| Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 20:24
The pictures are online
By now many people have seen the "real" album - so there's no need to keep the pictures a secret. But - in the "real" album we have some of them in black and white or only partials of the whole photograph. So seeing that album is still something not to be missed :)
Anyway, the pictures are in the Photo Gallery for you to enjoy!
We're still looking for pictures of the dinner and the party - so should you have any nice ones: let us know!
Tuesday, June 21, 2005, 09:38
Sneak Preview... !
We have the album with wedding pictures! Finally! It took a bit - but as the Germans say: Gut Ding will Weile haben....
Anyway, we figured that we'd be taking the fun out of showing the album to you if we'd post the pictures on the Photo Gallery right away. So we decided to put up a little "Sneak Preview" sekection of foto's that didn't make it into the final album... Enjoy!
Wednesday, June 08, 2005, 17:12
More honeymoon pictures
Our co-travellers of the day on the Amazone river sent us more pictures. We uploaded three of them to the Gallery. It's easiest to find them if you use the menu option "Last uploads". Enjoy!
Friday, June 03, 2005, 10:04
Chuchu!
During the honeymoon we had a dish with "chuchu" (in Brasil, see below). We couldn't figure out what it was, but it was delicicious.
Now Rene and Maria-Luiza went to Madeira last week - and guess what they found there: chuchu! So now we're hunting for the recipe of the dish we had there - the only problem is that we don't know its exact name.... but it's a challenge.
Anway, Rene also took some pictures of the chuchu - they're in the gallery. Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 24, 2005, 12:45
The honeymoon is over
Well, the Dutch "wittebroodsweken" can be translated to "honeymoon". And, officially, that's the six weeks after getting married. So - last weekend we went out for dinner to celebrate the fact that we now are supposed to be in "real" married life...
Thursday, May 19, 2005, 19:34
Wedding Pictures
I know that many of you are waiting impatiently for the pictures. But - they're not ready yet. Syl and me went to see them past Friday. The pre-selection is looking good, but we're missing some. So we're waiting for these. And, of course, we still need to select the album we want them to go into. Once we've done that and seen the last pictures it'll take a week to produce the album - and then we'll post them. So... patience is the key word here...
Wednesday, May 11, 2005, 20:08
We're back
As you've surely guessed - we're back home by now. We arrived Friday afternoon in Amsterdam and were home around 8pm. Long day if you consider that we'd left the hotel at 2pm the previous day (local time). That makes it 24h of travelling. The trip was pretty eventful - let's just mention one broken bottle of Cachaca in Syl's carry on luggage, more passport checks than in a Stasi prison camp, and the fact that Iberia decided that it would be a good idea to place a honeymooning couple in seats that were not remotely close to each other. They probably thought "heck, they have frequent flyer passes, so they'll come back anyway".... we'll see about that. But much was made up by the welcoming party we met at Schiphol - that was very nice!
Anyway, although the trip home was not so much fun we still had a good - if somewhat busy - weekend. There were birthday parties to attend and people to tell about the trip.
By now we're both back at work already. So "regular" life has got us back again. But - not all "wedding things" are over by now: we've still got to see our wedding pictures. That we'll do Friday. And of course we'll put the nicest ones up in the Gallery when we get them.
By the way: If you guys/girls still have pictures you'd like to share with us: please mail them or put them on the gallery. We'd love to see them!
Thursday, May 05, 2005, 01:56
Last Night!
Oh, oh - all god things must come to an end. Tonight is our last night to be spent in a hotel room. Tomorrow night we'll be in an airplane, somewhere over the Atlantic. So - even this looong honeymoon is drawing to a close.
As you know if you've read the stories below: we've just been to Los Roques for these past 4 days. The place is really, really beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it when it comes to colors of see, sky and beach.
The only village of the archipelago consists of colored houses lining a few sandy streets. That also creates a little drawback - besides going to one of the many beaches of the outlying islands there's not much to do. Not much? Change that to "nothing" (except diving, of course).
Diving did not enter the picture on this trip. However sad that was for me... The problem was that, on the evening of the second day on Los Roques, I got sick. Real sick. And Syl decided that if I was sick she'd do just the same, just to keep thindgs lively. So, with both of us either sitting on the pot or hanging hunched over it, there was little time for diving....
