It's a Sunday night and
G made a valid point that I haven't written a blog post in a while.
It's not because I've forgotten about it, but rather because there's
a lot happening and big decisions being made (more about that in
another post). My last post was 30 Before 30 but that didn't really
discuss how I felt/thought about living in AMS etc. - that was last
discussed in March as we were starting to escape winter's clutches.
We had a nice summer although only a few weeks of it felt like a
proper hot summer (and I was in Rome for the bulk of this). However,
autumn has felt a bit like an anti-climax. It seems to have only properly started 3 days ago as the temperatures have been hovering around
13-15 for the past few weeks. On Friday it dropped and now it feels
like winter is properly on its way. There's a pot of soup on the
stove, the heating is on and I'm wearing a tracksuit plus slippers
plus a blanket. Ok, maybe I'm overcompensating a little!
A beautiful summer day in Rembrandtpark, Amsterdam
It's been an eventful 8
months since my last post. I left my job and moved to a much better
one – more interesting work, nicer people, more responsibility and
a more interesting range of products. G left his job and returned 3
months later. We had a fun summer in AMS, made new friends and
started making decisions about our future. We both finally got around
to registering with our respective professional bodies as full
members instead of partially-qualified students. And we have seen
more of Europe. Since end of March, we've been to:
- Berlin. What a cool
city but we definitely needed more than just a weekend. We focused on
museums and the history whereas there is so much more to this vibrant
city than its history. It's a bit like Paris where you'd probably
need a fortnight to even start understanding a portion of it. I can
tick it off the list but it's a faint tick.
- Mallorca. We went as
G's middle brother and some of his friends were competing in a half
Iron Man. G also entered as a team member of a relay and did the
cycling portion. Such a beautiful place! I love the south of Spain
and the Balearic islands are no different except it has more of a
holiday feel than the mainland. The weather was very warm and I'm
glad we spent more than a weekend there. We rented a scooter and
explored a bit of the countryside; we had a few very fun nights out
and mooched on the beach and at the hotel pool. Overall it was a
proper holiday.
- Norway. This has been
the best trip we've done. What an unbelievable country! The
landscapes are amazing and even though it wasn't a cheap holiday, I
would happily do it again and again. Once again we spent a few days
here, flying into Oslo for a night and then taking a series of
trains, ferries and buses through the fjords over 2 days across to
Bergen in the west where we stayed for 3 nights. We walked beautiful
trails, ate more salmon than is probably good for us and took
thousands of photos. We were there over the longest day of the year
so it was still light long after 11, yet we managed to find snow and
ice. What a beautiful country.
A small village on the Aurlandfjord, Norway
- Rome. I was sent to
Rome for 3 weeks for my new job in July. There are definitely worse
places to be sent for 3 weeks! My luggage didn't arrive for the first
few days which was a setback, but KLM compensated me for some new
clothes. The second weekend of my trip was our wedding anniversary so
G came over and we basically had an all-expenses paid anniversary
weekend in Rome. Winning!
- Les Contamines, near
Chamonix. Friends of ours from SA have a chalet in a small village in
the French Alps that they were visiting for a few days, so 6 of us
had a wonderful weekend walking in the mountains, eating delicious
food and getting horribly drunk in the jacuzzi. Trips like this make
me miss home and the crazy people we've left behind.
- Nerja, Costa Del Sol.
This was a solo weekend for me while G was on a boys' weekend to
Prague (they shot guns, rode in tanks and generally behaved like
boys). I had a wonderful weekend walking in the mountains, sitting on
the beach, eating tapas and people-watching.
Next on the list is
Cologne in Germany in early December, London for Christmas, a ski
trip to Saalbach in Austria (Can. Not. Wait!), a trip to SA for
several weddings, hopefully a trip to Krakow in April then a big
adventure in June that starts with a wedding in Chamonix (we're still
ironing out the details).
Winter sun in Nerja, Spain
We've also had quite
few visitors these past few months. G's dad, my parents, a friend
from Australia, a friend from SA who had just moved to London, a
friend from Germany that I hadn't seen in over a decade (but I've
seen her twice this year and we'll be visiting her in December),
friends from London and relatives that I've never met before.
We've both trained for
and completed another half marathon (I did the Rotterdam in April and
we both did the Amsterdam in October, even though I had been quite
ill in the build up and probably shouldn't have run it). In and near
AMS we've visited castles, celebrated Kings Day, celebrated Gay
Pride, gone ice karting (go karting on an ice track), braai'ed in
Vondelpark (definitely not the same as a South African braai!),
explored coastal nature reserves, celebrated a friend's birthday in a
boat on the canals, witnessed the wonder of Amsterdam SAIL (thousands
of boats including impressive tall ships in the harbour to celebrate
the city's maritime history – only happens every 5 years), seen The
Script perform, seen Fall Out Boy perform, seen One Republic amongst
others perform at the PinkPop festival (Foo Fighters were supposed to
headline but Dave Grohl broke his leg 2 nights earlier), lost money
trying to get tickets to Foo Fighters, had some fun nights out with
friends and generally tried to experience everything this city has to
offer. Coming up, we have tickets to Florence and the Machines,
Imagine Dragons and Mumford & Sons. We want to see some more
museums now that the weather is cooling – we still haven't been to
the Rijksmuseum even though we've been here for over 2 years! We
haven't done a New Years in the city so we'll be here for that and
all the fireworks (the Dutchies LOVE their fireworks). And I'm sure
there are hundreds of other other things we will be squeezing in.
SAIL, Amsterdam
Overall, things are going well here and we're doing everything we set out to do: travel, experience living somewhere else and generally get out of our comfort zones. We never intended to move here permanently and nothing about that plan has changed.
