Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
Tim Burton Trees
Ever seen a tree completely covered in some sort of web?
Because I have.
I think it’s eerily disgusting and beautiful at the same time. I won’t be walking Murphy near them anytime soon though. They’re house to caterpillars and it could be the ‘processierups’ which causes skin irritations and all kind of other irritations.
Something less eerie/beautiful but a lot of fun, was my b-day party 
. Of course Holland won from Cameroon (which wasn’t even an impressive win since then they went on to win from Brazil WOOHOOOOO!!) and we had a lot of fun celebrating both that and Mirella and mine’s 48 b-day together (i’m just going to ignore the fact that she only turned 22 and I’m *gasp* 26).
we started of with a small bbq
then of course watched the game together
and then snacked (nibb-it!!) together
and posed together.. mother and 2 kids.. don’t they look alike
me and kevin
the birthday girls
say what?
we were supposed to hang this on the front door so ppl’d know where to go. we forgot.
trying to be a smart-ass whilst drinking beer: never a good plan
it’s better to just act like a dumb-ass XD
see ya next year, when we turn 50! woot woot!
Budapest
After celebrating my birthday with my friends yesterday I thought it’s about time to post about my birthday celebration with my parents. For my birthday they bought me a ticket to Budapest for the weekend. They were already in Hungary on holiday so they’d drive to Budapest and meet me there. It was an awesome weekend and an awesome birthday!
I’ve passed Budapest loads of times by car and saw some of the beautiful landmarks driving by them (like heroes square). So I was really curious to explore the city for a couple of days.
I’m too lazy to shrink and upload all my pictures so here’s only a few. You can check out facebook for some more photos: Facebook Photo Album.
I arrived at the Ferihegy airport on sunday afternoon and was met with a blazing heat. It was 35 degrees celcius!! After checking into the appartment (where we first met with the reception by reading a printed A4 stuck on the door ‘be back in a minute’). After waiting for 15 minutes we could check in 
. We spent the rest of the day walking the streets of Budapest. Which included me almost getting mugged!!! I’ve never been mugged in my life! This was so weirrrrd. I was carrying a … errrr.. how do you call it??
A thingy like that. And I always wear those things to the back.. which is asking for it, I know. My mum always tried to tell me. Of course I never listened. Anyway, after we walked through a subway station and took the stairs back up I suddenly felt a little pressure on my butt lol. So I turned around and there was this guy really close to me and staring at me if I was crazy. When I looked at my bag the zipper was open. At this moment I thought “FREAKIN FUCK THAT GUY HAS MY STUFF’ so I actually put my hand on his chest and said ‘hey, what you doin’ lol. he just kept staring as if I was inane. I then checked if my stuff was actually still there and it was.. so I guess I was just in time with noticing. But.. that was weird!!!
Soo… I was lucky and my iphone and wallet was still safely in my bag, which I carried on the fron from that moment on. As ugly as I may find it.
Anyhoo.. after that kind encounter with the people of Budapest we c0ntinued our walk to the Donau and had a nice beer there.
cheers!
The next morning we set out to find a Dutch pub for the football match that afternoon. According to my city guide we had to find the pub Old Amsterdam. It was pouring rain this morning, but we set out like real troopers anyway.
walking in the rain…
Only to find that the pub is no more. We continues on to drink coffee in a really famous coffeehouse (almost all budapest’s coffeehouses are famous, or so it seems). But this one was really pretty. It was/is a literary cafe and it has been there since forever. I’d really love to go back there some day. It was a really nice place.
enjoying a cup of coffee with hungarian chocolates
The rest of the day we walked some more and more and more. In the meantime trying to find a Dutch pub.. in the end we decided to settle on an Irish pub so that we could at least understand the commentary. But, we had no luck, because when we wanted to make a quick stop at the apartment to drop the stuff we bought we miscalculated the time and ended up missing the beginning of the match before we even reached the apartment lol. We actually had a really nice time watching the game from our apartment room though. Mumzy even tried to understand the commentary in magyar (with not much luck).
That evening we went for another walk to Pest.
But not before eating at a nice little restaurant where my father claims to have eaten the best chicken he has EVER had. That’s impressive!
restaurant with best chicken ever (according to dad)
The next day we decided to go by car to heroes square, because my mother had been walking with blisters for 2 days and couldn’t take the pain anymore. It was actually really nice to drive there though, because it meant we could take some picnic stuff. Heroes square is next to the city park so we ended up chilling in the park for a small hour afterwards. Also ate some pie at this famous restaurant. Somehow I ended up on a picture with our waiter. Weirrrrd.
heroes square
city park
at Gundel restaurant. i think me and waiter look like married rich couple (apart from his name badge)
In the afternoon we took a little cartrip along the Donau and ended up in the city of Budapest again (after enjoying some more drinks on a boat).