Fortunately the local witchdoctor (no, just kidding, a regular MD who actually spoke English) knew of some wonder-pills. So we were at least able to go to the beach again yeterday and today. Still wobbly on our feet and crampy on the stomach - but nothing to distract us from getiing our well earned sun tan!
So tonight we're hunting for some light food to appeace my belly (Syl's seems to have had it with it's share of sympathy-troubles and decided to return to normal again). Let's see how that plane-thing will work out tomorrow.
With all this being sick and stuff I actually thought that by now I'd be rady to go back home. Even said so. But - a few minutes ago I saw the weather forecast for NL for the weekend.... 6 - 12C, rain and thundershowers. Heck, I rather take my chances with the food here again.... but then, I'm not given much choice because my lovely wife will surely beat me into that plane if I don't go on my own devices...
Saturday, April 30, 2005, 03:30
Made it to Venezuela
The last thing I wrote was about the last activity at the lodge in Manaus. In fact, that`s a couple of days back already. Since then we first moved on back to Rio de Janeiro (via Brasilia). We spent one more night at the Sheraton in Rio. The idea was to pick up our suitcases and get a good night of sleep. And we definitely needed it. Especially me - I had slept very little in the heat of the cabin. Shows me again how much I like airconditioning....
The fun thing was that the Sheraton had prepared a surprise of snacks and champagne in our room. Weird - the first time we arrived they had done nothing and now that we came back for one night they suddenly did. Strange - but we still appreciated it very much. And let me tell you, champagne works miracles, even if you`re dead tired :)
Anyway, after spending the night in Rio we were off to Caracas (Venezuela) yesterday. We had already wondered about the duration of the flight - it seemed pretty long. When we were in the plane we found out why: the plane went to Sao Paulo first before going on to Caracas (and Aruba afterwards - but without us...). So we got back to Sao Paulo unexpectedly. Always fun to visit places without planning on it.
The driver picked us up at the airport, and after checking in here at the hotel we were in for another treat: We were greeted by more champagne in our room. And even nicer: they had made a path of rose petals from the door to the bed; on the bed they had placed folded up bathrobes and placed a bouquet of red roses on the side table. All in all it looked very romantic. Too bad that I couldn`t enjoy the champagne too much this time - I was even more knackered than in Rio and basically passed out as soon as I got in the vincinity of the bed....
Today we did a "Syl activity": We went shoppiiiiiiing. We went to a giant mall here. As usual when we go shopping together it turned out to be a big bloodletting for my credit card - while Syl got back empty handed.... How do these women do that ???
Okay, now I`ve caught up to the latest. Tomorrow we`re off to Los Roques (or Las Roquas or however you write it correctly...). This means another day of having to get up at 6 am, but I think it will - again - be worth it.
Nite!
Thursday, April 28, 2005, 15:44
Ditched the forest - found civilization
Last night we got back to Rio de Janeiro. The days in the Amazone were really one of the highlights of the trip. If I start writing everything down I'll miss my plane so I'll save that for tonight (if I can find internet access in Caracas, that is).
Ok, short update: as I said we spent the past days in the rainforest, about 160km downstream from Manaus. The rainforest was much less "pristine" than I thought, and more "development" was going on all around. But then, who am I to say that the people living on the river shouldn't be able make a living....
As for what we did: first day we went on a "walk around the property" as the guide called it (you had to have been there to catch he humour of that), then at night we went spider-spotting in the rainforest. We actual found a pretty large tarantula and a couple of very large hairy other spiders on the roof of a cabin. Very nice. The evening was concluded with a nice "Indonesian rice table" - in other words, a typical Amazonian dish if you're in a Dutch-owned lodge :)
Next day we went hiking though the forest with another guide. The "hike" was not much like we expected - I had expected a cathedral-like forest with very high trees filtering out most of the sunlight and consequently very litle undergrowth. Syl had expected the opposite - very dense, thick bush. What we found was closer to the last, but there were some quite high ancient trees (65m high and 2000 years old) as well. The "hike" turned out to be only about 7km in total - but it took 6 hours because the guide stopped every couple of meters to explain about a tree, survival, medicinal qualities, he ecosystem, etc, etc. Although it wasn't super-hot (like about 32°C) I felt like I was melting.... humidity was way above 90%.
