GV's Adventures

Ayurvedic Wellness Trip to Bad Schandau, Germany

2011-03-13T10:51:00.009+01:00

Initially we weren't planning to go on vacation this year, as we thought we'd be busy moving house. But since it looks like our house won't be sold any time soon, we decided to go on vacation after all. Both of us were longing for quiet and relaxation so a wellness vacation sounded like an excellent plan! Via de wellness travel organisation Puur & Kuur we found a really good offer for an Ayurvedic Wellness retreat near Dresden, Germany.

We arrived in the hotel Elbresidenz on Monday 7 March, where we had to wait about 10 minutes for our room to be ready. The hotel is a composition of several buildings and contains both a regular spa as the Ayurvedic Viva Vital health center. Our room was quite nice, clean and well maintained. We were just a little disappointed that we didn't have a bathtub. The hotel itself is a bit of a maze at times, because of the way the different buildings are joined together. We then went off to the (regular) spa, with the Aurora swimmingpool, saunas, solarium and wellness center. Here I asked for a head/neck massage and was lucky enough that somebody was available. Good start of our vacation!

The Ayurvedic retreat is half board, so it includes dinner and breakfast. There are two types of Half Board at this hotel, the regular one and the Ayurvedic one. The first evening there was a little confusion among the staff as to which of the 3 restaurants was expecting us. When we finally found our table we were introduced to Ginger Water, a warm glass of water with pieces of ginger in it. This supposedly is good for your immune system. We also were served our first Ayurvedic dinner of the week. The dinners consisted mostly of: a salad as a starter, a soup, a curry dish, and a fruit platter for dessert.

Tuesday we had our first Ayurvedic treatments scheduled. The Ayurvedic center at this hotel is connect to the Siddhalepa Ayurvedic resort in Sri Lanka. We both started with a consultation with the Ayurvedic doctor to determine our "dosha" and based on that get nutrition advice and compose our meals for the rest of the week. After this we enjoyed a nice, relaxing head massage. The head massage was comparable to the kind of massage some hair dressers give you, except that this was combined with some warm oil which was poured over the head.

After the massage and much needed hair wash we went into the town of Bad Schandau for lunch and to visit the Tourist Information to determine what else we wanted to do/see while there. At the Tourist Information we purchased tickets for the amazingly cheap price of 15 euro in total that would cover the return fare for both ferry and train to Dresden for both of us! Back at the hotel after spending some time in the spa it was time for dinner. This time we were not only served the ginger water, but also special elixirs and teas, as determined by our "dosha" analysis earlier in the day. The elixirs had to be taken before dinner and before breakfast. They weren't very tasty, but we decided to go along with it and give it a try.

Wednesday was our "Dresden" day. First breakfast! The Ayurvedic guests have a special breakfast menu they can order from, next to chosing whatever you want from the extensive buffet. Unfortunately the chef was just taking a break when we wanted to order, so we had to miss out on the specialty this morning as we wanted to get to Dresden on time! After breakfast we took the small ferry across the Elbe to get to the Bad Schandau railway station. From there we got onto the train to Dresden where we arrived just before 10am. We walked from the main railway station through the Altstadt to the river Elbe. Dresden really is a very beautiful city, with some magnificent buildings! We were both very tired though, you know, the kind of tiredness you feel when you finally let go off build up stress and tensions! So rather than continueing on foot we decided to take the Stadtrundfahrt guided tour by bus. This tour isn't cheap (20 euro per person) but it gives a good insight into Dresden and its history. There are 22 stops and you can hop on/off unlimited for 1 day. After the tour we had lunch outside in the sun before heading back to the hotel and spa for some relaxation.

Unfortunately Roy had by now developed a really bad cold and wasn't feeling very well. He also decided to stop with the Ayurvedic ginger water and elixirs and some of the teas. At the same time I was feeling very good and really noticed the stress and tensions leaving my body, so I continued with the supplements.

Thursday was another relaxation day, with a full body massage and herbal steam bath. The massage was very nice and very oily :-) After the massage I was led to another room for the steam bath. This wasn't as I expected a bathtub, but a wooden capsule where you lie down on a wooden raster and a wooden capsule closes above you. Through the raster the steam rises up. Your head sticks out of the capsule, so it's only your body that is being 'steamed'. Very, very nice! After this we had lunch in one of the hotel restaurants before heading back to the spa for more relaxation, followed by dinner.

Friday we wanted to see more of the environment, specifically of the National Park Sachsischer Schweiz (Saxony Switzerland). There is a historic tram, the Kirnitzschtal Bahn, that goes from Bad Schandau up to the Lichtenhainer Waterfall. Unfortunately a tree had damaged the track so we took a bus instead of the tram. The waterfall itself was a little bit disappointing, I had expected it to be much bigger and more impressive. But the area itself was really beautiful with impressive Elbstone structures, the forest, mountains, and here and there some snow and ice. In fact, the snow and ice meant that we couldn't really walk the trails, as it was simply too dangerous. We didn't want to slip on the ice and break our legs, so we stuck to walking back to Bad Schandau via the regular road, a good 2 1/2 hour walk. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, especially since we'd be driving back home the day after.

The drive back home was uneventful and we arrived safely home just before 6pm on Saturday. In general I've really enjoyed this vacation and have found it very relaxing, just what I needed! For Roy it was a different story, as he didn't 'click' with the Ayurvedic doctor and treatment. Plus he suffered from that ugly cold! But we both enjoyed the spa, the environment and time to be together without all the work pressure!

You can see more pictures taken during this trip here!

My 2010

2010-12-31T09:46:00.005+01:00

It's pretty unbelievable that another year has passed! It's true what they say about time passing faster when you get older! Anyway, this is my yearly attempt at summarizing all that happened in that year...

Work
I actually still work for the same company as last year! After a few turbulent years I've finally found a steady work environment again. I'm learning a lot about HR Management, which is also part of my responsibilities. The workload is very heavy though and I really have to watch the work-life balance to avoid coming too close to a burn-out situation. It's a good thing I really like the job and the variety of responsibilities!

Love
We've been living together for almost a year now and so far so good! Our love is only getting stronger and I really do believe that I've found the love of my life!

Health
The biggest news here is probably the lasik eye surgery I've had in July 2010. I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it is to wake up and see! No more glasses, no more contact lenses... No more eye infections either, which is the reason why I could finally have the lasik surgery. They disappeared as sudden as they appeared almost 5 years ago! Good riddance!

House
Well, our house is for sale at the moment! One of the requirements of my current job is that I live within 30km of the office. Right now it's 89km, so time to move... Unfortunately the house market isn't very good and I already know that I'll have to sell the house at a loss. I am also struggling with leaving my current home town, as my entire social life is here and I don't find it very easy to start all over in a new place. On the other hand, it will be really nice to start a new home together and find something that pleases us both. But first we've got to sell this place... Will you keep your fingers crossed for us?

Cats
Tux & Roxy are both well. They had to get used to collars (?) this year with a magnet on it to open the cat flap. An unfortunate measure we had to take to stop other cats from coming into the house!

Dancing
We did it again, promoting to the next class within one year! We are now dancing in the one-but-highest class for our age group in The Netherlands. Progress is getting harder and slower, but we're definitely still growing. Our biggest challenge is to add more power and dynamics to our dancing, which is what we'll focus on for 2011. I also have a beautiful new dress and we've added an extra trainer who together with our regular trainer will help us progress even further. Another highlight of 2010 was of course the trip we won to Vienna where we had lessons from a top dance, Anastasia Stiglitz, to help improve our Viennese Waltz!

That pretty much sums up 2010 for me! I'm looking forward to what 2011 will bring us and will end this blog with my favourite new year wish:

May the best of 2010 be the worst of 2011!

Bye bye glasses!

2010-07-21T09:43:00.004+02:00

Since the age of 10 I've been wearing glasses and since the age of 12 contact lenses and I've always hated it. So when years ago I first heard about the option of having your eyes lasered I was immediately interested and started following the technological advances in this area as well as the experiences people had with lasering. Just over 2 years ago I decided that the time was ready to take the plunge myself. After hearing very good things from various people and consumer organizations about the Eyescan clinic in Utrecht I contacted the optometrist from Hofstede Optiek in The Hague for the preliminary tests.

I have been really impressed by the way Norbert Hofstede handled the preliminary track. He always took his time to explain things and discuss various options. He also told me that because of my very bad astigmatism my eyes would normally not be suitable for lasering. But recently the Eyescan clinic had acquired a new machine that might be able to do it. Another complication was the fact that I had regular Scleritis eye infections, an infection of the eye ball itself that can cause further astigmatism. So he sent me to the military hospital in Utrecht to be examined there by Dr. Rouwen, one of the surgeons of the Eyescan clinic who is also experienced in the scleritis infection. Dr. Rouwen told me that while my eyes could now be treated with the advanced technique, the lasik intralease, he advised me against it until my eyes had been infection-free for at least 6 months. Well that took almost 2 years, but with my last scleritis infection in October 2009 I contacted Hofstede again in May 2010.

