Makarska to Dubrovnik

Croatia... Part 2:

It’s already becoming a bit of a blur.

Our first night was spent in the coastal town of Makarska. The girls in the group headed straight for the markets (this was to become a trend in our stay), and the boys trawled behind reluctantly.

I opted for a large plate of mussels, which I ploughed through with relish… until one of our fellow travellers stopped past our table to point out that she had also had mussels and did mine look okay, because hers didn’t – but she ate them anyway. Dodgy mussels are not something to mess around with – as Lizzie was soon to learn. Seasickness, food poisoning and a hangover are not fun.

After tasting some of the local drinks of choice (couldn’t tell you the name, but when in Croatia just ask for the Petrol mixed with Diesel Fumes), we hit the local diksco – The Cave Bar. Situated in a cave (duh), this bar/dance floor is literally a hole cut into the Adriatic coastline. Quite a surreal experience dancing to old-time remixed classics, being watched by curious fish below. Hmmm, were we watching the fish or were they watching us?

Another surreal experience was watching Michael Flatley the Older take to the dance floor. Seventy in the shade, complete with open-collared shirt and gold chain, this dude was showing no signs of hip replacements. In fact, he showed no signs of knee joints. Bouncing all over the place, he was flicking his legs out in elaborate dance moves that left Corporate Whore looking like bewildered three-year-old at the circus.
Back to the boat. At 7am we were woken up by the choking fumes of petrol as the boat set ‘sail’ through the Peljesac Penisula and on to the isolated island of Mljet.

More stopping to swim in beautiful turquoise waters. When I say ‘swim’, I of course mean, ‘paddling around on a floating tube/crocodile/shark-shaped lilo’. Of course.

I made the mistake of trying to swim to a sand bank with the other more ambitious swimmers only once. On the way back, swimming against the current, without my trusty floatation aid and with a thunderstorm threatening over head, I decided to face facts: Water baby, I am not.
While others were jumping off the top of the boat, I was delicately lowering my tush off the ladder hanging from the boat, directly into or onto a floatation device. I would then kick my legs and splash my hands a little bit, maybe put my head under the water once. Consider me, swum. I stuck to documenting the shark-bait frolicking in the water.

Mljet:

Hot. The weather, not necessarily us. Seeing as we were now anchored in a bay, where I could see and possibly touch the bottom, even I was enticed into the water. “Hey, guys… you can stand here!” I shouted with enthusiasm as I put my foot down on what I thought was a rock. Crunch. It turned out to be a spiky sea urchin.

Closer investigation showed that most of the wall and floor was dotted with these critters… which helped to explain the allocated swimming area (which we were not swimming in, of course). They itch and there’s nothing you can do about it, other than wait for the broken spikes to work their way out of your body. Bastards.

On to Dubrovnik:

More heat. Goddamn, it was hot. I spent a large part of our time on the boat trying to find any available piece of shade (while at the same time avoiding the cramped and increasingly smelly cabins below deck). When shade wasn’t to be found, I created a sarong tee-pee, occasionally popping my head out to look at yet another remote island floating in yet more beautiful ocean.

On land, the old city of Dubrovnik is exquisite. It turns out that the city used to be made up of a coastal town of Croats and an island of Greeks, separated by a narrow sea strait. Over time, the strait gathered more and more silt, until eventually the locals filled it in, paved it over and built a wall around the whole lot – combining the two groups and resulting in the widest street within the city.

Dubrovnik was the city that introduced me to Cuttlefish Risotto. On a whim and out of curiosity, I decided to try this foreign dish – and was served a plate that looked like it had been fished directly out of an oil slick.

It turns out that Cuttlefish risotto, or Black Squid risotto, is so called because one of the main ingredients is the squid’s ink. You know that black cloud of gunge you see spurting out of the startled octopus on National Geographic documentaries? Yup. That.

It was surprisingly good, once I got over the fact that my gums, teeth, tongue and internal organs were being washed in midnight black dye. (Incidentally, what goes in black also exits black…)

Stopping for nothing but ice cream, picture opportunities and sea food, we eventually found our way back to the boat and crashed into bed sun-drained and exhausted.

Still to come: Trstenik, Korcula, Hvar and Split.

Appendix:

Pic1: Eel/Monkey Boy chilling on the boat in Mljet

Pic2: Sunset on Makarska

Pic3: The Cave Bar Diksco

Pic4: One of the many islands that I didn't swim to..

Pic5: Sea urchins. Spiky.

Pic6: Dubrovnik - Croats to the left; Greeks to the right

Pic7: Dubrovnik wall

Croatia... Part 1

It’s going to be a long one.

After queuing in queues that should only be found on the subcontinent, we arrived safely in Vienna where our connecting was delayed. A few hours later we popped over the Koziak mountains and were greeted by the turquoise waters of the Adriatic in front of Split. Bee-yatch-iful.

Desperate to lose the jeans and jackets, we searched for our hostel (booked a month earlier in preparation for our one dry night on land before boarding). We were greeted by a very friendly, but completely surprised, manager who informed me that he had no such booking for 6 people for the night. Indignantly, I slapped my printed email confirmation on the table between us. With patience and politeness, he pointed out that I had booked for 29 July, not 29 June.

Oh.

Um.

Well, then.

I pictured how kindly my friends would take to sleeping on the beach, or a bench, for a night.

Fortunately, Martin (everyone in Croatia seems to be called Martin or something similar) was the most patient man and within minutes of telephonic negotiation with other hostels, we were on our way up yet another steep hill to find our impromptu accommodation for the night. This turned out to be a privately owned flat, which was rented out to desperate tourists. Literally, the place still had washing in the machine and leftovers in the fridge. Our costs were 30 Croatian kuna more than first anticipated, but what’s an extra €4,25 in the big scheme of things?

That sorted, Mills and I decided to expose our pasty white skin and had our first dip in the Adriatic. We noticed that most people were playing ball games in the water – and soon realised why. Swimming in swells gets pretty boring after a while. If there aren’t waves, you’ve got to bring your own entertainment to the sea.

By evening we had been joined by the rest of our group and had a couple of drinks while strolling around the retirement home of Diocletian. Built just 17 centuries ago, Diocletian’s Palace was initially meant to be a home for the then-abdicating Roman emperor of the day. The architecture varies from Roman ruins, to medieval, to modern. The overall affect was something similar to Monte Casino. We had to remind ourselves that the washing hanging out of the windows was actually someone’s laundry – not just a backdrop against a painted ceiling of clouds and stars. People live in these buildings.

The next morning I was up early to hit the markets lining the streets against the walls of the palace. By 9am, I had invested in a new pair of slops, a sun dress, a sarong and a few packets of fruit. Bargain, bargain… Cheap, cheap. It was hard to tear away and remind myself that I would be in the country for another week. I would advise going to Croatia just for the shopping… forget the coastline.

That day we boarded the boat Mihovil – our home for the next 6 nights. Our crew consisted of ‘El Capitan’ Martin, ‘Always’ Martin (waiter/overall crewmember), ‘The captain’s son’ (we never did get his name), ‘Chef’ (who also shall remain nameless) and ten-year-old Carlo (also captain’s son – otherwise known as The Eel and/or Monkey Boy).

We were introduced to our respective bunks, quickly decided that we would be spending as little time as possible below deck, and we set sail into very choppy waters. Sitting in front of the captain’s bridge we clung to the railing and stumbled around the deck trying to find our sealegs, no doubt giving the captain endless entertainment.

Ours was one of several boats cruising the same route from Split to Dubrovnik and back. Setting out in a modern day armada we soon realised that we were on the chugboat of the lot as other boats drew level with us and cruised past with ease. Not that we were in a rush to get anywhere, of course. But the other boats contained Kiwis and Aussies, and lord knows we hate losing to them. At anything.

Our waiter, Martin, became a favourite with his catch phrase…

Martin, can I have another bottle of water?
“Always…”
Hey Martin, we need another four pints of Ožujsko!
“Always!”
Um, Always… we appear to have run out of loo paper in the toilet…
“Always.”

I also established that I was (yet again) one of many ‘Koekies’. This time there were two South African Koekies and two Kiwi Koekies on our boat. I cursed my parents again for their lack of originality and swore to name my children Pontius the Third and Bikinibottom.

Sticking with the topic of bottoms… we were about to get more than our fair share of nudity and topless bathing, as well as a lot of speedos. Banana-hammocks aplenty, especially in the 40-years-and-older category. Not just a plain speedo, but bright orange, tiger-print pieces, proudly putting their pinky-sized cocktail wieners on display. So unnecessary. But there is just too much to write in one post. Well, too much to be read. Still to come: Markaska; Mljet; Dubrovnik; Trstenik; Korcula and Hvar. Stay tuned folks.





Appendix:


Pic1 - Diocletian Palace by day, from the market looking in


Pic2 - Diocletian Palace by night


Pic3 - Always and Chef pushing off from Split

Pic4 - Leaving Split

Pic5 - Poenani


Pic6 - The local Borat

At last - an update... I know you've missed me

Contrary to vicious rumours, I have not fallen off my bike and into a narrow canal.