After about 3 km we reached "Jane's Camp". Neither Jane or Tarzan were at home, but our guide still managed to build up a nice fire and prepared a "traditional jungle bbq" - big chunks of meat roasted over the fire on two sticks. Yummy.
Back at the lodge we were not overly tired - but very very hot. Syl refused to go down to the litle lake (the ground is bit muddy so it`s yuvky, she claims), so we went to the pool. At the pool we got an unexpected visitor: One of the monkeys that hangs around the lodge had fallen of his usual tree - and decided to pester us after having had his drink from the pool. It`s a really cute monkey - until he starts getting aggressive... I was having great fun with him, but a Canadian couple got stuck in their house the next morning because the monkey had taken over their veranda and they did not dare go past him...
The next day we went on a boat trip on he Amazone. We drove around a couple of black-water tributaries (this water is very poor in nutrients and has a high level of acidity). There we stopped and swam around for a while to cool off. After swimming we drove around for a bit more and went back to the float-house where we had started off from to have lunch. On the trip there we got into some rain, so we had ourselves a free shower. Handy.
After lunch we went to the actual Amazone. along the way we saw a lot of birds - and also saw a couple of fresh water dolphins. Very cool. The total trip lasted about 4.5 hours on the water, so even with sunscreen on we got pretty burned. The funny thing about this was that, back at the lodge, they didn`t have any sun at all - but 6 hours of puring rain. That was only about 20km further on. Amazing.
In the evening we went to see some caymans / crocodiles / whatever. The guide caught a baby one and showed it around the boat. I still don`t know if I liked that part or not...
After getting back to the lodge we had another very good dinner and a few caipirinhas....
That`s it for now - more coming up later on.
Monday, April 25, 2005, 03:22
Ditched the rain - found the forest
Today was the big day - we've finally moved on to the Amazone. The trip here was an event in itself, worth many epic stories. For the sake of brevity I'll keep it down to mentioning that we were taken back to the airport, then drove on by taxi for two hours to reach the lodge. That's a taxi + guide - and both still had to drive back after dropping us off here. I just don't see how these hotels and lodges can run at a profit here.
Anyway, the internet connection here is more expensive than many international phone calls, so we'll keep it short tonight.
As some of you have already mentioned: yes, the smurfje.com main site is offline. As it turns out it probably will stay so until we're back. I tried today together with Yuri (he of the great Java knowledge) to get it back online - but to no avail. Sorry, you'll just need to keep using the shortcut....
The jungle here is pretty impressive. The lodge less so - especially considering that it is "superior" class. But even without a hot shower, no window panes and no airconditioning we're still having a good time.
What's especially nice is the "quite". It's not that there's no sound - loads of crickets, tree frogs, and other beasts take care of that, but very little other sounds. And that although the main road is pretty close. Velly nice, as Mr Chinaman says...
Tomorrow we're off to our first day in the "real" forest, with an option to spend the night. We'll see if Syl wants to put up with a night in a hammock-camp without even a proper WC....
After that we'll be going to the Amazone river, and what's after that I dunno..... but then again, who cares.... as long as it's fun, we're game (on second thought, being "game" might not be such a good idea, being in the forest and all.... )
Sunday, April 24, 2005, 01:55
Found the rain - where's that forest
We had seen tropical rainstorms in Rio de Janeiro last night and the night before. Amazing how much water can fall out of the water in a short time. And really great to see the waves on the beach afterwards / easily 3 to 4 meters high on Ipanema beach. Coooool.
But that rain was nothing compared to what we were greeted with here. Here? Here, for the moment, is Manaus. Yes, time's a-flying. Our time in Rio has come to an end already (though we'll go back for a night before flying on to Caracas at the end of the trip). So today we flew to Brasilia and then on to Manaus. Here we were greeted by a local rainstorm; all the streets had turned into little rivers, and there were lakes at the bottom of each little hill. I remember driving in Holland with water on the road - and how hard it was to keep the car pointed straight - so I can only marvel at the way our driver took on the water here. I guess he's used to it, but still....
Oh - by the way: yesterday we walked / taxied our way through Rio on our own. We had gotten really fed up with all the pre-organzied tours. Just to make sure I mention it: we did NOT get robbed, kidnapped and we still have the contents of all our pockets. We felt pretty tense because we had heard so much about the crime rate in Rio, but nothing happened.
Tomorrow we'll head out to the real rainforest. If the forest lives up to the imnpressiveness of the rain then we're really up for something....
