Hidden Agenda's

Nou, daar zijn we weer! Hier had eigenlijk een enorme post moeten staan met een reisverslag, alleen mijn iPhone is zo schattig om daar geen zin in te hebben - nieuwe software binnengehaald waardoor Wordpress for iPhone niet meer werkt en mijn post dus opgesloten zit. Bah! Hopelijk wordt dat snel gefixt en kan ik deze post vervangen door het verslag.

In ieder geval:  het was leuk, mooi, geweldig. Een klein paradijs. Misschien iets te klein voor twee weken, maar we hebben wel heerlijk uitgerust. En in het ziekenhuis gezeten omdat Arno zijn hoofd dusdanig had gestoten aan een te laag hangende douchekop, dat hij verschrikkelijk bloedde en gehecht moest worden.

We hebben dolfijnen gezien, schildpadden, prachtige stranden met palmen, felgeschilderde huisjes, fregatvogels, boa constrictors, rastamannen, veel fruit en rumcocktails, zon, zon en nog eens zon … te veel om op te noemen. Ik heb de foto’s inmiddels nogal rucksichtlos geupload naar Flickr, dus daar kan je alvast een kijkje nemen. Moet nog wel allemaal worden gesorteerd enzo!

Voorlopig: ik ben er weer, smerig bruin, en een beetje moe van de terugreis, maar wel opgefrist ;)

Even een break tussen opruimen, schoonmaken, wassen, strijken, inpakken door …. ugh. Waarom is op vakantie gaan altijd zo stressvol? Ik red het wel, maar zoals gewoonlijk blijft het echte inpakken liggen tot what? Acht uur ’s avonds?

Ik zou vandaag ook nog naar Lie’s feestje en ik baal stierlijk dat ik niet kan - maar het is  niet realistisch. Ik had hier pas rond 6  uur weg gekund als ik echt heel hard doorgeduwd zou hebben, en dat betekent dat ik misschien een uurtje bij Lie zou kunnen blijven en dan weer terug moest gezien de vroege opsta-tijden van morgenochtend. Meh :( Dus in plaats van in de auto zitten, zit ik nu heel even op de bank naar London Ink te kijken. Mooie tattoo’s, maakt dat het bij mij ook weer gaat kriebelen. Ik zou heel graag dit op mijn heup hebben:

De bloemen hoeven niet zo gedetailleerd, maar tis wel mooi. Ik wilde eigenlijk altijd de kale draak, maar nadat ik Kelly’s mogelijk nieuwe tattoo had gezien, vond ik dat toch wel heel erg leuk. Ik zou wel voor zwart-wit gaan denk ik. Tis een beetje retro en daar houd ik wel van. En op mijn heup blijft ie denk ik wel lang goed (weinig lubberende huid zeg maar). Maar goed, zo lang Arno er fel op tegen is komt ie er dus nog niet.

Anyway, tijd om weer iets te gaan doen.

Are we having the time of our lives?
Are we having the time of our lives?
Are we coming across clear?
Are we coming across fine?
Are we part of the plan here?
Are we having the time of our lives?
Are we coming across clear?
Are we coming across fine?
Are we having the time of our lives?

- Weather to Fly - Elbow

Ik heb zo’n godsgruwelijke spijt dat ik zaterdag niet in ieder geval een dagticket heb gekocht voor PinkPop. Elbow … ik kan niet uitleggen hoe awesome ze zijn. Ze raken iets heel diep in me dat ik niet kan benoemen. Ik MOET ze gewoon een keer zien.

*cries*

Pfffff eindelijk even tijd om adem te halen. De laatste paar weken zijn krankzinnig geweest qua werk - te veel te doen in te weinig tijd. Twee projecten met deadlines, inwerken van een nieuwe medewerker, andere klanten met kleine schnabbels tussendoor - ik heb niet eens de tijd gehad om fatsoenlijk te factureren. Het openstaande bedrag loopt snel op en daar moet ik vandaag echt iets aan gaan doen.