In the city we were treated on a real cultural festival, with dance and music and everything. A nice way to end the little weekend . I feel like we did a lot of other things as well, but it was a lot of being there is more than talking about it. Like the endless amount of times we sat down on a terrace and enjoyed the beautiful buildings and places in Budapest. It really is a very beautiful city!
Next day I already had to go back. The flight back was the worst I ever had!! We had so much turbulence it wasn’t funny! I’m not that afraid of turbulence, but this time they didn’t warn us in advance and it was during the landing.. so you’re already getting closer and closer to the ground and the plane was making a lot of curves so sometimes it really felt like we were just crashing right then and there. The turbulence was so bad that my stomach literally dropped (you know, like in a roller coaster) a couple of times. But, of course, we made it to the ground safely.
I actually did some studying as well in Budapest. Every night I read 2 chapters of the book I had to learn for my test I had the day after I returned. And I passed that test .
I had my colloquium yesterday and I passed that too . Handed in another report today. Am still waiting on a grade for another test, but if that’s a pass as well then I only have one test left on July 7th and then I’m no student no more!
Like I said in the beginning.. I celebrated my birthday with my friends yesterday, which was a lot of fun as usual. More on that later!!
BTW, I’m LOVING the weather in Holland lately. Sunshine is a real good friend of mine .
See you’zzzz!
Livin’ the life
I’ve been on a ridiculous amount of holidays the last couple of months. And I had a blast all the way through. In the mean time I have also been spending a small amount of time on school and got a PASS for my thesis . Which means that if I pass my test tomorrow and then another one on July 7th I’ll be graduating on July 8th. I don’t think anyone can imagine how happy that will make me!!
Seriously. It wasn’t long ago when I thought I would never ever get that diploma. Ever!
But.. I’m not there yet. Still have to do some (a lot!!) of learning to pass those tests, because those 2 tests have been haunting me forever and there’s a reason I haven’t passed them yet: they’re too friggin’ difficult!
But, about the more pleasant things… picco’s of my holidays . I went to Calahonda, which is on the Costa del Sol in Spain last month. My sister and her boyfriend had just gotten their new house there (they moved from another place on the Costa del Sol: Mijas La Cala). It was a really relaxing and nice week. Did a lot of nothing, a lot of reading and a lot of tanning . Also had a nice tennis lesson and we went to Gibraltar for an afternoon, which was really cool! It’s so weird to drive a little more than an hour and suddenly be in Britain! lol
Robert and me in the streets of Gibraltar
Linda en Robert. The owner of the pub we were at (The Horse Shoe) offered me a job at the end. lol. It was a funny British guy who kept making word jokes. Gotta love the English!
Typical British mailbox.
Having fun
When you drive/walk/bike into the city of Gibraltar you have to actually cross the plane-runway.
In front of the rock of Gibraltar, which is said to be one of the columns of Hercules.
Back in Spain XD. Burning some crap in the garden. Purrrrty fire.
Buster! We miss him!
Getting a tennis lesson in 30 degrees. (y)
My sister looks like a tennis rockstar. Look at those arms! She plays like crap though :p.
Picco’s of my trip to Budapest coming soon!
Belgian cutie
I was looking at the pictures I posted of Bruges and realized I forgot to add the cutest picture of all.
Awwwww!!!!
We actually took that pic from the boat… if that dog sleepwalks just a tiny bit and loses his balance he’s going to be one wet puppy.
Bruges. It’s in Belgium
Living up to my New Years resolution of going to a country I had’t been to before, I went to Bruges, in Belgium.
I was supposed to go with Niels, but he canceled, so I went with Mirella instead. We had LOADS of fun!! Bruges is a great city. Like they say in the movie: it’s a fucking fairytale! And I’m just glad we got to see it.
We started the weekend by taking a wrong turn in Belgium and ending up in the center of Antwerp. Oops. Wrong city. After that it went smoothly though and we drove straight to our hotel. The hotel was terrific! It was close to EVERYTHING. Which is not that hard, since Bruges is quite small. But it really felt like we were right at the center of things.
We reserved a spot for our car in the hotel’s parking garage. It was quite narrow. But we got it both in- and outside without a scratch
After we arrived we walked a bit through the streets and then took a boat ride on the canals.
