Feeling somewhat yellow

And more yellow
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Please don't ask me how I got to be this yellow. It sometimes just happens. Had plenty of shouts of:"Whoa, yellow!" or:"Hey! Tweetie!"

Apparently I missed out on loud neighbours while sleeping. Booh Hiss! Highlights of the day were a band playing Beatles covers translated into dutch, the Dirty Pretty Things and Infadels.

For some reason Kaz already went to bed around 11 and so did Ellen and Gary, still had lots of fun with Nicktor, girlfriend and Sabrina.

Words and music form da Lowlands

More everybody
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Somehow we had to wait at Schiphol airport because some moron (yes Nicktor, that's you) managed to leave his tent at Rotterdam central station. Fortunately McR was bright enough to call the Dutch railway services and fortunately they found the tent and put it on the next Lowlands-bound train.

During the rest of the day saw various bands play (highlight for me was Hard-Fi) and I even got my own 15 minutes of fame when I somehow ended up in a secret bar, where for a free beer I performed as a ballet dancer with diarrhea.

Clubbed the night away till fairly late before passing out.

Back home

Woke up a bit on the early side and drove back home. Nicktor and I have survived (All roadtrip photos can be found in this flickr set (I actually got round to writing descriptions with them so now you may know what's on them). Quickly did laundry had girlfriend over for an hour and a half and then I had to pick up my Australian friend Kaz who's coming along to Lowlands.

Quickly popped by a shopping center to let Kaz buy wellies (lots of rain has been forecast), showed her a windmill, went for a beer in de Oude Haven and got laughed at by the lady at sandwich shop "Broodje snor" for appearing to use a really bad pickup line. Want to eat this here or take it away? Me:"Let's do takeaway, then we can eat it at my place!"

Linda!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Drove up to Bonn to visit my friend Linda. Managed to cross the border without the passport (yay! Schengen!) And a couple of hundred kilometers later arrived at Linda's place.

Great to see Linda once again (it's been 2 years since the last time). Eventually ended up drinking wine at her place before passing out.

Liechtenstein

a piece of art found in Liechtenstein
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Drove towards Liechtenstein (which was pretty hard to find seeing as it was not on a satellite navigation map and seeing as Nicktor refuses to even look at cards ever since he's been replaced by an electronic device).

Eventually found Liechtenstein and found out that it was a public holiday there. Did souvenir shopping, walked around for a bit and eventually drove back home. Went for a walk, fixed my car (a blown fuse, due to which my cigarette lighter stopped functioning) and lost my passport.

Driving west

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Switched off Nicktor once again, switched on satellite navigation and pointed it towards Nenzing in the west of Austria. Apparently this town had a camping which got 88% in our camping guide and we were curious about what this would offer.

Deciding to avoid toll-roads meant that once or twice we got to drive high up in the mountains (I'm pretty good going up but I kind of suck at going down, even though I'm a lot better than the Hungarian guy whose brake-lights I was looking at for about 20 kms while going downhill. Even I know not to do that. Also managed to get stuck in really dense mist before eventually making it to Nenzing.

The campsite in Nenzing turned out to be a bit of a Frankencampsite. All was really clean, showers and toilets looked as if the belonged in a 5 star hotel but it was all a bit too neat and too clean and all the sites were just squares on gravel. Still nice to know what an 8.8 on the camping-scale looks like.

Went for a walk at night (for a change). Nicktor sat in front of the tent (again, still can't walk) Really sad for him seeing as it's great a great hiking spot. Btw had rain almost all day until we arrived at our campsite.

All by myself

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

With Nicktor still being unable to walk, he decided to stay right besides the tent. Seeing as the weather still was awesome, I decided to walk towards the north-side of the lake. This turned out to be a 2 hour walk instead of the 45 minutes I was expecting. Took the boat back to St Gilgen, drank a beer on the boat and then walked an hour back to the campsite. Me really like!

Fucking in Austria

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Left Slovenia while it was pouring down with rain (looks like this may be a theme for this roadtrip). Probably a good thing that we're sitting in a car all day, not in the least because Nicktor twisted one knee, then kept the weight of that knee for a day and now can't bend his other knee. The 'Allo 'Allo fans would have recognised the Gestapo-walk he's now got.

Switched of Nicktor, switched on satellite navigation, pointed it to Fucking and drove most of the day. Yep, besides the name there's fuck all to do in town but it was still worth a visit. Felt a bit scared about people asking us:"What have you been doing today?"

Decided to drive a bit further towards St Gilgen. Once again situated besides a lake. It being Austria, doing almost anything appears to be forbidden. Went for a walk down the lake at night and visited St Gilgen. Nice little town.

