Thousandapologies

Thanks to Tally…

This year carnaval was a little bit more quiet than previous years; instead of going the usual four days and staying till 4 in the morning, I went three days and arrived home more earlier. Still, it was a most enjoyable time. Especially, our participation in a parade was a lot of fun, more than I expected. Also because we had such a lovely group. This was the first time I particated in a parade, and I think our theme of the traffic jams on our local highway was a nice one, and the costumes were lovely done. As you can see on the picture below, I ended up walking the parade with a stag’s head in front of me, quite useful for getting people out of the way I must confess

For the first time in around a decade, we seem to have something that resembles a real winter in the NL. Temperatures are well below zero, and everything’s covered with snow, looking beautifully and more important a lot more cheerfully than the normal dreaded rainy winters we so often have. Yesterday, we went for a nice stroll through the Terworm area, with this nice snapshot as a result (taken with my phone’s camera, so please bear with me).

Well, it’s already more than a week since we have back, so I figured I owed you a wee update. Winterschool 2008 went by just too fast; The Namesake, Ali Nadeem, the Skippyboy, Blondie, and I all had a great time there. Unfortunately, this year’s programme didn’t contain that much relevant information for me, and while I also feel some parts could be improved (for example the overcrowded schedule), I still look back with many happy feelings to the week spent in Innsbruck. Again it was a week of getting to know people in the field of e-learning and meeting again with people we met earlier at the previous Winterschool or Summerschool; luckily most of the people were splendid company, which we also noticed at the Wednesday, when we formed bonds sledging down a mountain and on Thursday, going into Innsbruck for the evening for a jolly night full of laughter, pints of vitamine G, and crappy pizza’s. It seems to me that these events were even most important, because these are were real contacts are made; first getting to know each other personally, can lead to lasting contacts and maybe even joint work in a later period. Apart from this, I think for me, the very last lecture, given by Scott Wilson about Notification/Awareness systems and OpenId, was most useful and interesting. Luckily, this year we did not have to drive back all the way from Innsbruck and the plain ride was far more relaxed than the twelve and a half hour journey(inclusive two hours of traffic jam in the middle of nowhere) back then.

Finally, I do not want you to miss the Namesake’s account of my great sledging skills, which resulted in the two of us almost dying, me from almost hitting a tree, and him from sheer laughter, so here we go:

Wednesday and what a day! I almost never have laughed so hard, or have been scared for my life! This of course alludes to the sledding day! The Namesake, I, Danish and Enrique forged a bond of men, as we sledded down the DEEP incline! Of course nothing comes easy and there were mistakes a plenty, one of which had the Namesake hurtling down the mountain his arms flailing, him shouting “oh f*ck” as he hurtled with the help of good ol Newton, on his sled. I doubled and nearly fell down, laughing my ass off. Till now that memory of the Namesake flailing around as he hurtled half-way down the mountain, really makes me laugh my butt off. Well done m8! [from: http://tim.sodhis.net/2008/02/24/back-from-innsbruck/ ]

Carneval 2008 just went by too fast…maybe also because it was already so early in the season…when I really started getting in my yearly carneval mood it was already Tuesday and hence carneval was already over. I had a great time though with my good friends Rob, Stephan and Olivia. The first day, Saturday in Voerendaal is always awesome, also because then we’re always with a nice group of amazing people. Sunday, we watched the parade in Heerlen, started at around two in the afternoon and ended around the same time in the night. Monday it was time for the Rosenmontagzug in Aachen, although still fine, it did not last as long as last year, maybe also because it was very cold and a rainy day. Moreover, Stephan totally freaked out over the aggressively flirting German women, and asked me to protect him from them. The day after it was the big parade in my home town, one of the last in our province and therefore always a big one, because all carneval addicts from other towns want to walk one last parade…again this year it was beautiful…although it was really cold and Rob, his cousin and I were already soon found in the warmth of a local pub. Anyway, check out my Flickr page for some nice pics of the parade:

http://flickr.com/photos/78327945@N00

Upon entering the train, a weird oily smell came floating towards us…I wondered what might be the cause, but it was a smell that went through everything. Weird enough, the train was not warm at all, although the day started already very hot and temperatures were well over 30 degrees Celcius. Soon enough we found out, because in Italy there must be a weird relationship between temperature and train speed; the hotter it is, the faster you go and with wide-open windows therefore the train cools down. However, at the next train station we found out where the weird smell was coming from: the breaks. Luckily, they did not break (pun not intented) down entirely and one and a half hours later we arrived safely in beautiful Firenze.