Ik merk dat ik de schaarse vrije tijd die ik heb op een zinnige (maar niet altijd goed uitkomende) manier benut: ik val onherroepelijk in slaap. Op de bank, in bad of op bed, het maakt eigenlijk niet uit waar. Het doet me een beetje denken aan de manier waarop Arno vaak de eerste dagen van vakanties doorbrengt. Horizontaal dus. Het helpt wel, dat bijslapen, maar het zorgt er ook voor dat allerlei dingen die ik zou willen doen niet gedaan worden.

We hebben nu gelukkig drie dagen vrij inclusief tweede pinksterdag, en het wordt ook nog eens schitterend weer. Dat zorgt bij mij sowieso altijd voor een zonnig humeur dus da’s ook mooi meegenomen. Daarnaast zijn we vandaag ook nog eens 1 jaar getrouwd - wat gaat dat al weer hard! Vanavond lekker uit eten samen voordat we naar Linda’s feestje gaan. Maar eerst even het huis aanpakken. Ik was daar in de loop van de week al mee begonnen - kledingkast uitgemest bijvoorbeeld - maar er moet nog veel meer voordat we volgende week op vakantie kunnen. Nog zoiets, doordat de dagen voorbij vliegen omdat het zo druk is, is die vakantie ineens dichterbij geslopen - ik heb totaal nog geen vakantiegevoel en kan me eigenlijk niet voorstellen dat ik volgende week zondag in het vliegtuig zit naar een exotische bestemming. Het helpt ook niet mee dat de reisbescheiden er nog steeds niet zijn. Ik heb gisteren maar eens gebeld naar Thomas Cook (wat een bagger club is dat trouwens - zowat niet te bereiken. Ja, je kunt mailen of een nummer bellen a 10 cent per minuut, waar je dan vervolgens een kwartier in de wacht hangt omdat iedereen in gesprek is, grrrrr) en het schijnt dat de papieren onderweg zijn. We vliegen in ieder geval om 11:00 vanaf Schiphol naar Frankfurt en dan om 14:00 naar Tobago, waar we rond 18:00 plaatselijke tijd hopen aan te komen.

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Gisteren werd er een pakketje bezorgd: de spulletjes die ik bij Lush had besteld. De verschillende geurtjes kwamen me al tegemoet door het doosje heen, nog voor ik het had opengemaakt. Er zat een scrubje in (Angels on Bare Skin), een shampoo bar - die best wel heel sterk ruikt, ik hoop dat het in mijn haren wat afneemt. Verder een lippenbalsem, leek me wel handig op vakantie, en een lekker dagcremmetje. Er zat ook een proefmonstertje van een heel lekker ruikend zeepje in. De hele badkamer ruikt er inmiddels naar ;) Het spul is allemaal vers en organisch, gisteren heb ik de scrub even gebruikt en daarna de creme, en ik moet wel zeggen dat mijn huid heerlijk zacht aanvoelt vanmorgen. Naast de minerale make-up die ik tegenwoordig gebruik lijkt het een goede aanvulling. Ik heb al een jaar geen last meer gehad van geirriteerde plekjes of puistjes, dus de vloeibare make-up is linea recta de deur uit en ik gebruik alleen nog maar vers, mineraal spul. Het blijft ook veel langer zitten en ik zie er een stuk frisser uit.

Door het extra gewicht dat ik ben aangekomen krijg ik sowieso complimenten dat ik er tegenwoordig gezonder uit zie dan vroeger. Ik denk dat het komt doordat de stressfactor grotendeels uit mijn werk verdwenen is. Vroeger liep ik vaak op adrenaline. Nu soms ook nog wel, maar voor jezelf werken is op een of andere manier een heel andere dimensie. Ik ben er wel blij mee, hoewel ik soms nog wel moet wennen aan de nieuwe rondingen als ik in de spiegel kijk. Inmiddels pas ik weer in een maat 38 broek, daar ben ik wel blij mee want 40 werd me echt te gortig.