When you get tested for lasik or any other kind of lasering you have to make sure that you stop wearing your contact lenses before entering the test track, especially when you - like me - wear hard contact lenses. The optometrist performs checks at several intervals to make sure that your eyes are stable and that there are no changes in eye sight or astigmatism. After it appeared that my eyes were stable, the lasik was planned for the 20th of July 2010. We had chosen for the lasik intralease superior technique, because it was the most advanced technique and also pretty much painless. With the superior plan I was also given a lifetime guarantee. After the date was set, the Eyescan Clinic sent me a lot of additional information, with detailed explanations of each step of the proces.

About a week before the surgery I had to stop using eye make-up and clean my eyes twice a day with sterile tissues. For me, wearing mascara is pretty much essential, even if I wear no other make-up, so I felt very naked and strange without it! But it was for a good cause, so oh well... When the day of the surgery approached I was starting to get a little nervous. After all, these are my eyes, which I treasure!

On the day itself, my boyfriend drove us to the clinic. And on the way I thought to myself "what if this is the last thing I see?". Pretty dramatic, but it shows that I was indeed quite scared for the procedure! When we arrived at the clinic they first did a last check-up and based on those results the lasik machine would be pre-programmed. They also started to apply the eyedrops that would make sure I would feel no pain during the lasik surgery. The eye drops would normally feel a bit stingy, but I didn't feel any discomfort at all. Next, I was taken to a room where they prepared me for the surgery by making me wear a robe, sterile shoe protection and a hair net, before taking me into the sterile surgery environment.

First part of the surgery was lasering the eye to create a 'flap'. In order to do this, my eyes were forced open with a little tool which then created a vacuum on the eye. This doesn't hurt at all, you just feel some pressure on your eye. The laser then lands on top of it, which adds to the pressure. When the flap is created, you notice your eye sight getting really blurry. The procedure was then repeated for the other eye. After the laser was removed the assistant (who by the way continuously keeps you up-to-date about what's going on in a very friendly way) took my hand and led me to the other operating room for the real lasik surgery.

Again, the eye was forced open, the eyelashes taped back and the laser moved over the eye. During the actual lasering, which only takes about 45 seconds per eye (!) I heard ticking sounds from the laser and I actual smelled a slight burning. But other than that, no pain at all! After the lasering, the surgeon moved back the flap and the eye was cleansed with water. You don't really 'see' anything during the procedure, as the eye sight is fuzzy. All you see is a little red dot, which also gets blurry. After the procedure, when I got out of the chair, I could immediately see better. It was just as if I was looking through a fog, but the sight itself was quite clear. The assistant gave me some further instructions on the frequency of the eye drops I now have to apply for several weeks, and the protective glasses I have to wear at night to avoid touching my eyes in my sleep. She also gave me a painkiller as the anasthetic eye drops would soon stop working.

The 2 to 3 hours after the lasik surgery were probably the most uncomfortable part of the entire procedure. My eyes felt as if they were burning for a while! But the painkillers worked, and I took the advise of the optometrist to sleep it off. When I woke up (and yes, it takes time to get used to wearing protective glasses while sleeping!), the burning sensation had passed and I could already watch TV. Reading a book or email on the computer were still difficult and extremely tiring though.

Now, as I write this, it's the morning after, and not even 24 hours have passed since the lasik surgery. I can see really well, even on the computer. Reading is still a bit tiring, so I won't overdo it, but I'm confident that soon life will be back to normal, with one exception: I won't need my glasses anymore!

That doesn't mean I'll never have a need for glasses in the future. The optometrist has told me clearly that my eyes will age normally, and like pretty much every person I will one day have the need for reading glasses. I will have my first check up later today, when I will find out whether my eye sight is at 100% now, or whether there is still a slight correction needed.

I'm still not allowed to wear eye make-up and will have to wear the protective glasses while sleeping for a few weeks and sunglasses when outdoors for the next few days. But as of tomorrow I'm allowed to drive again, which means that I can then do pretty much anything without the discomfort of glasses or contacts!

Last but not least, some questions I've been asked, with the answers:

Does it hurt? No, the lasik surgery doesn't hurt. The only discomfort I felt was the pressure when the flap was made, and the burning sensation for the first few hours after the surgery.

How long does it take before you can see? In my case, I could watch TV after 4 hours, and read after 18 hours.

Is it expensive and does the insurance cover it?? It's certainly not cheap, but in my opinion it's absolutely worth it, especially with the lifetime guarantee and highly qualified guidance I've received! My health insurance covered about 10% of the cost, but that differs between insurance companies. Just remember that buying glasses and/or contact lenses year after year costs a lot of money too!

If you have any other questions, please ask, and I will answer them in follow-up posts!

Exit 2009 - Enter 2010

2009-12-30T21:46:00.002+01:00

So here we are, coming to the end of yet another year! Time to look back, reflect, and glance forward...

Work
Wow, where to start... Last year in my end of year blog I mentioned that I was loving the new job I had just started. I did, truly did... But then the world found out that the crisis was a bit more than just a few banks that had done silly things. One of the industries that was hit really hard was the training industry. Companies were just not outsourcing their training any more, or at the very least reducing it to save costs. All in all it meant that I found out relatively early in 2009 that there just wasn't enough work for me to do. And not just for me... The crisis hit us so hard, that the company was defeated and had to declare bankruptcy in July. Luckily for me I had already found a new job to go to and I am now very happily working as an HR/Learning & Development Manager for a large international company in the building industry. Building industry? Yes, another industry that has been hit hard by the crisis. So fingers crossed that this job will work out as I am truly enjoying the job, the people, and have great opportunities for personal development there! And really, having gone through the experience of seeing a really great company with really great people see bankrupt is not something I want to go through ever again!

Love
Our relationship has developed further and despite the troubles my boyfriend and I have both had at work (he had quite a lot to cope with this year as well) our relationship has grown stronger. We have been able to support each other through difficult times and our definitely hoping for better times to enjoy together as well. We have now also taken the big step to start sharing our household (he moved in with me this month!) and are looking forward to explore this new way of living...

Health
Nothing new to report, thank goodness!

House
Still loving the house, which has now become our house. And at the same time looking forward to the house we are going to buy in the future - 2010 or 2011 - which will be closer to our new jobs and for me also closer to friends and family.

Cats
My two darlings are in excellent health and hopefully will remain so for a very, very long time!

Dancing
Ah, our biggest passion! We continued our climb up the ladder and ended up winning 6 first places in a row in the national ballroom competition, which led to a promotion to a higher class just before the summer. And we are ending 2009 as champions of this higher class, as we won the last competition of the year. So things are looking very good for 2010 when it comes to ballroom dancing! As for latin dancing, we are working hard on our technique and choreography for latin and will decide towards the summer of 2010 whether we will continue with latin or whether we'll put all our time and energy in ballroom dancing. So stay tuned for that!

A sneak peak of 2010
Lots of changes on the horizon... We both have new jobs to get used to, and a new living situation to adjust to. Plus a possible house move coming up. But most important is that we stay happy and healthy, and that's also my wish for those of you who have read through my ramblings. As a lady of a networking club I belong to said: may the best of 2009 be the worst of 2010.

Happy New Year!

Lille, France

2009-11-20T05:13:00.002+01:00

Last weekend it was time for the yearly weekend break with my mother. It has become a tradition that the two of us take a city trip sometime in November/December every year. We've already visited some very interesting cities, like Prague, Vienna, Chicago, Copenhagen, London etc. This year we planned to stay in The Netherlands and book a wellness weekend, when all of the sudden Lille caught our eye.

Lille was a city we had both heard of, but never really been to. It was also a city we didn't really know much about. So we decided to change that and spend our yearly weekend break there.

The drive to Lille went very smooth. It's surprisingly close to the Belgium border in the North West of France. We found our hotel quickly and were pleasantly surprised by our room which was spacious with a nice bathroom. We didn't get the view on the square we requested, but oh well. Grand Hotel Bellevue is a 3 star hotel in the middle of the city, walking distance from the tourist office, shops, cinemas and restaurants. We can thoroughly recommend it!

We arrived on Friday afternoon and after checking into the hotel we went to the tourist office to book a bus-tour of the city. We were the only 2 passengers in the mini van so had pretty much a private tour. There was a lot more to Lille than we were aware of! After the bus tour we walked to the cinema to book tickets for the movie "the imaginarium of Dr Parnassus". For movies in the original language with French subtitles, make sure you check for the acronym VO (version originale) in the movie listing. We then had dinner in one of the restaurants close to our hotel before going back to the cinema to watch the movie with Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law. Weird movie, but entertaining nevertheless!

The next day was spent with shopping. We walked over to the Centre Commerciale Euralille, a huge mall with several interesting shops! In the evening after our dinner we went to see another movie, The Box. This one (with Cameron Diaz) was also interesting and based on a scary concept...