Let's see - there was the cyclist that got flattened by a tram. That wasn't pretty. Then there was the poker evening. Then there was the night of wild, animal monkey sex. There was also the team building barbeque-dinner on the beach with my new workmates, my first pay check and my first successful placement.

One of those sentences isn't true.
And it's not the tram/cyclist incident, the BBQ, the pay check, or the placement. I'll leave you to decide.

"A successful placement". That's what it's called when you find a person a job. To me, it sounds like something Borat would say after a trip to the toilet.

In other news, we're off to Croatia tomorrow. For a week. On a boat. Along the Dalmatian coastline.*

Here's a link to for the local weather. Just in case you're wondering. Feel free to click on it now and again in the week coming.

Tot volgende maand... fijne week! Doei!



*Disclaimer: come November, I do not want to hear anything about sunburn, beaches, bikinis, cocktails, sundowners or anything vaguely summery from the southern hemisphere. Kapish?

And now, I'm off to Croatia. Did I mention that we're gonna be on a boat, for a week?

Like a fish on a bike

I feel like I am tempting fate to say it.... but I am such a pro on a bike these days. Seriously, I love the cycling thing (although I still haven't worked up the guts to ride to work).


Everyone who comes to visit, gets a cycle tour of The Hague. I've got the hop-hop-swing start waxed. I've been known to take one hand (left OR right) off the handle bar to adjust my clothing, or balance something on the back of my bike.


I happily hop on the back of my boyfriend's bike if we've only got one bike to travel on, and I think... yes, I think... that I might be able to take someone on the back of my bike (although I haven't found anyone brave enough to try it yet).


You've got to understand.. this is big for me. This is the same person who wheeled their newly-purchased bike home and didn't get on it for two weeks. The same person who had to have a sneaky refresher course in cycling.


This weekend, Miss B came to visit and after our obligatory trip into Amsterdam's Red Light District - where she seemed truly shocked to see a "real, live hooker" - I took her on a bike tour of The Hague. And I was singing the praises of how easy it is to get around by bike. Me. Promoting biking tourism. Look at me, Ma... no hands!


Oh god, I hope this isn't tempting fate.


Moving swiftly on: the fat ginger goldfish seem to be doing well. Freaky (the near-death experience fish) has moments of insanity where he chooses to float to the surface and then attack the bottom of the fish bowl with a crash. I've heard of goldfish trying to jump out of their bowl, but ours is trying to burrow his way to freedom. He also manages to get himself wedged behind the filter on a fairly regular basis.


Does anyone know of a good fish-doctor? Because I think ours has suicidal tendencies.

Freaky-Deaky

I am the proud mommy of two fat goldfish.

On Saturday, somewhere between the rugby, a pub crawl and a house-warming, I managed to become the proud owner of a pair of goldfish. The previous owner has relocated to Morocco and was putting them up for adoption. I offered to take them in... and sent Mills to fetch them.

He returned with two buckets and a 20litre-capacity fish bowl. Bucket1 contained fish food, AquaSafe water cleaning stuff, filters, carbon, air tubes, other stuff that we still haven't figured out, and operation manuals - in Dutch of course. Bucket2 contained one and a half fish (fish2 was not looking healthy, he only just escaped a flushing by giving a last-minute wriggle). I quickly pointed out that the half-dead one could be Mills's. Shotgun the healthy dude.

Putting it all together was eventful... particularly trying to pick up the round glass bowl, after filling it with 20 litres of freshly-treated water. While we were cleaning the filter, we happily noticed that the half-a-fish was looking increasingly healthier. He's a fighter, he is.

At last:

Fish bowl. Check.
Filter. Check.
De-chlorinating water stuff. Check.
Fish. Check (x1,5... almost x2)

Of course, there is the all important matter of naming them. I wanted to call them Bag and Gel, because both words go with Douche. I was also in favour of Poen and Gwarrah, taking them back to their SA roots. But in the end, it was Mills who named them. While transferring the fish to their final location, he called them freaky-deaky. It stuck.

Meet Deaky. Freaky insists on hiding from the camera.

ps. Bring on the fat, ginger kid jokes... it's like destiny!

News-ish stuff

Sticking with visa issues... this: "You have never holidayed before... therefore we find it strange that you should want to go on holiday now. Visa application: declined."

And then there's this woman, who does NOT have violent tendencies. I bet her ex-boyfriend begs to differ, seeing as she "caused my underpants to come off and I found I was completely naked and in excruciating pain..."

I'm not sure what he did to deserve that treatment, but I'm guessing it was something stupid - like point out that she was acting irrational, or asking if it was 'that time of the month.'

Legal alien

"Ter uitreiking van uw (nieuwe) verblijfsdocument zult u hetzij door de ambtenaar burgerzaken of de ambtenaar publiekzaken van de gemeente waar u woon... blah blah blah.... aan betrokkene wordt een verblijfsdocument afgegeven met een geldigheidsduur van vijf jaar, geldig tot 7 Maart 2012"

According to dictionary.com:

"For distribution of your (new) stay document you or by the civil servant Department of Civil Affairs or the civil servant publiekzaken of the municipality where you live… blah blah blah…. to person concerned a stay document is delivered with a validity of five years, validly up to 7 March 2012."

After a few months of uncertainty, my semi-legal alien status has been revoked.... and replaced with a five year work permit. By some glitch in the matrix, I have been granted a residency permit.

In short, Ik ben officiaal... beetch!

The Curse Continues

Surprisingly, it's raining. I'm ready to sit back and do nothing today. Mills has pottered off to cricket with an understandably long face. I hopped on the couch and hit the switch for some brain-mushing entertainment.

Flick. Blank screen.
Change channels. More blank screen.
Look at remote. Bash remote between hands.
Nope, still blank screen.

Jiggle cords.
Unplug.
Replug.
Wail, "why does this keep happening to meeeeee?"to no one in particular.

Call TV-service provider. Apparently we have managed to sign up with the only cable provider in Northern Europe who cannot provide TV signal when it's wet weather. Which means that we should have TV for another 9 days this year.

I did feel sorry for myself, but then I remembered Mills is sitting under a tent on the side of a cricket field, hoping for a dry patch long enough to put the bails on the wickets. Jammer, neh?

So I got over it.

I've discovered that my desk at work has the best view ever. No mountains, trees or even a canal... in fact, it's just a busy intersection used by trams, buses, cars and bikes alike. What makes it so great is that I've been sitting there for two weeks and so far I've seen three bumper-bashings. My desk brings the ambulance chasing to me.

Hoot... Squeal...
*Donk*

Fortunately, most drivers here are so wary of hitting cyclists (I've been told that drivers are generally held liable if they take out a two-wheeler), that when a collision does happen it's literally a bump. *Donk*

The squealing tyres gives me enough time to turn around and witness the collision. I watched a cyclist getting bumped. The car stopped, the cyclist got back on his bike, they shook hands and both rode/drove away.

My favourite incident so far was a fairly substantial bashing between two cars. The drivers pulled over to the side of the road, inspected each other's damage, exchanged details... and then borrowed a broom from a nearby cafe so that they could remove the glass from the middle of the road. Civil duty at its best.

Springbokking

Heddles and I are having a disagreement, regarding which Bok we'd most like to bok: The Schalk or The Flying Habana.

While trying to prove that Schalk looks like a Middle Earth monster, I came across this website dedicated to my love... http://www.bryanhabana.com/ Not enough pictures there, for my liking, but still a nice idea.

I may have mentioned this before (a number of times) but I want to have Bryan Habana's babies. I want to see his offspring making flying dives and tackles all over the place. I would call them Little Bryan Habana, Little Bryan Habana 2, Flying Bryan, Bryan Habana, Jnr and Bryan Habana, the Younger.

See, I'm already one-third of the way to making my own rugby team. Maybe Heddles could add Die Burgertjie and The Schalks 1, 2, 3 and 4 to the baby squad. But then we'd still need a donor for the other five positions - any kickers out there?

Global network

Yesterday, I got into work to find that my computer wouldn't switch on. Push power button. Nothing. Check cables. Nothing. Get colleague involved, because chances are good that I'm being stupid. Nothing. Call IT. Confirm that I have tried to switch it on AND 'jiggled the cords'.

IT sends Bart. Bart presses power button. Looks surprised when computer doesn't turn on. "Hmm, it doesn't seem to have any power, have you checked the power source?" No. I was hoping I would be able to turn it on using nothing but mental telepathy.

Eventually we establish that the wires in the plug have pulled loose. What are the chances? Change plug. Computer working.

Open Outlook. Try to access shared folders and shared calendar schedules. Nothing. Call IT. All my shared access is gone. "What do you mean it's gone? Have you tried to click on the icon?"No, after years of computer competence, I thought that licking the screen would open the program. YES I CLICKED THE FUCKING ICON.