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Zo, zometeen maar even aan de slag in huis. Er wordt straks iets bezorgd begreep ik van mijn moeder, dus ik kan nog even geen boodschappen gaan doen. Morgen en overmorgen hebben we vrienden over de vloer, dus ik wil wel wat lekkere dingetjes inslaan. Maandag gaan we sowieso met een stel barbequen, erg veel zin in. Er komt iemand langs die vegetarier is, dus dat is een uitdaging :D Groentespiesjes en gegrilde groenten op de bbq! Het klinkt zelfs mij lekker in de oren!

We’re having an entire weekend off, which is pretty rare for us these days. Friday I was done with work relatively early, so I still had time to rummage my new cookbooks before Arno and I drove to the Jumbo getting groceries. So now our fridge is filled with all kinds of yumminess, including my beloved Jillz cider. I’m getting hooked on the stuff rapidly.

This meant, with the groceries out of the way, I could sleep in on saturday! Yay! I did too, but didn’t last any later than a quarter to 10. My body rhythm is either out of whack or I’m getting too old to laze around in my bed until afternoon. Anyhow, it did feel heavenly.

We lounged around the house a little until Arno realised he wanted to get some lottery tickets (staatsloten) for the draw today, so we hopped in the car and drove through the gorgeous day to get them. From there we visited Groenrijk, Intratuin and at long last the Boerenbond, so now we have a great compost vat where I can dump all the kitchen left-overs such as peels etc in, and also all green cuttings that come from our overabundant garden, and make me some actual compost in the process. It’s pretty huge, but dark green so it kind of fits in our garden anyhow. At the Intratuin I also got me several varieties of herbs, because I still wanted to create a new garden-bed out in the backyard and since I’d already bought thyme and lavender to plant, I thought I’d stick with the herbs. So I’ve got red and green basil, chives, marjoran, oregano, peppermint and parseley. And subsequently spent the rest of the day trying to get the ground around the circle I’d created earlier level so I could put down a new garden bed.

It was pretty heavy work because our former owners apparently had tried to create a rockgarden there, so the ground was littered with rocks which had been partially buried. My hands hurt pretty badly from all the lifting and tilling, but in the end I got there. By then the sky had become overcast and it looked as if it were going to rain any minute, but it didn’t. I took some quick pictures - am pretty proud of what I accomplished in that yard all by myself, but I never would have expected it to be such heavy-duty work. I’ve got quite the healthy respect for professional gardeners now. Landshaping is no walk in the park.

Today is yet another beautiful day, so I’m planning to get me a cup of tea as soon as this post is done, and I want to sit around in that nice nook of a garden I created yesterday for a while. The sun hits it directly now, so .. heh. And then there’s a huge pile of laundry scattered through the house waiting for me. Oh yay. Oh! And of course I need to call my mother ;)

There are moments in this life where I can imagine that people step away from their religion or faith. This is one of them.
I just want to cry for you Nat. There’s nothing else I can do unfortunately.

This afternoon I was cruising around the town where I worked and I - almost - walked into the little “To Bed, To Bed” store where I bought the cute baby stuff for Merel’s little boy. I wanted to get something for Nat and Den and since the postal office was right around the corner, send it off too. I am glad now that I didn’t. I can’t imagine anything more cruel arriving on their doorstep right now.

Fracking hell. Who is playing the cosmic jokes here? First infertility, then IVF, then a freak accident which caused them to loose Devin, then a hellish year in which nothing seemed to work, and now an against-all-odds ectopic pregnancy and the loss of a tube. How much more shit can be dumped on a person? I need to kick something. Preferrably the cosmic, divine, universal type of stuff out there.

Photo’s of our little skitrip this weekend are up (view here).

