Hello Autumn

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.