How’s the boat ride? Errrrr. IT’S FUN! (y)
According to a myth, the swans never leave Bruges because of a curse.
The houses and buildings are all so beautiful.
The bridges are verrrrrry low.
After the boatride we drank our first Belgian beer on the big square, with a perfect view on the Belfort tower.
We ended the day with a big bag of ‘Vlaamse frieten’ aka Flemish fries and a long walk through the shopping streets.
Oh wait.. no we didn’t. After that we went to the cinema. They have the cutest cinema’s in Bruges. The ones in the centre only play art-house films. They have a big blockbuster one just outside the centre, but you can only go there by car. So we went to the one that was practically next to our hotel and watched The Ghost Writer. Which is an excellent film. But the experience was kind of weird. The cinema had no bar, so you couldn’t get anything to drink or eat (what? no popcorn?!!). Then, when it’s time they first start the movie trailers (lights still half on). Then, they show the commercial reel, followed by some more movie trailers. And then they just stop, turn on full lights again and let you sit there for 10 minutes before they start the actual movie! It wasn’t a mistake either, because everybody just picked up their paper or started chatting, like it was normal. I thought it was the weirdest thing.
Anyway. For anyone who thinks Utopolis Lelystad is stuck in an old building. Think again.
(that’s the cinema we didn’t go to btw. i don’t have a pic of where we went)
The next day we started off good by climbing the Belfort tower. It’s about 80 meters high and you have to walk 366 very narrow steps to get to the top. You get a nice view on Bruges from the top. Too bad for us they were renovating the place, so we only had two view points, instead of all the way around the tower.
We’re ready!
And getting redder with each step..
Watch out for the paparazzi!
About halfway up you can see the bells hangin’. They’re huge! You don’t want to stand next to those at 12 o clock.
And up we go again.
Until finally we reach the top
The walk downstairs is actually more challenging than the journey up (in my opinion anyway). Because when you go up you’re not going fast enough to realize how bad you’re walking in circles. Especially because you have to wait every few steps to let the people going downstairs go through (the steps are too narrow for two people to normally cross each other). But when you go downstairs you’re walking really fast and everybody lets you through first (because like we were when going up, the ones going up are happy to just stand for a second to catch their breath). I ended up getting reallllly dizzy! lol
We made it downstairs safely though.
After this joyful experience we took a 2 hour Segway tour. How fun is that? I can tell you, it’s LOADS OF FUN!! It’s the thingy where you stand on and when you lean forwards it goes forwards and when you lean backwards it goes backwards. It’s so much fun!! In the beginning it feels kind of weird and especially the fact that you can’t ever step off of it (because then it will just leave without you) is a kind of scary thought. But after 5 minutes it feels so natural that it doesn’t even feel like you’re doing anything to make the thing move. It’s a really fun way to see Bruges. I’d recommend it to anyone!
We saw loads of cool stuff during the tour and even though it’s not very tiring since you’re not actually moving, we still felt like chilling out and having a beer afterward 
.
After a couple of beers we walked around some more to see if we could find back some spots we went by with the tour. Especially the spot where they supposedly make the best hot chocolate ever. But we couldn’t find it 
. We did find another place they sold hot chocolate though. We also bought some chocolates to bring home and some yummie marzipan. We also went to the holy blood chapel where they have a vile with a few drops of Jesus’ blood in it. We lit a candle in the chapel, but didn’t go up to touch the vile with blood since, you know, we don’t worship Jesus. It was a pretty chapel though.
Random Bruges street
We ate at a very cute and posh restaurant. With chandeliers and everything. We tried our best to look posh, but failed miserably. We ended up with an uncontrollable laughing fit. And the worst thing is.. everybody speaks Dutch so you can’t even pretend they don’t know the weird ass things you’re talking about!
After another stroll to see the beautifully lid up buildings we ended the night by going to a pub. Or started the next day by going to that pub. It ended up being a long and eventful night, with lots of beer, lots of Flugel and lots of British bachelors.
The canals looks pretty spooky during the night
See, there’s a ghost already!
Pretttyyy
The building on the left is the holy blood chapel.
They made this house so that it looked on fire. It even had fire coming out on the top of it. It’s all make believe though. (I hope.)
Much later. In a drunken state.
The next morning we didn’t do very much at all. We had a couple of more drinks and bought some more chocolates at this cute store.
We spent most of our chilling time on the ‘Beiermarkt’. This is also the place to go pubbing. We spent the night at the pub on the left, because it had happy hour lol.
Cute chocolatier
All in all, I had fun. We saw loads of cool things, partied, met nice people, didn’t have a drop of rain all weekend and got back home safely. What else can you ask for?