Syl's busy posting pictures; I guess she wants to make sure nobody needs to get bored on his/her Sunday.... :)
Thursday, April 21, 2005, 22:17
InternetCH
We found out that there are precious little words in Portuguese (or at least the Brazilian variant) that do NOT contain a "CH" sound. Even "internet" sounds like "internetch" here.
Anyway, back to the travel stories. Where did I leave off? I think Parati (should have read the site before starting to type). Right now we're in the town of the January River - or Rio de Janeiro as the locals call it. And the rest of the world, for that matter. The nice folks of Hilton haven't gotten around to opening a hotel here, so, as Syl puts it, we're stuck at the Sheraton. Bugger. But hey, we're not about to be choosy... :)
Rio itself is a "interesting" place. Chaotic - like everything in Brazil we've seen so far - but with a special charm. Somehow people have this thing here that if they have to WORK with tending to tourists they try to do so with the least effort possible - but as soon as the work part is taken out of the equation and they see it as doing a personal favor then they'll run around the shoopping mall three times to just find that internet cafe you dumb tourist couldn't find yourself. Amazing people....
An example of this: We went to see Sugarloaf mountain; after we finally got there - and up - and back down (after having seen nothing because the top was in the clouds and so were we - and no, these were not the pink clouds Syl is floating on) - the bus was gone! Yes - gone. Okay, I have to admit it was 18:04 and not 18:00 as the tour guide had asked us, but four minutes late and the tour bus is a goner? Talk about customer service... So I raised all kinds of hell - and Syl grabbed an unfortunate tour guide by his b...s (figuratively speaking). The poor guy happens to work for Blumar - the agent we booked this tour with - and had the bad luck of wearing a shirt with the company name on it. In the end he ended up hailing a cab for us and promising that we'd be reimbursed the fare...
But - despite the little setbacks we're still enjoying ourselves here! I don't know if I'll be able to write something tomorrow (internet access is a hard to find thing if you stay outside the actual touris area of Copacabana, Ipanema or Leblon) so here's the next destination: Day after tomorrow we're off to Manaus, from where we'll hop into the Amazone (region!!, not river) for a couple of days.
Monday, April 18, 2005, 00:27
Busy Beaches
Yesterday we left our Pousada in Jureia behind us. My travel descritption had said that from that we needed to follow one of the world's most beautiful coastal roads to Parati. The description was right. Even with the weather doing its best to spoil the day (clouds, low hanging clouds and more clouds) the views were still spectacular. It's not like in the South of France where you ride high above the ocean, but it takes you up and down these characteristic hills here. Real nice.
Finding the Pousada do Sandi here in Parati was much easier. We asked once, were handed a map, and found it right away. The hotel has an own parking lot (something very special in Parati), so even parking the car was easy. In the evening we went for a quick swim, then out to dinner. Dinner seems to be less important here than in Argentina - the Brasilians (here, at least) eat the main meal in the early afternoon. But the "snack" we had was still more than enough. What's curious as well is that most dishes here are served for two people - so we get to choose together. Imagine US agreeing on what to eat..... :) During dinner got aquainted with the typical tropical thunderstorm; the road turned into a foot-deep river that was streaming - very quickly - towards the sea. Cool to see. Even better when you're inside and don't get drenched.
Today we spent some time at a little beach North of Parati. It was busy. There were at least fifteen more people on the same one-kilometer stretch of sand.... :)
Lunch was fun. We stumbled across a couple of derelict restaurants in a backwater fishing village at the end of a small road. Unafraid we decided to sample the REAL local cuisine. We used our little pocket-dicitionary to figure out most of the (seafood-only) menu - but were stomped by the word "Chuchu". Shrimps with a TRAIN? That wasn't it, in any case. But - an English speaking gentleman was dragged to our table to explain the dish. He recommended the Shrimps with Train very warmly; we had our doubts because he kept going on about how it was cooked in sand and all, but he still had all HIS teeth, so we figured ther was a kink in the transalation. We were right. And the food was GREAT.
The same gentleman - a highway patrol offiver as it turned out - kept us entertained for the nest 2,5 hours (the duration of our lunch). When we had finished and settled the bill he was just starting his lunch/dinner/whatever you wanna call it - together with the restaurant staff. We couldn't get away without at least tasting the giant shrimps they were having. Yes, they were great as well. And no, we REALLY neeed to get going. Hospitality here is such an amazing thing.