Nicktor's demise

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Drove down to Ljubljana where we visited the castle while it was pouring down with rain. Nicktor decided that he couldn't deal with rain while visiting a city so we were not supposed to see too much else of the city, if it weren't for Nicktor screwing up his map-reading so badly that he completely pointed us in the wrong direction on what was supposed to the way back home.

Me shouting:"We drove into town this way" got demised as:"Bollocks, we drove around town before entering it" and me predicting all the sights didn't really help either.

In the end Nicktor finally admitted that we were now on the opposite side of town and that we really needed to turn around. Decided to make sure that Nicktor wouldn't read maps again, tomorrow we're switching to my satellite navigation system.

Enjoying the sun

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Our first really sunny day. Nicktor wanted to do he-stuff, so I ended up walking around the lake all by my self. As you can tell by the photo, the lake has got a really cute church in the middle, which you can get rowed towards (ringing the church-bells gives you lots of luck, apparently)

Failed to do so but did visit the castle, which had a really great view over the whole lake and the church. Had an awesome garlic-soup for dinner. Now want to make garlic soup myself.

Enter slovenia

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Arjan's reply to my text-message never came, fortunately my colleague Jeschael was nice enough to tell us to either go to Italy or Slovenia. Because Nicktor apparently didn't like Italy, we went on Slovenia-wards.

As you can tell from the picture, here in Bled, we found sun and a really nice campsite besides a nice lake. In the evening only just managed to finish our barbecue before it started to pour down with rain. Barbecue turns out to be enormous, by the way.

Beer and loathing in Vienna

Beer in Vienna
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Took the bus/tube into town and explored. Saw buildings, had food, drank beer and got threatened with a bashing if I'd ever again try to hit Nictor in the nuts. (I now know where to aim).

It wasn't even that rainy today. Eventually back to the campsite where for a change we could actually sit outside and play games.

Austria

Being caught out in the rain for 2 days, we decided to drive on to a drier place, hoping that Austria might be it. If not then we could always text Arjan to ask for a drier place. After a day of rain, aqua-planing and more rain, we eventually made it to Vienna, where we had the most rain this far on our road-trip. Had food at Mc Donalds in the rain. Looks like this rain-thing might become a theme here.

Greetings from Loket

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Found ourselves in the rain again in the morning. Decided to look around a bit and ended up in Loket where we visited the castle, which apparently was playing along with the:"People believe that torture is fun"-theme, then we got caught out in the rain and decided to have a pizza in a place nearby. (Obviously I forgot the name)

At night actually cooked dinner before we got chased back into the car again for more rain.

The beginning

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Today our roadtrip to God Knows Where started. We'll probably figure out everything along the way. First things first though, after picking up Nicktor, we still had to go to the supermarket McR's girlfriend works at to pick up all his underwear.

Eventually set off on our travels and gave McR a phonecall to let him know that he'd be underwear-less for the next 10 days. McR apparently didn't believe us and didn't really realise this mistake till he wanted to put on new socks an hour later.Dork!

Drove eastwards all day and eventually ended up in Plzen. It rained! Played games in car all night.

Leaving tomorrow

Whatever happened during the past 3 days? Don't ask me! Girlfriend must have left for Finland and I probably did stuff preparing for leaving on holidays but seeing as I'm trying to recall 2 weeks later I don't think I'll ever really find out.

The parental unit is back from their holidays, so they spent the afternoon in my place waiting for the dishwasher repair-man, who miraculously already called at 10:00 to ask:"Can you please open the door, I'm downstairs", replied with:"Sorry, you're not supposed to be there till 1" and repair-man promised to get back.

Then at 2 he returned, my father attempted opening the door for him and then managed to lock himself out, while my mother was on a shopping-trip with the keys. Repair man failed to kill father, promised to return but didn't look too happy apparently. And at the third attempt they managed to let repair-man in and he fixed my dishwasher. *yah!*

Dinner at parents' place at night.

Girlfriend's back...

After spending the whole weekend in Almere, girlfriend returned again today. She brought me a dvd with on it episodes of the A-team, Miami Vice, Magnum PI and Knightrider. Watched A-team with girlfriend. Spent the remainder of the evening singing the A-team tune. Girlfriend now dislikes me severely.

Also kid sister apparently still owed me a birthday present, she bought me lamps. They look brilliant!

Reading

Spent most of the afternoon and evening reading books, except for a short trip to town to get tent-pegs. (yeah, I'm dull)

Racing

After spending the afternoon doing house stuff, shopping and attaching a new lock to my bicycle, I eventually went to Almere to go bowling (don't ask). Got a bit side-tracked after the bowling and at 11:45 realised that I should have been in Rotterdam at least an hour earlier.

