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