A slow, wintery December and a rather unwhite Christmas

Helloooooooooooooooo,

December may have been slow and boring but I could not find it in my heart to update this blog. Mainly because there was not much to tell. December was cold and lonely and the temperature went down to -14 C (windchill -19 C!!!!) the week before Christmas. We had lots of rain and snow followed by ice. Needless to say, I decided not to leave the house unless I really had to. I did not have that many lessons to do anyway (see last post) and could not be bothered to visit any more museums.

So, what did I do? Well, fortunately my yoga school and swimming pool are rather close to our house and I have been a rather sporty spice this month - no doubt motivated by the prospect of lying on the beach next month. I also read up about linguistics and have put a that academic subject on my list of things to study for that point in the future when I have an infinite amount of money and no obligations so I will be able to be an eternal student. It joins such worthies as art history, comparative religion, Hebrew, English literature, Sanskrit, Italian literature and the likes. I have not got around to prioritising yet and I will probably save that for the next time I am bored!

We also had a lot of guests over, such as my dear friend Stephanie and her Chris/Cobus...


...who went a little crazy. It was really good to hang out with them again and visit all the christmas markets, and especially with Chris because I did not know him that well. Steef and I have already started planning our next trip, we are going to Barcelona together in March!!

They were followed by Rosie and Vanessa who really came to Berlin for two Rammstein concerts but delighted us with some nights of 'worms' as well


And then it was already time for Christmas. And when I say 'already', I mean 'finally'!! Our weekends had been packed with visitors and lots of fun, but I was somewhat bored during the week when Olaf was at work and I did not have that much to do. Fortunately, we were to spend Christmas with Olaf's brother Lars, his wife Rachel and their two adorable girls, 4-year-old Leah and 2-year-old Hannah!

Although it had been really cold and there was a thick layer of snow and ice covering the city up until basically two days before Christmas, the weatherman suddenly decided we had had enough and raised the temperature to around 0 which caused all the snow to melt and made sure we did NOT have our so longed-for white Christmas in the end. Oh well, good riddens I saw, I do not like snow anyway!

We had an amazing time and Olaf cooked us two wonderful Christmas dinners, although the kids were perhaps still a bit too young to appreciate the finer art of gastronomy. In short, they just wanted 'princess chicken' (aka smoked salmon) and started booing Olaf's cashew nut soup, tuna carpaccio, gazpacho and goat cheese fondue. As would luck would have it though, children need to get to bed at some point and that is when we were able to enjoy Olaf's superb lobster and other lovely dishes, obviously accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol. Here are some pictures of the 5 magnificent days they spent with us:




Present abounded and I believe the kids were happy. As were we. You can see everybody being ecstatic about Rachel's new pink winter hat in the pictures, can't you? I was personally most impressed with my reindeer-shaped lamp...

Well, that is it for 2009, I guess. We are busy packing because it is finally time for our honeymoon. We are going to see Avatar in the cinema tonight and fly to Bangkok tomorrow. We are already quarreling about where to go and what to see because there is simply too much to do in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos and we cannot do everything. Oh well, we will see. And if we like it, we can always go back!!

Happy New Year everyone!

Weddings, Le Morte Darthur, Weihnachtsmarkten and a honeymoon

Hi all,

So were you surprised? You really did not see this one coming? Olaf and I had been talking about getting married for years and had decided on how we were going to do it way before he actually asked me. We have always agreed on the fact that a wedding is something you do together and that you do not need an audience for. I mean, a wedding is not about showing other people how much you love each other, the only person you make a promise to and declare to love forever - or as long as it lasts, I am that realistic - is the person you are marrying. And then tell everybody about it afterwards and have a wonderful party! That is why we wanted to do it in secret and why nobody was invited to the ceremony, but trust me, you will have plenty of chances to celebrate with us at the party. In the end, we decided on doing it in Holland for practical reasons and it seemed fitting to ask our parents to be our witness, the four people without whom we would not have been here at all and hence without whom this wedding would not have been conceivable (and yes, the only four people we would have told about our plans anyway!). I really enjoyed all the positively surprised reactions and your sweet messages. Thank you all, hope to see you at the party in June!!