Somehow managed to do the 100+km drive within 45 minutes by flying low instead of driving and did the second half of the night with all my other friends drinking beer outside in "de Oude Haven". Fun!

Spent the evening keeping Nicktor awake. nicktor spent evening falling asleep on his couch.

Still sunny! Woohoo!

Wednesday night skate

The Wednesday night skates have started again in Rotterdam. Joined in with sister and one of her friends. Apparently tonight 20.000 people showed up. Fun!

Out for dinner with colleagues. Good food, sunny weather, fun.

Monday!

Library, pizza and girlfriend storming in and out of the house within a minute. most people'd say it's a quiet night.

Thievery 101

Accidentally lost the keys to my bicycle while shopping in Rotterdam. Had already lost the previous set of bicycle keys a while ago. Fortunately I placed my bicycle right in front of a bar so while I was sawing through my first lock (which took me forever), at least many people asked me what I was doing. Actually most people walking past except for the police. Apparently they thought that somebody with an iron saw sawing away at a bicycle lock was perfectly normal.

On the other hand, anybody taking over an hour to open my locks can't be a thief :-)

The second coming

Spent the day cleaning up the house, baking cakes and preparing for my second housewarming. Had plenty of people over. (In fact most of the previous housewarming party + some family members). Nice weather, fun!

Check the photos at my flickr page. Apparently McR decided that it's cool to wear a beard now.

Read till you drop

Bought a guitar-stand and became a library-member. Girlfriend and I now share a library card. One small step for a man...

More bass

Ended up playing bass and grinning madly all night. Girlfriend played groupie. For the first time in my life I ended up in bed with a groupie. This means that my musical career is really starting to take off!

Bass man

Bass guitar
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

... This is the bass-guitar I managed to buy today. It was definitely an instrument missing in my instrument-collection so instrument wise I'm a happy camper. Was a bit annoyed that I missed out on going swimming with my sister and friends though. Better luck with that next time, I hope.

So... apparently I lost quite a bit of coolness buying crocs. For some reaon I'm one of the few people who actually likes them. I'll just have to prove all you people wrong now.

My Crocs

My Crocs
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Just wondering, last saturday I decided that I really needed new sandals, which I know these are not. Then I decided that I needed to buy these in a low-key colour such as black but apparently I failed in that department as well.

Gilfriend thinks they're the most terrible things on this planet, girlfriends' family all appeared to react in a WTF are you wearing there? Kind of way on Saturday. But besides them I've been getting some positive reactions as well. So, hit or miss?? (See if I care )

More rollerskating at night. Weather is hot, me like, am seeing some sort of an issue with me enjoying myself and girlfriend talking about thinking of moving to Antarctica the whole time.

Aiee!!

A whole week of updates missing, does that mean that I've actually got a life now? Possibly. The main cause for this has been the beautiful weather, which has been causing me to sit outside in the sun, drink wine, rollerskate, etc. etc.

Actually, the weekend was a tad different, with a visit to Lelystad on Saturday and a traditional guys night out on Saturday evening. Even managed to sleep over at my parent's place and cuddle the cat in the process. Nicktor appeared to be even more drunk than usual.

And Sunday we all had a picnic in the park with drinks, food swimming and rollerskating, it was great fun.

Oh, I believe I also accidentally bought a electro-accoustic bass-guitar on the internet. Not that I needed one but hey, sometimes you need to buy on impulse :-)

Python

Played with python most of the day. The programming-language, not anything snake-like. Enjoyed myself.

Eventually went to see "Over the hedge" with girlfriend. Not brilliant, still nice.

Went to Bobbejaanland (a ride-park in Belgium) with with girlfriend. This was all work sponsored and quite a few colleagues showed up. Ended up doing most of the rides that didn't get me dizzy (I can do most rollercoasters but I get dizzy in a simple merry-go-round at the same time). Fun!

Was supposed to have loads of people over in the evening but Nicktor fell asleep and forgot to invite them all.

Applied some polish to my newly installed pc while girlfriend sat on coutch doing girly-stuff. Pretty dull to write about actually.

Ubuntu

Did Thursday-ish stuff by staying in and reading a book. Then decided that after 10 years of having Linux installed on my home pc it was about time I'd ditch Windows. I haven't really been using Windows at all over the past couple of years and it was about time.

Shocked about how simple installing has become in the past 1.5 years. It's never really been hard but this time Ubutu actually let me surf the internet while it was installing itself. That's right, I hardly did anything at all and everything worked in the end.

Having really looked forward to spending a couple of days tinkering with stuff, this kinda sucks. I may need a new hobby now.

France!

The upside of the Dutch football team getting kicked out of the WorldCup pretty soon is that now I get the chance to watch the football matches as an impartial viewer. Watched France-Portugal this night, good match!

