The Turkish restaurant

We went out for dinner tonight at this really nice Turkish restaurant. They surprised me with lovely Turkish food and I am already looking forward to going back here!

Sinterklaas dinner

When I left work to go home there were snow clouds coming in. It looked apocalyptic I think.
The crane ship is still up in the air.

The light was pretty.

It was getting darker very fast.

I took a train to Alkmaar to meet my family for Sinterklaas dinner. We went to some place called "Wereldwijd". You pay a fixed amount and then you can eat AND drink all you want for 2 hours. But after 2 hours you gotta be gone or pay extra for every 30 minutes you stay longer.

The concept is fun and the place looks nice but it's mostly buffet eating except for the fish and meat. They cook that on a grill for you. The quality of the food wasn't great. Particularly the chicken sateh tasted like it had been lying in the sun for a few days and it was covered in a very watery, tasteless sateh sauce.
But I had a very fun evening and it was really nice to eat together with my family which was the most important bit for me anyway so I'm happy :-)

Ilse and Cassie standing in the snow that had appeared while we were eating.

The Alkmaar visit

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So today was supposed to be the end of the world once again. But once again it wasn't. This postcard from 1910 explains how it would probably be a good idea to all go to the moon in a zeppelin incase the earth is about to magically end it's existence...

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My dad's collectors club had it's 75th anniversary today and he and some other made a few displays for this. My dad's been collecting stamps since childhood.

There was also an area to swap or buy.

Marjolein came with me today (made first contact with the family which went very well! ;-). My mom dropped us of in the city of Alkmaar where we both hadn't been for ages. It was close to my old primary school so I went to have a look.

I was in those class rooms when I was a little boy.

I knocked a girls' tooth out here once. Can't remember why but I do remember her name was Danielle and she was 2 years older than me.

Bye, little old school!

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We crossed the old bridge in to the old part of town.

And then had ice cream from ijssalon Laan. It's the best ice cream in The NL that I know of.

In the evening, Marjolein and I were very lucky to get a table at the Scottish Hielander restaurant in Alkmaar.

They have 700!!! whiskeys in stock. That takes up a lot of room so they're spread all over the restaurant.

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Yours truly and Marjolein at our little table.

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We trained back to Amsterdam to go to Mulligans where we had 1 drink and then left because it was too warm, too noisy and too crowded. So we had a walk through town instead and sat for a moment at my favourite fountain.

Nick the Greek

Victoria square towards the South.

Victoria square towards the North.

Fully intentionally we ended up at Henley beach after work.

And fully intentionally we ended up a a fantastic Greek restaurant we been to 7 years ago on our first holiday here. They impressed us again.

We have sun

Guess...

Someone dumped 500 kilos of bread in the park. I think all the pigeons in 1 square mile must have come over for the party.

Speaking of pigeons, the one featured in yesterday's blog got buried at the crack of dawn today. It indeed died before we went to bed last night, in peace, under the tree.

For some reason there were TV crews around the place. This one is from ABC.

It may have had to do with this bunch of people. I have no idea what it was about. I heard something about poverty...

After work I waited for Nicole outside at Victoria square and spotted another one of her ads driving past.

We drove down to Henley beach to get some Thai food.

The ground floor of the building in the distance houses the Thai Orchid, our new favourite Thai restaurant as of late.

This is the view from there.

After dinner we walked up the jetty and we saw this dude going for a swim with his two dogs.

The beach was actually quite busy. Funnily enough I was saying to a colleague this afternoon how few people there are at the beaches here usually. I think this is the second time I jinxed myself this week.

Looking down the jetty.

Looking to the North.

Sunset.

The railing of the jetty is worn by ropes from fishermen pulling in their crab nets.

The flower man

Remember the blog entry of a few days ago where we had that fog in the morning?

This photo was taken from the hills (source unknown). It's so cool I didn't want to waste it.

From 9AM till 2PM I worked on the roofs for the bird cages. Pretty boy Mason was keeping me company.

I made two of these frames to put on top of each cage. Hopefully tomorrow I can dedicated an entire entry to this on my Creative blog. They still have to be painted.

In the evening we went out with a bunch of friends. We went to another Indian restaurant. In North Adelaide this time. I started off with Samosas!

The place was very full, very (over) crowded and very (too) noisy which was a pity because I was not able to understand certain people.

And guess what the cat dragged in? A FLOWER SALES MAN! Before this guy there was actually ALSO a guy who offered to take a photo. We thought we had left those behind in A'dam...

How to look cool on your bicycle

We pass this dude almost every morning. There are no normal people with bicycles here, only funny ones.

In the evening we magically ended up at a Greek place where I ate very nice salmon fillets. Lovely people. Bit pricey though.

All alone.

A day alone at the office, step one: Check for cold beer.

A day alone at the office, step two: Turn on radio to prevent from going nuts in silence. (Thanks for the radio Karin ;-)

My plant is doing well.

Coffee during the morning.

For lunch I made a fruit salad with the fruit that was left.

In the morning I got a phonecall: "We're delivering the desks you ordered today"..... OK.

Naturally they were delivered while I was having lunch. Delivery guy phoned first to ask for help. Sure let me fetch you one of my colleagues. Oh, right, I'm alone.

At least it only took us 15 minutes to get the stuff up to our office.

Hmmmmmmm.

Really I only ate two chocolate bars today. In the evening it was Thai time at Lemon Grass.