To make sure it's the same in town here I'm now going out to drink at least one more caipirinha.... :)
Saturday, April 16, 2005, 02:28
Round of golf, anyone?
We've left Sao Paulo behind us. I was quite worried about that bit, actually. I've seen the Paulistas drive - the concept of "keep your lane" is not known here. Worse, the concept of "lanes" seems to be foreign as well...
Anyway, we managed to secure us a little Fiat Palio, 4 doors, with AC. And yes, we love that AC. It's about 30-32C here. And sunny. Yes, life is bad.... :)
Ok, what did we do besides navigate Sao Paulo traffic? Well, for starters we raided the breakfast buffet of the Executive Lounge at the Hilton Morumbi. No, Marc, no worries, you can still come back. Just make sure to say "HI" to Lia from us. She's one great girl.
After getting ourselves checked out we went to the national airport by taxi. The girl behind the counter must have thought us completely nuts after she figured out that these two gringos who don't speak Portuguese actually wanted to rent a car from an All-Brazilian rental agency. But no, we're not crazy - just adventurous. So - on we went by shuttle bus to the rental lot. There we found a lady who managed to utter a few sounds that came close to common English (Syl says "you're mean" - yes I am). After kicking a major fuss we convinced her that we REALLY wanted the car we had made reservations for.
Then is was time for revenge - did you ever try to drive through a city of 17 million people without a map? I hadn't - until today. But the simple fact that you can read this rant means we survived! Even though the lady and her boss had a violent discussion whether we should turn left or right at each intersection they were describing. Maybe I should have taken Patrick's TomTom after all...
Anyway, we got out of Sao Paulo in one piece and found the coastal road. The agent's description said that we needed to go to "Pousada Amarras", located 10 km after a little place whose name I can't remember now. So we drove there. No trace of the Pousada. So we stopped at a tourist info. No English. Ok, time to use hands an feet. That worked. The lady called the Pousada. It turned out it was too difficult to explain - so they sent someone to pick us up.
Did I mention ths was supposed to be a "touris class" hotel? Pick us UP?? We certainly did not expect THAT. But - we got even more impressed. As it turned out the description was for travelers coming from the direction of Rio. So we had actually overshot our goal by 20km. This means the pick-up car drove 20km to find us, then 20km back to the hotel. Talk about Service with a capital S.
After we got to the hotel we were impressed again. We were shown the room - and the owner, who speaks Eglish, suggested that we go to the beach. Sure. Why not. So we went to change and came back down. We told the guy that we'd go to the beach and asked where to go. Wrong question. We were not supposed to GO - but one of the bellboys here took us by golf cart. And not just us - but also a hotel-parasol, extra towels - and a cooler with beer and water. It takes a lot to make us shut up and look in wonder - but they sure mananged here. "Tourist Class", did I mention that??
The beach here is amazing. It's a little stretch of sand encased by two large mountains. In total we saw about fifteen people and one sog while we were there. Our golf-cart picked us up at 6pm sharp and took us back to shower and have dinner. Too bad that we have to leave agasin tomorrow.
Anayway, I'm gonna go back to my Caipirinha now. Tomorrow we're off to Paraty. Let's see if the "Luxury" hotel I booked there will be able to match the Pousada Amarras' level of service.
Friday, April 15, 2005, 13:58
Moving on
By now we've left Buenos Aires behind us - physically, but it' still on our minds. What a cool city.
Let me back up and ramble a bit about what we did these past two days; the last thing I wrote was when we were waiting for the TRAIN to take us to Tigre. We eventually actually got there - it was real fun to navigate our way through the Argentine rail system - and we found out that the trains and rails in Holland are not so bad, after all.... :)
In Tigre we took "The bus" - which is a boat there. After riding though the channels of the delta there for a while we got off at Tres Bocas. It was starting to rain at the time so we figured it might be better to start with having lunch. No credit Cards accepted - and our amount of pesos was running out. After calling a friend and consulting the newspaper the lady finally agreed that we could pay in Euros as well if we wanted. Luckily! I wouldn't have missed that steak for nothing in the world. YUUUMMMMMY.
Back in BA it was raining hard, so we stayed in after returning to the hotel. In the evening we were picke up to got to our long awaited Tango show. The ambience alone was already worth writing books about - so I won't even start. Let's just say we had a lot of fun.
