April

Loads of stuff happened in April so that's what this post will be about hehe. First of all I have booked almost all of my trip in Oz, only the last three days I am still in need of a hostel, but I will arrange that when I'm in Hobart. Everything else is setlled and I have made a lovely schedule for myself with day to day events :D It's also only 59 days until take off, which scares me as well, cause there is a load workwise that needs to be done before I can head off. Exciting... Also had my yearly talk with my boss about my performance at work and he said he was happy with me, made some suggestions to delegate some of the annoying work AND gives me an increase in salary after I finish my PMD programme. Woehoe!

Back to chronological order: First weekend of April Japke came over and we had a lovely time. First relaxing and chatting away on Friday evening, heading into town on Saturday and since it was museumweekend and lots of museums were open for free, we headed to the Dolhuys, the national psychiatry museum. Great museum, very good exhibitions: interactive and giving a good inside into the history of psychiatry and what people thaught to be 'normal' through time. Definitely something to visit when in Haarlem. Since we walked for ages we had a quiet evening at home (I fell asleep on the couch watching a detective, ahum) and on Sunday we headed to Zandvoort: Everywhere the weather was lovely, exept near the beach haha. A thick fog coming from the sea covered it all..... well it gives a mysterious effect ;)

The next weekend it was Easter which meant my parents were going to Terschelling (their little cottage at Terschelling) and my brother and I were at the farm for the weekend. My brother doing most of the work, I only do the little ones, housechores and stuff like mowing the lawn. It was nice, everybody had fun, the weather was beautiful and all went well.

The weekend after that it was finally time to see Racoon with Monique. Ofcourse we had dinner first at my place and then headed to Patronaat. The concert was really nice and I would love to go to Patronaat again: it's a nice location, just 15 min on the bike, good sound, nice ambiance etc. On Saturday I went to Burgers Zoo in Arnhem with friends I met in highschool. Ofcourse we forgot to make a grouppicture, but there were loads of animal pictures: As you see, the weather was brilliant (almost all of April consisted of warm sunny days.... lovely).

Last weekend I headed to Groningen, to meet up with Karlijn and go to the hairdresser and since the weather was so nice we had to have a white beer at the terrace in front of a cafe near one of the canals. Marieke joint us and the three of us worked on our tan while enjoying a beer/rose whine and chatted the afternoon away. In the evening Marieke and I went to Delfzijl to see Voice Male, an a cappella group consisting of 6 men. Again a lovely evening, brilliant music (I never heard of them before, but Marieke already had, and I have to say: she has good taste).

And so we end up this week. Since it was Queensday on Thursday and we have Labourday (May 1st) and Liberation Day (May 5th) off at work, I also took the 4th of May off, so it's six days of freedom for me :D

Queensday started happy and sunny, I biked around town to get a feel of the atmoshpere (way too busy for me, so just a quick round on the bike), but when I headed home and put on the tv there was some terrible news: an idiot tried to attack the royal family in Apeldoorn with his car, killing and injuring lots of innocent people standing along the route. Unbelievable! Well he is dead too, so he got his punishment, but still. They still don't know why he did it, but it has made a huge impact on everybody in the Netherlands. There will be a remembrance service on the 8th of May.

Yesterday I headed into town and bought some stuff, cleaned the house and relaxed. This morning I did a 2 hour biketour and now updating the blog. Just a few pictures of this morning (yes the surroundings of Haarlem are beautiful, not just the dunes and beach):

The very first little duckies I saw this year. They can't be older than a few days. How cute! A piece of art somewhere along a cycle track and one of the little tracks through the forest.