In short, we truly enjoyed our trip to Lille. It is a beautiful city, with amazing architecture and a rich history. Definitely worth a visit!

What do Ice Age 3 and Andre Rieu have in common?

2009-09-06T19:31:00.006+02:00

What we originally planned as a quiet and relaxing Sunday, turned out quite different! Last evening on Twitter somebody asked if anyone was interested in 2 tickets for the show of Andre Rieu. The tickets belonged to somebody else and he would have to get them first before he was able to give them to me. But... they were offered for free! The person who got them originally had won them in a lottery and didn't want any money for them. So this morning I got a message containing a picture of where the tickets were hidden (he wasn't home when we picked them up).

Due to a misunderstanding (we thought the show would start at 11:30am, but it started at 2:30pm) we were at the location way too early. But no problem, there was a movie theatre there, so we decided to go and watch a movie. Not that there is a lot of choice that early in the day... We ended up watching Ice Age 3, in 3D wearing funny glasses. What a fabulous movie! I really admire the makers for making the 3rd instalment of Ice Age still interesting and entertaining, and maybe even better than the 2 previous ones...

After the movie and a quick lunch, it was time for the show! The Amsterdam Arena was packed! There were about 30.000 people! Our seat was really high up, close to the roof of the arena. The stage is amazing, a replica of Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna. During the show, Andre Rieu was accompanied by several solo singers, all with amazing voices. A well known Dutch comedian (Andre van Duin) also had a couple of acts in between. During the waltzes there were both ballroom dancers and ice dancers performing above and to the two sides of the stage. The well known choir, Mastreechter Staar, accompanied Andre Rieu for several acts in the second half of the show. They are in the picture at the bottom of this blog, bearing the torches while walking to the stage. And in between all that Andre Rieu and his musicians did an amazing job as well. This is a show I can truly recommend to anyone!

Oh and do stay until the very end... it's absolutely hilarious!!!

Neverland - and no, this is not about Michael Jackson!

2009-08-03T19:07:00.003+02:00

One of the things I enjoy doing is taking part in surveys. All kinds of surveys, about business, food, politics, you name it! Most of these surveys start of with a few basic questions about yourself. Things like: your age, level of education, whether you're employed or not... And that's where I get stuck these days.

I am in a bit of a funny situation right now:
- I am not working for a company, yet I'm also not unemployed
- I don't get paid my salary, nor am I on unemployment benefits, but I do get paid what my salary used to be

The reason for this is the following: my most recent employer went bankrupt last month. Since they had already told me in April that they wouldn't be able to renew my yearly contract due to the crisis I had already searched for and found a new job. This new job has a start date of September 1st. The (old) company went bankrupt mid-July and all employees were fired by the lawyer handling the bankruptcy. So there I was, being fired after I had already quit! Weird situation... What was lucky for the employees is that the institution which handles the unemployment benefits in The Netherlands also continues to pay out salaries for 4 - 6 weeks after a bankruptcy - the notice period. And in our case it was 6 weeks, which means for me that I only have a gap of 1 week before I start my new job.

So in between the bankruptcy and my new job I am in a kind of Neverland. I've decided to call it my 'in-between-jobs' period, but if you can think of a better name, let me know! I count myself lucky that I already have a new job waiting for me, and I hope with all my heart that my former colleagues will also find something new soon!

SportSchloss Velen / Sport Castle Velen

2009-07-31T14:29:00.004+02:00

Both my boyfriend and I have had a few stressful months work wise so several weeks ago I suggested we take a weekend break. One that should focus on rest and relaxation and spending quality time together. After a short search we decided that SportShloss Hotel Velen fit those requirements perfectly.

It's an original German castle, now in use as a hotel. They had an 'Entspanning und Erholung' relaxation offering which consisted of 2 nights in the hotel, an exclusive facial, hand treatment and aromatic massage. It also included the 2 evening meals to be taken at the hotel restaurant and the Orangerie.

When we arrived - a day later than originally planned due to my aunt's funeral - around noon our room was already available. It was a beautiful and spacious room in the main building, with the traditional high ceilings and also furbished in a traditional-looking style. The only downside of the room was really that it was quite warm, or even hot and it had no air conditioning. Even with the windows open it wouldn't cool down much as the weather outside was quite warm.

We started our break with a stroll through the village. It's a small village, with only a handful of shops and a few small supermarkets. We had lunch in the local biergarten (food was good but service could have been friendlier), bought some snacks for in the room and walked back to the castle as our first treatment was due.

Unfortunately when you go as a couple you cannot have your treatments together at the same time, as they have only one treatment cabin. So while one of us had the treatment, the other stayed at the indoor pool. The pool was nice and the water had a pleasant temperature. There are a few deck chairs with cushions to relax poolside. On the first day we had the facial and hand treatment. The facial was very nice, especially the massage aspect! The hand treatment wasn't anything special really, other than - again - the massage.

The first evening we had dinner in the Castle restaurant. For people who had booked an arrangement they had a set dinner which you couldn't change. The wine was included, which was great for me but not so great for my boyfriend who doesn't drink alcohol at all. Especially since any additional drinks were extra. But the food (and wine) was excellent! During dinner they played a game with scents. We were given 5 small vials which we had to sniff. We then had to guess the scent and write it down. We ended up with guessing 3 out of 5 correctly!

They also offer activities in and around the castle for all guests, and an activity calendar is always on display in the reception area. We got a big chuckle out of the calendar that was posted on Saturday evening. Look at the picture below and guess why!

The second day we enjoyed a walk in the area. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we bought ice cream at a local bakery which was open on Sunday's. Then it was time for our aroma massage. This too was excellent and we both really enjoyed it. Dinner that evening was in the Orangerie which was housed in one of the outbuildings on the site. This time there was some choice as it was a small buffet dinner and the food was once more excellent.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and drove up to Münster, a city about 50km away from the hotel. We walked down the old town and browsed through the stores. After lunch we decided to drive back home. All in all we had a wonderful weekend break and definitely fulfilled our need for quality time together, rest, and relaxation!

The Dalai Lama in Amsterdam

2009-06-05T09:25:00.003+02:00

It seems ages ago since I ordered the tickets, but yesterday the day finally arrived on which I would see the Dalai Lama again, for the 2nd time in my life. The last time was in Brussels a few years ago, and I remember praising myself lucky then to have the opportunity to see him life. After all he's not the youngest person and he has suffered from several health issues. So I was very happy indeed with this 2nd opportunity to see him and listen and learn from him.

The day started early, as we (my boyfriend and I) wanted to be in Amsterdam on time to secure a good seat. We arrived well on time and after initially going to the wrong entrance (for Tibetans only) we passed the security checks and entered the main hall. The security was meant to be really tight, but we found a big problem with it which I won't elaborate on in detail here. I don't want to give the wrong people tips!

Luckily we managed to get a really good seat with an excellent view on the stage. First we started with the lesson on patience. His Holiness the Dalai Lama guided us through chapter six of Shantideva's text "A guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life".

In the afternoon we attended the public lecture about 'The power of compassion in turbulent times'. It was quite funny that the Dalai Lama had to ask the translator what the title of the lecture was. He explained this by saying that no matter what the title of any of his lecture is, the content is always pretty much the same. The difference between the lesson in the morning and the public lecture in the afternoon was huge! The morning was more complex and really did require (some) background knowledge in Buddhist beliefs. The afternoon session was much lighter. It also included a question and answer session. One of the biggest learnings I got out of the afternoon session was that forgiveness doesn't mean that you should not help the person you're forgiving to correct the actions that led to the need to forgive them to start with. In other words, forgive, but don't forget and help the other person so (s)he won't make the same mistake again.

We also attended the evening lecture by Sogyal Rinpoche. It was the first time I met this very impressive Buddhist teacher. His lecture was also very interesting, but unfortunately by this time I was so tired that I had trouble concentrating on what he was saying. But I will definitely attend his lectures again in the future!

All in all it was a very intensive day, a great experience, and a day I will remember and cherish for a long time!

The picture below was taken when the Dalai Lama accepted an Amsterdam baseball cap and sunglasses as a gift from somebody and put them on immediately :-)

Ups and downs in these tough times

2009-05-17T21:45:00.003+02:00

The last few days have been pretty tough... The continuing stories about how bad the crisis is and how the recession is worse than expected combined with my own current extremely uncertain job situation have really gotten to me lately.

Yes, there are still jobs to be had, but not a lot and there's a lot of competition for each interesting looking job. On top of that the pay for all of the jobs I've applied for so far is a lot less then what I've been used to and what my mortgage is based on. Selling the house is not an option either, as I would have to sell with a big loss at the moment due to the lower house prices. So not a lot to be cheerful about. Normally I'm not really prone to depression or pessimism, but the past few days have been really, really tough.

It took me 10 years to build up my life to where I am now, after returning back from the UK with next to nothing other than a huge debt, some books, CDs and my clothes. So I know I'm capable of crawling out of a shit hole and fighting for a better life. Thing is though... I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT AGAIN. So there. I had to get that off my chest.