Yesterday we moved on to Sao Paulo. At the airport we discovered that our video camera is missing. Calling back to the hotel and to the local agent in BA did not result in anything yet. So there probably won't be a video of this honeymoon after all... Fortunately I had switched tapes in the morning, so the tape Peter took at the wedding is safe.
Here in Sao Paulo we're at the Morumbi. Fantastic! We've got access to the Executive Lounge - and taking full advantage of it. They'll arrange anything for you. Great.
Dinner was at an incredible BBQ place. Ask us about it when we get back - I can't write this down or you'll still be reading in an hour (and I've got a taxi waiting downstairs....)
Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 16:02
How to work through 800g of steak
Ok, everybody keeps yapping about Argentinian steak. So - we took it upon us to test it. Monday evening Syl had a nice tenderloin, Sven selected the enormous task of finishing off a 800g piece of "baby beef". Let us tell you: it was worth the trip.. Luckliy they didn´t make us wash the dishes when we discovered they didn´t take our Mastercard. Instead they offered that we leave the money at the reception of the Hilton. Talk about trusting your customers! Great!
Besides having a humongous dinner and (for Sven at least) an equally huge lunch yesterday we´ve seen a lot of the city already. Monday we spent our day walking through the inner-down town area (Plaza de Mayo, Av. Florida, etc) and yesterday we took the greater tour by bus. So we saw the soccer stadium of what our guide called the Greatest Football Club On Earth: Boca Juniors. Of course that´s a typical Argentinian exaggeration - after all we know that the Greatest Club on Earth is VFB Stuttgart....¨:-) Just ask Kai.
We also came by Marc´s favorite part of town. This is an artisty area in the otherwise very poor Boca neighborhood. All the houses in this artist-area are painted in bright colors.
In contrast with the poor Boca neighborhood we went to Recolata - and the cemetery there. It´s amazing to see to what lengths people will go here to show how important they were in life. As Syl put it: the grave monuments of the here are larger than many houses of the living in La Boca.
After taking in a sauna at the hotel we fell asleep - and woke up at 9:45pm. Although that is a quite normal time for dinner here, we decided to skip dinner and went back to bed (...).
More steak, a trip to the outskirts on our own (by train), and a Tango show are the program for today. Let´s see if we ever find our way beack (we´ve just reached the trains station after walking though half of the city), but with Syl´s map-reading skills that should be no problem at all.
Incident of the day for Tuesday: Not all stairs leading below the earth marked whith a sign "E" are for line "E" of the underground... Sometimes the E means "Estacionamente" and leads to a parking garage...
Sorry for rambling on! Too much to tell....
Monday, April 11, 2005, 22:14
We are on our way!
Who can deny his bride anything on her wedding day? Not Sven, that much we found out. So when Syl wanted to know where the honeymoon would take us I couldn't keep it secret any longer. So, while finishing the bottle of Champagne the castle had provided in our honeymoon suite, the plans were laid out.
With great assistance from Marc I had arranged a trip that will, in the course of the next four weeks, take us to Argentina, Brasil, and Venezuela. Marc, thank's again for all your help and making it possible for us to explore the Hiltons of South America. As Syl put it aptly this morning during breakfast: We could get used to this...
But - let me first back up a bit and tell you how much we LOVED our wedding day! It was so much fun! And emotional! Especially with all the warmth everybody was projecting, the serenity of the services - and the fun we had at the party.
If and when we find a faster internet connection than he one we're using to write this we'll put some pictures of the wedding, the (partially secret) preparations, and the honeymoon on the site.
Oh yes: right now we're in Buenos Aires and the SUN IS SHINING!!!!
Funny incident of the day: Syl ordering a snack and readng the menu; she says: Hey, they're serving warm dogs here (perros calientes); I suddenly had a hard laughing wife at my table when I mentioned that these dogs might actually be HotDogs... :-)
Monday, April 11, 2005, 12:31
The day after
After a great day the newlyweds had a wonderful breakfast at the fireplace in the library of the castle. After that, the stress came. Sven was missing his passport. They searched al their bags, room, cars everything. Meanwhile all the guests, who stayed at the hotel arrived at the castle and started to check everything again. No results.