OK Computer

Spent night at girlfriend's place repairing her computer. Note to self:Next time girlfriend asks:"Can't you install Ubuntu on my pc?" Reply:"Yes! Of course!" Instead of:"You probably want to install that besides windows, at least for the first part.

The second answer may be the safe one, but you're really not fond of doing the:"Install Windows"-part, not even when girlfriend has already done most of it.

Meet Thingo and Baba

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Got my hair cut before I ended up at home, taking photos of thingo (the purple doll that girlfriend made for me during a DIY-kick) and Baba, possibly the first love of my life. In all honesty, this is the second Baba which my mum made after she promised me to make a new sweater for the old Baba, the old one resides somewhere at mum and dad's place. I slept with this doll and his predecessor during at least the first 12 years of my life.

Metropolis

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Spent half the afternoon walking around the Metropolis festival, looking at bands all alone. And then the other half doing more or less the same with Nicktor. It being a terribly sunny day this was enjoyable even with Nicktor ;-)

Picked up girlfriend and Annemarie at night. She hasn't grown any tentacles or extra limbs during the week she was on holiday. She is however pretty tanned.

Bicycle Repairman

Biked to Ridderker because my bike was falling apart. Hang in there, I'll start making sense soon... The spokes of my rear wheel are a bit on the thin side so they keep breaking. Now my dad had some rear wheels lying around with better spokes and he's got a lot more tools than I have.

Spent 3 hours changing the wheels (some parts wouldn't fit, some parts had to be swapped, etc. etc.). Fortunately one of my father's colleagues was visiting and the both of them spent their afternoon shouting useless tips at me with big smiles on their faces. Bastards!

At night played golf in Arjan's backyard. Found out that golf is a daytime sport.

Typical

Out for dinner with Haidar and Arthur (2 colleagues) in the Hague. Showed up a bit early and found myself near the "Zuiderpark" in the Hague. This is a park I only visited during the Parkpop festivals and it looks a lot larger without the 300.000 people in it :-) Already almost no signs left of last week's festival.

Sunny days are back gain.

Lamp
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Sat on balcony, drank wine and read a book. Weather is really nice at the moment. Me like!

Skate around the world

Went rollerskating in the evening, took a wrong turn, kind of got lost. Eventually found the way back and realised that "de Esch" is a pretty cool neighbourhood. Should put it on the:"May move there sometime"-list. Still that won't happen for at least the next 5 years.

Chatted with Crissy till late. (Or at least late if you have to wake up at 6:45 the next morning)

Sunny days are back again.

Ate pizza, rode bicycle, enjoyed. Wondered how McR's watch ended up under a stack of dirty underwear.

Baptism

Filled one of my 1/3 bottle of wine wine-glasses, put it down next to my mouse and then managed to spill all of it, while hitting both a wall as well as the power extension chord. May now need to re-paint wall.

Parkpop till you drop

Decided with McR and Nicktor that the weather alert wouldn't hurt us and that we should be able to survie a little tropical storm while on a free festival. So took the train to Parkpop and actually watched bands for a change. (It was raining so we couldn't lay down on the grass).

Really impressed by Babylon Circus and Infadels. All go out and see.

At night I watched football but let's not go there.

Moving...

Helped Annemarie move in the afternoon. Moving a student is great, finished in no time at all. I dread the next wave of people moving, if McR ever gets round to buying a house we'll have a lot more to carry.

Afterwards did some shopping and somehow managed to decide that I needed to only buy stuff starting with a 'K' in the supermarket. (Girlfriend asked me for dinner with cheese, (Kaas in dutch, which sounds like k's). Girlfriend amazed at my determination.

Rainier's party at night. Cool place. Nice to see Arnold again! Rainier drunk.

Weekend again!

Girlfriend's father visited Rotterdam to take a look at my new place. Girlfriend finished thesis. I missed the final in the Worldcup lingerie because of this. (For the foreigners, one of our tv-channels has got girls in their bra's and panties taking penalty kicks during half time, they suck at football but nobody's complaining ).

A fun night. Still... can anybody tell me who won ?? ;-)

Yay!

Had my 16 year old cousin Bo over for the evening, had food, ice cream, played airhockey and basically behaved like a 16 year old boy all night. Yep, nothing out of the ordinary :-)

New balls please

Watched football with Sabrina, Nictor and McR. A pretty dull match but still nice to have them all over.

Yep, me

Found out what I had been doing wrong yesterday morning. Apparently I had to hold my plastic card in front of the sign saying:"Hold plastic card here". For some reason yesterday morning I had decided that this sign meant:"Drive 3 meters, then hold plastic card to the structure with the microphone. It ain't easy being me.