Next month it’s a week of beach and sunshine in Spain. Then in June it’s time for another city trip that I’m reallllly looking forward to: Budapest!!
Uhm. Ouch!
Sleep Cycle
Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.
It’s been white almost all of January so far. White and cold. I’m not complaining. It feels like winter and that’s much better than the usual drizzle (read: poring rain) we have during this time of year.
My new years resolutions are going good so far. In April I’ll be going to a country I haven’t been to yet (Belgium!) and I’ve been keeping track of my finances ridiculously well. I found this online application Yunoo that makes it fun (I think so anyway) to keep track of your finances and making budgets and everything. The only problem with it is that it’s making it even more fun to spend money. Which is never good.
Everybody that knows me knows that I have a weird capability of remembering a lot of dreams every night. Some people think I dream more than most people, but that’s not true. Fact is, everybody dreams. Most just don’t remember them.
What I’m getting at is that I found this cool iphone application that can tell you how much time you spent dreaming each night. The application is called Sleep Cycle and it uses the iphone’s accelerometer to register your movements while you sleep. Apparently during each sleep cycle you move differently so they can tell if you’re in deep sleep, dreaming or awake. The goal of the app is actually to wake you on a time that you’re already out of your deep sleep. To ensure that you don’t wake up all groggy and ready to kill the world. So, when you set your alarm at 9am and the app senses you’re already out of your deep sleep at 8:45am it will wake you up then so you won’t risk falling back into your deep sleep at 9am and then have the hardest time getting up.
It’s pretty neat. I’ve tried it out for three days now and it does seem to work. The thing I like most about the app though, is that it shows you a graph of the whole night, so you can see how your sleep cycle was.
These are my past three nights.
Sleep statistics for 24 – 25 jan (ma).
Went to bed / woke up: 23:58 / 08:35
Total time: 8h 37m
Sleep statistics for 25 – 26 jan (di).
Went to bed / woke up: 00:14 / 08:45
Total time: 8h 31m
leep statistics for 26 – 27 jan (wo).
Went to bed / woke up: 02:20 / 09:32
Total time: 7h 12m
Apparently, tonight I slept like a bear in wintersleep. For a couple of hours at least . Yesterday I didn’t sleep well at all and I guess the graph shows it. I keep waking up at 6am too!
I have no idea how accurate this application actually is, but I’m having fun with it nonetheless. If you have an iphone and want to try it out: http://www.lexwarelabs.com/sleepcycle/
Happy 2010!
I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays!
I enjoyed them a lot. Santa brought me lots of presents and lots of food and I got to stuff a chicken (which is YUCKKK but also YUMMM).
I also had a lot of fun in the snow with Murphy. I fell a total of 3 times so far. Twice in the park being stupid and once while trying to use my bicycle on a road covered with ice. But that’s the cool thing about snow. It doesn’t hurt if you fall in it!
Muphy likes the snow a lot. Some pictures:
Murphy wasn’t the only one enjoying the snow though…
This was after my second fall of this winter. I tried to jump over something.. I failed.
Isn’t my dad cute
With my schwester
Mom’s cute too
Proof for all RR owners that you CAN make them sit on cold snow!
My sister and me tryting to bomb my dad with snowballs.
He pretended to forgive us..
… but soon took his revenge
Murphy always tries to protect me by jumping on me. Thanks Murph! 
Second try at cute family picture succeeded
My dad’s new car which he bought just in time to cross through the snow with.
Good times .
But now it’s 2010 and it’s time to get serious again. So I better log off and start on the report I have to hand in next week.
Oh yah, before I forget. My new years resolutions are:
1. Get my diploma
2. Visit at least one country I haven’t been to yet
3. Read more
4. Keep better track of my finances
Walk on the Beach
Murphy says: ‘hullo’
What do you mean? My ears are supposed to stand up like that!
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Seeing the rabbit (next to the green bin)
Chasing the rabbit (no worries, he didn’t catch it)
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My new computer background
This Month
This month last year I…
…lost my mouth full of wire.
This month two years ago I…
…went para sailing in Rhodes, Greece
This month three years ago…
…Murphy did this to our hallway
This month four years ago…
…I didn’t take any pictures at all. But my hair was this dark and I was already wearing the pink ribbon band that I’m still wearing today.
(picture taken August 14, 2005, my last day at the Aviodrome)
This month five years ago…
…we gave our second party with the Wisentfamily: Date night!
…I shared a house with these crazy people
Jeez. I can’t believe that was FIVE YEARS ago. I’m getting old!