Stroll

Midnight. Wandering along the streets. Thick fog. Magical.

Capitals.

So. It finally stopped raining and stormin'. Still the fourth soccermatch in a row got cancelled today... It's pretty silly, because it really isn't too important, but I was pretty nervous this week, because we were supposed to face the nr. 1 of our competition. All for nothing : ) But I've been to Amsterdam yesterday. Too bad my roommate locked his room, now I can't show you any pictures jet. We (my projectgroup and I) had a meeting with a guy from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, located in Amsterdams' zoo. We're executing an assignment about pelicans.... Afterworths I walked around in the zoo for a while and when it got dark I walked into Amsterdam, so the pictures aren't that great. If I can, I'll go back soon. Nobody will tell you when you get out of the train, but the canals overthere have a curve shape and all together you get circles. So when the rain had made me cold enough, I decided to start following the 'central station' signs. It took me quite some time to figure out why I kept seeing the same places over and over again! Haha, but I kept walking without asking, stuburn as I am... O, and some other news; my tickets to Malawi were booked today! I hope to leave to Lilongwe on March the 9th and come back from Nairobi on July 21st. JIEGHHOEGHHOOOEEEWOEIIIIWHAplafdidapdiedap...!!! And.... because there's no Malawian ambassy here in the Netherlands and it is smart to get your visa befóre entering the country, I'll have to visit Brussel, Belgium, soon. Since we're talking about visiting capitals anyway; my family (including myself) will visit Paris in January for four days, because my parents will be celebrating their 25th anniversery on the 22nd. This all, makes a visit to the travelpart of the local library, necesarry.

Think about it.

- Each minute 12 children under the age of 5 die because of malnutrition (FAO, State of Food Security in the World, 2003)
- The rich fifth of the humanity consumes 86% of total consumings (UNDP, 2003)
- Nearly one billion people do not have access to save drinking water (UNDP, 2005)
- More then 1,2 billion people make less than $1 a day, this is 23% of all living people (UNDP, 2003)
- An African gets $8 subsidy of the EU, a European cow $913 (UNDP 2003)
- Ten-thirty percent of birds, mammals and amphibians face extinction (bron: UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005)
- A third of all grane produced on earth, is used to feed cattle (World Watch Institute, 2004)
- To produce one kilo of potatoes, 500 liters of water is necessary, for one kilo of beef 10.000 (Colin Tudge, So shall we reap)

Just to even get me a bit more depressed then I already was today, I bumped into these facts. I just finished an article about fair clothes; in the way there was 'fair coffee' first, 'fair bananas' next, now you're able to buy 'fair clothes' on more and more places. I got this from a christian website that thinks it is time to turn right now, so these are probably the most depressing and negative facts that they could possibly find, I'm sensible enough to realise that. But still... they're true... I couldn't help posting them, just because it aint wrong to think about these kind of things. (And maybe act a bit different).
I know that my next shopping for clothes (íf that will ever happen in the first place... ; ) will be in a fair shop, and my sister will join me.

Enough thoughts.
Last weekend we celebrated 'Sinterklaas' with the seven of us, although today is the actual day remember his death, the weekend was just much easier. Sunday everybody was busy till the end of the day, finishing a poem or surprise etc. My dad had to buy some presents for me (I got a little board game, socks, a cd and the book 'I dreamed of Africa'), and write a poem and create a surprise (he got me a can filled with maggots, referring to my dirty way of living at Uniquestock...). It was good to get together and have fun; it was too late too fast. I can't wait to start reading in my new book, it's from a lady who emigrates to Kenya (to the South you get Tanzania first and then Malawi), but I first have to finish the four other books I'm reading right now...

Have a good night, whoever you are,

Lotte

Milking time

Mmmm, we had a nice party at C.S.R. yesterday... When I rolled into bed I realised that in Canada it would have been around time to wake up for milking. Anyway, have a nice weekend!