Next job: trying to find our hotel, which turned out to be quite an endeavour. We did not find a map, and the maps we had did not show the streetname we were looking for, Via dei Medici. We asked a person working for tourist information, but the answer we got was not clearly understandable, so next we found us some British tourists with a huge map but clearly no idea about how to use it (never heard of a register ). Luckily, Rob was quick enough to find the street, and surprise surprise it was only 50m from the Firenze Duomo…in the middle of Firenze. After that, we found the hotel quite fast and were told to certainly go and check the roof terrace, because it had such a beautiful view. And indeed it had, we immediately knew we would spend a lot of time there. Here’s a picture for you all to see the beautiful panorama we had when enjoying our Italian beer, baguettes and Salami (lunch).

Read more…

Short Version: lots of beautiful scenery, churches, renaissance, roman culture, expensive dinners, beautiful women, art, gelateria (ice cream shops ), an overdose of Americans and Dutchmen, beer, vino, knoore, pannekoeke, sjeel gezeever, one beautiful opera, warm weather and finally beautiful women (did I say lots of them?) For the long version read on…

On Sunday 30th of September Rob, D’r Lange (Ramon my Brother) and I started our journey towards Italy from Eindhoven airport after a journey by train without events. We left with Ryan Air at 14:55 and arrived two hours later in Pisa. Much to our surprise, our coats, brought from the chilly Netherlands, were definitely not needed since the temperature was around 25-29 degrees Celcius, hence beautiful weather Of course, travelling with my good friend Rob, I expected him to get into trouble one way or the other (after two holidays with him already, I ‘m already experienced in this kind of stuff and know I should really watch after him)…However, I did not expect him to get into trouble already 5 minutes after we’ve landed. Rob, always curious, decided he wanted to have a closer look at an airplane engine because according to him “he never seen one so close”, much to the dislike of the Italian air stewards. So after hearing some shouting and swearing in Italian, I turned around and was already expecting the cause of it…and yes I was right

Luckily, Rob was not in big trouble and we could continue our journey into the centre of Pisa, we decided to get off the bus at the main train station, Pisa Hauptbahnhof so to say and try to figure out where the hell our hotel was located…it should be near the train station they said…after asking around a bit we took another bus that delivered us somewhere at the boundary of Pisa to Hotel Bonnano, to our nice surprise a four star Hotel with nice rooms, satellite tv (mainly italian and arab…) and a mini bar I think this was the best hotel we had during the holidays. And yes, it was indeed near a train station but not near the central station, it took us another day to find out. After getting refreshed we decided to have a quick reconnaissance of the city/town and after a fifteen minute arrived at Piazza Maccaroni, err Miracoli which has about all the things worth seeing in Pisa, the tower and a beautiful cathedral, see the picture below. Since we hadn’t eaten in quite some time, we soon decided, after the usual amount of sight seeing, to get a pizza and some beer somewhere.

Next day, we went to beautiful Lucca. Last time when I visited Toscany I did not have chance to visit this town but heard it was definitely worth the visit, and so it was! Lucca is a small city, not as impressive as Firenze (Florence) or Roma but with a lot of character, a nice ambience so to say. For example it has a beautiful cathedral, a tower with trees growing on top of it, a typically styled bell tower and lots of little squares with nicely coloured buildings that are connected by small alley ways. This gives the town a rustic kind of feeling and I could not help but feel at home there, it reminded me of a town like Valkenburg here in Limburg. On other curiosity of Lucca is that it has a Piazza (square) that has been build on top of the remnants of a Roman theatre, which gives the square the typical shape of an ellipse. Unfortunately, nothing could be seen of the old Roman history, which for me is one of the most impressive aspects of Italy; the remainders of a more than two-thousand year old civilisation which are still so visible today.

