Guests at home

Dear all,

Just a quick update since I feel like all my body is aching or whatever it gives me.

Our guests from Colorado USA were here from the 25th till today and now they are on their way to Copenhagen, Denmark. Yesterday we went to the 'ZomerCarnaval' (Summer Carnival) here in Rotterdam city and today we walked to the river at the end of this island. We had lunch there too. It was hot this weekend and I felt great as I got tanned. But I don't know how to get rid of this stinging and itchy arms after the sunburn.

I try to come back tomorrow to update more and visit some of my friends' blogs.

In the meantime, I wish you all a wonderful and a blessed week.

Cheers,
J

To Zeeland With D&J (1)

Today is my last day 'vacationing'. It is Liberty Day (Bevrijdingsdag) in the Netherlands, so we have a day public holiday today.

Wim is off and David and Joanna are still here with us. So, Wim drove us all to the direction of the province of Zeeland. We went to two beaches, showed them the longest bridge in Europe (5 km long) and went to a town called Zierikzee. All four of us were really like tourists when we went up the tower for EUR2.00 per person. Tiring, yes.. very but worth the climb because it was a nice view from up there.

At the first beach, I joined David and Joanna to the water, Wim waited near the car. There were so many oysters and other types of seafood. When David got 2 normal size of oysters and 1 big one, I felt like I wanted to eat them but David was not sure if I could eat them. If I had lime at that moment, I wouldn't care about the consequences, I loveeeeee oysters.

I still haven't uploaded the photos, will share soon.

Visiting the Tulips in Keukenhof (1)

Vilma, the sweetest lady

Jenn, Vilma, David and Joanna

Yesterday, I had a great day with my friends. We went to spend time together at Keukenhof in Lisse, just to get energised with good energy from the nature. Vilma and I planned it together but once my Australian/American friends David and Joanna came on Friday night, I invited them to join us. David and Joanna are on a world tour and had been on the journey for the last 8 months to several countries. Their last place was in Cairo, Egypt before heading to the Netherlands.

David and Joanna, and, Wim and I are linked through the CS website. It is fun to have them with us, they are very sweet and fun to be with. More will come soon hopefully. They will stay with us till the 11th of Feb.

My birthday party

I had a nice birthday celebration. It was a last minute decision but so we couldn't invite so many people and there were people who didn't turn up as well because of other obligations. Anyway, we all had a nice time. My close friend, Sam, helped me shopping on Friday evening, very last minute shopping (after all the interviews going on). Then she helped me cut the meat and I cooked 3 types of meat that night, half cooked. The next morning I only prepared several other dishes. Sam prepared the deep fried crunchy chicken. Yummy Sam.

Most of my ex-colleagues (who are now my friends) couldn't make it, but only 3 couples: the Brazilian, Curacao and Suriname. My dear friend Liz, from Sabah, came with her hubby. Liz was not happy with me when she saw me carrying all the heavy stuff because I just had my ops she said. So, she helped in the kitchen together with Sam. Liz, thanks for the help.

Our CS club friends came as well including those I didn't know yet: 2 Indonesian, 3 Swedish, 1 Austrian, 1 Costa Rican and 3 Dutch. But it was fun especially the surprises and the nice people. We all enjoyed ourselves and as for the birthday girl (ehem! lady), she felt soooo young. hahaha

My Brazilian friend, Vilma and her partner Ger, Sam and moiThe 2 couples
Some of our friends, Iwan (from back), Fafa, "Klingon"(our funny friend), Ana Banana of Costa Rica, Birgit of Austria (3 months practical in Holland) and Wim

Makan time. Whatever are they talking about... Care to join Liz and Sam?
The Sabahans: Liz, moi and Sampey
Black forest cake baked by Fafa (my Indonesian friend) and she took it all the way from their home in Armhem. Took with her the cream and candles. What a surprise! Girl...
Nice to be pampered by my dearest friend, Solainge of Curacao. Ed is her partner.
Andre, Iwan from Indonesia and Fafa also from Indonesia. They just met at the party.

Here's the ladies only... fun eh?