Work

Isn't it strange to only feel good when you're working really hard? And not feel so good when you're being a lazy ass? Lately, sometimes, some days, some weeks I'm horrible. I think it is for the first time in my life that I'm having a hard time doing what I'm supposed to do. Don't get me wrong, it's only for my study and all the assignments coming along with it, I can hardly get started with some days. It's just, I know that everything will be alright, even when I'll miss the deadline. I can always finish it afterworths and it feels like I really don't care sometimes. And there's so many other things to do, read books, read about Malawi (there's way too much on the internet...), so many hours to sport, so many more chords I still can't play decent enough. So many emails to answer and send new ones, so often I have to get my desk/room organized a bit. So many friends to meet. O, and not to forget, so many hours to sleep! Basically I can be busy for a whole day, doing nothing. Sometimes I wish I could be more like a cat; they are réally doing nothing at all and they do enjoy it só much. Somehow I can only enjoy doing nothing for a short period, and only after I worked hard enough. I guess that's healthy in a way...
I don't know if I'm telling it the right way, and if you understand what I mean... It isn't as bad as it sounds, I'm getting there (slowly) without any major delays, so far.
But I turned it all around again since yesterday, I'm working hard, not sleeping enough and I'm feeling great!! I've worked till 3 am last night, after I went spinning for the first time in my life (never ever sweated thát much and my shoulders and neck are sour; sweet!), got up early, studied some more, followed a lesson and after this post I'm gonna eat, train (get só tired... : D ) and study some more. Today we had a meeting with on of our teachers about the Malawi plans and I would call him enthousiast, so that's great!! He needs to talk to some collegues first, but we'll hear the 'go' or 'no go' tomorrow. I'm gonna bet for the 'go'.
Mmm, supper is almost ready, I can smell it!

News

My roommates and I got a letter from the Duwo today, the organisation/company that we're renting our rooms from. As I might have told you, the house where I'm living right now (and all the houses in the street) will be broken down, because they're gonna build a tunnel for the trains. The date that we had to leave our little home was June 30th,.... till today! They're not able to make it, so I can keep living here till March 31st 2008.
So that canges things quite a bit. I was planning on leaving my room in March, when I'm leaving for Africa, and never move back again. The house wasn't going to be here anyway. But now I can try to rent it to somebody else for the months I'll be gone, and move back into my room after. I haven't decided what to do yet, it'll depend on what I want to do after this. Maybe I'll try to get a master in another city, than I'll have to move anyway... But, we'll see, I first have to get through this week. And with the start of the weekend, I'm gonna roll into the next stress; Sinterklaas. I still have to buy a present, write a poem and creat a surprise (can't find a dicationary, so it might be something different for English reader than I mean).

Have a great day!

P.S. Sinterklaas is comparable to Santa Claus, except for the fact the our celebration is based on a guy that really lived one day, and Coca Cola didn't make him up : )

Needles

Here you've got the pictures of last weekend, when I was in Belgium

Taken on Saturday, close too Coo, where the waterfalls are.


Upstairs, on of the freezing rooms

In theory, we were able to bring a horse along, but we couldn't find one back home. Henri (the guy on the right) and I found this huge Belgian horse along our way. The last picture is taken during our hike through the dark forests on slippery hills.

My Africa adventure really got started today. I visited a docter to get my first set of vaccinations; yellow feaver, hepatitis A & B, tyfus and DTP. My two arms ánd two legs got needled today, I need to go back in a month ánd afterworths. There's an order for fifty malaria pills as well. I even might get a needle against rabiës, but that's a really expensive one. It's exciting, it got started now...
Strange to realise that the 0,5 ml injected in my muscle will prevent me from getting sick, or keep the symptoms acceptable.