The third day of our holiday in Italy, we’ve left Pisa for the second big part of our journey, bella Firenze! After leaving our hotel we first decided to head again for Piazza Miracoli for a visit to the cathedral, which we saw only from the outside. I’m lucky we made that choice, because the inside of the cathedral was amongst the most beautiful I saw in Italy. In total Pisa can be visited and seen in about two hours, and while it’s definitely worth the visit, I would advise you, would you want to visit Toscany, to get a hotel somewhere else if only for a somewhat bigger night life. I think we spent nearly two hours at Pisa’s biggest square before deciding to pick up our luggage at our hotel and head for Firenze… something that will be left for the next post….

What a quiet but nice weekend it was; Friday evening one of sheer relaxation while Saturday the Namesake called up to have a movie night. Joined by a bagpack full of “munchies” (chips, japanese mix, etc.) I arrived at around 21:15, at which we immediately started examining the Namesake’s collection of mostly Belgian beers (strong beers!). Also the Namesake had two incredible “Friday night” movies saved especially for the occasion; Spiderman 2 and Spiderman 3. Well at first we thought it would be a grand movie night but unfortunately especially part two was quite a dissapointment; I think there could be only two ways of the movie being worse: (1) scrapping Kirsten Dunst from the cast and (2) adding Jean-Claude Van Damme Anyway, the beer already started to work, so the Namesake and I had the greatest amount of fun, even with a bad movie, I think we do not need much for that. As soon as, the movie started there was a Chinese woman playing the SpiderPig song, with different lyrics though, and I couldn’t keep myself from correcting her mistakes and singing “Spider Pig, Spider Pig”. After that it got even worse Luckily, Spiderman 3 was a bit better. Anyway, most important part is we had fun and it was an evening well spent! So off to next weekend and a new movie night

Last Friday, Anke held here farewell party at the pub as she’s leaving for South Africa on Tuesday 28th of August. She will be doing a half year internship there and from what I’ve heard I think it’ll be a worthwhile experience. It’s a pity though we need to miss her charming presence for quite some months.

We first met Anke, I think some six or seven years ago, in the days the old pub Sally o’ Briens was still around in Heerlen and we just started visiting it. One time suddenly a shy waitress had shown up, that really did not know how to deal with our group at first, but later became part of it. I think it must have been Christian that first got her to laugh at that crazy ensemble that was having the most enjoyful time there almost every Friday and Saturday. While the rest of us was also a bit shy like Anke, or a bit aloof maybe, Christian was mostly the one getting us in touch with strangers with some weird joke, then bursting in to a very contagious laugh, which made our whole group burst in to laugher too. This would mostly result in one of two actions: (1) the person was scared away and ran to the other end of the pub, never speaking to us again, or (2) the person started to laugh and we had another friend joining the club.

Obviously, Anke was one person in the last category, and what had started from a first shy encounter now has grown into a lasting friendship. Already, we had many laughs together… For example, that time she started talking Frysian, when the lot of us, including her, had too much to drink, because the wodka cola had been very cheap that evening. Or that other night, that we were kicked out at around 4.30, when the pub already had been closed for more than one and a half hour, and we had been playing guitar and singing with our heroes, the old firm…

Then, unfortunately, after the old pub was closed, we lost contact for quite a while, but after a new pub appeared, of which we are now regular customers, she started to work there and again joined the club. It was/is great to see that familiar smile welcoming us every night we visit the pub; certainly something I’ll miss this coming half year. But, if you read this lass, I hope you have a great time in South Africa, and come back safely with a lot of beautiful memories… For those who are interested to keep updated about her adventures there, I added her blog to my blogroll, so go on and pay it a visit!

First, you start a blog, expecting not too much people to read it, next, after three months you have already 1400 hits and after that…people start to complain when you’re not updating regularly or ask for specific film reviews Even this afternoon I was virtually bitchslapped by Till because I did not write a post in a week That’s just great, keep me at it, I say…so here we go for another story….

