Koninginnedag

On the 30th of April Holland turns orange. Our national colours and those of our royal family are everywhere and we celebrate our country, our royal family and our Queen mum's birthday. (Since our current Queen's birthday is in winter, they figured it would be best to keep the date where it was)

Queensday, as it is called, is actually a very interesting national holiday. One that, by the way, provides excellent subject-matter for discussing the phenomenon of civil religion. All over the country there are fairs, fleamarkets and outdoor concerts, everyone is supposed to be happy, Dutch and outdoors.
The Queen and her family visit a different city every year, this city is then completely transformed into the centre of our monarchy for the day. The royal family looks at local clubs doing their tricks on the streets, local trades are shown, the princes always participate in some stupid oldfashioned game and they all shake 3000 hands along the way. The Queen gets flowers, kisses and children's drawings for her 'birthday' and the whole shindig is broadcasted nationwide.

Sadly this year, the general talk about what the princesses were wearing, which prince made an idiot of himself during the games, and what kind of a hat the Queen was sporting this year was interrupted by the horrible, broadcasted live on tv, view of a black automobile ploughing its way through the crowds in Apeldoorn, monarchy capitol for the day. This attack on our royal family has left 8 dead so far, including the man who deliberately drove his car through a crowd of orange coloured men, women, and children.


So back in Glasgow our day started happily, by planning a small Queensday party (or Dutch Day, as Steph calls it) at my flat, until my mother calls me and says she just saw a car drive through the crowd and hit a war monument, live on tv.


Our little Queensday celebration went along as planned (unlike most of the bigger celebrations in Holland, which were cancelled) by making dutch pancakes and playing silly games in my kitchen. (Since the Scottish weather and landscape does not encourage running with eggs outside) My laptop was there too though, constantly following the news and hearing about one, then two, then five deaths. It was a strange day.

Dundee and Arbroath

After those texty-posts I'll give you guys some pictures to stare at again :)

Two weeks ago Caro, Karin, Meri and I went on a little day-trip to Dundee and Arbroath. Dundee was a sweet little boring town, with a couple of churches we wanted to see. Strangely all of the churches were closed....ánd most of the kebab stores we wanted to visit were also :)

From Dundee we took a trainride right along the coastline to Arbroath. The weather was beautiful (very different from what the forecast said...hence the Wellies) if not extremely windy...ah whatever, most pictures are nice and 'dynamic' because of it.

Try finding a street in Dundee without penguins ór closed churches...impossible.

Arbroath was simply astounding. The century-old Abbey ruin that dominates the tiny sea-side town is huge and impressing. For those of you with historic interest, try Wiki-ing: Arbroath Abbey and The Declaration of Arbroath.

Me and the huge Abbey Church ruin.

"..for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

The dude that wrote the Declaration of Arbroath is gifted...he should've worked on Braveheart. :P

North-easter coastline of Scotland. I really want to go to the red sandstone cliffs in the background some time. Those are also the cliffs the Abby is made out of.

Chillin' in the sun

More pics from our trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71940&id=565292619&l=30fe5a0ccf

Winter in Glasgow

The most hilarious snowman ever.

It seems as if Spring has now officially taken over! Hurrah!
A couple of weeks ago (or was it even last week..?) that seemed very far away indeed.
Here are some pictures to show you what Glasgow looks like in winter and how creative people get with snow....

Botanics

I love the look on his face! And the leaf-hairdo :-)

View from my window

En toen kwam er wéér iemand langs :)

Naast de redelijk opkomende essay stress is er hier gelukkig altijd nog wel iets SOGgends te beleven. Zoals bijvoorbeeld het bezoek van de 15 jarige zoon van mijn moeders beste vriendin (het klinkt ingewikkeld, maar dat is het niet).

Reynier had al sinds ik hier ging wonen tegen zijn moeder gezegd dat hij bij mij zou komen logeren. Moeders had mij dus maar even daarvan op de hoogte gesteld en voilá: het werd geregeld.

Ik zou hem zondagochtend ophalen op het vliegveld, dus ik bedacht fijn budget-wise met de bus heen te gaan en met de taxi terug te komen. Mijn bus was natuurlijk te langzaam, ik miste mijn aansluiting en Reynier was te vroeg...lekker dan. Hij belde me toen ik midden in het centrum van Glasgow op mijn tweede bus stond te wachten.