Hitchhiking and trains

It's almost 4 pm right now and so far I've only been busy with Malawi-things. My two friends and I had a meeting today at the office of the organisation Ex-change, in Hilversum. They keep contact with a christian organisation in Malawi, that will help us once we're there. Most time today was lost by traveling by train; we were at the office for an hour. We discussed about the assignment(s), financial aspects and we listened to the stories about Africa and Malawi. As far as I know right now we (Veerle, Leonie and I) will create an inventory of the current agricultural situation in Malawi. It'll contain a lot of traveling in the area surounding the capital, but also one or more weeks to the North and one or more to the South. That's an unexpected way to see a lot of the country! And Malawi has a length somewhere around 1000 km....
By the way, I went to Belgium last weekend with my bible study group, from the student association. We got to know eachother a lot better and we had a lot of fun! Five people went by car and four went hitchhiking. Henri and I went hitchhiking and started early afternoon with the sun shining down at us. It took a lot of time to get out of the busiest part of the Netherlands (de Randstad), but we arrived at 11 pm in Stavelot/Somagne after six lifts. And, against all odds, we found two guys that rented a house very close to ours, so they dropped us of at the door. The one we rented was one out of four, and that was the whole village! It was in the French speaking part of Belgium, in the Ardennes, with a hilly landscape filled with bush, agriculture and nice villages. We visited the highest natural waterfall in Belgium on Saturday (nine people in one poor car), we walked for some hours, played games, kept the fire burning (it was pretty cold and the very old house was isolated badly/not, and fire = fun), visited a Roman Catholic, French church on Sunday and played more games (it rained all day). Henri and I got sick of being inside and left for a too long walk, we didn't want to turn around, so we left the path and hiked through fields and bush till we found another trail. But it got dark and we ended up walking through a very dark night, without lights on the most slippery trails/bush you've ever seen! We lost the trail again in the dark, so we had to trust our feelings and went up hil straight through the bush. All of the sudden we heard a big 'snap', but the animal (or something like it, we weren't able to see a thing) didn't run away... After some seconds, we decided to go left, in case it was one of those wild pigs...
We went to bed pretty early on Sunday, to be able to start hitchhiking on Monday while everybody was driving to work etc. We were in Maastricht (the Netherlands) a bit after 11 am in three lifts, from where we were able to use the warm train for free, because we're students. Pictures will be there soon, now I'm first gonna do some studying, bible study tonight and more studying at night afterworths; I have to study sómetimes...

Mess

Sorry, I messed something up a bit. The storie about my vacation to Texel can be found in post 'Texel 1', so just scroll down.

Texel

My family

This is just behind the dikes (I'm standing on the dike), you can see the lighthouse

Matthijs (my older brother), mum, sister Renée, Jasper, Helene (Matthijs' girlfriend) and my dad

Two little bunkers in the dunes and the heather

Mum and dad on their bikes, lots of sheep and even more birds on the island

When the water of the sea is low, you can walk back to the land (if you know what you're doing)

Tiny pieces of shelves, which prevent a little bit of sand to be blown away

That was it. Hope you enjoyed it, I did.

Special day :D

This misty Tuesday, November 7th, is a very special day, because of two things that happened.
First of all I was able to throw a little piece of paper out of my agenda. That doesn't sound too special, does it? But it had been in there ever since the first week I was home from Canada. I need to write things down, otherwise I'll forget them, do them too late or I'll find myself in one big chaotic mess after a while... So, I created a big to-do list that seemed stuck in my agenda forever. But today... : ) yes, I was able to stripe the last thing away. Now my agenda looks a bit naked to me...

The second special something, is WAY more exciting! I heard that I'll be going to a foreign country for at least three months, eventhough I don't diserve it at all. As far as I deserve anything in my life, because every little thing is a blessing; my bed, bible, my heating, loving family, bread, education, friends, health. But this is just tóo crazy! I barely knew what I wanted, where or in what to graduate in, and now God came up with this plan... Better than anything I had come up with myself; HE's great, HE's the best!
I was thinking about a little game, so you readers could try to guess the exact country, but I háve to say it. It's in Africa; Malawi. It isn't totally sure; teachers still need to agree too, but at the other hand nothing is ever sure anyway.
You all know I'm in my fourth, final year right now and the graduation (I don't know the exact word, I mean finishing my study) is planned for the last half year. Till February I have to follow the last courses and from the 5th the graduation is planned. So my plan right now is to leave the Netherlands in March and end up in Malawi (in March too ;), together with two study friends. The whole February month is reserved for a literature study, so we'll get on the ice with decent skates. Haha, I don't know if the Canadian readers know what I mean by that, but I think you're able to guess the meaning of this Dutch saying...
So... for now it's even more difficult to concentrate, I'm thinking about getting needles, getting into planes, and I already got a travelbook from the library about Malawi.

