Prettige kerstdagen iedereen

In other words, happy Christmas everyone ! And as you can see from the picture above, I am able to celebrate in true Aussie style :-))))

Yep, I received a beautiful Christmas "care package" from both my Mum and Dad that included the goodies you can see here. I'm really looking forward to introducing the joys of vegemite and Tim Tams to Jeroen !!

It has been so strange to experience the whole lead up to Christmas during winter. It has actually meant that, for me, it doesn't feel all that Christmasy and I haven't been as homesick as I thought I was going to be. Although I must admit, I shed a few tears when I opened my parcels from Australia.

I hope everyone has/had a lovely day, and I look forward to all that 2007 will bring us.

Alli xxx

Christmas at my school

Well, my day at school today was one big food fest! Everyone bought along something to share, and we had a lovely time munching on all sorts of yummy delicacies from all over the world - from Serbian cookies, to Moroccan sweets, from Russian salads to Chinese noodles.

See above for a couple of photos of some of my lovely classmates. The top photo is not very clear, but it gives you an idea of the scale of my school building. The middle photo features (l-r) Agnes from Poland, Leith from Iraq, me, and the lovely Joke, one of my teachers. The bottom photo is Noo from Thailand, and Sanja & Sladjana from Serbia.

Alli xxx

I spoke too soon

About it not being cold enough for the ice rink to freeze over that is! It is almost 4.00pm and this has been the view out of our window all day.

When Jeroen picked me up from school this afternoon at about 1.00pm it was only measuring 1C on the car's thermometer, and it looks like staying the same for the rest of the week - brrrrr!!

I walked to school this morning to the sound of happy commuters scraping the ice off their car windows, and nearly slipped and broke my neck on those damn icy cobblestones - they look nice but are bloody dangerous! Lucky I was wearing "sensible" shoes and not my normal stilettos ;-)

Alli xxx

We have a Christmas tree...

...so it is starting to feel a bit more like Christmas!

I still can't get used to the whole idea of Christmas in winter. Although all those cheesy carols about sleigh rides and snowmen make alot more sense now!

We did what every other good Dutch family were doing last week - visiting a garden centre to buy a Christmas tree. We opted for a smallish one in a pot and it looks so nice with all the little decorations I bought with me from Oz - actually I think most of them are originally from Germany so they have circumnavigated the globe! Even Jeroen is starting to get into the spirit, and has been constantly humming one of those annoyingly catchy Christmas tunes under his breath :-))

I am still hoping to go ice skating at some stage. The city has set up a temporary ice rink in the centre, along with little stalls selling hot chocolate etc but unfortunately the ice is more like a puddle of water at the moment - it is still not cold enough for it to freeze properly!

Next week we have our "multi culti" Christmas feast at school, and the idea is that everyone brings along some home cooked food that represents their country. I am still having trouble coming up with ideas.....Jeroen suggested I take along a mini disposable BBQ and some Fosters and cook up a few snags! Maybe I will have to do some searching on the internet for traditional Australian recipes! Maybe I can just take a pavlova :-)

Alli xxx

A little piece of Australia comes to Nijmegen

My lovely friend Veronica (that's her & I to the right looking a bit blurry on New Year's Eve 2005) has just spent a couple of days staying with us here in Nijmegen. We picked her up at Schiphol bright and early (0630!) Monday morning, and if it weren't for the traffic jams on the way back we would have been back home again before the sun came up!!

It was SO nice having her here and we really just spent our time "hanging out", walking around the city, shopping, going out for dinner, and drinking cocktails. The poor thing did a fabulous job fighting off jetlag so we managed to make the most of her 48 hours here :-)) Now she is busy jetsetting off to Spain and the UK.

Oh, and I must add, Veronica came bearing the BEST gifts - she bought me some crumpets and chicken twisties!!! Funny how you miss the small things hey?!

Alli xxx