Rotterdam (or Anywhere) – Page 136 – Adventures in the Netherlands & around the world

Autumn in the Netherlands & a different me!

26/10/2007 Hanneke

We spent last week in the Netherlands, it was a very nice week! We were mostly very lucky with the weather. We went into the dunes near my parents house for an autumn walk. I like going to this part of the dunes in autumn, as there are incredible numbers of mushrooms!

I first took some photos of the passion flower in my mum’s garden, so beautiful!

And here are the photos taken in the dunes! It was truly a wonderful walk, I could have spend many more hours there, so much to see and to photograph! It was full of ladybirds, at some point I had about 10 of them on my coat!

The reason we were in the Netherlands was the PhD defense of my friend Gert-Jan. I was part of the ceremony, as a paranimf, together with Richard. In the Netherlands, the defense is public so all his family, friends and colleagues were there. Richard and I sat next to Gert-Jan for the whole ceremony. Richard was asked to read on of the hypotheses out loud, but I didn’t have to talk at all. Just sit still, which I did, though once I got a itch in my throat and couldn’t get any water and didn’t want to make noise, I thought I would die!! Anyway, Gert-Jan did really well! There was a reception afterwards and then we all went for dinner. I’ve never worn such smart clothes before, so of course we had to take some photos 🙂 I am not made to walk on high heels all day, I found out you use all kinds of weird muscles doing that, they all hurt the next day!

If you’re interested, you can see all of the defense here: WURTV.

This is me with Gert-Jan (in the middle) and Richard, and a photo of Celia and Gert-Jan:

One of Celia and me…

And Paul and me 🙂

It really was a special day and I think everyone really enjoyed it. We stayed until the next day, it was really nice to spend some time with Gert-Jan and Celia again!

That’s all for now, I have lots more photos of the Netherlands, but they’ll have to wait. I hope to place some more before leaving to Norway next Wednesday! Paul has a job interview in Tromso, and I decided to come along and see what it’s like. We’re staying for 6 days, so we’ll have some time to explore the surroundings, I’m very excited! We might even see northern lights, fingers crossed 🙂

Till next time!

Hanneke

Some days…

01/10/2007 Hanneke

… are such a surprise!

On Friday morning I discovered several pieces of laundry missing from our washing line. About 4 long sleeved shirts but also my favourite pair of jeans!! I am still really annoyed about it. Who would do such a thing?? I kept trying to understand… bored kids? someone needing dry clothes? a criminal on the run? 😉 I still have no clue!

But as if the universe wanted to make it up to me, that night, in an empty parking lot we found a beautiful (and huge!) pot of pink orchids, all wrapped up. Obviously a present, and I guess somebody forgot to load them in their car and left them standing there. Was it bad to take them home? I somehow felt I was given a present after loosing stuff that morning 😉 I hope we can keep it alive, orchids are quite difficult to keep.

What a day!

And what a weekend, Paul is submitting his thesis on Wednesday so it’s very hectic. I worked really hard all weekend helping him with spelling/lay out/plot checks. I hope it will be ok. Only two more days to go! I’m looking forward to no more stress… 🙂

Hanneke

PS As of today, I am a 3rd (final!) year PhD student… a very scary thought!!

Two years in Norwich

24/09/2007 Hanneke

I’ve been living in Norwich for exactly two years today! It seems like yesterday I arrived here, not knowing what to expect but excited to start a new life in the UK…

Of course I am still Dutch “to the klokhuis” as Paul puts it (he once tried to say “to the core” in Dutch but didn’t realize that “klokhuis” is just the core of an apple, not of anything else!), but I did take over some English habits: toast and marmite for breakfast (while Paul eats hagelslag on his toast!), tea with milk (which my family thinks is ridiculous), baked potato for dinner, trifle for dessert, driving on the left (would be a bit dangerous if I didn’t do that… hehe… but I mean I now get confused in the Netherlands!)… and much much more.

Oh I think I should mention The Beautiful South, a music group that seems to be famous everywhere except in the Netherlands so I didn’t discover them till I got here… just in time for them to split up after 20 years! I absolutely LOVE their music and have listened to hardly anything else for the past year. Their lyrics are just brilliant, as Wikipedia puts it: The band’s music was bubbly, catchy, lightweight pop but Heaton’s sour, savage and amusing worldview on everything and anything (alcoholism, religion, sex, politics and, mostly, the down side of relationships) is always lurking beneath the surface of the quirky melodies.

Some things you’ll never see me doing though: eating English breakfast, follow football/rugby/cricket/horse races/dog races etc, laugh at the typical British humour (but I do like Mr Bean!!! And Gromit from Wallace and Gromit), drink as much alcohol as some people here, wear my skirts as short as the girls here… hehe.

Some things about the food here: they think SPRUITJES (Brussels sprouts) are a delicacy… and serve it even for Christmas dinner. Speaking about Christmas dinner, their idea of a Christmas dessert is also a mystery to me – Christmas pudding is weeks old when you eat it and soaked in rum. Fish and chips will never be a favourite (the chips are always dripping with fat and tasteless) – and I will also never put VINEGAR on my chips (who thought that was a good idea??), or cheese for that matter. And they eat WAY too many beans here… If you mention Heinz, they think “baked beans” and not “ketchup”, I thought that was quite bizarre.

They make up for this all by being the best at making cakes and desserts, so I’m not complaining!!

The English language is rarely a problem for me, I am still learning and improving though. My main problems are when we use 1 Dutch word for 2 English words… like “als” is both “if” and “when” – not knowing the difference sometimes gets me in embarrassing problems. And I still can’t do the proper pronunciation of the “th” without spitting 😉 I also can’t hear and therefore pronounce the differences between words like: bad/bed/bat or pan/pen. All the same to me… A while ago Paul said something about “debt” and I understood “death” – quite confusing!!

Ok that was enough text, here are some nice photos of Norwich! These are all taken in late July, but never made it to my blog.

The church in the centre with an amazing sky! And the market next to the church.

More photos of the market. This market is open 6 days a week and has lots of good stalls! These photos show some of the typical English customers, see for yourself 😉

This is Elm Hill, a cute old cobbled street in the city centre.

Near the river that runs through the centre:

The oldest pub in Norwich – Adam and Eve, and a colourful garden:

And the cathedral:

Norwich is beautiful, and I love living here! People often ask me if (when? hehe) I am going back to the Netherlands after my PhD. To be honest, I don’t think so. I don’t have plans to return to the Netherlands at all. Not that I don’t like it there, I love going back but I don’t feel the urge to go back for good. I wouldn’t mind staying in England! We’ll see what happens. At the moment Paul is finishing his PhD and he is applying for jobs in the UK as well as abroad, I’m curious where he will end up as it will no doubt influence my future plans as well!

Ok, that’s all, I should do some more work now!! 🙂

Hanneke