And then Marc had a great brainwave. He did remember they made a copy of the passport with the scanner in ‘s Hertogenbosch in case the passport would be lost or stolen during the honeymoon.
Luckily they had enough time to go back to ‘s Hertogenbosch to get it and now they are at sunnier places than rainy Holland.
Yolanda had also bad luck flying back to Turkey. She drove back to Eindhoven with Tanja and me. And I would bring her to the airport in the afternoon. At home we checked the departure times, but what we find out there wasn’t that nice. The flight had been cancelled and all the seats were booked to an other flight which left from Amsterdam.
So Yolanda had to go by train to Schiphol to fly back to Turkey. I hope she made it on time.
After all a hectic sunday after a great saterday.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005, 20:27
Bachelor party (Syl)
About this day I can easily write an whole sheet, but that won't read that nicely on the screen!
It all started around this last fitting session for my dress. Meike started with sending me an sms that I had to keep my mobile close by. The rest of the day I didn't get another message until late that evening: Go to sleep!
The next morning started with instructions on what to pack, and later which train to take and where I had to go to on Amsterdam central station.
There I was met by Meike, Marja, Marie-José and Ineke. Suus and Ardy arrived shortly after that. Pien and Ilse suddenly showed up when we arrived at "De Eerste Keramiek Kamer" In the meantime everybody tried to convince me we would go for a disco swim. Unfortunately for you, I never believed it. Meike and organising something with swimming, in april.... I know her longer that today!
But the cups, teapot and all the other items we decorated will be great. Even Suus was drawing and painting quietly.
Around 6 we left for a drink and around 9 pm we ended up for dinner in "De Struisvogel". A very small restaurant in a basement of the Keizersgracht. BUt this dinner was only a start for our visti to a Salsa club. It was great over there. I think we never had that much male attention as a group. In 5 minutes Ardy had arranged a dance partner for me but he tried to be very close, so I told him to dance with Pien. My next dance partner couldn't dance so I stopped again. In the end I danced nicely with a guy from Groningen. All the latino's tried to be very close. Meike had much trouble to keep the barkeeper away from her!
At 3 am we were back at Meike's place where Rein had prepared all beds for the ones who didn't go home. So sweet!
The next day I went back to Den Bosch with small eyes. I was back home at 3.30pm.
Girls, thank you so much for this wonderful day! I'm really curious for the pictures!
Monday, April 04, 2005, 17:38
Party time
Hmm, of course I was not supposed to know when the bachelor’s party was planned. Too bad that I figured it out anyway. Just to be sure I checked again - and yes, it was last Saturday. Huub was right: It was completely in my "spirit". Especially the spirit one usually finds in bottles. It turned out to be a very "wet" party…
Anyway: what happened? First of all we went for dinner at a little restaurant called El Pequeno. The funny thing is that I had seen the announcement of their bankruptcy a while ago. So when we walked in that direction I said “well, too bad we can’t go to El Pequeno”. It turned out that they re-opened about a week ago. So everything that went wrong we just put down to them not being used to running the place yet. Too bad they had taken the grasshoppers of the menu. So I had to eat crocodile…
After dinner - including many beers, a few bottles of wine and a drink of "43" on the house to celebrate the occasion - we moved on the another bar. All the while the other guys kept pushing packs on gummy bears on me to pass out to ladies we met. Unluckily for them I was wearing a jacket with very large pockets, so almost all the gummy bears went in there. So there’s quite a few to be munched over the following days.
But - back to the bar. There we had a beer-tasting session. The beers they served were very nice (except one that tasted like under baked rye-bread). That’s also were we lost "papa" Yuri - the third beer just didn’t go down well so he excused himself and went home. The next time I saw him was at three thirty the next day … .
To finish the evening off we went to a club called "Carousel". It was extremely busy there - now at least I know what a herring must feel like - so we didn’t stay very long.
Enough said. It was a great evening and we had lots of fun. Pictures? They’re there. In the photo album.
Friday, April 01, 2005, 17:30
Last session wedding dress
Today was the last time I had to try on my wedding dress before the big day! It was kind of a hazzle to finally get to the result! I also practised walking with some fake plastic flowers to walk nice and slowly in front of my dad, Ineke, Marie-José and Addie. It almost seemed real. Afterwards we ended on a terrace to enjoy the springtime sun and to say farewell to all those afternoons at Fidélité.