Talking about the asking, several people have asked me how he did it. Well, here goes. When I came to Berlin, I had only seen our new apartment once before when it was still empty. Olaf moved in about a month before I arrived and had already stocked it with furniture from IKEA and all that. So, when I finally arrived on 31st May around midnight after several delays, we popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate and he showed me around our new house. And it was - and is - beautiful. He showed me the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the guestroom and, finally, the master bedroom. He had bought the bed I liked from IKEA but which he had said he did not like as a surprise. While I was looking around the room he did not say anything until something in a frame on the wall caught my eye. It was a photo collage consisting of loads of pictures of us taken over the 4,5 years we had been, grouped around THE QUESTION. I obviously said yes and the rest is history...

So, when we got back we were almost immediately submerged in work. Olaf has been really busy lately and I have also picked up a surprising amount of courses. We were also busy every weekend and did not really have much time to ourselves. The weekend after our wedding, we had a little mini-honeymoon to Trieste, to visit Louisa and Mickael (photos). It was short but good and I really enjoyed seeing them again (as it had been at least six months) and hearing how surprised they had been to hear our news. Trieste's excellent spaghetti allo scoglio was obviously consumed in copious amounts, too much wine was drunk and there was also a scary kind of walk through a suddenly dark forest that I do not care to repeat. We then entertained Jorryt & Lilian (and her pregnant belly), Bard & Suus and Felix and Annaig in subsequent weekends. For pictures, I refer you to Olaf's blog and Facebook. They were all very good weekends, each one different to the other but all exceedingly happy-making. It does mean, however, that we have not really had any time to get used to and celebrate being married - although we did celebrate our first mensiversary last Monday... Fortunately, convention has provided us with the perfect solution to our problem: the honeymoon. On 30 December, we are leaving for 4 weeks of adventure in the inlands of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. I cannot wait!!!

Christmas time is here and that means Christmas markets. The traditional German Weihnachtsmarkten cater to the needs of the young and the old, the male and the female, the gluttonous and the, well, merely fat. One can simply not avoid putting on weight at this time of the year. Besides the fact that it gets colder every day - I am soooooo scared of the coming weeks - there is just too much to eat. There is a cornucopia of Gluehwein, hot chocolate (preferably with a shot of rum), cakes, pretzels and lots and lots of sweet stuff. I even found a stand where they sell curly cale with smoked sausage (boerenkool met worst!!!) which I thought was a typical Dutch delicacy not found anywhere else!

As soon as all my courses started they ended again as well, wherefore I am looking forward to slow December. I am not getting any new courses because I will be away the whole month of January but I do not really care. I still have a lot to do, what with preparing for the trip (MUST read all lonely planets from cover to cover!) and finally finish Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur which I got for Christmas (or my birthday?) last year and which I have been reading for the last couple of months. It is 700 pages of Pre-Shakespearean Middle English, that takes a while. I have now finished the actual book and am have got to the commentary and criticism section where I am reading up about Malory's sources and backgrounds and how he was influenced by The Wars of the Roses. I know, you think I am crazy but hey, this is what I like!!

Olaf and I are also having some trouble deciding what to start watching, now that we have finished all seven seasons of The West Wing and nothing really seems challenging anymore... I am looking forward to our honeymoon but also to some other upcoming events, some of them very mundane like the joys of a weekend to ourselves, the first one in a while and the last one until the end of the year. Oh baby, bring on tomorrow night! The weekend after Stephanie and Cobus are coming to visit, followed by Rosie and Vanessa who are going to be using us to crash in between their Rammstein concerts. And then, to make the yuletide truly gay, we will be celebrating Christmas with Olaf's brother Lars, his wife Rachel and their two daughters, whose visit in August was so awesome that I am sure the sequel is going to simply be blissful!