Sja...ik kan er pas met 20 minuten zijn, terwijl hij met 10 minuten met een taxi bij mij thuis is. Dus ik vraag hem of hij geld heeft voor de taxi: "ja natuurlijk". Okee, ik stuur hem mijn adres in een smsje en ren naar de metro om weer naar de West End te komen. Vanaf het metrostation zal ik dan wel een taxi naar huis nemen. Hopelijk ben ik er dan tegelijkertijd met hem. In het metrostation (waar ik normaal nooit bereik heb...danku kosmos) gaat mijn telefoon: "eh dat adres moet ik nu wel hebben, want ik zit in de taxi en we zijn al bijna bij de West End". Smsje is dus nooit aangekomen..na wat taal moeilijkheden en herhalingsoefeningen begrijpt de taxi chauffeur dan eindelijk waar hij heen moet. Gelukkig net op tijd, want daar is mijn metro.

Aangekomen op Byres road is daar geen taxi te vinden....goeie, danku kosmos. Ik begin dus de 20 min wandeltocht naar huis, en wordt (vlak voor de RBS, danku kosmos) gebeld: "eh...we zijn er bijna maar ik was even vergeten dat ik alleen euro's bij me heb, en geen ponden"

Oh

Gelukkig stopt de taxi en geeft Reynier maar als laatste redmiddel de telefoon aan de taxi chaufffeur: "Hiya, I'm really very sorry bu the boy seems to no have any pounds on 'im. Could you maybe, please, take 'im down to Byres' so you cou take both of us up an I can pay for his ride?"

"Sure love, where are ye?"

Pff...

Dus, geld uit de pin, wachten op de taxi. Krijg ik een sms van mn moeder: "Hoi! Margriet (moeder van R) en ik zitten lekker aan de koffie. Alles goed gegaan? Hebben jullie elkaar al gevonden?"

Goeie, kosmos.

"Eh..we zitten nu even in een stressvolle situatie, als je me over een half uur in mn kamer belt hoop ik er te zijn...."

En daar is de taxi. *zucht*

Reynier is onder de indruk van mijn schotse accent, hij had geen woord van de arme man verstaan, haha.

Goed, gelukkig staat dit redelijk stressvolle begin niet symbool voor al zijn dagen hier :) Het was super leuk. Voetbal en rugby gekeken, de stad bekeken, botanics, uni, filmpje gekeken in de hoogste bios van eurpa, bij Annemieke en Duncan gegeten en een dag een mini tour van Schotland gedaan onder leiding van mijn lieve college genote Shannie.

Die dag is trouwens en blog op zichzelf waard, zij blijkt echt in het mooiste huis OOIT te wonen! Met een uitzicht waar ik in het donker al van ging kwijlen, alsook van de Aga...

Ik hoop er nog eens naartoe te kunnen om met daglicht foto's te maken, hier eventjes eentje in de schemering:

Wow....de jongste zoon heeft ons ook even in zijn (ZIJN, ja) giga zwarte jeep met MEGA geluidssysteem terug naar Glasgow gereden.

De terugweg woensdag naar het vliegveld ging trouwens een stuk soepeler, haha.

Januari, visitors!

Glasgow central station....zie de verbazing in mijn gezicht. Wát?

The other half of Januari was filled with visitors! Hurray! My boyfriend and my best friend were here, with only 24 hours in between :)
I need to read a LOT for class now, so I'll just give you an impression of the fun through some pictures.

Me and my uni

Hurrah! Coooos!



Hihihihi

Pollok house

Rest and be Thankful valley

Fortune telling fish and Christmas hats!

Tarbert and it's castle :)

The lovely couches at the Hub

I am in love with those couces...with couches in general. I don't have a couch in my appartment. I could cry....

Ice skating

Last week the teperatures in Holland dropped to about -20 degrees celsius at night, which hadn't happened in twelve years!

Temperatures of this kind have a strange effect on the Dutch. All of a sudden all other news dissappears and ONE topic is of paramount importance. Will it happen....will we see the day again....could it be true?

Slowly little ponds, canals, streams and eventually lakes start freezing over. And then out of the blue it seems that every single Dutch person owns a pair of skates ánd knows how to skate ánd is prepared to face the cold and the possibility of disappearing under thin ice to do it.