Hi Bart, how've you been since you were last sent to troubleshoot at my desk... 50 minutes ago? Good, good. Bart: "Hmmm, your shared folders are gone. It's not your fault, your rights have been removed somehow..." You don't say.

Do you ever get this feeling that everything is out to get you? I think technology hates me.

Today -

Sit down to make a phone call. Pick up nerdy headset (yes, I look like a call centre/Madonna gimp), no dialing tone. Check phone connections, jiggle cords. No dial tone.

Call IT/General Fix-it people. Hi Bart.

Bart tests headset. No dial tone. You'd think I was making this shit up. He certainly did. Jiggles cords, checks connections. Headset replaced.

Get home from work. Switch on computer. Click on Internet Explorer. Wizard function pops up. "How would I like to connect to the internet?" it asks me in convoluted Dutch. The same fucking way I've been connecting for the last two months please, I reply through clenched teeth.

Would I like to install my ADSL connection now?

No, I would not like to install my ADSL connection now, because I in fact made my ADSL connection TWO MONTHS AGO. With a great amount of translation-frustration, I might add.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. Mills tries to calm me down with a hug, and is treated to a string of expletives furiously muttered over his shoulder.

Technology hates me. If there is something random to go wrong, it'll happen to me. I'll admit that sometimes it is my fault (like repeatedly disconnecting myself from conference calls), but what are the chances of my computer's plug randomly disconnecting? The damn cord sits behind a set of drawers... it's not like someone could've dislodged it with a big toe. And what is with my computer suddenly deciding to uninstall it's internet connection? And who designs a computer program in Dutch anyway?

Computers hate me; it's a global conspiracy of 9/11 proportions. Or maybe it's just an acute case of persecution complex.

Glass man

Way back when I first arrived in the Netherlands, my friend and I managed to scare one of Mills's colleagues into a state of shock by talking non-stop about marriage, committment and children. Since then, we've gotten to know each other and Jimbo has gotten over his fear of me.

I remedied this situation last night by breaking his finger. How'd you like dem apples, bitch?

See, we were playing football. I took a close-range shot on goal. Jimbo tried to stop the ball but mistimed it. He bent his fingers back as the ball snuck under his hand. I celebrated in true footballer tradition (pretended to be a plane and pulled my shirt over my head), while everyone started to congregate around Jimbo. I thought they were commiscerating the fact that he'd let a girl score.

Incorrect. Without consultation, Big J's ring finger had chosen a different direction in life. Pale and yellow to look at, his first knuckle was completely disinterested in staying in line with the rest of his hand. Instead, the metacarpal jutted out a good few millimetres above where it should have been. I tell you this in detail because when I saw it, I reeled back. Maybe it was more shocking because he was so blase about it.

"Bloody 'ell. I think my finger's broken."

Um, yes. I think so. Sorry about that.

Incidently, his finger wasn't broken. It was 'only' dislocated. It makes for a good picture though, doesn't it?

A belated weekend post...

Peaches arrived for a visit on Friday evening. I rushed her home so that we could begin our weekend of E! Network viewing, gawking at badly dubbed porn and eating ice cream out of the tub. Awesome.

On Saturday, we made our way into Amsterdam to fight the throngs of stoned tourists through the Red Light District. I was very well behaved and only manhandled one family of orientals.

We refrained from any sexual interactions in the RLD, but we did spend quite a lot of time skipping through the many sex shops. I learnt about the ins and outs of the notorious Rabbit. Peaches learnt about fetish porn. At one stage, she turned around to be greeted by me shaking a gelatinous black gwarrah in her face. Classy are we.

Peaches was determined to invest in something from her visit to the RLD, so purchased two rude t-shirts... but not before trying them on in the sex shop's 'dressing room'.

The dressing room turned out to be a porn viewing room. TV, chair, mirror and a sign that read "No pissing in the cabin." Feeling sufficiently violated, we made a hasty retreat.

Sleaze and smut aside, the highlight of my weekend was taking Peaches cycling. With me as her guide we made quite a sight. I'm still not sure of where I'm going in The Hague and we had to pull a few impromptu u-turns. Peaches does more spinning than cycling, so she hasn't figured out the whole staying on the bike to turn it around. Instead, she dismounts, picks it up and physically changes direction by 180.

That alone was funny enough, but coupled with the fact that I am likely to stop without warning, and Peaches was unable to stop without warning, hilarity ensued.

At one point, I was lucky enough to witness Peaches - blonde locks flowing in the wind - coming to a dead stop... thanks to the streetlight she had just connected with. For the next half hour, I couldn't look at her without getting the giggles as my brain replayed the incident over and over again.

We made it up to the beach for poffertjes (THE best way to put on a tummy-tyre... pancakes, soaking in butter, smothered in icing sugar, served with dollops of cream and ice cream). Enjoying our cholesterol on a plate, we took in the scenery - which largely consisted of topless tanning. Bloody continentals.

Swart Gevaar

Watch this video. Seriously, if you do only one thing today, watch this video. It left me speechless, gobsmacked, mouth-gaping... as you can see, I have since recovered. It's long but it's worth it. Seriously.



Stolen from www.joblog.co.za, who stole it from someone else.

Danish ingenuity

Brings a whole new meaning to a flashing sign: www.speedbandits.dk

Tick...

.....tock?

It concerns me that I don't have a biological clock. I can't recall ever feeling an inclination to squeeze out a spawn. Does this make me really abnormal? I've been thinking about it quite a lot because a) a lot of my friends seem to be reaching broody age b) a lot of people around me seem to be pregnant.

Baby clothes leave me cold. I can't do the squealing that most women seem to communicate with when they see them. Baby takkies are cute though... mostly because I like to pretend that my fingers are the legs, doing the can-can with really big shoes on them.

When I see a pregnant lady, I don't think: "Aaaaaw... you're gonna have a baaaabeeeee." I think: "Oh my god... do you know that your belly button is inside out?"

One of my new colleagues was showing off a picture of her three-year-old kid. This is honest-to-god the ugliest mo-fo I've seen. Think Kobus Wiese, with moles on his chin... Poor bugger is in for a tough life. Fortunately, before I could pull back in revulsion, another colleague jumped forward with enthusiasm and assured the adoring mom how pretty her kid was. I can't lie like that. I can barely manage a grunt.

We went for dinner with one of Mills's cricketing pals and his South African wife. Lovely couple... and boy, can that man cook a fine meal. The Saffer wife is about 9 and a half years pregnant by the looks of it. She was enthusiastically showing us the baby room, and the furniture, and the clothes and the colours and blah blah blah... all the time my brain was screaming, "OH MY GOD, HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THIS CHILD IS DOING TO YOUR BODY?"

What happened to my biological clock? Don't the laws of survival state that, by nature, I should want to reproduce? I think puppies are cute. I go mushy at the sight of baby animals. But when I think offspring, I think distented torso, cankles, sweating, labour, screaming, crying, pooing, feeding, exhausting... what an effort.

And then after all of that, you risk the chance of the child turning into a terror, a mass killer, being kidnapped, or a red-head. (sorry, had to throw one ginger joke in there)

Seriously? People seriously want to make babies? Why?

I'm not trying to be all hard-core and unfeeling about this. I genuinely don't get it. Some people don't get why I don't get it. It's not a case of keeping the human population alive, 'cos last time I counted, China had that covered. If it's a case of evolution needed to be reproduced, it's fairly narcissistic to presume that my genes are that important to human survival. Don't you think?

I know it's selfish and insensitive. I know people out there are actually trying to have babies. But I just can't relate. And I feel like I am a freak because I don't squeal when I see a pair of booties.

Things that make me laugh

This and that. And the London 2012 logo. And penguins.

Footie

Before I talk about my attempt at football last night, there's this.

Excuse me while I have a good early morning laugh. Again. I don't know about anyone else, but when I first saw the promos for the London logo, my reaction was, "what the fuck is that supposed to be?"

"...The new logo for the event, which is a jagged emblem based on the date 2012, was unveiled on Monday..." I thought it read: ZOO, followed by an R below it. Good one, guys.

K.I.S.S.

If you don't - Keep It Simple, Stupid - the masses may react in fits of violent seizures. Admittedly, the poms can be hyper-sensitive about these things, but for once, I'm in full support of the nannies.

Anywho, so I was sitting on the couch last night - being lazy - when I got an sms from Mills's colleague asking if I wanted to join for a game of friendly football. I jumped at the chance, even though the last time I attempted the sport, it was called soccer and I was playing in a dustpit outside my Std 4 home room.

Being work colleagues there wide band of skills... ranging from completely shit to absolute show off. I was somewhere in the middle. The Argentinian (Argentine?) was the biggest show off. He reminded me of the guy who's not good enough to play with the big boys, so he plays with the little boys and doesn't pass the ball... otherwise he takes to being a self-important ref.