Girlfriend at night. Still not wearing glasses (she ordered glasses which are supposed to show up somewhere over the next couple of days)

Dumb? Me?

Managed to fail to work out how to open the gate in Eindhoven with my plastic door-card. Had to park quite a walk away because of this. Booh! Hiss!

Found http://watchmyloss.blogspot.com a pretty inspirational website. Wonder how this one will work out over the next couple of months.

Father's day

Did some shopping in the afternoon, bought some shirts and that popped by parents' place for father's day and barbecue.

Big tits, big tits, bye!

I know, today's post and the title don' t have anything to do with eachother at all, it's just a quote that came back from my time in Sydney.

Spent the day at Trailerpop, which while not having any connection to trailer-parks definitely could have. Dusty and not a piece of grass to sit on. Still a fun day out.

Fly like an eagle

Spent the whole afternoon on the beach, kiting with colleagues. Recommended!

Watched footbal at the beach afterwards.

Both McR and girlfriend stormed in today. Had Chinese takeaway for dinner and played airhockey.

Huppie Huppie Huppie

Apparently my cousin Bo graduated from highschool. Spent evening at her place celebrating.

Sunny!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Still sunny weather in Holland. Me like. Unfortunately girlfriend no like. Had food and watched footbal on tv. Took loads of picures of girlfriend.

Summer in the City

Started work at a project in Eindhoven, while it's 110 kms away from home it's a lot easier to do than the 80 kms Amsterdam-wards I did until the end of January.

Biked through town in the evening, took a look at the Volvo Ocean race-boats that are currently docked in Rotterdam (they're a lot smaller than I'd expected them to be) and biked past plenty of other things. I really love this summer-thing!

Every day I love your hairy breasts

Cleanup day. Mopped the floor threw away loads of bottles and cleaned out the paper bin. Watched football in the afternoon and a film at night.

Housewarming

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

An action filled day. The day started weird, when my phone rang and McR told me:"Hi, I'm your personal agenda, in an hour and 15 minutes, you're supposed to be at home, I need to drop something off". This something turned out to be a pretty large pack which I needed to stow away in my cellar.

Then I managed to buy a table and two chairs for on my balcony. (Yep, I'm getting /that old/). We can now sit and enjoy breakfast and dinner on my little balcony.

Then I skated around Rotterdam for a bit (the weather is brilliant) before the housewarming preparations started. Actually, girlfriend had been making loads of food while I skated around Rotterdam (I know, shame on me... )

And then the housewarming started (all pictures can be found on my flickr-page)... fortunately loads of people showed up, Nicktor was mixing cocktails, until I eventually got to find out that the large cardboard package contained an airhockey table and that my "God only knows"-room needed to be transformed into an airhockey room. Brilliant! :-)

People played airhockey all night, drank Nicktor's cocktails and Rainier passed out near the end of the night (apparently 6 tequila's and other drinks do that to people). Left Rainier a bucket and a note to tell him where he was and went bed-wards my self. All in all a fun night :-)

Change of colour

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

For those of you who know my mum, she's decided that after 20+ years of dyeing her hair she's going back to her natural colour again. Seeing as this natural colour is currently white this takes quite a while.

This week mum apparently un-coloured her hair and now looks all set for the world cup football. (Don't worry, apparently she managed to get it a bit more blonde with another de-colouring session)

Did shopping for tomorrow's housewarming.

Rode my bicycle. Eventually got back home again. Fun!

Aunt

Had dinner at parents' place with my aunt Ria. Failed to make photos so no pretty picture to go with it. Still fun.

Bicycle

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Rode my bicycle around town in the evening. Took some photos, which you can find in my randomsnaps-section.

All comes to an end...

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

And so did our long weekend in Paris. As you can see in the picture, our tent looks a bit wonky. I blame this on Kaz (whose tent this actually is). Apparently the last time she used it, she managed to lose half the tent-pegs while at the same time the bent the other half pretty badly. Girlfriend and I were both pretty glad that we didn't get any rain.

Managed to do the drive back home a lot quicker than the drive to Versailles. Unfortunately failed to make it home on 1 tank of diesel (I only get free fuel within the Netherlands), so I had to spend 10 euros to make it over the Dutch border :-)

Spent the evening watching tv and testing out my Fatboy.

Paris

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Went to Paris, walked around for quite a bit, not really planning on doing or seeing anything. This means that after visiting Paris twice, I still need to actually "do" both the Eiffeltower as well as the Louvre. Hmmm...


Plenty of parks, plenty of sun, nice!

Did many sausage related things in the evening. (Chorizo, what else?)