'Ice Masters' start crawling out of their twelve-year hibernation and all eyes are on them. When can we go? Is it safe yet? Can we, can we pleeeaaase?

The Ice Masters appear on tv saying that we shouldn't all freak out because the "Journey of all Journeys" will have to wait until we have had at least ten straight days of -10 degrees. So we wait.

Ice skating is a skill that is supposed to be present in everyone that has Dutch blood running through their veins. You are supposed to be born with it. So I felt kind of awkward that I hadn't been on skates in twelve years and hadn't been any good then either...(I used to be on ice hockey skates to boot. "Which is more like walking on ice than actually skating" as I was told.)

Real Dutch skate on 'Noren', Vikings, Real Skates, leather shoes with huge butcher knives attached to them. Lethal when accidently falling over and having you hand skated over. Also lethal to those who don't know how to ride them. Like me.

Wilbert and his family on the other hand are proper Dutch. With proper skates. And a proper natural ice rink next to their house. So Wilbert was properly raised as a Dutch boy, standing on water as soon as it froze over and carrying on today on covered ice rinks where he skates once a week in winter. (Read: He is good and I suck)

So we went to Giethoorn (the Dutch Venice) to skate with Wilbert's family and to let me have my very first proper Viking experience. (On skates borrowed from Wilberts family)

We took the two hour drive to Giethoorn. Unfortunately it was definitely thawing. Now the normal human reaction would be to be scared to fall through the ice and die or at the least be very cold (as I was). But no! Not the Dutch! They stay on the ice until they can prove not to be Jesus.

I was aching everywhere after ten minutes. To make a long and embarrasing story short(ish): Wilbert pushed me back to our starting point and I enjoyed my hot chocolate and view of proper Dutch people for the rest of the day.

The day befoe I left, so last Thursday we went out again to skate near my moms house. This time I actually enjoyed the proper skating and the beautiful surroundings (I taped my ankles to keep them from spraining 300 times a minute) so YAY! Proper skating can now be ticked off my 'To do once in your life' list.

Now to get back to the Journey of all Journeys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht

The last time this Journey of eleven Dutch cities, a skating marathon of 200 kilometers, was ridden was twelve years ago. The name of the winner of this race is remembered by all Dutchman. It is such a rare occurance that everyone looks forward to it with wild anticipation as soon as the thermometer hits -1.

Last week the Dutch championships have already been ridden. One hundred kilometers on natural ice. Men with frozen eyebrows drudge through dense mist to claim a title that might land them another twelve years of fame. The whole country goes insane. Maybe soon they will experience the Journey of all Journeys again.... Even my proper Dutch heart skips a beat.

For more wintery pictures see:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57860&l=5536e&id=565292619

Weekend with Wilbert

Hurray! Finally I got to show Wilbert where I live, where I go to class, to study, to shop, to drink beer, etc etc.

We speak (almost) every day on msn or skype but still it was weird that he did not have an actual idea of what it looks like around here. And so I was very happy that he came to spend a weekend with me (next to all the more obvious reasons of why you would want to see your boyfriend).
He arrived one day after our one Year aniversary (aaaaaw), I went to pick him up at Edinburgh airport. After having a very festive Toad in the Hole (for the neccesary cultural education) we spent the night on the Royal Mile.

Visiting Edinburgh castle is an experience...First you have to stand in line for about an hour and pay an obscene amount of money. But then the fun begins. The views from the castle are great and the amount of stuff that is there to see is enormous. We ended up seing two of the museums and the chapel and walking up and down the hills 300 times (it was FREEZING, but fortunately the hillsides weren't iced over) and then all of a sudden 3 hours had gone.

After picking up our bags we took the train up to Glasgow. That was actually the first time I took the train here (I went by bus on the way there) and it was quite good :) Nice hilly countryside passing by and the smell of chips and vinegar in the air. And it takes you only 45 minutes by train to go from Glasgow to Edinburgh.

The next two days I tried to show him everything I know about the city, mostly in the West End and the city centre. Luckily we didn't have much rain althoug it was pretty cold at times.

In the West End we spent some time in the Botanics (I hadn't been ín the glass houses before...althoug walk past them almost daily) and at the Hunterian museum in the Uni. As expected Wilbert was most impressed by the University (en terecht..) and said he 'wouldn't mind studying here', hihi.