Dinner in Gorinchem

Yesterday we went to Gorinchem for dinner, prepared by family PG. They came from Dendermonde in Belgium but had a house swap with the family in Gorinchem on that weekend. This house is situated in the centre of Gorinchem and very very huge. 5 or 6 floors, with special theater room and big kitchen when in another normal Dutch house, it's for the whole living room and the kitchen, but this is really extra large. Yes, XX-L for a family of 4 (with 2 small twin-kids)

Anyway, it was an evening with other CS members. Was a nice evening. Thanks L and P for the hospitality and the delicious dinner.

Yummy, delicious pasta. Thanks Lieke.

Nicolas Birthday Party

What would a party be without drinks, laughter and a broken glass?

This is what it´s all about, meeting friends and have fun. Thanks to Nicco for the invitation to come to his party. Nicolas is a Swedish young guy and has been living in the Netherlands for 5 years. His friends from Sweden came this weekend just for this party and to visit Netherlands of course. It´s kind of an international gathering as well since the guests are from Sweden, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Israel, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Wim and I had so much fun with the people there. The birthday boy is of course a sweet guy. But of course in the beginning it was a bit weird because the beer and wine had not been taken into the room yet and you almost could hear when someone was breathing. Once everyone had their first 3 beers, you could feel how lively the party was. The funny thing is that most of these guys are IT geek. Hmmm...

Nice to know the couple Codrin and Fafa, Thorwald, Sergio, Adela, Benjamin and the rest of the guys. Hope to see you all again soon.

Hmmm... why do I always have to ask people to make crazy faces??? LOL

Oh well... they look good though, don´t they? Just some of the faces who were able to be lucky to get snapped. Me? I was telling them to make crazy faces or they would regret for not doing it. CLICK or was it CHICK... and I heard Next from Fafa, the cute Indonesian lady. ;)

Cancelled

I felt terribly bad. I haven't been to my friends in Amsterdam and at the same time I have missed the Sinteklaas Meeting in Rotterdam and missed the chance to meet all the people from all over the world. A pity...

The reason was: my ulcer pain came back on Thursday and today it's getting worse. Apart from that, there is something else but let's keep it to myself. :(

The CS meeting at O'Sheas

I went to the CS gathering for the first time after joining the community in March this year. This time they hold a Sinterklaas meeting in Rotterdam from 30Nov evening till 2 Dec. Last night was the introduction night with all the members, old and new.

Since I had never been to any meetings or host people or get hosted, I didn't know if it was real. So, I took this opportunity to get to know the people and asked about their experiences.

In the beginning, I was reluctant to go (alone) but after having dinner with my male colleagues (since I'm the only female in the office, my female manager was not well for 3 days now) at the Chinese restaurant Grand Palace, I finally decided to go to O'Sheas, the Irish Pub which is very near to my office building.

At the door, it was mentioned "CS meeting at the ground floor". Reaching the room, I found several people so I joined them. Marlene from Maastricht, Ivo from Gouda, Simona from Lithuania but taking her masters degree in Tilburg and Larry the organiser from Rotterdam.

During the conversation, it turned out that Ivo, Larry and me work in the buildings opposite to each other. Larry works at the National Nederlander (opposite to my office/building), Ivo at the Unilever building (next to NN which is on my right angle) and myself, opposite to their buildings, a triangle thus.

I was there at about 6.30pm and as the clock was thicking, more people turned up. The emotions showed on each person especially those people who have met before and now become friends were wonderful. Some were shouting and hugging and laughing and doing funny things. But for the newbies, they were calm and quiet. Yours truly was not really quiet once there were ´victims´ to hear all my rambling.. lol

This room booked for CS was packed and around 11pm, you could barely walk with grace.

The people came from all over Europe and even from Canada. Perhaps from another region but I didn´t manage to find that out. I got to know several people from France, from Canada, from Germany, UK, Iran, Brazil, Belgium and Netherlands.

It was a successful evening, met a lot of new people and had a great fun. Nice meeting you all guys: Simona from Lithuania, Rieke from Hannover Germany, Sjoerd from Amsterdam, Suzi from France, Isabelle from Canada, Frederic from France, Bruno from France, Ivo from Gouda, Maya from Iran, Fabienn from Brazil, Marlene from Maastricht, Linda from Hilversum, Larry the organiser, and the rest.

Unfortunately I cannot join the group today as I have to go to Amsterdam to meet Myrna and Zumaia and later my colleagues Francesca and James.

(Move the cursor to the images for the details.)