The weather

Found some 'old' pictures on my camera today. The one with the very strong wind, let's just call it storm (worst since 2002 I believe), was January 18th. A friend was coming over for supper, what we delayed to experience the storm on the beach; painfull and mighty! We almost got blown of the pier, we had to hold on tight. And two weeks ago we were suprised with a little winter...
Last Friday we, as members of C.S.R., had our yearly gala, this lustrumyear with a total of 350 (!) people. My boyfriend Kees and I were together, and Renée was there as well. We took this picture early morning, when we just got home; we were enjoying not wearing a dress só much...
I'm not promising anything, but I hope to post some other pictures, from earlier that night, as well. So you'll get to know me in a dress : ) Maybe...

Students

I kind of felt like a lame student last week.
Because I needed supper, but didn't had any money leftover in my wallet. But I had an empty case of beer, which I returned, so I was able to buy a frozen pizza... Smart, eh?

Snow Patrol!!!

My sister Renée and I went to a concert of Snow Patrol in Amsterdam, last Monday. They've written some awesome music, which I can listen to endlessly... And now I was able to hear their music live, see them, make one of them smile, enjoy and feel the bass tremble my whole body. We were incredibly close to the stage; only two persons were standing in front of us... Mmmm, a night to remember.

What a complete hero...

Paris

It's been a while already, or at least it feels like it, since I've been to Paris. Strangly, it has only been two weeks ago. But when I think about it, words like 'beautiful', 'gezellig' and 'stunning' pop into my head. Just because it was...

1st day. Travelling by train from 9.30 till 14.30, with some delay. Dropped our bags at the hotel in Montmartre and left for our first of many trips with the metro, to visit the Eiffel Tour. Climbed hundreds of footsteps and stayed till it got dark. Took the metro to the Champs-Elysées, where we had diner. Walked to the Arc the Triomphe, went 'home' to have a drink and some fun at one of our hotel rooms.

2nd day. Breakfast at the hotel, with jus d'orange and croissants... Walked around in Montmarte, saw the artists work and the Sacré-Coeur, with a beautiful view on Paris. Visited place the la Concorde (wow!) with my mum. Visited the very expensive 'mall' la Fayette, because the only rain we've seen was coming out of the heavens. Went to Centre de Pompidou and had a very good diner in Montmartre again.
3rd day. We visited a Dutch church and an early rise was necessary. We splitted up in three groups afterwords, for three different musea. My sister and I went to the Louvre; an overkill with the most beautiful pieces of art ever. We all met again at Place the la Concorde, to leave towards the City Hall, and later on the great cathedral of the Notre-Dame.

4th day. We first visited Père-Lachaise and wanted to visit Sainte Chapelle, but it was closed. So we walked along the Seine, while visiting/seeing the Louvre, Place the la Concorde, Hôtel des Invalides and ending up on a bench next to the Eiffel Tower. The last thing we did was having a drink in the cafe of the movie 'Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain'. Left from train station Gare du Nord around 7 pm.

Place the la Concorde, view from the Eiffel Tower, the Arc the Triomphe and a shot from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower.

Grande Arche; BIG!

The Louvre

A fountain and a litte part of the Louvre, and the Sacré-Coeur.

My family, walking towards the Sacré-Coeur, the highest point of Paris.

Matthijs and Helene along the Seine and the beautiful cemetery Père-Lachaise, so huge you'll get lost

Typical Parisian houses and the roof of the beautiful building la Fayette, THE place to be, if you want to get sick of people...

The Eiffel tower and my mum waiting for the métro

'Canadian' commercial

Good morning, whole wooooooorld!

I saw this commercial about a (kind of) famous Dutch skater who emigrated to Canada, on the television a while ago. It's for the smoked sausages from unox, which we tend to eat with hotchpotch. When it came by the first time I became homesick emidiately :)

http://www.phonecast.nl/mov.asp?id=552&readid=02007010901901706&sendto=lotteklapwijk@hotmail.com

Off to Paris this Friday, and the sun is shining :)

Fantastic new year

Hi everyone, happy new year!! I hope it will be great...

For the past two weeks I've been enjoying the holidays and spending a lot of time at my parents' place. Reading some books, cleaning my room, playing some guitar and watch a movie. No soccer, no studying, no C.S.R. I visited Amsterdam twice, but I didn't really had time to take decent pictures of Amsterdam itself. That's really too bad, because now I'll have to go back at least once more ;) But I did take pictures of some Dutch art.

And I've been working a couple of days this last week, also Sunday night. I was supposed to be on a partyboat at 10 pm to start working, but they gave my the wrong address (in Amsterdam)... So I ended up walking for three hours, searching for 'my' boat in the different harbours, mostly in the rain. Finally, a bit before midnight, I was able to leave an very lonely industrial part of the city and I even found some cops! They felt sorry for me, and drove me to the right harbour. That's why I spent the first minutes of this year in the back of a police car :) Sounds interresting doesn't it? I bet none of you can beat my cool story... Anyway, my head touched the pillow at 8.15, while it still was a kind of dark.

Hope to talk to you soon. Lotte

Alternative christmas-bike-tree

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!