For now, Khalani Bwino!

Lotte

I got them back!

The pictures are a bit old, and the whole story too, but maybe you remember I was stupid enough to delete the memory card of my camera? A friend helped me getting them back. Or, I should leave the 'helping' part out, because there was nothing I could do about it, but he fixed it in minutes. Thanks again...

The Niagra Falls, with Doug and Nancy Garrett.

After milking, just outside the barn of the Vander Meulens

Twice Vander Meulens; heiffers and backyard

Montréal; an 'old' city with lots of new



Cows getting a shower, can it get any weirder?

The heiffers

The swamp I biked to, on Jake's bike. Somewhere in the middle there's a dead tree on the ground, that's where I ate my lunch...

One last picture of one of the kittens at Gord and Ann's place.

So, now it's back to work again. Translate a piece for our report into English, finish an article, play soccer, shower, eat and start learning for a test that I'm facing this Wednesday.

Bored.

Just a short note. Because I'm bored, and to let you know the pictures of last week are coming, but it takes much more time to get a lot of pictures in a post, comparing to just typing some words. This week the weather is really changing, it's pretty cold and hail and rain keeps coming... A moment ago, I couldn't resist it anymore. I've been inside for almost the whole day and the heavens opened again, so I went outside for a walk in the rain. Don't ask me why the call 'get out of your room, go outside' seems to call me even louder when it rains... I only know I enjoyed it. And last night too, when I got soaking wet during the training... Wow, there's a rainbow showing up, against a dark, deepgray sky... It's so hard to concentrate.
Alright, but now I'll have to get back to work. I'm writing an article about emigrating to Canada : )

Type to you soon,

Lotte

Texel 1

Still have to tell something about the week at Texel. I will take a picture of a map of the Netherlands, so I'm able to show where it was (for the Canadians amongst the readers). For now it's just stories and pictures in the post below.
Saturday 22nd after soccer (we won again; 4-1!), I took the first train to the north around 6 pm. Three trains, a bus, a boat, a bus, a car and 3,5 hours later I was where I was supposed to be. My mum, dad, little (not really) brother Jasper and sister Renée where there already. We visited a little church Sunday morning, after that it was time for a walk along the beach! The rest of the week was almost the same each day. Waking up at 9 am, breakfast for an hour and outside at 11 am. We rented some bikes for two/three days, my mum and dad took their bikes with them, behind the car, so that was easy. We biked all around the island, and stopped once in a while for a walk. Texel isn't too big, around 170 square kilometres, a length of 20 and around 8 kilometres wide. Other days we walked most of the time, and at night we we watched a movie (we visited the only cinema on the island), red a book or played a game. And we only had rain for one day, most of the time it was cloudy and sometimes sun, more or less. It was a very good week, it was great to be with my family for a long time and it was so nice to be outside whole days again.
Right now I'm gonna try to write an article about emigration to Canada, with the sound of guys and machines; they're cleaning the streets from all those crispy, nice smelling, colourfull leaves. How sad and weird!

I'm living!

Wow, life's back into it's full swing, and I'm enjoying it again! Still don't know why it took me so long to get myself going, in my mind, or something like that. It didn't take more then one or two weeks to get the practical things in my life going again, there was something wrong in my mind for a while...
But now; I even enjoy stuff like the stress of studying. It's so busy right now, that today's the third day I created a planning for myself. I sit down at my desk at night, with a piece of paper and I make a planning for the next day. Almost from hour to hour and even things like lunch or playing the guitar is in there... I have to admit that today's the third day I didn't totally follow my planning. I get out of my bed too late, or there's something extra popping into my day, but it still works for me. I get more done than normally. And I enjoy my breaks and the things I'm doing in them, even more. I don't know why, but I'm enjoying everything, anything, almost like it's a job in itself. Mm, I would apply if a job like that would appear!

