Hi there.

No work today. Just studying, (so) I found some time to edit the pictures in the post about Belgium. They're bigger now.
Last week I visited Veerle in Bruge, Belgium, for some days. Together we discovered Brussels, and she showed me all the good things of her city Bruge. As always, pictures are on their way. And now I am on my way to a wet and windy football practice.

Terschelling

Mum and dad eating a krentenbol, hiding against the wind

Pure mystical craziness. How life and living, nature and surviving, works

One brother, with his girlfriend, one sister and two parents.

(Finally some pictures which I shot myself, with my parents' camera.)

Ai ai ai...

Found out more than a week ago, but I barely dare to tell...
I failed.
BIG time.

Shame on me.

Good eyes needed

Everybody

Combining a lecture with some fresh air

Cleaning up

The dam

Inside

Down at the foot

Typical Belgian view

A game, (some) discussion going on

4.45 am, it seems to be a battlefield

This was all in Belgium, with Moot2, C.S.R.
Good weekend, I'm leaving for work; doing the dishes for endless hours. Mhhmmm. Soaky hands.

P.S. We won today's footballmatch with 9-0, and I scored two of them :)

Trips down South and up North

Three weekends ago my biblestudy group (six guys, two girls), myself included, left home for a weekend to discover Maastricht and the Dutch Mountains :) (remember the highest one is 300 meters...) We invited ourselves into a christian studenthouse, where we baked pancakes, and eggs in the morning, listened to music, played games and got some sleep. Friday night we drank beers in town, Saturday afternoon, after a lazy morning, we walked through the colourfull (whahaha)hills. We also visited the Netherlands American Cemetry and Memorial in Margraten, which is there since WWII. At night we were invited at some party, and after another lazy morning we had a good look at Maastricht by day, followed by a service in a church at the end of the afternoon. More (caramel and cashewnut) pancakes, more dishes, more games and more sleep.

Most of us took the first train Monday morning early (5.22), because students get to travel here for free ór during the weekend ór during the week. After some dozy time I splitted from the rest of the group, by keeping on going to the North, towards Harlingen, to take the boat to the island of Terschelling, where my parents were renting a caravan for a week. The last two years we went to Texel, one of the other little Dutch islands, also full with dunes, some little towns, 'wad', beaches, forests and wind. Because I messed up some things with boat tickets etcetera, and because the boat trip took two (!) full hours, I finally touched the ground at 5 pm, where my dad rented a bike for me. Luvely; a good, long breakfast, bike and walk the whoooole nice and windy day, laugh, be quiet, think, not think at all, talk and be quiet again. And than the warmth of a little caravan, tea, a good meal, reading/studying, music and my parents presence. Thanks.

And last weekend we went to Baelen, in the eastern part of Belgium, with what should be about a quarter of C.S.R.; Moot2 (eight biblestudy groups together). It was about the same story as the weekend in Maastricht, with the only difference us being a bigger group.
Mhmmm, special Belgium beers, Old Amsterdam (the cheese), noisy games, a walk through the woods around a big quiet lake, four hours of sleep each night, a walk down + through the dam (one door wasn't locked), worship sessions accompanied by guitar, good jokes, even better conversations, a very warm welcome in a little church where the service was in German, fall colours, an outside-lecture ("because it is possible") and selfmade candles. Kortom, it was fabulous and completely brilliant, a weekend to remember, and more memories to cherish.


And how do I fill up the rest of my time? Well, next to my job at the hospital, I found another job at a little restaurant here in Delft. From now on, I can work both during the day ánd during the night, if I want to. Need to pay the bank. Need to pay my parents. Need to save some money. Want to buy new football shoes, my old ones are falling apart. Want to buy a camera so I can talk to you through pictures again. (There are pictures on the way about these three trips, I just need to get them from other people and/or the internet.)

And I'm still having friends, and footballteams, and family :) And all the things at C.S.R. And a sportscard. And books. And roommates. And a life. And a guitar. So, don't worry, I'm keeping on going, enjoying life and all things it is bringing!

Bad smell

It was a sunny Saturday two weeks ago. In a polder close to Delft.