Ouch

During the trip I fell down pretty hard. I’d been skiing with one of Arno’s collegues, and things were going really well. So much so that I got overconfident, whizzed down a slope, and then managed to tangle one of my sticks underneath my left ski. Down I went, and pretty hard. One of my ski’s released, landed on its side with the sharp edge pointing upwards, and I fell on top of it with my leg. It hurt pretty badly, so much so that I yanked up my ski-suit to check if I weren’t actually bleeding.

At that point, nothing seemed to be overly bruised, but that changed rapidly in the course of the last three days. Yesterday, walking was quite the challenge. I couldn’t even get my boot zipped up over my calf. Luckily today it doesn’t hurt half as much as it looks.

In the next two weeks I’ll move all my blogs and stuff to a new server. I don’t think you’ll notice much, but if you do, please let me know so I can fix it asap.

thanks

Time is going so fast these days. Coming weekend it’s Arno’s birthday already and the ski-trip we are taking with Qurius, and also the start of April. I guess working fulltime again makes time seem to fly by so much faster than last year when I had two days of work outdoors and the rest was spent home.

The house is getting a little worse for wear because of it. We tend to jam-pack our weekends as well (even though I swore I wouldn’t when I saw the work-regime for the first half of the year) and as such, we barely spend any time at home to do laundry, clean up etc.

Last friday I was really glad the week was over. I was still pretty depleted of energy because of that drat flu, and felt like I could sleep on my feet. I spent half the day working from home as is usual so I did feel as if I had time to recuperate a little.

Saturday we went to visit Merel and Ewoud and their newborn (who’s already almost three months old) little boy Marijn. He’s such a cute little kid. No fuss whatsoever, and he kept smiling at me when I had him on my lap and pulled funny faces. Ewoud is completely the doting dad - so sweet to see and Merel is her own practical self. No fuss, no worries.

We did some shopping in Hilversum, got me new summer clothes, Arno a new summer jacket, pants and shirt and uhm, I bought a jacket that set the new laptop plans back several months. Oh well.

After shopping and lunch and tea we were quite stuffed and left for Vince and Pet, where we also unexpectedly met up with IJdo and his brand new sparkly Barchetta. I’m jealous! We enjoyed a night of watching movies (The Grudge II) while Arno played WoW. I slept poorly because the guest bed was quite small and we didn’t have much space but eh. Next day consisted of finishing the dress for the FF, and it turned out beyond our expectations. I now have to get the accessories, amongst which the colored lenzes!

This week will mostly consist out of working, cleaning house, packing for our trip and hopefully making some bento during the evening. And then … April rolls around the corner. Hopefully the weather stays as lovely as today!

Today I’m really confronted with the downside of having your own business. I’m sick as shit, but I’m working against a deadline for a client. Granted, I have all day for a couple of hours of work and I’m working from home, but still. Can’t let the client down however - since this morning they had a pressconference on what I am doing for them ;)

I seriously feel like shit. Feverish, runny nose, clogged ears, and one hell of a headache. Things seem to be progressing however, so I hope the headache will subside soon. It’s a shame that it has to hit when the weather has finally turned so lovely.

Right, time to go back to bed I think.

New theme .. and it’s a mess yet. Bear with me.
Why do I always do this when I’m sick?

Mr goodlooking repairman actually had the right videocard. I’m stumped.

Somewhere in 2007 IJdo and I purchased a Dell Inspiron 17 inch laptop. We configured it on-site, with a different vidcard and cpu and harddisk (I think) than the thing originally came with - and everything was delivered and configured fine except for the vidcard. Dell somehow sent us the laptop with the original vidcard (an ATI) in it, instead of the NVIDIA we’d asked for.

When we called about it, Dell sent us the NVIDIA which we had to implement ourselves. So we did, and the systems have been running fine and smooth. Until say five weeks ago, right before I went on holiday to Austria. The vidcard crashed. Since it’s my business laptop as well as private, it was kinda imperative that the thing be fixed right away. Now, I was lucky of course that I also had the original ATI vidcard still lying around, so I put that one into the laptop (which worked, albeit by far not as smoothly as the NVIDIA which is clearly better) and called Dell.

