We are off to see the wizard...

Great things are in store for this weekend: I am going on a trip to London with my family and the big event of the weekend will be Saturday afternoon, when we will see the wizardry of the Alegría show by Cirque du Soleil in the Royal Albert Hall. I have never seen their show before, but I have high expectations.
Read more about Royal Albert Hall and Cirque du Soleil in the Wikipedia.

Sportscard finally!

Yesterday I finally succeeded in signing up for sports at the Universitair Sportcentrum! From next week I will be climbing every Thursday. Cool!

I got mail

It seems like Saturday is mail day for me in Nijmegen. Last Saturday I received an unexpected package from my friend Allan: it was a christmas card and a delayed christmas present because we did not find time to meet around christmas before I left for Nijmegen. What it was? Well, it was yet another pair of Wolford stockings, he knows I am obsessed with them.
Today I received a letter from Canada. My dear friend Josh wrote me on a home-made card showing Curious George riding his bike on one wheel with a accompanying text saying "IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS" - Excellent! Now I will be smiling all day. Thank you Josh.

Morning walk with ducks

This morning I went walking with Ingrid over de Waal. We got up early in hope to see the sunrise, but his golden face failed us, hiding over a thick spread of clouds. We did not meet a human soul on our walk, but we did meet a herd of ducks, meandering through the street in search for a bite to eat. Among these ducks, the ordinary kind seen everywhere in Europe, we saw a beautiful brightly coloured duck with a shorter beak and curly feathers on its back. We admired it for a while and then continued our course. Later, we found the duck in a bird ABC: it was a male mandarin duck, a duck first imported to Europe from Eastern Asia for captive breeding, however, a population of mandarin ducks are now living in the wild in Britain as a result of the release/escape of captive ducks.

Photo courtesy Benny Prijono, bulukucing.org/birdwatch

Hollywood sailing

Yesterday I went to Hollywood to learn how to steer a sailing boat. Yes, really I went to Hollywood, but not the Hollywood you think of first, but a smaller virtual reality place called Hollywood inside the Second Life Universe. They have an exhibition of movie posters, a special Casablanca event and a harbour with sailing boats and sailing instructions. So I went for a boat ride.

Read or watch a recent BBC program shot partly from within Second Life.

Salsa!

This evening I spent some hours at Amanne. They have a Salsalon every Sunday from 4pm where you can enjoy the salsa music and dance for free. There were not many people until around 6 o' clock, but I did dance somewhat and even received some compliments. There is also a free-entry salsateque on Saturdays 22-02hrs. I will try it out - maybe next week.

The parrot? There is a parrot in logo of Amanne, so I found a nice parrot pic on memoclic.com for this post. Furthermore, it is a nice picture to show for my sisters birthday: Happy birthday Sis!

January Friday 13

Well it was Friday 13th, the moon was almost full, what did you expect? Even though I was busy all day, I was not at all unlucky: I kept all my appointments, I managed to fetch my bike before the shop closed, I had a nice evening out with my colleagues. Not a bad day at all.

Warm again

I slept rather poorly the last two days, falling asleep again after switching off the alarm clock. The room was cold and the heating would not turn on. Today I found that there has been a shortage of warm water in the whole building since Monday. Luckily, the hot water returned today and I can sleep in a comfortable temperature again. I better try it out immediately!

Settling in

Yesterday I went to the second-hand shop downtown 'Het Goud' and bought some kitchen warez. Shortly after I went to a cycle shop to buy an elastic band to fix the bags to my bike.
Today was also a day for organising things. I went to Albert Hein to buy all the basic stuff I would like in my kitchen cupboard: salt, pepper, olive oil, müesli for my breakfast etc. And afterwards I went past another bicycle shop to drop of my bike for repair.
(I hope Toni did not ride the bike for long in the state that it is in now, one break cable is broken and the other break hardly works at all, so I asked the cycle smith to fix it right away)

Next on my TODO list is signing up for sports at the Universitair Sportcentrum.

First day at Hoogeveldt

Yesterday evening I arrived in Nijmegen again and thanks to Ingrid and Rinaldo I got the key for my room at Hoogeveldt and found the train to the closest local station.

When I locked myself in everything was dead quiet, not a soul in sight, but this afternoon there was a crowd of people in the kitchen. I said hello to a few and now I really try to remember their names... Good thing I have seven months to get to know everyone.

In Memorial

On a trainride from Odense to Roskilde on December 23rd was the last time I saw my Ericsson R320S. May it rest in peace in the quiet train compartment. Here it is on its way to the eternal hunting grounds featuring full coverage for all phones and no such thing as a dented antenna.
New times are ahead for my phoning needs... Skype is ubiquitous,
providing not only free PC-to-PC calls but also phone-to-PC at phone-to-(danish)phone rates. If you have not found me on Skype yet, or got my danish Skype-in number, drop me an email, and I will make amends immediately.

A new year

The ticket is ready, departure Sunday evening for Nijmegen. My bags are not packed yet, but the clean clothes are underway (washing, drying etc) and my excitement is still high for my new year in the Netherlands.

Best wishes for your new year, I will be back after watching Apocalypse Now on late-night television.

Good night and good luck.