Short man. Chest, knees and butt out as he ran, stubby arms pumping frantically.... Think about it - it's a very unique running style. He would get the ball and dance over it a few times without moving forward, backward or sidesways. If someone shit was marking him, he'd get past. If the Italian was marking him, he'd get tackled. Every time he started running, I wanted to trip him. And he was on my team.

My game was actually not too bad, although it was more about fitness and reflexes than any form of talent. If the ball came at me, I put my feet in the way and tried to send it in another direction. Fortunately, I play hockey and get my feet in the way often. I also tried to catch the ball once. That was bad, and not so subtle. Oops.

My biggest embarrassment was squealing and ducking every time the ball came past me at shoulder height. Two thumbs way up for behaving like a pre-pubescent girl. A proud moment in the women's recognition struggle... good thing I wasn't around for the suffragette movement.

Is jy bang vir my slang?

Boet got a new pet on the weekend...

Although the pet doesn't look like this yet (it's still a 15cm 2-month old), Jurgen is going to grow up to be a healthy Silver Corn Snake. I genuinely think this is cute.

I like snakes. They may slither on their bellies, but at least they're not sneaky like birds. I have nothing to back that up, but I still prefer snakes.

Jurgen is so-called because the name is similar to jargon. Jargon is another word for slang, which in Afrikaans is.... snake. Got it?

I still think he should've called it Jean-Pant Trouser (said with a French accent), but that's just me. I can't wait to meet my Boet's investment when I go home.

Bells and Horses

Clangclang... clangclang... clangclang... clangclangclangclang... Kah-lang...kah-lang...kah-lang...Clangclang... clangclang... clangclang... clangclang clangclang... claaaaaang.... claaaaaang.... claaaaaaang

This musical interlude brought to you by the bells of St Helenas in The Hague... every day at 6pm, Sunday at 10am and occassionally, on seemingly random Saturdays, at 2:50, 4pm, 5:10 and 6:40pm.

It certainly reminds me that I'm in a foreign country. But when they go on for up to ten minutes, it tries my patience. Clangclangclangclangclangclangclang.

I wouldn't call it campanology, because I can't believe there's any art to the sound of these bells, besides the fact that the bell ringing gets quieter as it dies down - but I'm not sure if that's because the bell ringer has just lost interest and let go.

Sticking with the crazy (because that's where those bells drive me), in the news in The Hague this week... Neeeeeighbours. Literally. Some woman has decided that horses can make good house mates.

But, "neighbours are complaining about the noise and also the smell of manure. The Hague Animal Protection Society cannot take action as the horses appear to be well cared for. The Council, however, has ordered the owner to remove them, not merely because of the noise and the smell, but because a house is, legally, meant for people to live in, not horses."

You don't say.

Aggression

The arrogance. I think that's what it boils down to. That's what I cannot stand in a (drunk) man, who presumes that because he is male, and I am female, I should want to engage in conversation - or more - with him.

We were leaving work on Friday afternoon. It had been a nice day of training, I was walking to the tram stop with two of my new colleagues - admittedly, two young, very good looking ladies. I can understand why a drunk imbecile would decide that he should talk to these three woman, because he is a drunk imbecile, basically.

So he broke up our conversation to throw himself in the middle of our circle and started telling us how pretty we were. We smiled and turned our backs on him. He repositioned himself in the middle of the circle, breathing his drunk fumes in our faces. Persuasive argument, but we still - oddly enough - weren't interested.

"Nay, dank u," I said sweetly (patronisingly) and waved gently in his face, "Totziens."
Time to fuck off, dude.
Seriously.

My passive-aggressive actions pissed him off. He got on the tram with us and sat down next to me. I moved, trying to ignore him, hoping he'd get bored. He moved with me. I tried harder to ignore him - he was now muttering in my ear about how rude I was for dismissing him like that. We eventually managed to pretend he wasn't there and he lost interest. He turned his attentions to patting another guy on the head.

It was a stupid little incident. God knows where he had been, to be that wasted at 5pm. But it really pissed me off. It was all I could do, to not send a swift elbow into his solar plexus. He wasn't violently threatening us, he was just being annoying. But it's the arrogance of the whole incident. The arrogance, aided by alcohol, that we should be flattered because he told us we were pretty.

I mean surely, we should've been swooning at his feet?

It's this attitude that makes me want to react violently. His leering at us, albeit drunken, speaks of a certain mindset. Well, it made me think of a certain mindset. The arrogance that he can presume to interrupt our conversation, because our entire day had been a prelude for this interaction with The Male Speciman.

Actually, I don't really know where I'm going with this... but it made me want to shove him in front of the approaching tram. Most guys don't realise how threatening they can inadvertantly be. It was three girls and one drunk guy - and he was still able to threaten us by his body language.

It was only after The Speciman got off the tram, that all three of us visibly relaxed. By that stage, he wasn't even paying us attention anymore, but we were all consciously NOT making eye-contact with him. We were being submissive by not being aggressive. Maybe I get angry for letting myself feel threatened?

Or is it because I want to remove the threat before it becomes a reality? Even when drunk, and although his reactions might be slow, a man will be stronger than me. It's a fact. Maybe it's a survival instinct that gives me (us?) that adrenaline rush in such an seemingly innocuous situation? Maybe it's my heightened awareness from growing up in SA?

All I know for sure is that I hope The Speciman feels very, very shit when he wakes up from his drunken stupour. Because up until being forced to breathe his exhaled fumes, my day had been lovely. Training is going really well and I think that this position might be something that I can get stuck into... even if they won't let me online during work hours.

ps. Remember the Organ Donor furore going on in Holland? The show was on last night - and guess what... it was a hoax to raise awareness. I'm amazed that no one let it leak, which would also explain why the publicity for the show and the show itself happened within the same week. Two thumbs way up to them.

Too many Koeks

For the first time in three months, I was forced to give up my day-time viewing pleasure (Murder, She Wrote) for a full eight hours of work.

First impressions: my new colleagues are really nice. Joking, light-hearted, welcoming... Awesome. Not so awesome... there is a total ban on all webmail use. No gmail, hotmail, yahoo. No msn. No network websites. And most definitely, no blogging. Use of these websites is a sackable offence. My blood circulation went into complete shutdown at the thought. I tried not to show it on my face.

The solid day of very intensive training was broken with a feast for lunch, and the highlight of my day... cupcakes. Yum. The sugar boost almost made up for the news of my complete cyber embargo. I'm still struggling with the concept. What do these people actually expect me to do all day? Work? Pah.

But the most interesting thing about the day was learning how common my name is - especially seeing as the company I've just joined totals about 30 employees. With my addition, there are now three 'Koekies' in the small company. There is also a Koek, Koeks, Koekmeister and Koekalina.

Can you see where there'd be a problem? I'm going to name my first child, Seventeen.. or Nine. A name like that should successfully avoid any double-naming confusion. And before you start shouting at me about how unfair it would be to bless a child with a name like that, remember that my kids are going to be fat and red-head (okay, this is the absolute LAST time I'm using that joke... this week), so they're going to have to be strong characters anyway.

Satan is a short fat kid with red hair

Yesterday

I spent most of my last unemployed day in the Croatian Embassy. It took them four hours to process about 12 visa applications. The South African Traffic department has nothing on these guys. I was also sat next to a seven-year-old... a cherub of a boy who insisted on kicking me, kicking the stairs, shouting in the echoing hall, stamping, generally behaving like Satan had a personal vendetta against me.

I eventually got home, but not before being followed down the street by another bunch of kids with boxes on their heads, pretending to be zombies. I don't make this shit up.

Today

I start work. Am off to catch public transport in rush hour. I hope Satan has forgiven me for mocking his offspring all the time.

Forget Ebay... sell your organs on TV

‘Tasteless’ organ donor show to go ahead

A tv reality show which centres on people competing for a dying woman’s kidneys has been condemned by the Dutch cabinet and MPs, a spokesman for the European Commission and a host of foreign broadcasters and newspapers...

Despite the condemnation, the tv company BNN says it will go ahead with the broadcast. In the show, the terminally ill 37-year-old Lisa will choose which of three kidney patients will receive her kidney. The public can help her decide by sending sms messages...

I can't wait to see the show's layout. So far, I've got it pictured as a 70's dating show:

"Contestant Number Three... what is your idea of a perfect evening at home?"

"Good evening, Miss Organ Donor, and can I tell you how luuuurverly your voice is. First I'd kick this dialysis machine into touch, and then I'd lose the 24/7 nurse - what a wench. That would leave us free to talk kidneys and stones... if you know what I mean..."

Between the Dutch and the Americans, I can't decide who's turned reality television into more of an artform. Although the poms aren't doing too badly either... as far as I know, Andrew Lloyd... sorry LORD Andrew Lloyd Webber is in the throes of finding himself a real-life technicolour-coated Joseph.

How many people in the western world do you think have been on TV, or at least have tried to get on to one of the many reality shows? Maybe we should just shortcut the process and have a channel dedicated to a different Joe Soap, one every fifteen minutes.

