenic poses as the one on the right.

And especially for all you readers, here is a photo that they tried to withhold from the press as it just doesn't show the same level of beauty as their official release above.

All my friends are getting married!

What is it with all the engagements and/or weddings?

First it was Tomas and Jessica in Sweden.

Then on the other side of the world in Brazil, Fabs and Michele tell me they are planning their wedding for next May.

Brenda and Mehmet got hitched in Turkey. They managed to do everything in about a week or two...the proposal, the planning, the ceremony and then fly to Malaysia where they will be living for a while!

And last night Edwin and Jane announced that Edwin had popped the question, Jane had said yes and the church is booked for next July.

So why are all my friends getting married?!

Did they all catch a bouquet recently?

You know winter is on its way when...

it looks like this at 8 o'clock in the morning

brrrrrr!!!

Ik kan lezen als een 3 jarig kind!

(I can read like a 3 year old kid!)

Yep. That's my most current reading material. But hey, what takes a Dutch kid about 3 years has only taken me about 3 months!

Learning or the Land of the Nerds?

Some people like to learn languages, others music, others martial arts and others should learn how to write interesting blog entries!

I'm a fan of learning but that could all come down to the fact that I like to be a teacher's pet! Well, I claim that I just don't like to be the dumb one in class but others assure me that I just want to be the 'T.P'.

So maybe this is the reason I attract other, ahem, nerds.

Last night, Anke, Jane and I met at a cafe to discuss how to modify adjectives and the rules for forming comparatives and superlatives in Dutch.

But look, we also had a few rounds of bokbier...does that knock off a few points from the nerd scale and put a few on to the cool scale?

Well, it's a busy day today. I have to continue watching these morning programs for kids, I mean people studying Dutch, and then I have to do some homework for my class tonight. Actually, I have done all my homework so I'll just do some extra to give to my teacher...