This is what happens around here, when you're in your bed too long; your roommates enter your room, grab our matrass and turn it upside down. Lovely way to wake up :)

I went sailing, the weekend before last one, with some guys from C.S.R. (the cristian student association I'm a member of). With two boats, five girls and four guys, we enjoyed what God created for a nice, long weekend. Because of bad, very bad, public transportation, we ended up, on Friday night, in a local little pub with only people age 40 and up. We were quite the attraction! Next day was an 'early' rise, the sun was shining in a sky with beautiful clouds and the wind was blowing (a 6 on the scale of Beaufort). It was an exciting day, both boats got stuck within minutes, laying next to eachother. After that adventure, one of the boats turned upside down... (I was lucky to not be in that one) We had soacky bread, soacky people, soacky clothes, soacky everything. After emptying the water out of the boat for an hour, we decided to lunch and get the wet people into dry clothes. We spent the rest of the day sailing towards Veere, and that was pure pleasure! The wind, the sun, the excitement of sailing in such an angle that you're almost falling out of the boat, the laughs, painful hands... Mmmm.
Our tent on one of the boats, four people fit in
We arrived in Veere around dinner time. Veere is an old village, with city rights because of a history of trading Scottish woul. It's tiny and old, and contains the start of a big cathedrale, started in days that Veere was getting bigger and bigger every day. After we put our tents on the decks again, we collected all the wet clothes and got picked up by Aris' dad, who lives nearby Veere. His mother treated us like kings and queens, with warmth, lots of very good food, more food, dry clothes, new bread for tomorrow and warm drinks.

What more could we want?
We visited the church on Sunday morning, in a part of the not-finished huge cathedrale. After that, we sailed of, into the open waters again! The wind wasn't as strong as the day before anymore, but still strong enough to bring us 'home'.

I'm working and studying extra hard this week, because I want to go to the island Texel Saturday night after soccer, for a week vacation. My parents rented a little house overthere and I think everybody is coming, some for a couple of days, some for the whole week. I'll leave Friday, I have to play soccer next Saturday too. It is a beautiful island, I can try to explain it to you, if you don't know what it looks like overthere, but I better try to take some good pictures and show them to you.

See you next time,

Lotte

Weekend

Last week was a week filled with sun, and because I have to walk anyway (the tire of my bike is still flat) I took my camera with me each time I needed anything in town. This is the army museum and on the left you can see a tourist boat poppin around the corner; they're everywhere, always...

Here you see 'the Old Church' in Delft, it stand in an angle, because it was build on two different layers of ground/soil/earth. And our flag; beautiful :)


As you can see, my room mate Gerdien got married last Friday and it was a beautiful sunny day. I had the encredibly important job to help her get into her dress and make sure that she would make it down our five stairs safe and, especially, clean. And, how shocking, at the end of the day, I cought (catched?) her flowers... They were thrown só fast, that I wasn't able to dive away fast enough; they hit me on the head!
On Saturday I didn't have to play; the other soccer team cancelled the game, because they didn't had enough players. It gave me the change to give my ankle some time to fix itself. I went to my parents, by train, and took the car and my sister to the forest and dunes. Because of recent rain, it smelled nice everywhere!


The dunes, with the tank wall from World War II and a drop on some fruity thing


Yes, I admit we did some illegal stuff. We were wearing the safety jackets because of the rain, and later just for the fun. Most thrilling here in the Dutch 'wild' parts of our country is the chance of walking into some kind of forest/nature officer, who can give you a ticket for not walking on the path...


I spend a nice and quiet Sunday at my parents place too. I took this picture after I parked my bike, at the central station of Leiden (where my parents live). It's just one out of many, many rows with bikes.
Now I'm gonna take a shower, just came home from soccer, we lost but we played a good game. And then it's time for some studying again.

Bye, Lotte