Now, let me just leave with one of the best ways to get into the Christmas spirit:
the Indian way

Married!!!!

On Friday, 30th October, Olaf and I got married in secret. We had a very small ceremony with only our parents as guests and witnesses in the picturesque medieval town of Naarden. I am very happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some pictures:

For more pictures, see Facebook. If you have received an invite to the party, please click here to RSVP.

October

Hi all,

So, October seems to have come and (almost) gone. I actually had a lot to do this month and I am happy because of it. I am really happy about the way my Dutch group course is going and according to the account manager they are very happy with me too. I wish there were more people wanting to learn Dutch because I am really getting into it!!

I spent two weeks with the Japanese-Korean couple and had a great time with them. After my initial reservation and doubt whether I would be able to teach them well for 5 hours a day, it all worked out fine. The good thing when you are teaching someone on a daily basis, is that you get to know them really well really fast. I not only gained their trust this way but I was also soon able to ask them the right questions to start talking and to figure out to what kind of prompts they reacted best. The fact they we were all about the same age also made it a lot easier.

The Korean girl had initially told me she did not know any English and was not interested in learning it. I am proud to say I convinced her to do something any and she learnt a lot. She was not a beginner, as she had previously stated, but actually already had some vocabulary and turned out to have a knack for English grammar. In the end, he got over his apprehension of speaking English too and kept chattering away with her correcting his grammatical mistakes. It was very funny! The unfortunately decided not to continue after two weeks, because she did not want to anymore. He did but found our school to expensive and started an intensive group course at another school. So no more Japanese students for me, though I must say I would not have minded continuing with them in the end. We made a good start and I hope he will be able to build on what he has learnt with me in his new course.

Over the weekends, we got to play hotel again. Olaf's friends Ellen and Kim from Groningen came over for a weekend and we had a blast. It was the first time we had seen them in over two years but things were great. We went to the Tag der Deutsche Einheit parade where two gigantic marionettes walked through the city centre and met at Brandenburger Tor to celebrate the reunification of East and West Germany twenty years ago. It was really cool, except for the fact that we nearly got squished by the mob that was being pushed out of the way by one the giants. I guess there was a little security error there. Oh well, at least it gave us a nice view of the giant!!
One of the giants (a little girl, just before meeting her uncle, the big giant) actually decided to relieve herself in front of Brandenburger Tor!!! For pictures see Olaf's weblog.

The week after Stephi came over from Duesseldorf and rocked our world. Stephi and Nicole (Dutch friend who moved to Berlin 2 weeks after Olaf did) knew each other as well from Groningen and so the four of us spent a lovely weekend together. It included sights, food, clubbing, booze, Sunday brunch, a visit to the Pergamom museum, more booze and food and Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

The last day, I had my Japanese students, they did not feel like sitting in a classroom and studying. I guess they had sort of fallen out with Lingua Franca's management team over the price of the course and did not feel comfortable being there anymore. Anyway, I did not want to get into that and was happy to take them sightseeing for the day. We actually did two museums that morning. The first one was the very informative Haus am Checkpoint Charlie documenting the rise and fall of the Berlin wall and the often desperate escape attempts made to cross it or to get through Checkpoint Charlie unnoticed. I did not know people could be folded into such small spaces... The second one was the renowned Juedisches Museum (Jewish Museum). It was very interesting but I had already seen it before (when I first visited Berlin with Wouter in 2006) and my back was killing by then and I was happy to bring them back to school and say my goodbyes. I obviously did not pay a dime for these museums because I let the Japanese guy pay for me. It was, after all, only a job for me (and boy, does getting paid to go to museums rule!!).