We have a next businessday on-site service, but since I was going on a holiday, I couldn’t book a repairman right away. I also had a hard time explaining which card I wanted replaced, because they had the ATI on file as my vidcard while of course I wanted the NVIDIA to be replaced. But, in the end, I got around to explaining everything, it was verified that the other card had been sent to us, and things were put on file. I received a case number and was told to call back as soon as I got back from holiday.

So far so good. Once back, one of my clients told me that I couldn’t have the repairman on site with them. So I had to wait several days to ask the other client whether they were okay with it. They were, so I once again called Dell to have a repairman come by next wednesday.

That wasn’t possible … because Dell apparently doesn’t book their repairmen more than one day in the future ahead. Right. I once again had to explain the entire story about the vidcard, because even though I had a case number, the employee I spoke to refused to open it but was adamant to make another case out of it. Why why why?? He even went to talk to the employee I’d spoken to before to verify the thing with the vidcard - while it was all right there in front of him in the case. Argh. He told me to call back next tuesday, to schedule a repairman for wednesday. Ok, whatever.

Tuesday came around, but my workschedule was so busy that I really only got around to calling wednesday. I got an employee on the phone whom I could hardly understand because his accent was so thick. Next to that, he asked for the service tag on the laptop (they always ask for it). I gave it to him four times, and each time he repeated it back wrongly to me. I even used the military code (you know, alpha, tango, lima, that kind of stuff) and STILL he couldn’t repeat it back to me correctly. Super frustrated I hung up saying I’d call back later.

Which I did on thursday, to book the guy for friday. Trouble is, I work half a day on friday - so I needed to know at what time the repairman would come by so I could give them the right address to go to. That wasn’t possible. (at this point I started to tear out my hair). The repairman arrives somewhere between 9 and 17:00 .. and they book their own hours and ride their own schedule, so it was impossible to tell at what point in the day the guy would arrive. By now I know better though - because the repairmen call their clients in the morning telling them at what time they will arrive … I could easily have told the guy what address to go to at that point. Yet one of the many communication problems between the helpdesk and the actual workforce at Dell.

Alright … *sigh* … back to the drawingboard. Next tuesday I called again, booking the repairman for wednesday at the client where I’d be all day. This time, no hassle - no explaining, quick call, things done. You’d think. I almost did a little dance around the room. Yay! Finally my laptop would be repaired!

Wednesday rolled around. I told the desk employee downstairs that there would be a repairman coming for me. I told the management assistent on my floor. I told my collegues to please pick up my phone should it ring if I wasn’t there ….. but no phone rang and no repairman showed up. Five minutes after five (time’s up pal …) I called Dell, steaming, only to get an answering machine telling me that they were closed for the day. Argh! I hung up swearing. Next day I called them again, yet again got an employee I could hardly understand, and almost pulled him through the phoneline when he said that his collegue who’d taken my call earlier had forgotten to put the call through to the repair cluster. WTF??? ARGH! Because I was so angry, this time I actually COULD book a repairman more than one day ahead, so I scheduled a next appointment for the next wednesday. And the person I spoke to promised me he’d call on thursday (which is today actually) to see whether things had now gone as scheduled. I also adamantly told him to make sure the repairman brought a replacement for the NVIDIA, and not for the ATI.

Now yesterday, I got a call at 9 in the morning. Repairman. “I’m here between half past 12 and 13:00″ Ok - wow. Things seem to be going right for a change. At 13:00 he did indeed show up. Opened up my laptop. I explained that there was a working vidcard in there, but that was not the one I wanted, and that the one I’d brought seperately was the one which was busted. He kinda drily pointed out to me that the vidcard he’d received to put into my laptop was the exact same one already in there…. he’d brought a spare ATI and not a spare NVIDIA … you’ve got to be effing kidding me right? Not his fault by the way - he just gets given a component to replace without prior knowledge of the case.