Official activity was 'boerengolfen' (= farmer golfing), with some studymates. 'Side'-activities were closely related to mud, ditches, fighting, stinky water, sun, beer and hugging some black and white ladies.

Later that day, my teammates from football didn't want me in their car, because the smell hanging around me...

"Ik ben vandaag zo vrolijk, zo vrolijk, zo vrolijk. Ik ben behoorlijk vrolijk, zo vrolijk was ik nooit."

Saturday night I realised I should've been grumpy. At leást grumpy.
But I wasn't. Not at all, actually. Not a single cell in my body.

That morning, when I was trying to leave for a football match, I realised my bike had been stolen during the night...

- I will miss you, my loyal and brave little golden bike, with the old pink peeking through the paint. Thank you for serving me all those years, appreciate it very much. I do hope your new owner will be good for you-

Anyway, it's a complete mistery. Which human being, with brains, would want to have my bike?? It was a complete wreck, a rusty disaster on two wheels. Lately, when I was using my bike, people started to turn their heads. And I think you can say residents of any Dutch city are used to quite something, talking about bikes...
To make things worse, we, at that time, number 1 of the competition, needlessly lost 3-1 from the number two... But I was still happy when the game was over. The trick's probably that sunny fall weather. Or that double lp full of music of Herman van Veen I bought last week, for one euro.

Ooohhh. That sunny fall weather. Persistent for almost two weeks now. It made me bike to, plus through, The Hague, and on through the dunes, to Leiden, yesterday. Crispy leafs crunching under my tires.
Hé, kleine meid op je kinderfiets...

The only thing. Loads and lots, lots (!) of people. At some points they scared me in some way.
It made me long for Canada, where I would have my own forest ; )
Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed being where I was, extremely hard. It's just, some moments the people in this world, myself included, are dissapointing.

Mhmm. Looks like a kind of depressed end of this post. But I'm not, I asure you:
Vandaag ben ik zo vrolijk. Zo vrolijk. Zo vrolijk. Ik ben behoorlijk vrolijk, zo vrolijk was ik nooit! Ik was wel vaker vrolijk, heel vrolijk, heel vrolijk, maar zo behoorlijk vrolijk, was ik tot nog toe nooit.

Question for the reader...

What is the best thing you éver did?

Dutch adventure

Last night, around midnight, I jumped into a train in Breda, the signs told me it would soon set off towards Rotterdam. The train left earlier than it was supposed to and when it did the thought 'maybe something is wrong' popped into my mind. But the thing was moving anyway, and I ended up in Roosendaal, at the Belgium border, hearing that the first train to Rotterdam was leaving around 6 am. What a joke.
Some nice guy from the railway allowed me to sleep in an empty train (which was illegal as he told me and if somebody caught me or kicked me out, I never met him). He advised my to move to first class and he came back to bring me a cup of hot chocolate. It was fun to have my private train, but it felt like sleeping/dozing in public and the benches were small. The train was leaving at 5.20, which made me move back up my feet to second class again. I stood at my frontdoor when the clocks struck seven.

Mhmm. Hot chocolate. The only thing that could've improved it, was making it a large one, from Tim Hortons. Extra sugar.

What's new?

• got a happy-making phone call this morning; I got a job at the local hospital, but I'll still be searching for some extra job(s) and a fulltimish one once I'm finally holding that freakin' diploma
• soccer is tha bomb
• my brother and his, now, wife, got married in Leiden last Friday. I have to admit it was a full, enjoyable, busy and beautiful day, I'll get you some pictures as soon as I can. They should be in Tunesia at this moment
• I cleaned my room ánd the hallway of our house (which is seriously falling apart) this morning
• since Monday it is fall here, I feel the wind blowing through my room sometimes, it's cold outside and some days it just doesn't stop raining (which is nice on soccernights)
• I'm off to Utrecht late afternoon, drewling at some backpackers-and-all-kinds-of-travel-organisations-getting-together-kind-of-thing
• tomorrow 2nd match of the competition, 1st was won with 4-1
• bible study subject of this first half year is Elijah
• Excuse me for not posting so long