That afernoon I finally managed to go to the Carl Gustav Carus exhibit at the Alte Nationalgalerie. I did not know this painter but had seen giant posters of his paintings all over Berlin and they appealed to me immensely. Carus was a gynaecologist and physicist from the Romanticist period who had a great fascination for the workings of nature. He regarded art as the epitome of science and painted landscapes exactly the way he perceived them in great detail. He paid a lot of attention to for instance eroding mountain slopes, dying trees, waves crashing onto cliffs or meadows covered with fallen autumn leaves. He also loved painting ruins and often included neglected castles on hilltops or decaying remnants of abbeys. I especially liked his use of colours, they are very warm and full and give off a cozy, trusted and warming sensation. All in all, a very interesting exhibit! And it was great to be able to go to three museums in one day and not even having to pay for a single one of them!

Olaf is in DC this week for a presentation, a workshop and a lot of networking. Now that my Japanese students have interrupted their course, this means I have a lot of time on my hands. I had a couple of courses but have mainly had a lot of time to myself. I relaxed, practised a lot of yoga (which I had been neglecting a bit), went swimming and watch loads of films. That, and trying to figure out the healthcare system in this country. As I am self-employed, I am entitled to private health insurance (thank heaven, as it is much cheaper than public health insurance - Olaf is paying 500 euros a month just for him) but it is still rather expensive and the cheapest quote I have got so far is around 175 euros a month, which is a substantial part of my monthly income and makes me wonder whether it is still worth it to work. I might as well remain unemployed and get free health insurance and 600 euros of unemployment benefits to live on. Germany really has to rethink its incentives for people who want to start up their own companies!! Anyway, I am now looking outside of Germany and may have found a cheaper, international healthcare insurance provider.

And now I am waiting for my brother Ward and his girlfriend Anne to arrive. They called me two weeks ago to see if they could come over (as it is autumn break) and fortunately for them another friend of mine had just cancelled for this weekend. I am really looking forward to their visit and cannot wait to show them around Berlin. Olaf will be back tomorrow as well, which means things are only getting better!!

Funny students

Well, here I am again. I guess you had not expected to hear from me again so soon, now had you? Well, don't worry I don't have that much to tell you. There are, however, some things I just have to share with you!

I forgot to tell you about my trip to Glasgow to visit my college friend Femke. She is on an exchange to do some in-depth study of Ancient Greek drama and has chosen the misty city of Glasgow, Scotland. I had been to Scotland before but never made it to Glasgow and having a friend there provided me with a second reason for a visit. And it was worth it. Besides the fact that it was obviously great to see Femke again and to have time to catch up and gossip about our old studymates, I found out that Glasgow is actually a lovely city. And it has got a great museum, St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Art, where the different religions being adhered to in the Glasgow region are presented without bias or presumption. It then goes on to explain how different themes such as birth, coming of age, marriage and death and dealt with by these religions. It does not represent the artifacts in its collection as art (though some may rightly be called art by their sheer beauty - and are probably worth a lot of pounds) and they do not propagate any single religion but the whole purpose of the museum is to promote understanding and acceptance of one's neighbours. In one word, awesome. For pictures, click here.

When I came back, I was in for a nice surprise. The school that had hired me as a Dutch teacher but had been hesitant to give me English courses as well offered me an intensive English course. It is 5 days a week (of which I do 4), 6 hours a day and the students are a Japanese-Korean couple on their honeymoon. They actually decided to spend their two-month honeymoon in Berlin to learn English! They learn English every morning and are then too tired to do anything else, who would opt for that? Though they are lovely, compliant and very grateful every time, I do struggle a bit. I obviously do not speak Japanese or Korean and their level is quite low. It sometimes takes us up to 10 minutes to figure out what we are talking about and I often have trouble understanding what they are saying at all. I believe they are making progress but I keep thinking it must be hard on them. After all, it is very hard to stay focused for that long and I simply do not have the energy or the imagination to keep our lessons fun and interesting for 6 hours straight.

I also laughed my head off today! I discovered that I have been spied on. One of my students admitted to having googled me and read this blog and suddenly turned out to know lots of things about me. I don't mind this at all but I never thought that would happen and it caught me off guard. Well, she is a communication specialist after all and I guess I should have been prepared for it. I never thought my blog could be a teaching tool but Kirstin, if you're reading this, just look at it as exercise. And I will just have to start being really careful not to make any spelling errors or grammatical mistakes!!!!