She salutes!!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Finally, after a year and a half, all the training I've put into girlfriend is starting to pay off. As you can see in the photo, she now salutes me when it's needed. I wonder what else I can make her do :-)

Woke up at a reasonable time and set out to explore the Versailles castle. (For those wanting to see all the photo's I took during our Versaille trip, check out my Flickr-page) The moment we walked into the castle square, we spotted a pretty large queue and a sign saying:"Wait from here is 90 minutes". Fortunately we were bright enough to go and check what everybody was waiting for, the reply:"Well... if you want a day pass, just walk over to the coach museum, nobody goes there". And owners of a day-pass could skip all the other queues as well. Now that's 20 euro's well spent :-)

Did loads of castelly-stuff before eventually walking back home again and eating.

Versailles, part 1.

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

I know, it's not the picture that should go with a Versailles-trip. But I still needed to show you all a shot of my back after Cuba. While on the boat trip, I quickly slapped some sunblock on my shoulders and then managed to burn the rest of my back. Apparently the sunblock did it's work :-)

Day consisted of a 5 hour drive Paris-wards, followed by at least an hour and a half being stuck on the Périphérique. Note to self:"Arriving at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon is not your brightest idea ever". Then mis understanding sattelite navigation and being forced to drive 3/4 around Paris instead of just 1/4 probably isn't exactly bright either.

Fortunately found a camping before we even started thinking of looking for one (the Versailles camping is really pretty great, a short walk away from both the station as well as the castle, it's one of the better campings I've stayed on in the past couple of years. Okay, festival campings aren't that hard to beat and nature campings in Australia are pretty easy to beat in the facility-department. But it did beat many Italian campings hands down :-)

Lots of Baguettes and cheese at night.

Fatboy! Yay!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Two things happened to me today, digital tv, which is still having some problems playing nice with my internet connection, and a Fatboy suddenly showed up in my livingroom.

Seeing as digital tv is basically just tv, only a tad sharper, I'll focus on the Fatboy, which is *Huge* (It looks a lot larger than in this picture) But at the same time it's the most comfortable thing I've ever sat in. And all thanks to mum and dad, who decided that they wanted to give me one. *Yay mum and dad*

Had a homeowners-meeting in the evening. Managed not to get elected into any committees.

Birthday girl...

My aunt's birthday. Fun with family was mainly themed about a screaming match between my sister, my uncle and me about why my aunt and uncle had our Bert and Ernie LP's stacked besides their couch. (They've been lost for the past 15 years) Most puzzled look was by my aunt

Back to normal

... and today was a normal workday again. Failed almost completely to do jetlag (except for feeling a tad sleepy in the afternoon). Still plenty of chat going on in the office about our holiday :-)

Back home

Slept for most of the plane-ride before arriving back at home and finding out that my parents had been working their behinds off at my place again. A window sill appeared out of nothing, a painting appeared I've now got 4 extra doormats and probably hundreds of other small things I'm just forgetting at the moment. *yay parents!*

After a bit of sleep, buying a concert ticket for the Lowlands festival this summer (yay! I'm going) and replying loads of e-mail, I spent the remainder of the night watching tv till 1 before I passed out in bed (there was an interesting progam on, I didn't dare to switch it off :-)

Queue

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

One of the downsides of free company holidays is that most companies don't like having all their staff stuck in foreign countries for weeks and weeks (actually, they were already really generous with the whole week) so today we're flying back.

Or actually, today we spend first doing origami with money for our room-maid (who had folded us a nice towel-swan), then sitting on a bus for hours and hours (Havana again), then queueing, queueing and more queueing before finally taking off homewards.

Proper Cuba

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Woke up early, drove to Havana (which turned out to be a 2+ hour drive) and spent a pretty large part of the day exploring the city. Guess I could live there for a couple of months. This would require me to become somewhat more heat resistant though, this would also require me to find a way to scare off all the street salesmen :-)

After loads of walking, girlfriend decided heat really wasn't her thing and we drove back home in 3- hours (wrong turn somewhere ) Strangely enough we had cocktails at night before going to bed :-)

Cars, cacti and Cardenas

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Decided to spend far too much money on renting a car and drive around for a couple of days (well, exactly two, because two days from now we'll be flying out of Cuba again). Sadly enough most really cool sites are a pretty far drive away from Varadero but tomorrow we'll make it to Havana and today we spent driving around exploring Varadero and popping by Cardenas.

Cardenas turned out to be pretty dirty and poor one of those times where you feel you're really out of place, instead of "just one of those tourist people". Back in Varadero we managed to do the cactus-walk, where we learnt both very interesting details about cacti and also that the cactus walk was pretty crappy. Still a pretty cool 500 year old cactus at the end of the walk.