So, he got on the phone with Dell. Dell said that the ATI was their standard replacement for the NVIDIA, as that one is no longer in stock. WHAT?@!?
Employee on the phone actually said that the ATI was just as good as the NVIDIA. It isn’t, not by a long shot. Hell, why do you think we ordered this one instead of the standard vidcard that was in there in the first place? I said likewise to the repairman, who concurred, and told me not to settle for anything less. He said they would try to get the NVIDIA regardless, or something better, and that they would call me tomorrow. Off he went. By now I wanted to throw the laptop out of the window.

Cue to today. Just got a call from the next repairman who’s coming over this afternoon (this time to my house, since I’m sick on the couch). I asked him whether he’d brought the right vidcard then. He had no clue what I was talking about … and that he couldn’t see from the top of the thing what brand it was. Talk about communication … this guy didn’t even know that there’d been another repairman trying to fix things yesterday. I’m not holding my breath that he’s bringing the correct one.

And to top it all off, after that I received a phonecall from the helpdesk asking me whether things had been fixed to my liking yesterday *headdesk*. Ok, they did what they promised (check on status) but hell … don’t these guys communicate there? Or don’t they check casefiles?? ARGH!

Can’t wait to see them live :D

Mhhhh … Flickr can be a nice photo-community, but sometimes it can just be downright disgusting as well. Out of curiosity I just checked upon some people who favorited some photographs I’d put up, and I ended up blocking a whole bunch of them.

Most of the pictures that had “favorites” were pics I’d taken at the Fantasy Fair last year. Most of them were of girls in pretty dresses. Nothing fancy, nothing really sexy even - but I found out that a whole lot of them had been favorited by a crossdresser and a bunch of his friends. Most of their pictures were uhm … either pretty disgusting with private parts sticking out in all directions from behind flimsy pantyhoses (yech) or embarrassing with them wearing wigs, pretty little girl dresses and hairy legs sticking out. Ewww!

Another one that was favorited was actually of my tattoo on my foot after I’d had it filled out again. The one who favorited them turns out to be a foot-fetishist. Uhm. Yeah. No masturbating on my feet please. Block-a-palooza I guess :(

From now on I’ll regularly check who’s favoriting me. I don’t post pics up there for them to do disturbing things with.

I’m in a chagrined kind of mindset today. I’m not sure why, even, because things are generally very well in my life right now. I just got off the wrong foot with this day somehow, and it started the second I woke up because dear husband was fiddling around with the alarm clock on his nightstand.

I just wanted to roll over and pretend I was hibernating. My head’s pounding with a headache, and in general, I just don’t want to be here. At work at the County Dongen I mean.

Like I already predicted, this day is going to be freakishly looooooong. Nothing of importance to do really. One of my collegues is redecorating her house, the other is busy with some kind of sports gala going on tonight, and the senior is off somewhere talking to god knows whom. And me? I basically have nothing to do today but document. Yup. Great. Documenting with a headache is a nuisance to begin with. Let alone that I somehow just CANNOT muster the motivation at the moment. My mind keeps wandering back to my couch - how about a nice warm cup of tea, a blankie, my laptop and tv? That sounds a whole of a lot better.

Yeah I know, this is just a whiney circumspect selfabsorbed way of saying that I’m having an off day just like everybody else has sometimes. But hey, it’s my blog *shrugs*

I just booked our holiday! From june 7th to june 21st we’ll be staying in the Coco Reef Resort and Spa at Crown Point, Tobago.

I’m so excited about it! Our second long trip, this time to the other side of where we were last time. Tobago is supposed to be an oasis of rest, beaches, coral reefs and rainforest. We’re staying on the south-western part of the island, in a resort bordering on the Caribbean Sea. It’s got it’s own private beach *giggles*.