Summary

Right, so it has been a while. Things have changed and I haven't written anything. That's the way things go in life. Sometimes you're too caught up in something to be able to write about it. And sometimes you just forget. I stopped updating this blog because I didn't feel like sharing what was happening because I wasn't too happy with what was going on in my life. And then, when all that was over, it was just really difficult to find the right time to start again and to think of the right post to start with. So, I guess I am not going to make deal out of it but just start with a little summary to bring you up to speed.

At the beginning of this year, things got rough at work. The company wasn't doing too well and things had to happen. The atmosphere got really tense and it became increasingly clear that things couldn't go on the way they were going. I don't want to go into details but in the end it was a good thing that I decided leave at the end of May instead of continuing on until July. In the end, Caroline, my boss, came back and had to make some pervasive and unpopular decisions to keep the company afloat and find a buyer. This decreased my work enjoyment even further and I was ultimately happy to leave that company. I hated leaving like that and we sort of figured it out and made up but it wasn't pretty. I was also not too happy about the prospect of leaving Milan and settling in Berlin. All this contributed to my not feeling very happy. The company was eventually sold to one of my colleagues and her fiance who are now trying to make things work.

Here is a summary of some cool things that happened while I was still in Italy:

In February, we went on a weekend retreat in Cocconato in the Piemontese hills with four other couples: Jen and Massimo, Louisa and Mickael, Shruti and Gianni and Kate and Giammaria (who after that broke up). Good food, wine and lovely views. For pictures, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/CouplesWeekendCocconato21And22Feb09?authkey=Gv1sRgCKSzhcyg0_ileg#

In March, Wouter and I spent our annual weekend away in Frankfurt. It was very good to have some time alone with him, even if Frankfurt itself was not everything I hoped it would be. The Staedel is a great art museum though. For pictures, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/FrankfurtMar09?authkey=Gv1sRgCKaD_eWv2peIlwE#

Olaf left for Berlin on 1st April and I had two more months in Milan. Although it meant we would spend two months apart (except for visits of course), it was good for me to have the time to say goodbye to my friends and take the time to let go of the city. And to have time to think.

In the beginning of May, Marike came over for a long weekend and we had a blast. We reminisced about the past, analysed the present and the future, drank too much, smoked too much and overdosed on cultural experiences. The most impressive of which was our visit to Sirmione on Lake Garda where one of the best preserved Roman villas has been excavated. For pictures, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/MarikeSVisitSirmioneMay09?authkey=Gv1sRgCOzq2tfh5P3s5wE#

May was a good month. It was my last month in Milan and I did lots of fun stuff. Jen, Kate, Caroline, Massimo and I went to Lago d'Orta for instance, a beautiful small lake near Lago Maggiore with a little island with a church on it in the middle and a Sacro Monte nearby. For pictures, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/LagoDOrta170509?authkey=Gv1sRgCJj8wf-HiJzdbg#

At the end of that month, Olaf came back for his defense of his PhD, which he passed of course. We celebrated this with a party on a tram: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/OlafSGraduationPartyOnATram230509?authkey=Gv1sRgCMDu94LBufrP6AE#

I also finally made it to Brescia, where you can see the remains of a Roman forum. It was an exceedingly hot day and thus a great day for my very last day trip from Milan: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/Brescia260509?authkey=Gv1sRgCK6f3u7tx83kbQ#

And the last weekend I was in Milan, Jen, Massimo, Kate, Flora and I went out for the best mussels in the world at La Cozzeria: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/LaCozzeriaMyGoodbye290509?authkey=Gv1sRgCJvhnYqZpsy_igE#

So, then I moved to Berlin. I arrived on 1st June, which happened to be a bank holiday. You may wonder why I was surprised at the second day of Pentecost being a holiday, well it is because for some reason they do not celebrate it in Italy, bulwark of the Roman Catholic faith though it may be. I had hoped to find a job before the summer but that soon proved to be difficult. In the end, I was at home all summer, apart from the occasional private student. This is the way it is for language teachers. People finish their courses in June or July and don't start new ones until after summer, so language schools don't hire until September. I managed to get hired by two different language schools as a teacher of the English and Dutch languages the very first week of September though and have been working on getting more courses in ever since. Hurray, I am no longer unemployed, which - to be honest - I had had enough of after a month. I am simply not made for three-month holidays...