Also visited a cave with plenty of bats before eventually making it back to the resort.

Exploring Varadero

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Didn't really have much planned for the day so we ended up exploring the premises of the resort we were staying in (large, swimming pools with bars) and walk into Varadero.

After finally seeing some of Cuba other than water or bedroom, the first thing that struck us as interesting were the Dutch buses riding around everywhere, even with Dutch city-names still showing on the signs. While girlfriend got mightily excited when she saw a bus displayin Almere (her home city), I'm still somewhat puzzled by the busses showing the:"Not in service"-signs, while transporting people :-)

After a very lengthy walk, we realised that Cuba is hot, humid and that we were sweating pretty badly. So took a Coco-taxi back resort-wards and after food and plenty of cocktails, I ended back in bed again.

Did I mention yet that all the other Cuba-photos reside over at my photo site??

Boat trip

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

What better way to start your holiday than a day long catamaran trip along Cuba's coast? Can't think of one either. Did the whole boat-thing for most of the day, with stops for swimming with dolphins, snorkeling and obviously food. Found out that while they aren't near, girlfriend is trying to take a firm stand on dolphins, she softens up quite a bit once they're near.

For those at home trying to get a cheap "swimming with dolphins"-experience:"Put on your rubber boots, sit in the bath-tub and then close your eyes and stroke your boots". Yes, dolphins have a pretty rubbery feel to them :-) Btw, make sure that you lock the door, your family/roommate/boyfriend/girlfriend my think you're a bit weird for sitting in the bathtub, stroking your rubber boots :-)

Eventually got overtaken by a thunderstorm and managed to get soaked in the 20 meter sprint (swim??) to the bus.

Big party at night, which due to the rain couldn't be held on the beach. Bummer! Still had a lot of fun in a silly club, where one of my colleagues actually took over the DJ booth. Found out the downside about the hectic travel schedule when eventually tried to find my way back to the hotel. Seeing as I hadn't yet been able to do any exploring of the surroundings, I was completely clueless about how to get back home from the club. After first finding myself standing on the beach, wondering:"Where on earth am I??", eventually I did manage to find back my bedroom.

Planes, trains and queues

After taking the train into Schiphol, checking in, waiting for quite a bit and then almost being stampeded by loads of colleagues trying to board the plane, we were on our way to Cuba. Main observation during the plane-trip: girlfriend is the most impatiant person I've ever sat beside in a plane. I may have to consider performing a B.A. Baracus on her next time we're flying.

Then after picking clearly the wrong queue at the Cuba customs and after a 1.5 hour wait, we were finally properly on Cuban soil. The wait could have been worse, apparently a colleague had the same 1.5 hour wait a couple of days earlier, only to see his queue changed in a VIP only queue once he made it to the end.

Busride, hotel, dinner, cocktail and then bed.

Holiday!

Holiday!
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

The last day of work before tomorrow girlfriend and I take off for Cuba. Took it fairly easy (a quick trip to the Hague, after which I worked from home for the rest of the day).

Got my hair cut in the evening and am now all set for Cuba. Will be back next Tuesday!

The invasion of the mother snatchers

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Worke up feeling lightly vague but nothing too bad, spent most of the morning playing with my Playstation (something which I found McR doing when I eventually woke up), all great fun. Then Nicktor called and for some reason made me throw up. Seriously, he called, I suddenly felt ill and threw up in my toiled while Nicktor was listening on the other end. Called back later to check if this was now my standard reaction to having Nicktor on the phone but fortunately no.

Eventually exchanged McR for girlfriend's mums (no more throwing up, fortunately), who popped in to admire my new place and to give me plants. (The total plant count has now gone up with 200%) Eventually had Mexican food for dinner *yay!*

Holiday!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

After Thursday's certification, I spent the day walking through Rotterdam, looking at stuff without really buying anything. Girlfriend hates doing this but it's actually one of my favourite pastimes. Eventually did buy two books to read on the plane to Cuba (T.C. Boyle's Drop City and Jared Diamond's collapse) before ending back at my place.

At night visited Sabrina's birthday party. Because McR kind of forgot about this happening and not being able to take the last train back home again, I ended up with McR sleeping on my floor. Also managed to get soaked by the rain and probably drank too much *hic!*

Film

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

A silly start of the day, after brushing my teeth and opening the tap, I suddenly realised that I had seen a note telling me there wouldn't be any water this morning due to maintenance. This left me with a mouth full of toothpaste looking for water everywhere (found some in my Senseo eventually)

In the evning Shiwa visited by because we still needed to take eachother out to the cinema for our birthdays. Saw:"The lucky number Slevin". Very cool film. Also ended up eating chicken from "the Kip Gallery". Definitely the best chicken in town. Had loads of fun.