So today I was looking at the dreary weather outside, with rain resembling the interior of a car wash, and that didn't make me feel a whole lot better. After having a brainstorming session with my boyfriend on what we could do that would take us out of the house for a bit we decided to drive to the coast and walk on the beach for a bit. My boyfriend decided on the location: Egmond aan Zee - a town neither of us had ever been to before. When we got there, the sun came out, and even though it was windy, the wind wasn't cold. So we had a nice long walk on the beach, which we ended with drinks in a beach bar. The wind, sun, sea, beach & company really cheered me up and made me feel better. This was topped of with a good meal in one of the local restaurants, after which we had a huge ice cream before driving back home. So now I feel a whole lot better again, and ready to start the new week, with hopefully a really good job coming my way. Or a good lottery win, that would be quite allright too! :-)

Successful attack on the Dutch royal family on Queen's Day 2009

2009-05-12T20:47:00.004+02:00

As most of you probably know, a lunatic in a Suzuki Swift killed 8 people including himself in an attack on the Dutch royal family during the Queen's Day celebrations on the 30th of April in Apeldoorn. I haven't blogged about this before, because it took some time for it all to sink in after seeing this happen live on television.

I also needed some time to think about the implications of what happened for the Dutch royals. Sure, they didn't suffer any injuries and none of them died, but I strongly believe that this has impacted them in an irrecoverable way. Just compare the pictures of Queen Beatrix at the beginning of the day - beaming, happy, glowing almost - to the pictures of her during her speech at the end of the day after the horrible event - grieving, shocked, visibly aged. I am sure that something inside her died that day. Look at the expressions of utter shock on the faces of Willem Alexander and Maxima right after the attack.

I cannot imagine that Karst Tates thought he would really kill or injure any member of the royal family by hitting the royal bus with a Suzuki Swift. If he had wanted to do real damage he would have taken a bigger car, or filled his small car with explosives. Nobody will ever know what went on in that man's sick head that made him do what he did. And even though right now royals and politicians are saying that Queen's Day will continue as it always has, I don't think it will ever be the same again. It's a day that has lost its innocence and its smile.

So was the attack on the Dutch royal family successful? Sadly... I think it was.

Twitter Apprentice

2009-05-01T17:32:00.004+02:00

In February I wrote a blog post about my very first experiences with Twitter. I really didn't get the point of Twitter then, but decided to hang in there, and see if, with time, I would come to see what the appeal of Twitter is.

Now, a few months later, I'm slowly getting there. I have a whole bunch of followers and am also following quite a few people myself. So where do you go to find interesting people to follow? Here are some tips:

- Use a directory, for example http://wefollow.com/ or http://www.twittergids.nl/ (for Dutch Twitter users)
- When you're following somebody, have a look at their twitter profile to see which people they are following. Perhaps they are interesting for you to follow as well
- Make sure to follow MrTweet on Twitter. He will send you tweets with suggestions for people to follow

When you start tweeting, you will find that people will start following you as well. It really helps if you fill out the short bio on your Twitter Settings, so that people with similar interests can find you.

It seems to be good netiquette to follow somebody back as a thank you for them following you. I did this diligently in the beginning, but have stopped now. Unfortunately there are a lot of people on twitter who abuse your kindness this way, whose sole interest seems to be to get as many followers as possible, but who will never really interact with you. This has probably been the one thing about twitter that has annoyed me the most.

So, when somebody follows you, check out their profile, bio & tweets before deciding to follow them back. That way you'll have at least some idea as to what that person is about and whether they are likely to interact with you or not.

I think the folks-that-just-want-thousands-of-followers-but-won't-interact issue is one of the major reasons why so many people quit using Twitter within the first month. It really is very annoying when that happens, while you genuinely want to interact with your followers and those you follow. But you play an important role in making that happen as well. Interaction involves you and at least one other person after all. So in order to interact, you will have to act as well. So tweet! And @reply to messages from the people you follow. And RT (retweet) any interesting messages you read from the people you follow. If you don't say anything, it's a bit unrealistic to expect that others will reach out to you. Unless you're a celebrity of course...

Anyway, that's it for this Twitter Blog. I'm also working on a blog about using Twitter for learning purposes, but am still researching it. In the meantime, you can find me here on Twitter if you like to interact! Happy Tweeting!

Sorry, so sorry... but we can't renew your contract...

2009-04-10T13:39:00.003+02:00

That's what I got to hear from my boss earlier this week... not that surprising really, since even an idiot can see that there isn't enough work to keep everyone busy. And that means no income for the company, while there are still bills to pay... On top of that I'm the newest employee and the only one still on a 1-year contract and thus the easiest to 'get rid of'. But still, even if it was expected, it's not easy to hear this kind of news, nor to bring it. My manager was also visibly shaken that he had to give bad news.

My contract runs until the end of October, which gives me about 6 months to find something new. Having taken a first look at jobs in the learning consultancy / training management space I can tell you that while 6 months sounds like a lot of time, it won't be easy to find something. There simply aren't a lot of companies hiring at the moment, while the number of people looking for a job keeps increasing.

Having said that, I'm an optimist and a positive thinker and I'm convinced that things will work out. It's too bad really that becoming a professional dancer is barely an option, since I love dancing so much! I'm too old now to become a professional, and they pay isn't all that either.

So, my challenge for the next few months: finding a job that I feel just as passionate about as I do about dancing (and which will pay the mortgage!) ;-)

Dance Bootcamp

2009-03-06T21:31:00.003+01:00

Today is the first day of what would have been our vacation... Well, it still is our vacation in that we won't be going to our regular jobs for the next 2 weeks. However, we're also not packing our bags to go on a lovely trip somewhere nice...

No, instead of all that, we have decided to invest 2 weeks of our time and energy into our own personal dance bootcamp! Now that we've reached the highest level of dancing in ballroom regionally we will have to compete against people who've been dancing at that level for many, many years. Some even on national level and not just regionally.

We have seen several other couples become demotivated and frustrated by never even making it to the demi-finals, let alone the finals, because the top couples in this class are just too hard to beat. We didn't want that to happen to us...

So we spoke to our dance trainer and agreed on a tough 2-week training schedule, with private dance classes for 2 hours every day, followed by practice sessions the rest of the day. In between we'll also be taking part in 3 dance competitions, one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end of the two-week bootcamp.

I have no idea whether my body and feet will be able to handle this physically, but I do know that if we make it to the end, we will have made vast improvements to our dancing technique and we should be able to make it to a final round every once in a while.

Some people have called us crazy for sacrificing our vacation time for this, but we both strongly believe it's worth it. It's an investment, and it's bound to pay off!

To be continued...

Play it forward

2009-02-20T09:49:00.003+01:00

Who doesn't know the inspiring and tears-inducing movie 'Pay it Forward' in which a little boy invents a system where you have to do 3 good things for free for other people who in return have to do the same for three other people etc.

There is now a similar concept called Play it Forward (which I first heard about on Twitter), initiated by a company called Akoha. The idea is there are cards circulating across the globe with activities on them. For example: invite a friend for coffee. You give these cards to people, who register on the akoha site that they have received the card and completed the activity. Then they pass on the card to somebody else. You can follow the progress of the cards you've received on the internet. I love the idea of this, as it is all about doing something nice for other people and I've just purchased 4 starter decks to start this game up in The Netherlands.

The idea is not really new, I already know it from bookcrossing, where you leave books you've read in public places for other people to pick up. Instructions in the book will invite finders to register that they've found the book on the internet and you can follow your books around the world. My books have made it all the way to the US, South Africa and Asia.

I hope Akoha will become just as succesful and that with a little help from our friends we can spread it across the world! Click here to find out more and/or to join!

Twitter Newbie

2009-02-11T10:07:00.006+01:00

Over the past few months I've been hearing more and more about Twitter. After expanding my use of LinkedIn, Facebook and Hyves I decided to find out more about Twitter as well. Where the social networking sites are pretty intuitive, I found Twitter much harder to get to grips with.

Oh signing up is easy enough, and Twitter tries to help by giving little hints as to what to do next. So you have to find some people you wish to follow and they have the same little tool you find on the social networking sites to search through your email address books to find people in your existing network who are also on Twitter. In my case there were only 2 people also on Twitter. This surprised me... isn't Twitter supposed to be this big hype that EVERYONE is using?? Apparently not...

Next I struggled and am still struggling to find others to follow. The Twitter suggestions don't really mean a lot to me and I wish Twitter would offer categories to search in, for example users from the Netherlands, or users who work or have an interest in learning technologies... But no, that's not possible.

So right now I'm resorting to occasionally hitting the 'everyone' button on the Twitter website. This shows you 'tweets' that have been recently made by all twitter users. I'm browsing through them to find interesting tweets, and thus people I might wish to follow.