On Saturday we had dinner at Annemieke's house. It was nice for Wilbert to meet them, since they are sort of my 'home-base' here.

When walking around the city centre we ended up in a little Christmas market with stalls where they sell mulled wine and bratwurst and that sort of stuff. I said 'if they would sell poffertjes here, I would definitely get them...' With the idea, of course, that they really wouldn't be selling poffertjes on a Christmas market in Glasgow. We seriously take two steps after I said this and we see a stall where they are selling 'traditional Dutch tiny pancakes' and belgian waffles.

WHAT? That was just very weird... Of couse I had to buy them, because of what I'd said before.

We end up talking to the lady that makes them, first in english then, after we realise we are all Dutch, in Dutch. She asks us if we are on holiday and I tell her I live here, after which she immediately offers me a job! Since I'm going home for Christmas and have an essay to turn in this week, I don't think I'll go back there to help her, although she did offer me unlimited poffertjes....hmmm.

We also visited the People's palace, which was new for me (and not extremely interesting) and Wilbert met some of my friends when we went to Waxy O'Connor's on Sunday evening. On Monday we did some serious shopping and started to get a bit depressed about the next day, when he was leaving again... So Tuesday duly sucked because of that. I had class so I couldn't take him to Edinburgh. I could bring him to Queen street station in Glasgow and then take the subway back up to class.

Truly a sucky day. Anyway, we had a lot of fun that weekend. I am so happy that it wasn't weird to have him here and that the only 'not so nice' thing was that he eventually had to leave again. No worries though, I'm still having fun here and enjoying (most of) it.

In the last couple of days some things in my course fell apart, with my head professor telling us he is leaving in February (excuse me???). The crisis is averted a bit after having a meeting with him yesterday. I'll keep you posted. The talk of going home earlier than expected has died down a bit, although I was quite close in the last couple of days.

Guiness.....ew. :)

Bridal weekend

Shopping for a wedding dress is FUN!

My mom and her best friend came over to stay with Annemieke so we could spend a whole weekend shopping for a wedding dress. Not for me obviously (though sometimes the 'little girl' side of my brain took over) but for my mother who is getting married on the 21 of March.

The weekend was so much fun. We didn't end up actually buying a dress, but at least my mom hs an idea now of what she wants. Most of the weekend was spent talking and eating, which is always good if you ask me.

I'm uploading some pictures here to illustrate the general happiness and fun times we had. I still have some weekends to cover in this blog ánd I have an essay to turn in next week, so no big blogging shall be done (probably...although procrastination is always around the corner..) until after the 16th, when I will be in Holland for Christmas! Yay!

So some pictures and tiny stories will have to do for now!

The infamous Sub-Pub-Crawl

Met Karen en Marieke na de schotse pizza :)

Zie het voor je:

Éen metrolijn, vijftien metrostations, dus vijftien pubs, één middag.

De metro hier houdt er om 11 uur mee op, dus als je een metro kroegentocht wilt kunnen afmaken moet je om 2 uur smiddags beginnen.

Op zich al bizar om te bedenken dat íeder metro station, of ie nou in een woonwijk of naast een snelweg ligt, hier binnen 100 meter een pub heeft...Britten.

De regels zijn simpel (en toch erg ingewikkeld soms):
* In iedere pub moet je een alcoholische drank tot je nemen.
* In de metro mag je niet zitten en niets vasthouden behalve de mensen met wie je op de crawl bent.

Variaties hierop zijn: deze metro rit op één been, of hangend aan de stang zonder dat je voeten de grond raken.

Topdag.

Mijn Finse vriendinnetje Meri was jarig, dus dat was een goede reden om ons met 15 mensen op 15 pubs te storten. Ik had me voorgenomen een 'paar' pubs mee te gaan en me daarna weer op mijn essay te storten. Na 9 pubs heb ik het opgegeven en zijn Karen en haar vriendin die over was, Marieke, gaan eten bij een italiaans restaurant in de stad.

Er zijn véél foto's gemaakt die dag. Niet met mijn camera though, dus ik steel van anderen :)

Just hangin' on the subway...

Ibrox stadium bar

Met Fredrik en Abby. (Abby! You're in my blog! Hullo! :P)
And yes I stole your pictures...if only because they're hilarious. Didn't take the worst ones though :)

Jarige Meri en Abby