In the meantime we could have a look at the city hall where it's one of the busiest days a week to get married. It was really coming and going, even at the same time.
I was so glad we choose for Echteld!
Wednesday, March 30, 2005, 18:30
The photo gallery is online
Okay - it's working! Totally against all of my principles I used an off-the-shelf product to create a photo album for this site. To be honest - I just couldn't get myself to writing one myself and the one I found (Coppermine) could do pretty much all I wanted. Of course there are some quirks (e.g. you'll have to manually set your language to English), but I can live with them. I think.
How's it work: You can view pictures. You can upload pictures. You can even comment on them and rate them. Anybody can do that. Period. Except... well, we're not very keen on having pictures of people we don't know on our site. So we limited access just a bit: If you want to upload pictures directly without us having to approve them first you'll need to register. Simple. Easy. Don't want to sign up? No problem. You can still upload stuff - but we'll review it before it'll show up. And while we're on honeymoon that might take a while... :-)
Friday, March 25, 2005, 19:17
One of the last days off before...
Good Friday is always a good day off. Everything is normally open and it doesn't cost any days off. Unfortunately Sven had to work. But this seemed to be a good opportunity to get used to my wedding schoes (Joeri's orders).
But wanting to get the front garden ready and having the neighbours walking around, makes it a bit hard. And cycling to the city center is a risk, so I could finally put them on after 5 p.m. Consequence: looking outside all the time to make sure that I saw Sven coming home. So when I saw his car coming I ran upstairs to change back to my sneakers.
The good news is that my shoes feel more and more comfortable, even with the high heels (that part I can share with you) I thought I'd better chose high heels because otherwise people have to bend that much to kiss me...
Wednesday, March 23, 2005, 16:55
Gittin' There
Oh yeah - less than three weeks (to be exact: 16 days) to go. So far the stress levels are pretty bearable. But we do keep discovering things that we arranged - without filling in the details. Hmm, could have been better planned. Better luck next time... (?! Don't think so !!).
Anyway, we picked up the rings and Sven's cufflinks last week (see here), the honeymoon is booked, the shots for all kinds of ugly diseases have gone into our arms and Syl still doesn't know where we're going. At least she claims she doesn't.
Now Sven needs to get that transport problem sorted out and we need to make sure we don't plan too much in the weekends because Syl keeps getting very nervous about when her bachelor(ette) party will be. It's quite funny to see little-miss-i-like-everything-under-control not knowing what's in stock for her.... :)
And oh yes, I also still need to write a photo-album script for this site so you guys can put up your photo's afterwards (and see ours when we post them from the honeymoon location)
Saturday, March 12, 2005, 11:31
4 weeks to go...
It's less than a month to go. This week we arranged lots of things... On Monday the priest came by to talk through the church service and to arrange the formal things. We also asked our best man and maid of honour to read texts during the service. Fortunately they said yes!
With Wil we ordered the wines for dinner and the party. He's lucky becaus he already knows the menu! We also dealt with some details the castle wanted to know.
Our wedding rings are ready, so next week we'll pick them up. And a little hint for the honeymoon, we need vaccinations. We also made appointments for that.
And then yesterday. Syl saw Sven's shoes. We were both on our way through Den Bosch arranging little things, when we met each other at the city hall while Svens was trying to get used to his shoes. They are beautiful.
Saturday, March 05, 2005, 17:01
Honeymoon
As it should be Sven is arranging our honeymoon. As the bride I do not know anything...!
Of course I started to think about the destination. Are we going skiing in Chamonix and go to "our" Aiguille du Midi and then to a tropical destination? Or back to Tochni in Cyprus where the shop owner said we could only come back after getting married. Or will it be a destination in the Caribean or south-east Asia? I do think it will be warm and there will be a possibility to dive. Sven told me to buy soft contact lenses and I could buy summer clothes. I'm afraid I'll have to wait until we are at Schiphol (or get in the car, on the boat or...)
Saturday, March 05, 2005, 16:41
5 weeks to go...
Only five weeks from now, we'll be in front of the altar... I was actually thinking we would get married in spring but looking outside it's very winterlike, freezing and snow! So in one way the wedding seems very far away but on the other hand, time seems to pass by faster and faster. We meet with people every week to fill in the details of our special day. I'm wondering whether we'll be able to make pictures with the young green and blossoms around us.
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