So far I've not seen what the big fuzz is all about with regards to Twitter. I think it's only interesting if you can find the right people to follow. However there isn't a lot of help or support or tools that will assist you in finding the right people. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me!

Kitchen woes...

2009-02-04T20:14:00.002+01:00

As some of you know, I've lived in my new house for almost 2 years now... When I bought it, it needed a lot of work done, including a new kitchen as the original one was totally falling apart.

So I did what you do and visited several kitchen stores and ended up making a good deal for a very nice kitchen. So far so good. Of course the kitchen needed to be installed as well and the store where I bought it recommended an installation company.

In the beginning all was well... Two nice chaps who seemed to know what they were doing and even helped me out big time when they discovered leaking water pipes in the space underneath my house. They also helped me get a new refrigerator when the one that was delivered by the kitchen store turned out to be damaged.

Now, two years later, I'm faced with all the things that didn't turn up quite right:
- electric outlets installed right above the sink
- a dishwasher, freezer and gas stove that aren't quite the quality I would have liked (do not ever consider buying anything from the Spanish label Fagor, I really cannot recommend it!)
- the transformator (sp?) for the spot lights broke and is hidden somewhere I don't know so I can't repair it
- and just last weekend the electric ignition for the gas stove broke, so I'm back to using matches

The worst part is that the installation company has disappeared and that I'm too much of a 'let's just all be nice to each other' type of person to complain to the kitchen store. I know I teach conflict management classes, but with these types of conflicts I definitely take the 'avoid' approach. I wish I could be as assertive with these types of people as I can be in other situations! I guess I'm just really annoyed with myself for not getting my act together and do something about this.

Having said all that, I still like my kitchen and my new house :-)

It takes two to tango...

2009-01-26T20:57:00.004+01:00

It's time for a bit of a dancing update here... I have another site in Dutch where I write detailed reports, but since a lof of people reading my Tink blog don't read Dutch, here's an English update:

In the regional competition which we've been taking part in for just over a year now, we've done really well. At the moment we're dancing in the A-Class for both ballroom and latin, so only one class away from the absolute top. It's only the top class that wears the beautiful dancing gear, but with only 1 or 2 competitions away from it in ballroom I've now purchased a dress (picture to the right) and tan colored shoes (see picture below) to go with it. For latin it will be a bit longer before we reach the top level as we have some tough competition there! I expect to wear the ballroomdress for the first time in March or April, so stay tuned!

In the national dance competition we just finished our third competition. Unfortunately there are only a few participants in our class, and if there are only a few participants they don't give points to all couples dancing a final round. So progress is really slow, and at this rate it will take a good two years before we get promoted to the B-Class, which is when you have to wear the official gear in this national competition. Having said that, this is the competition we'll be focusing on as this is the one where we can see progress once we've reached the top in the other competition.

To help with the progress, we've decided to sacrifice our two week vacation planned for March, and take a two week dancing bootcamp during that time instead. Our dance trainer is developing a program for us. It will be tough, but most definitely worth it!

Apple Rulezzz

2009-01-15T14:01:00.002+01:00

I remember it well, the day in 1999 when I decided to swap my PowerMac for an ordinary Windows based PC... I was working as a CRM Consultant at the time, and a lot of the tools I needed for work were not available on a Mac. Since then my personal laptops have been Windows-based, and for work I've used both Windows-based machines and Linux.

This past week I bought my first iPhone as well as my first iPod (Classic). And I have to say - I'm very impressed! I love the user-interface of the iPhone, absolutely love it! It's a vast improvement on the Windows Mobile based smart phone I had before. I love the fact that you can store a webpage on your 'home screen', the applications that you can download from the AppStore, and the fact that it has a mini iPod included. The only trouble I have is that I sometimes mistype, I guess my fingers are too thick to hit the right spot on the touch screen.

I store my entire music collection on my MP3-player, and the iPhone doesn't have enough space for it, which is why I also bought an iPod Classic with 120 GB of space. Plenty of space left for any future music acquisitions! The difference between the iPod and the Creative ZEN Touch I had before isn't as big as the difference between an iPhone and any other phone. But the quality of the sound, and the iTunes software is much, much, better.

As I mention in the title of this blog, Apple Rulezzz... I'm so pleased with my iPhone and iPod that I am even considering a Mac Airbook for when I need to replace my current laptop! Having said all that, I wish Steve Jobs, the man behind many of Apple's successes, a speedy recovery! We need more people like him!

Swan Lake

2009-01-12T09:23:00.004+01:00

Saturday evening we went to a performance of the "Swan Lake" ballet, by the Tatarstan Ballet/Opera group. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed...

Somehow I didn't feel absorbed into it, like I normally am when the performance is good. There were a few good dancers, including the jester (a role I had not seen in the swan lake before), and the Princess. The Prince however, was a disappointment. There was also a very long break between the third and fourth act, which was confusing to the audience, especially since the lights in the theatre went on. People were wondering if the performance was finished.

The other surprising thing was the end of the performance, when only a selection of the group came on stage for the applause. Several of the players never even appeared. Yesterday (Sunday) evening, they showed the swan lake ballet with the choreography of Noureyev on Mezzo TV, and the contrast couldn't have been bigger.

I don't think I'll visit a performance by the Tatarstan group again...

My 2008

2008-12-30T09:17:00.002+01:00

Now that the year 2008 is drawing to an end it's a good time to review what happened in my life during this year...

Work
When it comes to work it has been quite a turbulent year. After losing my job towards the end of 2007 I was very happy to find new employment with a recruitment & selection company. It would give me an opportunity to expand my HR skills, complementing the skills I already have in the learning & development field. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be... The job bore me to death. There were many days where there simply wasn't anything at all to do. And the only answer to it was to do cold acquisition, something I found out I absolutely loathe doing. So at the start of the summer I decided that this job wasn't for me and I started looking for something more suitable. In November I started working as a senior learning & HR consultant for a training and advice company. So far I'm loving this new job, as explained in an earlier blog...

Love
My boyfriend and I have been together for just over 2 years now, and our relationship is only getting better. I'm deeply grateful for the fact that I have finally found somebody who accepts me the way I am, somebody I can be myself with completely, somebody who shares my ideas on what an equal relationship is, somebody I can talk with, and somebody I genuinely want to be with. If it were up to me, we would take our relationship up to the next level, so who knows, it might just happen in 2009...

Family
Thank goodness everyone in the family is healthy and doing well. My little niece is now 1.5 years old and as cute as can be. My parents are enjoying their retirement and their new role as grandparents. My brothers and their partners are also doing well, what more can we ask for?

Health
Probably the only area that's a little troublesome. Still having regular, painful, eye infections. But in a way I'm getting used to them. According to the eye doctors I've spoken to there's nothing that can be done about them, and I should just sit it out.

House
Still love my new house... Even though I've had quite a few issues with it, including a gas leak this summer! At the same time my boyfriend and I have plans to move to a more quiet area of the Netherlands as soon as the market and our finances allow for it. But until that time I'm very happy to live here

Cats
My two cats are both happy in their new house. Tux has had a few health issues this year, but is now doing well. Roxy is becoming more and more affectionate which pleases me no end. She still doesn't like to be picked up, but she does come and ask for cuddles now. Tux is still as crazy as ever... They are my little babies and I hope to enjoy them for a long time to come...

Dancing
And then there is our dancing... which has taken off like a rocket this year. If you think that 2 years ago the last time I did any ballroom dancing was in a class during college, about 16 years ago, it's hard to believe that now we're doing competitions and even winning 1st places! But we are both loving it, and it's a great way to exercise and be together!

Well that's pretty much my 2008 summed up! All in all it has been a good year for me and my family. I hope it has been a good year for those who read this as well, and wish you all the best for a happy and healthy 2009!

Sniffles, coughs, dancing, and websites

2008-12-22T12:46:00.002+01:00

That pretty much sums up last weekend for me... Both me and my boyfriend were not feeling well with a cold for him and a throat infection for me. One of my cats, Tux, joined us in the sick bay with an eye infection requiring 4-6 drops of anti-biotic in his eye every day for a week (have you ever tried giving eye drops to a cat? I could dedicate an entire blog entry to just that process!).

The 4-6 eye drops a day also meant that we had to rearrange our weekend plans a bit. In spite of not feeling well, we still went to the private dance class we had booked with our trainer, where we learned some cool, but difficult moves in the tango. My boyfriend has bought a video camera so that we can now tape the training and for example how we dance during a competition to review later. I'm glad we taped this training, as I'm bound to forget a few steps until we've practised it enough!

Saturday evening we had our first Christmas ball. Unfortunately it was so incredibly crowded that we couldn't really dance the way we normally do. But they had some interesting shows as well, so we still had a good time. Sunday was a family day, as my boyfriend's mother was celebrating her birthday with a family brunch. And of course we had our regular Sunday-evening dance class as well.

I also decided to build a new website (in Dutch), just to share our dance experiences with family, friends and other people who are interested. We have some big plans for our dance future, so stay tuned!