This year is a terribly vacation-riddled year. We just went to Bad Kleinkirchheim, in april we’re going to go skiing with Qurius in Kaprun. June hails our caribbean paradise vacation, and in july we’re getting a little weekend get-away from my parents for our respective birthdays. And then in august we’ll most likely go to Lowlands :P

*jumps around some more*

Ugh. My butt hurts some shit. When I got up this morning, I thought it was pretty much ok, but after sitting on a desk chair the entire day I’m in agony. Here’s to hoping tomorrow is better.

Friday sucked monkeyballs for a large extent. Trying to get down a red piste on your snowboard after one and a half day of practice makes for not only a very bruised backside, but also a terribly bruised ego :(

Things were going so well on Thursday that I agreed to rent the snowboard for yet another day and really go up the mountain on Friday. The weather seemed wonderful, pretty cold but with a blaring sun. Once up on the mountain however the winds were pretty hefty and icicles stung my face whichever way I turned. The piste we’d had in mind (a blue one, which is easier than red) turned out to be very, very narrow and was not really suited for starting snowboarders. We decided to try the steeper, but broader red one instead. Right.

I’d been practicing going down the mountain face-down (as in, looking towards the valley and not towards the mountain), and since I am regular, I’m snowboarding in left-hand lines. I wasn’t as far along that I could actually turn and balance on my toes, let alone shift my weight goofy so I could curve to the right. Problem was that most of the slope curved right, so I drifted to the left-hand edge of the slope constantly and had trouble staying on the slope. Next to that, the added steepness didn’t do much for my technique. And I was scared.

I completely cramped up on the board. Fell down a couple of times, pretty hard. I think I actually bruised my tailbone. In the end, I ended up walking down the slope with board in hand, tears of frustration and anger streaming down my face. I took the lift down to the valley and went home.

Not exactly what I had depicted for my last day on the snow. Luckily we’d also planned to go rodeling at the end of the afternoon, which was so much fun that it saved the day, and we also had a really nice dinner in a local restaurant to close off the holiday with.

The trip home was very uncomfortable with me not really being able to sit in one position long, since my tailbone really really hurt. Next to that we had long trafficjams around Salzburg and Munchen because of not only heavy traffic, but also snowfall. In the end we decided to take another route from Munchen on up, since the original route towards Nurnberg was jammed with 20 kilometers of stau. We ended up going towards Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, which proved to be the best decision. We were home at around 10 in the evening. The other car with L&J in it had taken a more northernly route, and ended up in 40 cm’s of snow on the road. When we crossed the border in Venlo, they were some 2 1/2 hours behind us … ouch.

Today I’m trying to ease the pain a little bit - will take a good long bath in a sec, and I think I’m driving out to go pick up the Bento stuff at Iris’ place tonight. And tomorrow … back to work.

Whooh. I’ve gotten the hang of skiing again truly. Last time I really went skiing was somewhere in 2001, after that I had a short stint in 2006 in Pertisau. But since I was the only one skiing then, I quickly grew bored and stopped before I could really get back into form again.

I’ve been skiing for a couple of days now and while the first day went ok, yesterday went a hell of a lot better. It’s as if your muscles somehow remember what to do, even if it’s been seven years ago ;) The suit is great - nice and warm. Which is a good thing because yesterday we had snow on the mountain and way up we had a piste with a pretty hefty blizzard, so much so that I could simply hang into the wind and not fall over ;)

The day before yesterday we tried our hand at snowboarding. L&J can snowboard (with J being the better one). His brother E can snowboard as well. And so Arno, IJdo and I were blustering about under the directions of L, J and E. I’d expected to fall over on my butt and knees the entire time, but lo and behold, within half an hour I could actually stand up on my own ;) Staying upright is another thing however :D I actually rather liked snowboarding, so tomorrow we’re probably going to try again.

For now, we’re having a quiet day in which we let our muscles unwind a bit. We’re venturing into the little town in a bit, and after that .. no clue.