Come one, come all! Tell us about your: dancing ambitions/singing dreams/bratty children/interfering family/embarrassing illness/life-long passion/unusual fetish/eating disorder/self-esteem issues/dirty home/ideal holiday/newly landscaped garden/badly behaved pets/inter-racial relationship/money problems/organ donor aspirations...

Actually, I may be on to something - we can call it Warhol's Reality.

Ja, Swaar

Hosted boyfriend's siblings and their partners this weekend...
a) it's the in-laws
b) it's the in-laws.. en mass
c) it was the first time we were hosting more than one person
d) it was the first time we were hosting anyone for longer than four hours
e) we only have one toilet.

Summary:

• Watching SA thump England - even if it wasn't a full strength opposition. Love the Flying Habana.
• Solving South Africa and Africa's problems at 3am.
• Knocking over a full glass of rosé wine.
• Knocking over a full glass of red wine.
• Proving that red wine DOES stain more than rosé.
• Agreeing to ghost-write a collaborative book titled "Fat people are devious and gingers have no souls". Agreeing that the title would be longer than the book.
• Deciding that we are all going to be cursed with fat, ginger offspring.
• Trying to convince the sister-in-law dietician that eating nothing but Appelmoes would be a balanced weight-loss diet. Also trying to convince sister-in-law dietician that Dutch food is healthy. Eating lots and lots of fried snacks, stroopwaffel, Belgium chocolate, chocolate sprinkles on bread (another Dutch delicacy).
• "Well, if you order garlic/asparagus then we'd all better have garlic/asparagus... "
• "Who farted?"
• Discussing whose girlfriend folds socks better.
• Discussing whose boyfriend is better toilet trained.
• Putting off hiring bikes because it looked like it was going to rain all weekend. Eventually hiring bikes because it didn't rain once. Fifteen minutes into our cycle, it started raining. It only stopped shortly after we returned the bikes.
• Doing touristy things, on bikes, in the rain.
• Almost getting taken out on the bike, twice - by the same car.
• "Who farted?"
• Which couple is going to take one for the team and be the first to provide fat, ginger grandkids?
• Eating stroopwaffels for breakfast - ignoring dietician's pleas to eat five fruits a day.
• X-Treme Shopping at Albert Heijn.
• Breaking one pair of glasses and one pair of sunglasses within an hour of each other.
• "The asparagus has kicked in..."
• Feeling sad that everyone had to leave at the end of the weekend.

The Generation Gap

I realised that I have been completely neglecting my Dutch news consumption. While I still know what's going on in SA, I had no idea that a gorilla made light work of his containing moat in the Rotterdam zoo and then strolled around the facilities for a few hours while zoo keepers tried to find a tranquilizer or three. How could I not know that? I live in the damn country!

While perusing a few Dutch websites, I came across a beauty - local news, in English. This site is geared towards expats and even has a handy list of terms that are likely to baffle new people in the country. I was scanning through when I got to a paragraph about hangjongeren, which also mentioned something about troublesome pensioners.

Double take. I'm not paying attention. That didn't just say what I think it said. Did it?

Hangjongeren - literally, youths who hang around - is the handy Dutch word to describe groups of teenagers who loiter on street corners and in shopping centres, often getting up to no good. The Netherlands has also had several incidents of nuisance caused by hangouderen - pensioners who hang around in shopping centres without buying anything and making annoying remarks to passers-by.

I'm sorry, let's revisit that last sentence.

Pensioners... who hang around in shopping centres without buying anything and making annoying remarks to passers-by.

It has been a while since I squeezed out tears of laughter.

This comment made me wonder about my Gran's trips to Cresta on a weekly basis. She hops on the bus from Sunset, I mean, Sunrise Estate with the other old ducks and they prowl the shops of Northern Joburg... intimidating youngsters and threatening toddlers.

What kind of annoying remarks?

"Oi, you! I saw you buying those condoms... and I don't see a ring on your finger. You... HO!"

"Hey fat arse! You gonna need a tin of prune juice with that Big Mac!"

Or perhaps my Crazy Dame Olga is one of these troublesome pensioners, prowling the Grote Markt in Den Haag.

Monty Python predicted this threat to society, years ago. They called them... Hell's Grannies.

Too good to go unnoticed

This pic was snapped by my boet on his way to varsity. Whoever Hugo Brown is and whatever he does, his sense of humour and personality can be seen in his logo...

Class with a capital ARSE.

Crazy Dame

Allow me introduce my neighbour, Lady Olga Hoo-hum. She's been living in the flat across from ours for the last 48 years. Yes, that's just as long as Patricia Doyle's hairdryer has been going. Co-inkidink, huh?

Forty-eight years in the same two bedroomed-flat… wow. But that's not the point. Lady Olga Hoo-hum is slightly bi-polar. I call her Lady or Dame because she's very proper, regal in a way. I call her crazy because she is. I think her surname reflects her dichotomous personality.

Dame Olga doesn't work, so we tend to bump into each other during the day. Sometimes I'll go for weeks without seeing her – I can hear her waiting for me to shut my door before she opens hers. So I never know whether I'm going to be greeted by the Lady or the Crazy.

Dame Olga bought me a bunch of bright yellow tulips and a vase when we first moved in.
Crazy Olga called the police when we went away for the weekend and didn't secure our balcony door properly. Crazy Olga verbally attacked me in a drunken haze (hers, not mine).
Dame Olga rang our bell one day to present me with a bottle of home-made rhubarb chutney.
Crazy Olga bitches about the neighbours at the top of her voice in the echoing hallway.

Today, the blessed duckie was waiting to pounce on me when I got back from the shops – as I put my key in the door, she popped out to give me her latest offering… AllerHande: het tijdschrift van Albert Heijn. The local supermarket's monthly magazine.

I can't decide if this latest interaction should be filed under the Crazy or the Dame.

But the truth is, I like Crazy Dame Olga. She takes the time to speak Dutch (slowly) with me, even though her English is almost perfect, and is patient with my three-year-old attempts at full sentences. I really, truly appreciate that.

Three reasons why I can't blame her for being loopy: a) she's old b) she's been living in the same flat for half a century c) she's Dutch… en iedereen zijn gek. That's my attempt at saying they're all bloody nuts.

In short, Crazy Dame Olga is worth the entertainment.

Fekking stupid design

Okay, picture a light fitting against a wall. Light fitting is sleek and elegant, a flat dome that sits flush against the wall. Light bulb blows and must be changed. In order to change lightbulb, sleek and elegant light fitting must be removed. In order to remove light fitting from wall, one must loosen the securing screw - situated in a 1cm wide gap, just big enough to fit a screwdriver or a desperate fingernail. In order to see securing screw situated in 1cm wide gap, one would have to place one's face flush against the wall and squint.

Now...

Shift your perspective and picture this light fitting, not against a wall, but against a ceiling. Please take a moment to think about the logistics. Flush against the ceiling, it is impossible to get your face flush against the light fitting. Unless you happen to be 3m tall - or standing on the back of a 300-year-old Galapagos tortoise. I am not and I was not. Ergo, I could not see the fucking screw.

Now...

Take a moment to picture me attempting to get to the lightbulb. Bare in mind that I don't know what I'm looking for in the first place... should it be twisted off? Should I just hang on it and pull? Stretching, on tiptoes, on the giant four-poster bed in our spareroom, I can only barely get my fingers to the light joint. Using my extensive knowledge of Braille, I establish that there is a screw that should probably be loosened.

Okay.

Still on toe-tips, I use my left hand to locate the screw and try to establish (with the earlier mentioned desperate fingernail) which way the screw driver should be inserted in order to actually connect with the groove. Right hand moves in on the operation. This is bit more difficult because my blind skills do not extend to using screwdrivers. Scratch screwdriver on metal and glass while trying to find the screw. *SCCCREEEECH!* Grils... like nails down a chalkboard. Slot screwdriver in screw! Yes! Make half a rotation, screwdriver slips out, scratches against metal and glass. Fuck. Repeat. Half a revolution, slip, scratch. Fuck. Repeat.

Keep in mind... while right arm is struggling to unscrew; left arm is holding light fitting as it slowly loosens. Both are directly above my head. My precious brain is desperately praying that my arms have got enough cordination to not mash myself to death with a sleek, elegant and fucking-stupidly-designed light fitting.

Eventually...

Glass dome loosens enough to come away from the ceiling. Holy fuck. What a mission. The room is now blue with my sweat and swearing - and it was all I could do to not smash the fucking thing on the floor in a moment of Greek celebration.

I've changed the lightbulb, but haven't put the glass cover back on. I think I'll leave that for when Mills gets home... let's see how many expletive combinations HE can come up with.

Enough bitching from me. Let's look at what everyone is bitching about in Jozi:
This picture courtesy of my father - apparently taken on or around the N1 in Joburg yesterday morning. To paraphrase a friend, it looks colder than a witch's tit in north-facing igloo. Nasty.

Headlines

On BBC Breakfast: Patricia Doyle has been using the same hairdryer for 48 years. [Cut to footage of Patricia Doyle using her archaic hairdryer.]