December greeting

2008-12-18T05:23:00.003+01:00

This was sent to me by a friend, and I just want to share it with you all:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for your sensitivities of the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.

Oh forget it:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Absolutely Fantastic Show

2008-12-17T08:01:00.002+01:00

Last night we went to see the revised (Dutch) version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I had already seen the original version in the UK many years ago. I remembered it as an OK-ish show, mainly aimed at kids. My boyfriend hadn't seen the show yet, so when it was announced as playing in our local theatre we decided to get tickets for it.
At that time we didn't even know yet, that the show's main role of Joseph would be cast as part of a tv-series: the search for Joseph. But when we found out, we also started to follow the show. Neither of our favorites won (I voted for John and my boyfriend voted for Roy), so we didn't have our favorite Joseph to look forward to. But the winner of the show, Freek Bartels, played an excellent Joseph last night.

The entire show was truly fantastic. The décor had changed for the better from the original play. The role of the children was also smaller, although there were still some in it. Several of the contestants of the show 'The Search for Joseph' had a role in the actual show as well and also did a great job. The costumes were good, the lyrics had been translated into Dutch in a good way and the show was a good combination of different music styles, humor, and entertainment.

I thoroughly recommend it! My favorite of this theatre season so far!

Frankfurt

2008-12-16T13:29:00.004+01:00

As some of you know, my mother and I take a weekend break every year around the beginning of December. We've been to many different places, and this year we decided to go to Frankfurt, Germany. Rather than flying, we opted to take the fast-speed ICE Train from Aachen to Frankfurt.

We arrived last Thursday, to discover that the hotel was on the edge of both the business/finance district and the red light district. But the hotel itself was fine, we just decided not to head out on the streets surrounding it late at night :-)

Frankfurt had not changed that much from the many times I'd been there to deliver training in the past. It's still one huge building site, with lots of shops, bars and restaurants. We also went to the English language cinema a couple of times. Now that had changed quite a lot, and not for the better... The movies showing were still in the original language, and not dubbed in German. But the theatre itself was very poorly maintained... There was hardly a chair whose seat wasn't slashed for example.

We saw 'The Women' and 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'. The first movie is one I would recommend. Interesting feature is that there is not a single man in the movie. Neither were there any men in the theatre when we went to see it. The second movie has some good special effects, but the story is very poor. It comes down to an alien invasion, wanting to save the earth from us bad human beings that treat it (the earth) so badly. But by saying that we REALLY REALLY can change, the human race is saved. Blech. I have nothing against the green movement, but this was making it ridiculous in my opinion.

The shopping was very fruitful though, and both my mother and I came home with some nice clothes for ourselves and our loved ones. The home coming was even more special because my boyfriend had decided to join my dad in picking us up from the railway station. I hadn't expected to see him again until today, so it was a very special surprise to see him on Sunday already.

Picture below: business/finance district by night

Dare I say it....?

2008-12-08T22:02:00.003+01:00

After my last experience I'm a little hesitant to sound too enthused about my job. But... in my new job:

- I'm allowed and encouraged to use my creativity
- I'm trusted from day 1 with training for our most important clients
- Innovation is appreciated
- We have a lot of fun as a team, even though we don't see each other a lot
- We're constantly on the look-out for new ways of learning
- Colleagues respect each other and are willing to share their knowledge as well as learn from each other
- Blended learning is what is is: blended learning
- There is NO COLD ACQUISITION
- All training is tailor-made for a customer's specific needs, no off-the-shelf stuff!
- There is a lot of opportunity to learn more, both about training as well as about HRM

So dare I say it, after only being in the job for just over 1 month? I think I do:

I LOVE MY NEW JOB!

Weekend!

2008-12-05T21:06:00.004+01:00

It's Friday evening and the weekend has once again arrived... It'll be a busy weekend again, but filled with fun things! Tomorrow afternoon I'll be visiting the in-laws to celebrate the traditional Dutch festival of St. Nicholas. My own family doesn't celebrate St. Nicholas, but they do celebrate Christmas. At least there's no arguing about where to spend our holidays!

Tomorrow evening we'll go dancing in The Hague. Just a fun dance, no competition this time. The weird thing is that during these fun nights I usually dance more than during a competition, when the actual dance time is limited to 1.5 minute per dance...

Then on Sunday we'll go shopping in The Hague. Last Christmas gifts, and I really do need a new pair of shoes! Can a woman ever have enough shoes anyway? Then our regular dancing class in the evening and that will be the end of the weekend again...

But hey, it's only starting, so I've got a lot of fun things to look forward to! Happy weekend all!

Giethoorn

2008-12-01T17:24:00.004+01:00

Last weekend's dance contest was in Steenwijk, a town in the North East of The Netherlands. This is quite a long way from where I live, so we decided to make a weekend break out of it. This also gave us the opportunity to visit Giethoorn, a really cute, pitoresk village where no cars are allowed. All transport is done by boat, bike or your own feet. The weather wasn't very nice, there was a slight drizzle and it was quite cold. But in spite of that we both really enjoyed our walk and boat trip through the village (see picture below).

The dance contest was interesting... There were only 7 couples for our competition class. So they decided to let all 7 couples dance two finals. Normally there are only 6 couples in a final and normally there is only one final round. Anyway, we danced two of them and ended up in second place of the competition. The skill level in this competition is very high, so I'm actually really proud with a second place! This time I kept all limbs intact, although I did manage to break the prize about 5 minutes after receiving it... Nothing a little glue can't fix though! We have a little break from competition dancing now, as our next contest isn't until the 17th of January. But no worries, plenty to talk about until then!

Let's dance!

2008-11-23T09:55:00.003+01:00

We started our day yesterday with a good training session to practice several new dance moves we have learned recently. The past few weeks we haven't really practiced much, because of my hand injury. Which, by the way, is much better now. My thumb still tingles a lot, and not all feeling has returned yet, but I can pretty much do anything with it again.

Anyway, we also practiced because we had another competition yesterday evening. The weather here is very tricky at the moment, with moments of snow, hail, rain and then blinding sun in between. So we left early to make sure we arrived there well on time. This would be the first time we danced in the A-class for ballroom, which meant that we also would have to do a slow fox this time. I'm not all that comfortable with the slow fox yet, it really is quite a difficult dance to do right! Also, as the classes get higher, the quality of the dancers gets high as well of course. So when we started our first round I did feel a bit of a knot in my stomach! For Latin we are dancing in the B class, as we did last time. So not such a big knot in my stomach there. It wasn't my best dance experience, I forgot several steps and really didn't have high expectations regarding the results.

But we made it to the final for both ballroom and latin and to our big surprise we won first prize in both competitions! So two new cups (see below) to add to our collection... I won't take them to the dance school anymore though, don't feel like repeating the experience of last time I wanted to do that!

35 days before Christmas...

2008-11-20T14:37:00.003+01:00

... and I just received my first Christmas Card! Granted, it came from somebody in the UK, but still, that *is* early for a Christmas Card! Then again, I shouldn't be that surprised really... When I lived in the UK, the first Christmas items started to appear in the stores around September. Here in The Netherlands there was a time when Christmas stuff didn't appear until the beginning of December, after the St Nicholas celebrations are over. But now it starts earlier here as well... Most garden centers have their Christmas items out in October, and you are getting more and more choice of Christmas card collections in the stores.

In my family we have started shopping for Christmas gifts a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness we all create a wish list, so at least A)you don't have to think about what on earth to buy for your loved ones, and B) you know that you will get something you actually like. So at least we don't belong to the group that sells their gifts on eBay the day after Christmas :-)

For me Christmas is more of a Yule-fest anyway, the mid-winter celebrations, bringing light in the darkness, spending time with loved-ones. And being happy together is probably the best gift anyone could wish for!

A rising star...

2008-11-16T13:04:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, after an intensive private dancing lesson where we learned a really cool move in the Walz, we went to the theatre. This time we had booked a performance by Maria Fernandes, a Fado singer.

Earlier in the week I read in the local paper that she was a local girl, and to be honest my expectations weren't very high. But boy, was I mistaken! She has a wonderful voice and if I had't known better I would have sworn that she was from Portugal itself.

I was thus impressed that I bought her CD after the performance, which she signed for me. Maria Fernandes is definitely somebody whose career I will follow, and I certainly won't hesitate to book another ticket when she performs here again!

You can find more information about Maria and her performance schedule on her website.

Love thy neighbor

2008-11-15T10:04:00.002+01:00

What is it about the night from Friday to Saturday? I had another awful dream that really upset me...

I dreamt that I had been traveling and returned home with jet lag. I was sitting in my living room when I suddenly realised that the wall between my house and that of my neighbors had disappeared. It was now one big living room... When I looked out of the windows, I noticed that the same thing had happened with the garden. Not only was the fence between the gardens gone, but the garden had also been dug up and was now one big mess!