Since moving to Berlin, I have been exploring the city to try to get to know it. Not having a job made me feel like being a tourist on an extended stay here and I don't feel at home yet, but I hope that will all change with having a job. I'd like to start feeling like a part of this city.

Fortunately, I had already planned some trips to take mind of spending a whole summer in Berlin. I went to London for Marike's opera's opening night and spent a long weekend in Nijmegen with friends and family, where I tried to leave a lasting impression on my supercute nephew Neo: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/Neo#

Several people came over to visit, like my mother,

my father and his girlfriend,



Maartje (http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/MaartjeSVisit2123Jul09?authkey=Gv1sRgCNHVwpPPlMWkVA#), and Olaf's brother Lars and his family.

We also had a lovely housewarming party themed 'Stock the bar'. The bar was stocked and emptied that same night: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/HousewarmingParty130609?authkey=Gv1sRgCIOx59mkmu_2mQE#

Summer came and went. The weather wasn't that great but we had three sunny weeks in August. I guess I am still too hung up on Milan to be able to call that a summer. I got a little tan, read loads of books, started a yoga course (which I love!!) and started swimming again. I hadn't worked out since before Christmas and I had put on about 10 kg of surplus weight which I am still working on getting rid of.

And then I could finally start working. I am teaching a couple of General and Business English courses at my one school, and a beginners' group course of Dutch and an intensive English course at the other one. This is obviously very tiring. So, when I had been working for 1 week, I really needed a holiday. So, it was a good thing we had already booked a 10-day holiday in Italy!! We spent a couple of days in Rome, where we visited Ostia Antica and the Vatican museums and had a great lunch with my former colleague Katherine on the beach. We then proceeded to hire a car and explore hilly Umbria with its hilltop towns of Orvieto, Perugia, Gubbio, Assisi, Montefalco and Spoleto followed by a night on the Piano Grande, a 1500-meter high bowl-shaped plateau which fills up with mist every morning leaving the little hillock with its hamlet Castelluccio on top of it as a virtual island in a sea of mist. We then drove back to Rome to fly to Sardegna to spend an amazing party weekend at Jen and Massimo's place. Sun, sea, beach, fresh fish, a barbecue, an exciting dinghy ride and booze, booze, booze. For pictures of this lovely and well-deserved holiday, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/FedorvanRijn/ItalySept2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCMeZovPX5vGVdA#

Ciao,
Fedor

January 2009

Ciao all,

I can't believe how fast January has come and gone. It still feels like 2009 has only just begun but that is just not true anymore. This scares me a bit as I was really living towards Christmas and now that Christmas is past I am measuring time towards and looking forward to summer. Summer, however, is still one big question mark. We are going to leave Milan, that is for sure, but I have no idea where we will be. It all depends on where Olaf gets a job (and whether or not I veto us moving there!) but it is awfully close. I do not like insecurity. I am a planner and a perfectionist and need to know what is going to happen and where I am going to go. This situation frustrates me a bit, though I manage. Leaving Milan and my life really is a frightening enough prospect as it is and will emotionally be very difficult anyway (I love Milan and feel at home here!), so I can really do without the other doubts. If time keeps moving this fast we will have left before I know it and there is still so much I want to do here. I just want to make these last couple of months a time to remember.

However, work is claiming a lot time - hey, what else is new?! - and is still worrying. We are now in a position that is somewhat more secure but even that is a temporary situation. Our largest client (roughly 50% of yearly business) have let us know they have no budget at all for language courses this year. Although we had anticipated this, the actual confirmation still came as a shock. Fortunately, this woke some people up and they realised things will actually have to be done if this company is to survive. So, this might actually have a positive effect on the atmosphere in the office as they are not as incompetent and slow anymore as they use to be. Let us see how long this will last and that it will not be too late.