If anybody else saw this footage - and knowing BBC reporting, you are bound to see it eventually - you might have noticed that Patty has three hairs on her head anyway. So she's used her hairdryer for 20seconds, once a day, for 48 years. I'd like to see that hairdryer lasting more than two months if it had to dry all my hair. Not a chance.

Fortunately, the Beeb decided not to put this story up on their website, so here is another website's link to Patty And Her Amazing Goblet Of Hot Air.

In more local news - Bezuidenhout, Den Haag to be precise - the headline runs Onduidelijkheid en onvrede over hondenuitlaat in.

... which, according to dictionary.com/translate means: "Obscurity and dissatisfaction concerning dog exhaust". The actual situation is that people are turning signs around in the forest - so paths where dogs should be put back on their leads have had their signs turned around to read that they can be taken off their leads. Outrage!

To everyone back home in SA... warm enough for yer? Brrr...

Winners know when to quit

How could I forget to mention the highlight of my weekend?

After our morning at IKEA, Mills and I joined a bunch of expats to watch the FA Cup Final and the Super14 Final... both being aired at the same time. The rugby was streamed online and projected onto a nearby wall, the football was playing on the TV next to it. Perfect. Mills is a big Sharks fan and James (a Manchurian) was heavily invested in the football game... we were all set for an emotional afternoon.

Unfortunately for Mills and James, their teams lost - technically both of the games being decided outside of full time. [Why didn't the Sharks kick it into touch? Why?] But spirits were high (for most of us) and the weather was good, so we followed up our afternoon with a good old fashioned BBQ and a game of poker. I'm not a big fan of poker - I don't get which hand beats what and even if I did know when to bluff, I generally can't hide my facial expression... but I do like the idea of arranging my chips into matching stacks. It's pretty. I'm simple like that.

Before anyone knew it, I had managed to win a couple of big hands without paying much attention. I'd just get told when it was my turn to place a bet, would chuck in the required amount and get back to stacking my chips in pretty patterns. "Okay, let's see them... Koekie's got a flush. Damnit." Yay! More chips for me to stack!

Stacking chips aside, winning the pot meant that I had earned money for the first time since February. So this is what I should've been doing - instead of playing domestic treasure - I should've been hitting the Hague's casinos.. I'm a natural.

The poker game was followed up with a few solid hours of revisiting varsity drinking games... so when Mills and I eventually made our way home, our faces were covered in charcoal marks from several rounds of Ooblie-dooblie. A good time was had by all - even the losers whose teams lost in the finals AND got their asses kicked by a girl in poker. Sorry for them!

Final Ikeafication

Saturday was our LAST trip to IKEA. No more IKEA. IKEA-ed out.

We got there early, before the doors even opened and found ourselves in a crowd of similarly-minded shoppers. I immediately regretted not kitting ourselves out with whistles and walkie-talkies.

What fascinates me is how many people seem to treat IKEA as a day out experience. They walk four-abreast, enjoying the stroll through the bedding and cushions, stopping for coffee, encouraging their 3-year-old to roll around like a retard under other people's legs and trolley wheels. Who needs to go to the park when you've got IKEA?

Mills and I rushed around grabbing things and putting them in our trolley as fast as possible - we had a Super14 Final to make. Our momentum came to a grinding halt when we came to the till. I blame Mills, he blames me. Short story: me + one small bag of decorative marble stones + 6 wine glasses. Combine these elements within a 2m radius and wait for the crash. Usually I make it all the way to the parking lot before breaking anything, but our check-out chick was kind enough to send me dashing back to get another set.

The IKEA system is simple... sort of. Once in the entrance, you have to walk through the entire shop to get to the till. Arrows on the floor mark the direction of traffic flow, effectively making it one way. Getting through IKEA once is an effort, making you way through IKEA backwards is another thing entirely. I rushed back through the aisles of self-constructing furniture, past the outdoor section, over the retard kid rolling in the walkway, through the lamps and lighting... I figured if I followed the arrows backwards I would retrace my steps to the wine glasses.

The déjà vu started in the bathroom section. Have I been there before, or is it just because it looks like the kitchen section? And going through the mirror department in a rush was like an optical illusion. At one stage I found myself following the arrows in the correct direction... I had managed to join the flow of traffic towards the exit and still didn't know where the hell the glassware was. Stepping over the retard again and dodging the picnicking family on their day out, I retraced my steps for the second time.

After much disorientation, I found the wine glasses and made my way back to the tills. Of course, by this late stage of the morning, the check-out area was starting to look like a central African food market...

On the upside, we managed to drive all the way to IKEA and back without getting lost or driving on the wrong side of the road. So all in all, relatively smooth operation.

A little bit of this and that

The Dutch have four public holidays (outside of the standard Easter, Christmas and New Year). And all four public holidays fall within a month of each other - in May. So while I'm unemployed, I'm getting all my days off in one whack. Awesome.

Yesterday was Ascension Day and Mills played his first cricket match. I popped down for as long as I could stand to be in the cold wind... which was just long enough to see Mills bending his fingers back as he landed on them and then taking a knock to his face. Then I went home, curled up in the sun on the bed and fell asleep. It's a cat's life. A good day all round.

End.
... and now for something completely different.

A few recent conversations got me thinking about strengths and weaknesses in general knowledge. Mills knows everything and just about anything there is to know about sport. I don't know how or why, but he saps up this random stuff like a square spongy dude in pants.

Take last weekend, when I said something about the Bulls 'coach' on the Super14 sidelines.
"That's not the coach," Mills scoffed. "That's the kit manager."
Well, how the hell am I supposed to know that... and why the hell do YOU know that??

Another time, playing 30seconds (a favourite game for name calling and relationship testing):

Me: "How was I supposed to describe the word Bliksem?"
Mills: "Aagh! That's the name of Danie Craven's dog! Everybody knows that."
Me: "Um, no. Not everybody knows that. Besides, Danie Craven died ages ago... where do you learn this random crap?"

And so on.

On the other hand, Mills and I were discussing Dutch artists and museums in the Netherlands.

Mills: "Every town's got a Van Gogh museum in this place."
Me: "I know. Chop off one ear and everyone wants a piece. Hahaha. I kill me."
Mills: "What else did he paint. I know there was a vase of flowers. And the Mona Lisa isn't even kept in the Netherlands..."
Me: "Uuuuum, Van Gogh didn't paint the Mona Lisa."
Mills: "Yes, he did... Didn't he? Who painted that then?"
Me: "You're kidding right? Leonardo Da Vinci."
Mills: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Wow. Yes."

See, strengths and weaknesses.

Downhill

Yesterday, a lorry full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.

I don't care who you are... that's funny. And no, I don't have anything better to write about.

Career path

Early on in my work days, I realised I was made for big things. My very first job - at the age of 16 - was dressing up as a giant hippo for the amusement and entertainment of unruly brats at(what was then known as) the Randburg Waterfront. This was an interactive position: kids love to punch over-grown mascots and drunk students love to tackle them. Oh, and we used to dance the Macarena in these outfits.... just in case you weren't laughing hard enough.

Skip to a few years ahead. By this stage, I had decided that TV journalism was the path for me. As a kid, I used to pretend I was interviewing people (this involved a cut-out box, with buttons and dials draw on it... "look at me, dad, I'm on TV!") Fortunately, while studying my course, I got the opportunity to practise being on-camera... and unless the 'deer caught in the headlights' look is back in fashion, I was able to steer myself clear of ever appearing on screen.

I moved behind scenes - working on pre-production and multimedia projects - and loved it. My TV career culminated at 50/50. Yes, you heard me. That long-running, much-loved wildlife programme where dried up dung beetles are discussed by dried-up dung professors. Veldfokus... you know you love it.

I got to interview an elephant trainer - in a horse paddock. Horses are very elegant animals but I prefer to view them from the safety of a fence and a bolted door. People always tell me to let "the beast know who is in charge." These beasts know who is in charge, and it ain't me. So I was uneasy about standing in a paddock surrounded by the equestrian monsters, but my interviewee ensured me that he would have the sugar cubes in his pockets and they would only be interested in him so it wouldn't be a problem. I probably would've been happier with elephants.

With horses and their foals milling around us, I started to relax and concentrated on the interview. That was when one of the younger horses bit my ass. Chomp. Somewhere in the archives of SABC2 sits footage of an intern producer yelping and jumping into shot as a horse takes a chunk out of her right butt cheek. I had a neat little U-shaped bruise to show for it.

And that will be the last time I ever trust an elephant-horse whisperer.

Horseshoe teethmarks and all, I moved from SAUK Twee to online website media, from there to communications, to publicity and now into recruitment. Someone pointed out that I don't seem able to make up my mind.

I can't decide if I agree with them or not...