I tried to call my parents, but the phone was picked up by my little niece who was apparently staying with her grandparents and playing with the phone. Then I saw my neighbors in the garden and I went outside to talk to them. They were very laidback about the whole thing and didn't seem to understand why I was so upset. In the meantime their big dog was running around, which led my cats to hide in a little corner. I pleaded with the neigbors, threatened with lawsuits, cried, yelled, screamed, but nothing seemed to work. As reason for the destruction of my house and garden they gave the fact that they were in a competition with a specific type of flower, and that my garden gave the best light.

In the end I cried out that I loved my house and that they had destroyed it completely. Then I woke up...

Really, I have no idea where these dreams come from... The neighbors in the dream were my actual neigbors, but I have no problems with them. The houses were slightly different, as were the gardens. Oh, and they don't have a big dog in real life either, nor do they seem crazy about flowers.

If there is anyone out there who can explain dreams and who wants to have a go at this one, let me know!

Last night I kissed Nicholas Sarkozy

2008-11-08T08:08:00.003+01:00

Well not for real thank goodness, I don't even find the man attractive! But it happened in a nightmare and woke me up right after! I would much rather be kissed by my boyfriend thank you very much!

I have the weirdest dreams at times and have often thought of keeping a dream book. In my dreams I have been able to fly by making swimming motions in the air, I have saved the world, I have hugged trees, I have been lost, I have seen hose pipes wriggle their way into houses (that was a real bad nightmare!), and a lot of other things I can't remember right now.

Talking about dreams, isn't sleeping itself the strangest thing? You're kinda unconscious and your imagination does the strangest things while you're in this state. I often have small 'shocks' before falling asleep, like my body is protesting against entering that state. Of course Sleep wins in the end.

Waking up is another thing... Like most people I guess, I handle being woken up by alarm clocks really bad. When I'm woken up abruptly, for example by the annoying BEEP BEEP of an alarm clock, it really takes a while to become my usual cheerful self. Last year my boyfriend gave me a Wake Up Light though, and that's really amazing. About half an hour before the alarm time, a light starts to glow and it slowly becomes brighter... It simulates the sun rising. When the alarm time arises, you hear the soft sound of birds singing, a sound which gets louder and louder. But usually I'm woken up by the light, and it's a real gentle way to wake up. Not for everyone though, as my boyfriend sleeps right through it. So I wake him up, and I'm sure that's much more pleasant than being kissed by Nicholas Sarkozy!

I now know how Captain Hook feels...

2008-11-06T08:36:00.005+01:00

As you know I had a little accident last Sunday which meant that for a few days I couldn't really use my right hand very well. It's going much better now, the bandage is off and the stitches will come out Monday. But I've been amazed by how hard it is to not be able to use your right hand!

Just for fun, try to get dressed by just using your left hand... Or ladies, put on your make-up with your left hand only. Try making a sandwich, or eating in general... Try going to the bathroom... You get the picture!

Anyway, this week is also the first week in my new job and I'm having a lot of fun. It's such a relief to have a job that stimulates and challenges me again! I'm developing course material for classes I'll be teaching this month and meeting my new colleagues. It's a fun and professional group of people, which brings back memories of the good old Learning & Development days from a few years ago!

A little accident...

2008-11-02T20:29:00.002+01:00

I am typing this one-handed, let me tell you why...

Last night we had another dance competition. They changed the setup a little with the result that we're not quite sure how we did. Last night we were given prizes for second place in ballroom and third place in latin. However, on the official results list we were listed as first for both ballroom and latin. Anyway, we'll let our dance school sort that out, fact is that we came home with two prizes.

Today is our regular class and I wanted to bring the prizes to our dance school to show to our co-dancers there. I had already placed one prize in a bag and had the other in my hand when it slipped. My reflex was to try and catch it, but the cup hit the table and my hand slammed on top of it. The result was a small but deep cut between my thumb and index finger and a quick trip to the hospital where they stitched up the cut and bandaged my hand.

Luckily I'm still allowed to drive tomorrow, when I start my first day in the new job and have quite a distance to drive! Doctors advice is to take it easy for the rest of today and tomorrow. Stitches should come out after 7 days!

Food TV Shows

2008-11-01T09:17:00.004+01:00

Don't know if it is the same where you are, but here in The Netherlands there seem to be more and more TV shows about food. There are the TV Chefs, showing how easy it is (until you try it out yourself) to make the most wonderful, creative, exotic dishes... There are programs about TV chefs helping people turn their not-so-good restaurants into the place-to-be. There are shows focusing on the hygiene aspects of cooking, visiting restaurants and people's kitchen at home to check on things that shouldn't be there...

And then recently a new show was launched: Who is the chef. Where 4 people each take a turn to cook for each other, one of which is a real chef. At the end they have to guess who is the real chef. It's kinda amusing to watch really, and while I think I'm a decent cook myself, there is no way I could do the things they do without a lot of practice.

The thing that gets me about all of these shows is that they all make it look so effortless! Ok, maybe not the shows with Gordon Ramsey yelling, cursing and swearing at you... My experience is that creative cooking takes time and practice and I don't spend nearly as much time on it as I'd like. My kitchen usually looks like a war zone after cooking an elaborate meal, not the clean, tidy, well organized kitchens you see on TV.

What I really want to see on TV is a show that demonstrates how to make healthy, quick and easy meals. When I come home from work, sometimes after hours in traffic, I just want something quick and easy, and not a microwave meal with tons of additives. So where is the show that does that?

much ado about nothing

2008-10-30T12:42:00.004+01:00

Do you know that feeling, where you think you are not doing anything at all, but time is just flying by? That's exactly what's happening with me this week. It's my last week off before the new job starts and while I don't think I've accomplished all that much, it's already Thursday! So I just made a list in my head with all the things I did do this week.

Monday: Monday I had my farewell lunch from my current job, which was very nice... Other than that I didn't do anything big at all...

Tuesday: We had a two-hour private dancing lesson on Tuesday afternoon, and went training for 3 hours Tuesday evening.

Yesterday evening we had our Argentine Tango class, which thank goodness was more interesting than the last class we had.

Today my parents will be here, arriving shortly as I write this! We'll go shopping and just have a nice time together.

Tomorrow afternoon my boyfriend has taken half a day off from work. If the weather is nice we might go for a walk somewhere. Tomorrow evening we'll go training again for our next dance competition this Saturday.

So it's not like I didn't do anything, it just doesn't feel like a lot! But hey, I have time off right now and I don't *have* to do anything. So I might as well enjoy it :-)

A night to remember, or to forget...

2008-10-26T10:43:00.004+01:00

As I told you we had another dance competition last night, and it was certainly a night to remember, if not for all the wrong reasons!

The day started bad for me, with a headache that was close to a migraine, and in spite of taking way too many painkillers it still wasn't gone completely by the time we had to leave for the competition.

We didn't do all that well during the first round of our class and were sitting, chatting with another dance couple while watching the other classes first round. Then all of the sudden one of the dancers collapsed on the dance floor! Luckily the first aid people arrived quickly and started the reanimation process. The man came to quickly and was taken away for further treatment. Of course the dancing was stopped during all this and to give people a chance to recover from the shock the organizers decided to let another class do their first round first before letting the one where the incident happened complete their round.

So we were all watching this new round, when another dancer collapsed! This time it was way more serious, the man had a heart attack. The organizers called for the first aid people again, but they were away still treating the first man. Somebody ran to fetch them and they finally came and started reanimation again. It didn't work though and they had to get the AED kit for electric reanimation. Of course they had also dialed 112 (the European equivalent of 911). That turned out to be a bit of a disaster too! First the fire brigade arrived and they started their reanimation. Then the police arrived, but they just stood there and watched. Finally, way too late in my opinion, the ambulance arrived. They managed to resuscitate the man and where preparing to take him to hospital. But then the poor man had another heart attack and the whole reanimation process started again. Finally they stabilized him enough to take him to the hospital... We later heard that he's stable now, but I don't know what the slow reaction times of the emergency services have done with him.... I'm also upset with the fact that the first aid people took such a long time to come to the second man's aide... We were discussing later that perhaps the dancing shouldn't have continued until the first aid people had retaken their posts after completing treatment of the first man. Or maybe they should have had more first aid people on site!

Anyway, as you can imagine everybody was quite shocked by what happened. After some deliberation the organizers decided to continue with the competition anyway. But as you can imagine it's a bit hard to dance a happy, quirky, joyful quickstep after all of this! We didn't come home with any prizes this time, but frankly I don't mind at all. Any prize on display would have been a reminder of this evening, and like I said, for all the wrong reasons...

Let's keep this dancer in our minds and hope that he makes a full recovery soon!

Spirit of the Dance

2008-10-25T09:27:00.003+02:00

Thursday evening we went to see the dance show "Spirit of the Dance" in our local theatre. This Irish dance show, based on the original Irish dance show with Michael Flatley, had been on my list of things-I-want-to-see for a long time, so my expectations were high!