Last weekend was unfortunately the last weekend of my holidays, so I had to spend it well. Friday afternoon, the weekend already started in all its glory when visiting my vikingbrother Stephan. After a long time we decided it was time for another of our legendary jam sessions…one of those that eventually led to the infamous, if you want to call it a band you have my blessing, Shagwell. It already started of well by Stephan asking me to accompany him to the local Aldi to get some beer and coke (the black, drinkable stuff; some of you might have wrong impressions of the Netherlands). After that I think we spend about two hours of jamming, which was fun as always…but then…

Something called… Beerfest.

It was not us inventing some new drinking game….no not even us organising an early version of the october fests (very early)…it’s a film…one…I cannot even remember the story of in my current soberness, maybe I should start drinking again to remember…but for now, I’ll try to give you at least an impression of what the film was like… Stephan had already told me, the reason we had to get new beer, was because he and his girlfriend Olivia had drank all the beer the last time they had watched the movie; at that moment they just had bought new beer…Anyway, I thought it couldn’t be that bad and just started watching with Stephan.

It was some story about two American dudez which for some unobvious reason had to bring their grandpa’s ashes to München at the time of the October fests. In München they end up in a fest within a fest called beerfest, which is only for true alcoholics. Discovered they do not belong there, they get humiliated and lose all the beergames, at which point they have to return to the States. There they decide that they have to compose their own beerfest team and compete again. That’s about all there is to the story…and yes, when sober it sounds stupid…but watching this movie, it’s impossible to stay just that, sober…immediately at the start you feel the urge to join in the beerfest and drink way too much…and that’s what we did and it is major fun too; till I had to ride my bike home Oh, and please do not stay sober watching this movie, I warn you, if so, you won’t appreciate the (ahum!) story…

But beerfest was not the only thing I did during the weekend….On Saturday I finally visited my cousin in Eindhoven, whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time now. Visiting him is always a lot of fun because the two of us just share a lot of interests and in my opinion have similar characters. After a one hour train ride I arrived in Eindhoven to be picked up my cousin and after some little snack we directly went to a terrace catching up on stories and social drinking. I, of course, had to demonstrate my (now not so) new camera to my cousin who also loves photography, more even, his pictures are just beautiful. Still catching up, our next stop was the local pool centre, where we discovered we had even more in common; we both majorly suck at pool, now even my tactics (mo & mik, Ancona, 2007) failed in getting me to win, and we soon decided to move on to the local cinema, to go and watch Transformers…

Yeah I know…Transformers….but let me explain…if you were raised, like me, in the 80s, it’s just pure nostalgia; and in what other movie can you see cars that magically turn into oversized robots that never fit into the original size of those cars…Exactly…And, far more important, it’s the perfect Friday night movie, even though we watched it on a Saturday night…You know, when you come home dead tired on a Friday evening and just want to watch something you do not need to think about. It’s like those Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, but then way better, because Jean-Claude isn’t in it…Also it contains nice babes…And! you can still follow it in Saturday evening condition…what more do you want? Oh, and the special effects are great

Still here? I just told you about my admiration for Transformers….sure you do not want to leave? Ok, then I’ll just tell you shortly about the rest of the weekend, which most of all contained a lot of chicken, of the grilled kind….just lovely, when arriving at my cousin’s appartement, we did just did that, eat a lot of chicken, played a bit of chess, watched another movie and that’s about it. Next day, more chicken, more chess, more catching up and just relaxing on his balcony…perfect end of a holiday isn’t it? Arriving home at about five, there was something else I did….

I did not go to the music festival Booch? And I did not join my friends there; and was almost lynched….they even sang spiderpig onto my voicemail Also I was called a couple of times by different friends wanting me to join and some even tried to bribe me with little pancakes (poffertjes in Dutch)…they did almost succeed… but I am a sissy, I was just too tired and had to work the next day. Luckily, they forgave me and after a while they called me to let me at least enjoy a little bit of Gabriel Rios….so that was it again…I’ll try to update again as soon as possible, maybe even tell you about the cruelty of Italian women, but please do not virtually bitchslap me again…