The age-old argument

The rugby vs hockey argument has always made my blood boil. Well, not so much the argument itself, I'm all for healthy rivalry, but rather the narrow-minded point of view (in some communities) that hockey is a wussie sport, moff-stock. Why? For the simple reason that it's not rugby.
Mockery in jest is good - rugby guys mock hockey guys and vice versa, it's the same with hockey girls (lesbians, of course) and netball girls. Don't even get me started on that sport... "ooh, look at me! I caught the ball with both my hands! How skilled I am. Now I'm not allowed to move my feet, so that cuts down on the coordination and allows me to focus on where I'm going to pass this over-sized ball..." Okay, you got me started. No offense to anyone who play(ed) netball, but you're still a bunch of fairies.

Back to rugby/hockey.

Listening to some of the Super14 commentary this weekend resurfaced the issue for me. I play hockey and am more hockey-biased, but I like rugby and my friends who play rugby. I enjoy watching a good game and I can appreciate the skill involved in trying to read the bounce of a egg-shaped ball while 15 men from the opposing side wait to pounce you from every angle.

But surely I'm not the only one who finds the overt sexuality amusing?

"Hougard goes in low and hard..." [His teammates like enthusiasm.]
"Adams whips it out to Botha..." [Naughty - he'd get arrested outside a primary school.]
Referee warning player: "You must release him, then play the ball." [Or at least have a safeword that you've both agreed upon before the time]
"Crouch... Touch... Pause... Engage!" [Who says rugby players aren't romantic?]

On screen, Habana makes a dash for the line but gets thrown to the ground - in the tumbling process, his attacker manages to wedge his head between Habana's thighs. I've watched a lot of moff-stock and not once have any of the men ended with someone's face snuggled in another's crotch for any amount of time.

Not to mention the scrums, where hands go up and in areas that I'm pretty sure most hockey guys would jealously protect during a match - especially if it was a team mate doing the grabbing.

I also feel the need to whisper, in as hushed typing as I can muster... Kamp Staaldraad. Oh dear.

So please tell me, how can an avid rugger-bugger honestly argue that hockey is more gay than rugby? From a number of SAUs, I can attest to the fact that most male hockey players are definitely not same-sex inclined. I cannot say the same about female hockey players... there's smoke and most definitely fire in that case. Eye-opening education when on provincial tour at the tender age of 15.

Rugby is a manly game, no doubt about that. Certainly less drama-queenish than football, where a player tripping over his own shoelace results in him clutching his shins and wailing loudly for the next 3 minutes. In rugby, when a man stays down it means he's unconscious. And guys bleed and stuff. You don't get much more macho than that.

What I would love to know is this: just how many of our national rugger-buggers are same-sex inclined? Cos I think they're having a ball on the pitch. Literally.

Woo hoo!

I kept telling myself it had to happen eventually... someone had to give in and hire me.

I was actually applying for another job ("we regret to inform you...") when the recruitment consultant handling my application sudddenly took a liking to me and asked if I would be interested in applying for a recruitment position at her company.

Next thing I know, I'm meeting the bosses and being introduced to the expat recruitment team. Cool - but nobody seems too phased about the fact that I actually, technically, have no recruitment experience.

I'm a little bit nervous about this fact. I don't have a salesman pitch. I can't bullshit. If I don't like you, it's going to show on my face. If I think you're bullshitting me, it's going to show in my comments. No matter, I'm getting a 6 month contract so I guess I should know by November whether or not I'm cut out for recruitment...

I get to take two people who I think will be compatible, then I tell them where to be and what to wear and what to say... what? That's not recruitment? That's match-making, you say?

Pot-ay-toe
Poh-tah-toe

All I know is that as of June, I will be earning a salary. And not a minute too soon - I have holidays to plan, shoes to buy, restaurants to visit... oh, and Mills is probably going to expect a bit of financial input too.

Things I have learnt in the Netherlands

1. Bikes: As a pedestrian I soon learnt to deal with these strange commuters. Treat them like volatile animals. Make eye contact - let them know that you have seen them and you are aware of their presense. Maintain eye contact - let them know that you are sticking to your chosen path. You are on the pavement, they should be on the cycle path. Unless, you are on the cycle path - in which case you should be prepared to be mowed down.
   I still can't get used to the multitasking. Shopping, kids, potplants, anything and everything is piled onto the bike. Couples cycle next to each other, holding hands. People cycle while smsing or chatting on the phone. Kids learnt to cycle on specially modified bikes - they pedal attached to the back of the parental bike. Clever. I think the ultimate in arrogance is when people cycle with hand in their pockets. Show-offs.
   As a cyclist myself, I'm very proud of my personal growth. I am no longer terrified of traffic. I've realised that motorists are actually considerate of cyclists - they tend to wait for your right of way, instead of aiming at the two-wheelers. Bike paths definitely help. Oh, and I figured out the trick to using the bike light... I changed gears. Much easier now.
2. Homes: The very first thing that struck me was that people are not big on curtains. Even if they actually have curtains, they don't close them. And they're not hidden behind 7ft solid brick walls and electric gates. Coming from SA, where you can't even see your neighbour's driveway, I could not stop myself from gawking into people's lounges. Also, most stairs are really narrow and steep. Fortunately, ours are not. I'm glad we don't live in an old apartment block... I would hurt myself.
3. Food: The Dutch love their fried snacks. Recipes consist of 'gooey meat type stuff, rolled in bread crumbs/pastry/something starchy, doused in hot oil' = kroketten, bittenballen, frikadellen, ragoutje. Served with lashings of mayonnaise and fries (or any form of potato/patat)
   When the Dutch aren't eating fried stuff, they're stuffing raw herring down their gullets. I have not tried this yet, but I'm going to go with a resounding YUCK. I'm sorry. I like sushi. I LOVE sushi. But sushi at least looks like it's been prepared to some degree. To eat something that looks like it has just be picked out of a canal... YUCK.
   On the upside, I have rediscovered salty licorice - yum. And stroopwafels - yum.
   Dairy: Rows and rows of cheese. Not a huge surprise, just makes it trickier to select - I'm used to choosing between Gouda and Cheddar. Yoghurt... this one I didn't see coming. The Dutch love their yoghurt varieties. You've got the standard selection (full cream, double thick, slim etc) but then there is also fla (tastes like runny instant pudding - do NOT point this out to a local), kwark (very sweet and rich), and a number of other yoghurt bi-products I've yet to discover.
4. Language: Now that we've gotten TV, it's a lot easier to pick up the language (especially insults and swearwords). And playing with a Dutch hockey team means I'll be more familiar with on-pitch instructions than social conversation. But a few of my favourite words so far:
   Hoor: pronounced 'whore'; used in agreement - as in "Ja, hoor."
   Doei: pronounced 'doo-wee' with enthusiasm; equivalent to bye-bye/cheers
   Douche: pronounced 'doosh'; as in shower. It cracks me up every time I see an ad for douchegel. I take great delight in informing Mills that I'm off to go 'douche'. And don't even get me started on the Nivea bodywash campaign that read: "Douche time, Happy time"...
5. Other: I've learnt that the Netherlands is the third most populated country in Europe, after Monaco and Malta, and that traffic jams can be astromonical (anything from 5km to 22km for no particular reason). I've learnt that South Africa was never a colony of the Netherlands - but that Suriname was. I've learnt that Dutch people tend to be honest to the point of bluntness, and I like it.

End of lesson. For now.

In a flap

In a post inspired by Peas, I've decided to share my all time greatest fear...
Ornithophobia.
Birds. I hate them.
Creepiness is.


I can handle looking at them, but I don't want them near me. I prefer not to make eye contact with those beady little eyeballs and I definitely don't like large gatherings. This gives them a chance to network against me. Every time I see one taking off, I picture all the tiny bird mites falling from their fluttering feathers and landing in my hair and in my food. Yuck yuck yuck puke.


My most terrifying near-bird experience happened in my late teens. On a visit to Cape Town, my family decided a trip to World of Birds was needed. Like I said, I can handle seeing birds. It's not like I'm going to run screaming from pigeons poeping on the pavement (I'm more likely to run screaming AT them) and so it was that I joined my family at the World of Birds Crawling with Bird Mites.


While strolling through the gardens, a starling decided to lodge itself in my hair. It was probably aiming for the glinting sunglasses perched on my head but, with me having the hair of Medusa and it having the talons of a gryphon, entanglement was the obvious result. Of all the people in the flipping place, it targets me.


Picture the scene: Starling frantically beating its wings against my head as it tries to take off with my sunglasses; me frantically flapping my arms in response close to tears; screaming, "Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!" while my mother tried not to wet her pants in laughter.

[Picture of birdmite removed due to grossness. Ed]

Think of all those bird mites in my hair after that little flap. Gross. Needless to say, I have never ever gone into another aviary. Never. Ever.

And I will never, ever allow birds as pets. Unless I'm using them to feed my pet snake.