The show is definitely worth seeing! The light effects are amazing and the choreography is very well done. The dancing wasn't superb, but good enough. I certainly couldn't have done better ;-)

We spoke to the driver of the dancers during the break and he told us that this group, about 25 people out of the total of 350 members of the Spirit of the Dance team, was the youngest group of all touring groups. They had their last performance for the season in The Netherlands yesterday, but are still touring other countries!

Today I can put on my dancing shoes for another competition. I don't think we're going to win prizes in this one, it's a tough one, with really good dancers. But it will be good practice anyway, and one day we will make it to the nr. 1 spot there as well! Just watch this space! ;-)

If I were a rich (wo)man....

2008-10-22T14:10:00.002+02:00

With all the fuss about the Italian mega jackpot in the news right now and me living my days as a lady of leisure until the 3rd of November when I start my new job I started thinking again about how I'd fill my life if I were really, really rich...

Well first of all I hope I'd be rich enough so that both my partner and I could give up work. Sitting at home alone for these past 2 weeks has shown me that it's much more fun to have somebody to share the free time with!

We would probably look for a new house, somewhere quiet, close to a forest where we could start living together in a nice way. Travel would also be on the cards, as it's something we both enjoy doing (even though I don't like being away from home for too long!).

Since I cannot handle doing nothing, I would most likely continue and expand my voluntary work. There would be no botox or lipo treatments for me, but I might get a personal trainer. And of course there would be lots of dancing, probably even our own practice area in the house!

It's fun to dream, isn't it... And I do play in pretty much every type of lottery we have over here. So it could happen, it could be me one day! But until that day, we'll just get on with our current life, which is pretty nice as it is. And sneak in the occasional dream of course...

I could have danced all night...

2008-10-19T09:26:00.006+02:00

... well I pretty much did! We didn't get home from the competition until 2am, but what a start of the new season! We came first in both Latin and Ballroom! As usual I didn't think I did that well and I was surprised to even make it to the final round. So you can imagine my surprise when we came 1st twice! The nice thing about this particular competition is that it was held at the rival dance school in my home town. Always nice to beat them :-)

This afternoon we will go to the Tea 'n Dance at our dance school, then out for a quick bite to eat and back to the dance school for our regular weekly lesson. Several people from our class came to see us last night and they took a few pictures which we should get from them this evening. If there's a nice one, I'll post it underneath this blog later!

For now, feet up and relax! There's more dancing to come today and I want to be ready for it!

US Elections

2008-10-18T14:19:00.003+02:00

Short blog today, as I'm preparing for our dance competition tonight...

The fact that the election for a new US President is upon us in just a few weeks now has probably escaped nobody's attention. One thought that keeps running around my head is the following:

If the American President is considered by so many people to be the most powerful man in the world, then why don't all residents of this planet have a vote in (t)his election?

Your thoughts please!

Cats and emotions

2008-10-16T13:34:00.004+02:00

As some of you know, I share my life with two cats, and have been around cats for most of my life. Having lived so closely with them, it didn't surprise me at all when research found that cats actually do have emotions.

I have had a cat that grieved, truly grieved when her brother was hit by a car and died. She would just sit in the hallway, sighing, and wouldn't eat...

I'm convinced that cats can feel love. One of my current cats is especially skillful in expressing that, to the extent that it gets really annoying at times! This same cat also has a talent for showing when he's unhappy. He kinda lowers his whiskers and I swear that he knows how to lower the corners of his mouth to make him look even more upset.

Having shared my life with multiple cats at the same time, I've most definitely also seen jealousy, when one cat thought the other was getting too much attention.

Anger or fear I noticed recently when I tried to douse a cat-burglar (neighbor's cat who likes the food my cats have better and tries to visit us) with a bucket of water. The first time I tried dousing the cat with water I ended up bleeding to such an extent that I almost needed stitches. But the second and third time I won, and the cat ended up soaking wet... He still tries to visit, but as soon as he sees me he runs. Ha!

Below a picture of my current two sweeties when they were still kittens...

Avoiding the winter blues

2008-10-13T21:28:00.003+02:00

It's only October and we just went through a few very springlike days... I don't really suffer from the winter blues like some people do, but I do appreciate a bit of sunshine and vitamine D during the winter months.

So I've started looking at brochures with sunny beaches, exotic places and allowed my mind to wander for a bit... However... I also need to replace my central heating unit, and the chimney of my fire place is 'leaking' as well. So no dinero for a luxury exotic vacation... We know when we want to go, and we know that we like quiet, authentic places, not too touristy, nice climate, offering a good mix of culture and relaxation and a bit of action when we feel like it...

Right now I have my eyes on Morocco, but it could just as well turn out to be Malta, Malaga or Madeira. And no, it doesn't have to start with an 'M' ;-) Suggestions are welcome of course!

The sound of silence...

2008-10-12T23:28:00.006+02:00

I don't know if it has anything to do with getting older, but I'm finding more and more that I enjoy the sound of silence. Quietness, peace of mind, silence...

It's probably a good thing my boyfriend and I don't have children, nor do we have plans to have any in the future. Nothing against those of you with a family, I think it's good that you do, but it's not my cup of tea. I think we can all agree that children certainly take a lot of the "quiet" out of your life. Of course, they also give a lot in return and it's just wonderful to see them grow and develop themselves... but the quietness of your life - if there was any to start with! ;-) - will certainly need to be put on hold for a while...

Most of us have busy jobs, and training is certainly a job that puts you in the middle of a bunch of people. And that's ok for me, as long as there's the quietness, the solitude to look forward to when I get back home. Being among people gives me energy, which would label me as an extrovert according to Myers-Briggs. But at the same time I also need time alone, or time with my partner who is - thank goodness - also somebody who can enjoy quiet time. An advantage of being "like this" is that I don't have a big problem with traffic jams. As long as I have some nice music and can let my mind wander. (And as long as I don't have an urgent appointment to go to, because I hate being late anywhere!).

Right now it's Sunday evening and I'm writing this with a glass of wine next to me, after a family weekend with lots of driving and people around me, completed with our Sunday evening dancing class. It was a fun weekend, and at the same time I enjoy the peace of this moment...

Efteling

2008-10-10T18:12:00.004+02:00

Today my boyfriend and I went to the Efteling (a themed amusement park for those of you who don't know it). It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the temperature was very nice, almost springlike. Since most people are at work and the kids in school on a weekday, there were almost no lines/queues for any of the rides. The most we had to wait was about 10 minutes, for the newest ride: the Flying Dutchman. And it was most definitely worth the wait! This must have been my 8th or 9th trip to the Efteling, and I simply do not get bored with the place.... The Dreamflight is awe-inspiring, with its fairies, trolls, planetcities.... The fairy tale forest remains cute, the pirana ride made me look as if I hadn't made it to the bathroom in time, the bobsleigh ride, fata morgana, vogel Rok.... all of them a great experience! Maybe the fast rides aren't as cool as the ones you experience in Disneyland or Six Flags, but the care the Efteling has taken in its themes is clearly visible and it remains one of my favorite theme parks in the world! Go see if if you can!

(Pictures below are from the Dreamflight (Droomvlucht) ride)

Another one bites the dust...

2008-10-09T17:00:00.003+02:00

So today was my last day at this job, and what a day it was... I won't go into details here, this is the internet after all, but I can tell you that the stuff that happens at this place has left me flabbergasted (love that word) more than once. And today was certainly one of those days. All in all I've learned a lot there... a lot of good things, but certainly also how things should not be done :-) At least not according to Tink's Law.

On the positive side I finally got an email that my new Latin dance shows are on their way to my feet. This is great news, because as of the 18th of October I'll have three dance competitions on 3 consequetive Saturdays, two of which will include Latin American dancing. So far I've done all my dancing and competitions on ballroom shoes. And during the competition on the 18th there's a good chance that we'll get promoted to the next level if we make it to the final round. And of course I want to wear the right shoes for that!

In between jobs

2008-10-08T13:20:00.005+02:00

At the moment I'm kinda in-between jobs... Tomorrow I'll be handing over my laptop, phone, keys etc. to my current employer and on the 1st of November I'll start my new job as senior learning consultant for a training company. Right now I'm at home, cleaning up the hard drive of my laptop, mailbox and phone memory while watching the financial crisis news on CNN.

So what to do during the 3 weeks off? There are still boxes to unpack from my move nearly 1 1/2 year ago... There's always tidying up to do as I'm not the most organized person when it comes to housekeeping... My boyfriend has several vacation days left for the year, so we could take some time off together... I need to get a new central heating system and my fireplace is 'leaking' so that needs to get fixed... There's weeds growing in my garden that are by now taller than I am... My wardrobe is too full and needs sorting out... There are friends to see and/or write and/or call...

But for now I don't get much further than watching the news and wondering what this is going to mean for us all. It's history in the making, for sure, but not a piece of history that a lot of people were hoping for. I have only just become active on the stock market, but my thoughts are with all those people that see their savings and retirement money go down the drain. Let's hope things recover soon and that the world has learned another valueable lesson...