Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Queens day bicycle ride.

Check out the hood above the door. It's windows from a boat that they have "re-used". Clever I must admit :-)

Today is Queens day. On this day, a shit load of people from outside of Amsterdam come here to party. And to vomit. And pee. And spit. And leave an amount of rubbish that takes days to be cleaned up by shifts working 24 hours a day total... I've enjoyed it many years and this year I just didn't want anything to do with it. For some reason I am totally fed-up with seeing drunk people messing up the city I live in.
So I went to Marjolein and we cycled in to the dunes.

We saw birds.

And dunes.

A small lake.

A little bird-spotting house next to the lake.

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The best animal we saw today was a blind-worm. Absolutely beautiful animal. It's actually a kind of lizard!

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Then we came across a castle! And because it was queens day there were hardly any other visitors. Great opportunity to see this place. It is castle Brederode.

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Some crazy woman was waving to me while I took a picture... ;-)

View from one of the remaining rooms. It's surprising how well restored this building is. You can get a really good feel of what it must've looked like.

The last animals we saw were these Canadian Geese with 4 little ones.

Friday, April 29, 2011

The plants

I am looking after my colleague Paul's 2 plants for about a week so I brought them up to my desk. The air is a LOT fresher in my office.

Tomorrow it's queens day. The first orange was spotted in the tram. 800,000 to a million people will visit Amsterdam tomorrow. I will be leaving town for most of the weekend as I'm not up for it this year. I will be going to Marjolein and we're off to the dunes on bicycles where it is peaceful and quiet. Yeah, I'm getting old ;-P

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The duckies

Construction on the way to work. The people in the apartments behind it will love them for blocking their view.

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In front of the IJ-kantine a mother duck is teaching her little ones how to swim etc. She's been there all week.

A little crane truck.

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In the evening Marjolein and I were going to a meeting where a speaker would talk about worm holes. Unfortunately when we got there everything was closed. Somewhere something was not quite as expected. Anyway, we then walked to one of Marjolein's favourite spots in the dunes where we saw a really nice sunset, and also wild deer!

Then we missed the bus by a few minutes and had to wait 40 minutes. At least we were entertained by the police doing a speed-check. The best thing was when an officer stopped a car he thought was speeding to which his colleague replied "ehm no, it was the other car". The officer then said to the accidentally stopped driver "Oh well, you're here now anyway, let's do an alcohol test!". Well, at least i thought it was funny...

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The concert

The trees in my street (and in other large parts of the city) are dropping seeds. It's a right mess out there!

Work-fridge.

Gerrit, Ruud and Marjolein. We went to see the band "The golden earring" tonight. They're old and had hits like "Radar love", "When the lady smiles" and "Another 45 miles to go".

The show was very good and I am happy I have seen them live before they retire.

Marjolein and I had to wait for her train and we went to get a coffee at Starbucks at the station.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Visit from Martje

Our office was under attack from gigantic aliens!

I had dinner with Martje tonight which was fun. We exchanged stories about our psychologist ;-)

Monday, April 25, 2011

The stork

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When I came home yesterday it was dark and I could not clearly see what the squatters next door had been up to. Today I could. A bit of communication would've been nice but I have to say that this view is better than the blue screen I've had until now.

The blue screen however has been put right next to my 10 square metres of back yard with which I am not thrilled. So I had a little chat with the lad and he assured me his intention is to remove it soon.
I told him I don't want a pile of rubbish next to my yard...

This morning they continued working on their part and they had to put their shit in my yard for that, which was fine. They've put it back now.

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Marjolein, Gerrit and myself went to a park in the afternoon to enjoy the sun. I took a few bottles and snacks and that was that. We had a very nice time.

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For the first time in my life I saw a stork on a nest.

Late arvo we had some dinner in town.

Gerrit went home after dinner and Marjolein and I went to see a movie. It's entertaining but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it if I were you. It helps if you're a bit sleepy and tired. There is ZERO action in this movie...

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Zz

Ehm... where did the Tesla go that is usually parked here, at the end of my street? The brand of this car is "ZZ"...

Today I took the train to Alkmaar to meet the folks for Easter.

Good opportunity to do some computer maintenance.

We sat in the garden all day long, the weather was amazing.

My mom cooked some simple but good food, I liked it a lot.

My dad is preparing stuff for an exhibition of his (stamp) collectors club.