Why I need a job

1. I need new shoes.
2. The weather has turned shitty.
3. I am addicted to Facebook: Fred has changed his status from "just about to shower" to "showered and feeling good and clean and fresh. Tralala." Mary is no longer married. Marike has removed Harry Trotter and the Trudgeon of Love from her favourite books. You have 111 friends. You are cool. Jonathon has joined the group "Things and phrases that I like people to know that I like".
4. I am addicted to Girls of the Playboy Mansion. Holly, Bridget and Kendra rock my world. This is possibly the definitive symptom of my unemployment. When I had a work life, I would never have watched this bollocks. Now I can't get enough of the Playboy Mansion. If I were living in the USA, I'd be watching from a trailor park... with peroxide-platinum hair, recovering from my most recent augmentation.
5. My lunch time is dominated by BBC Prime scheduling.
6. I can recite the "True or False" fillers on E! Entertainment Network - I know that Nicole Kidman is a lepidopterophobe.
7. If I don't find a decent job, I may have to resort to being a check-out chick at the local supermarket.
8. I'm losing motivation.

Think before you smile and nod

Oh dear god, I should not be allowed to talk when I'm not paying attention. First, on Queen's Day (which was messy anyway), I accepted an invitation to join my new best friends for dinner in Rotterdam. I forgot all about this invitation until Mills came home laughing last week Thurs... informing me that I will be expected at dinner on Saturday evening. We already had plans for someone else's birthday party - which Mills was definitely going to - but seeing as I had unwittingly accepted a week ago, I pottered off to Rotterdam on my own.

Then, while at random dinner with people who I had just met (in a STUNNING apartment on the 19th floor overlooking the whole of Rotterdam port at sunset - picture not included), I agreed to join a mixed league hockey side. Well, I sort of expressed interest in playing mixed league and next thing I was being introduced to my new team mates. Oops. I spent the rest of yesterday and last night praying that they weren't being serious, but opened my email this morning to be greeted with:

"Hey Koekie,
How are you? Did you had a good weeekend?
Hope you are still interested in tonight's hockey game… ;-)
Our game starts at 20.15, so if you could be there around 20.00hrs that would be perfect.
Hereby address details of the club...."

Oh fukkity-fuk-fuk-faaaaak. So it looks like I'm going back to Rotterdam this evening to play hockey in the rain with people who I have never met. What was I thinking??

I wasn't. Nod and smile, nod and smile... I've really gotta stop doing that.

Besides setting up random play dates with random people, I also dragged Mills around the world-famous flower gardens of Keukenhof. Thus the random pictures of a windmill and flowers.

About 10,000 sets of feet tramp those flower paths to death on a daily basis for the brief few spring months that the gardens are open every year, so the place is crowded with busloads of Asians, kids, prams, grannies and walkers. It was a test of patience, but I managed to control any knee-jerk reactions to bratty kids and Mills didn't shove any geriatrics. I almost managed to get a picture of a lady bending over a flower bed as the wind blew her skirt up, but I mistimed it. Would've been good though.

This particular picture involved a bit of negotiation with an individual from Japan/Taiwan/China/South Korea. I waited for a truckload of them to move out of the way so I could get my chance to snap the pretty bloems, but as I raised my camera, a lady straggler decided to stop and pose for me. Thoughtful though this was, I'm not a fan of random people in my pics (unless they don't know I'm taking the pic and they're doing something amusing, like flashing their white granny-broeks). I dropped my camera and gently motioned in the direction of her tour group. Run along now, dearheart... you're missing an important detail on the history of turips. Thank you kind-ry.

But back to important matters, how do I get out of this hockey match without making it seem like it's just because the weather's turned? I'm fickle like that.

Lightly toasted

I had yet another job interview this afternoon. I did my usual preparations... took an hour to shower, another hour or so to decide what to wear and style my hair in the required fashion. Tried on a few outfits, rejected them. Bemoaned the fact that I really need more shoes. Checked up on the company's website, checked there were no delays on public transport (biking to an interview is just asking too much of karma), checked the weather websites for further consideration of what to wear. Decided I really need to make a good impression because I really need new shoes.

Half an hour before I had to leave (nails done, hair done, make up semi-done and outfit still undecided), it was time for lunch. Simple egg on toast.

I always burn toast. Always. Any one I've lived with can attest to this claim. This time I did it good and proper. Smoke billowing out of toaster was the first sign, the second was the smell, the third was the fire alarm.

BEEP
BEEP
BEEP
BEEP
BEEP

I flung the offending piece of (now charcoaled) toast onto the balcony, opened all the doors and windows, switched on the extractor fan at full blast and then turned my attention to the screeching contraption out of reach on the ceiling. Thank god it wasn't spraying water at me.

Just as I was concluding that the only way to shut the thing up would be to rip it from the ceiling and mangle it with an iron, a-la-Phoebe style, the thing shut up on its own. No more smoke, no more fire, no more alarm. Clever.

So I was able to get back to the all important process of selecting an outfit with corresponding earrings and shoes. Oh, and the egg on toast became an egg sandwich. I wasn't trying to burn two pieces of toast in one day, thank you.

Have a smoke-free weekend!

Poepstring

I know it's not my hamstring, but this one is just on the outside of my hamstring. And it's sore.

I played my first game on Tuesday eve - they flung me into the midfield, which was nice (most new teams insist on playing me up front, which I don't appreciate... remember, I prefer playing fat, scary sweeper at the back) so I got to do quite a bit of running.

I had also cycled to the hockey match - ambitious, I know, but I had to start some time. I think it's the cycling that did it. The poepstring, that is.

You see, seeing as the hockey club is on the way to the beach, and it being the Netherlands and all... cycling towards the beach means cycling uphill. True, it's not much of an incline (there aren't really hills anywhere in the country), but it's up nonetheless.

After the match I had to cycle home. With my thighs feeling like gelatinous toxic sludge, I was quite looking forward to the freewheel down the hill. Unfortunately I hadn't counted on my bike light. This wonderful contraption works on kinetic energy and is required by law when cycling at night. You flick a switch and the lamp attaches itself to the front wheel of the bike - the faster you pedal the brighter it glows. It also tightens the wheel's rotation to the point that I might as well have been cycling through a pot of my nana's Sunday gravy (it was fairly chunky stuff).

Freewheeling on the downhill didn't happen. If I stopped pedalling, the bike had slowed down the point of falling over within 20m. I put it down to weak legs from the game, but last night I had the displeasure of cycling home from dinner with my light on... same exhausting result.

I'm sure I'll get used to it, but cycling is meant to be easy.... with the bike light on it feels like I'm trying to complete a mountain race. And the strain has resulted in me pulling a poepstring. I just know it.

Koninginnedag

After a day to recover I can now post about the weekend.

Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) is a celebration of the Dutch Queen's birthday. Technically, it's not the queen's birthday. It's the now-deceased queen mum's birthday... but the new Queen Beatrix's birthday is in January and the weather is shit at that time of year so now the queen gets to stroll around and wave at everybody singing her happy birthday for her mom. Sweet.

Not that it really matters - most people just want to dress in orange, get drunk and stoned. And by 'most' people, I mean 'tourists'. I think most Nederlanders actually just stay at home and enjoy a day off.

So the festivities start in The Hague on Koninginnenag (Queen's Night), the eve before. The quaint old-town city turns into a giant carnival with flashing games and whirling rides. A performing stage is set up every 150m throughout the city centre as well as snack bars and bar stands.

Eventually hauling ourselves out of bed the next day, we got ready for the actual celebration in Amsterdam. With orange hairdye, orange face paint, orange (silk) shirts and any other orange paraphenalia we could get our hands on, Mills and I looked like we'd fallen into a tub of tartrazine.

We headed into Amsterdam (getting more than a few stares) and met up with the rest of the expat group. From what I can remember, it consisted of: two South Africans, one Irish, one Italian, one Ukrainian, five Americans, two Dutch, one Indian, one American-Dutch-German and one Moldovian for good measure. Moving from place to place was fun as we had to keep this mish-mash of foreigners together - and I kept ending up with the two shortest in the group. In a crowd of very tall Dutchmen, everyone wearing orange and I was trying to look for two 4-ft-something ladies. Fun game.

The streets are absolute chaos as, just like the night before, there are stages set up at every corner. Trading laws are effectively abolished on this day which means that anyone and everyone can sell anything they want. There are jumble sales, lemonade stands, buskers, game stands, karaoke... some entrepreneurs even rent out canal-side spaces to be used as public urinals.

But the anarchy is not limited to the streets. The way to do Queen's Day, it seems, is by boat. Self-contained parties float up and down the canals - rocking with their own DJs and booze. And if they need to stop at a pub or for any other reason, then you just get as close to the edge as possible and simply boat-hop from yours across any others in your path. It's very social.

After a long day of partying (and losing my return ticket and my drink in the bowels of a port-a-loo), we decided to call it a day.... not before the obligatory mayo frites and kroket. I still have no idea what the gooey stuff is, they call it mince meat but I challenge anyone to actually agree with that description.

When it comes to visiting the Netherlands in spring, make sure to plan your trip around Koninginnedag. Definitely worth the party!