Fully Certified

Fully Certified
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Apparently I now know the contents of these binders by heart. Together they measure around a meter in information but today I finished the last certification of the 2 I needed to do . Fortunately I passed (80% score) because I really don't feel like doing any more studying for this summer. Combined with the uselessness of the questions, the whole exercise just feels pointless.

But hey, apparently I rule! It really feels like it's finally holiday-time again!

Yay!

Yay
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Apologies for the bad photo-quality, it was a bit hard to find a more optimal angle. Still, as you can see, it's now upright!

Girlfriend, Help!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

If you're having trouble telling, it's called Expedit, it's made by IKEA, my sister helped me get it (she had a stationwagon with her, from work) IKEA tells you that you need two people to put it together. They're wrong. Being cooler than IKEA thinks I am, made my penis grow with at least two inches, while progressing with the assembly.

And then a problem occured... I needed to get it upright (the bookcase, not my penis), it's 90 kgs (once again, the bookcase) Apparently I can't do this by myself. So now I've been using my hallway to get from my livingroom to my kitchen (glad we broke through the kitchen wall). Now tomorrow I'll have to beg girlfriend to help me get it upright (hopefully the bookcase, penis optional)

For those wondering, my penis is half an inch smaller than usual now.

Sunset at my place

Sunset at my place
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Me with the sun in my back
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Another work-week has started, only 8 days left before girlfriend and I fly to Cuba, only 3 days left till it's certification time. So I'm trying to do as much studying as possible. (unless I get distracted by sunsets, obviously )

Now can somebody tell me why Flickr can set subjects to my blog-posts and why I can't?

New couch

New couch

Yes, I should clean up before taking photos of my place but for those interested... This is a photo of my new couch in its new place. Yes, it's huge! :-)

Played with my camera and my washing machine in the afternoon.

Celebrated Mother's day at parents' place in the evening, took more pictures. Still need to figure out how to easily blog multiple pics.

Duisburg

Drove Duisburg-wards, with a car full of camping gear and was surprised once again by how accurate satellite navigation is. Arrived a bit on the early side, so did a bit of walking, then waited a bit in front of a closed bar before eventually teaming up up with girlfriend's friend Jennie and her boyfriend. If you noticed the camping gear in the back then you probably also realised that this was supposed to be a short camping-trip. Unfortunately the weather sucked so badly that we decided:"Screw the camping, we'll drive back home." Still had plenty of fun.

Girlfriend


Originally uploaded by selmerv.

New camera

Kenny

With plenty of holidays up ahead, I ended up buying a camera (Powershot A530 + 512 MB of memory + plenty of accessories for those interested) Plenty of interesting functions like the:"Black and white except for 1 colour"-one. Shown here

Wedding in the evening, failed to take photos.

Spent the whole week studying in the evening and working in the daytime. Made an attempt at giving a course on wednesday and did pretty well (apart from technical problems).

The studying got made harder by blistering heat for most of the week. Only gave in once when McR kept pestering me to come out and have a beer with him. (I'm not coming, I'm not coming, I'm not coming. Okay, where are you??)

Got sent some old photos of my grandfather in Indonesia and my mum + siblings in the 1940's. The bald guy with the glasses is my grandfather, try working from there :-)

After going to bed at 3:30 am this morning, we woke up at 9 because Karlijn had decided that I needed to go and check out a couch in Den Helder (thanks, sis). For the foreigners among you:"Den Helder is a 1.5 hour drive away from my place" Fortunately sis was right about the couch."

On the way back home, girlfriend bought me a tv-cabinet. At night we all had drinks in "De Oude Haven". Apparently it's summer again :-)

Wedding-party day. All ended up on a boat, partied, probably the same disclaimer here as on the wedding-day (both picture as well as description wise). Parties on boats are fun! (Nightly drives back from Almere get old quick though)

And today was the big day where girlfriend's mums got married. Drove to Almere (for a change), saw both of them get married. Follow girlfriend's blog to see photos (which will probably show up over the next couple of days).

In the evening went out for dinner to celebrate. For details about the wedding also follow girlfriend's blog, I'm a bloke, I'm not too good in having opinions on dresses.

Spent a whole afternoon preparing for tomorrow's wedding. Actually, I didn't really. Still, there was a wedding tomorrow, I must at least have done some mental preparation

Visisted Bianca in Den Bosch (she's studying there), together with Nicktor. Had pancakes for dinner, hit some pubs and then Nicktor decided that he was old and tired Didn't go to bed before discovering some German-ness on her laptop. (For example more David Hasselhoff songs than I even knew he had recorded

For those who failed to notice: I took pictures of my place