On to happier topics, Olaf has finally handed in his dissertation and this was cause for a grand party to celebrate this and his birthday as well. It also means he has finally got some time for me as well, I was getting lonely!! We went to a lovely Indian Italian fusion bar where (I think) the food was very good and the alcohol expensive yet enjoyable. All his friends put their money together and they got us a dinner on the ATMosfera, the dinner tram. We decided to go as soon as possible and they fortunately had a cancellation for last Friday. We had a posh four-course dinner while being driven on a tram through rainy Milan looking out and waving at the little people. This is what it must feel like to be the queen...


Oh, and we also went to London this month. Olaf had a conference there so his flights and the hotel were all paid for and the nearest hotel just happened to be the Hilton... I had never slept in a Hilton before and it was quite exciting. In the end, the room was tiny and nothing special but the full English breakfast too mornings in a row was an amazing antidote to little alcohol-induced drowsinesses. I spent most of my time with Marike, who I had not seen for a while. We did some shopping and lots of talking (if you know Marike, you will understand why) and on Sunday we went to an exhibit on the Byzantine Empire at the Royal Academy. The Byzantine Empire was a very important, culturally rich and historically exceedingly interesting period and empire but for some reason it was never given the attention it is due while we were at university. We spent about four hours inside and learnt many things - and corrected many others as the curator obviously did not speak ancient Greek or had just not bothered interpreting the depictions on the artifacts because his interpretations were often completely off. That made us feel smart and give each other pats on the back while congratulating ourselves on choosing to study Classics. See, not completely useless!!!

We have got some interesting things coming up soon and I hope I will have enough time and energy to enjoy them as I would like to:

- Next weekend we are going to Jorryt and Lilian wedding party (as expected they did get married in secret in Australia on 31st December). They did it their way and we are coming to Holland to celebrate with them!!
- The weekend after that we are going to a Cascina in Piemonte to stuff ourselves with local specialities and lots of wine. It will be a proper couples weekend with Jen & Massimo, Louisa & Mickael and even Kate has managed to convince her new man Giammaria to come with us!!
- Sometime in March Wouter and I are going to explore the mysterious city of Frankfurt
- Both my mother and father have booked flights to come and visit us!!!

And now I am going to enjoy my Sunday. Yesterday was an interesting evening of pizza with wine, followed by just wine, followed by cocktails and dancing and Le Trottoir so I think I am going to take it slow today...

Pictures from Vienna

Hey all, finally some pictures from Vienna. They are in reverse chronological order (not intentional, I just don't know why this programme acts like this...)

The Belvedere, Prince Franz Ferdinand's summer residence, currently home to the musems of Medieval, Baroque, Biedermeier and 19th- and 20th-century art.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum

Parliament

One of Empress Sisi's water jugs, a testament to her lack of taste

University

Details of Michaelerkirche: the archangel Michael defeating Satan

Artyfarty fountain with Neoclassicistic reconstruction of a ruined Greek temple in Schloss Schoenbrunn gardens

The gardens of Schloss Schoenbrunn, the summer residence of the imperial family, currently a public park with statues, fountains and even a Zoo

The Hofburg, the imperial palace

The 11th-century Ruprechtskirche, the oldest church in Vienna

Die Griechische Kirche

Lollipop pink and vomit green twisted columns in the over-the-top Rococo Jesuitenkirche

The Gothic Stephansdom with its mosaique roof and lovely views

The modern Haas Haus with reflections of the 13th-century Stephansdom in its glass walls, apparently a perfect contrast.

The Baroque Karlskirche

Random building with angels

Emperor Franz Joseph I's private metro station, unfortunately he only got to use it twice.

Hope you enjoyed that. I did!! Will write something soon!
Fe