Not much happening here

Things are pretty quiet here at the moment. Although I have had three job interviews in the last 10 days! Two of them were for native English speaking customer service roles (one of which I found out yesterday that I didn't get), and the third is for a flight reservations agent at a travel company here in Nijmegen. Needless to say I've got my hopes pinned on that one! Luckily I won't be required to speak or write fluent Dutch, but it was funny that during my interview (conducted mostly in Dutch I'm proud to say!) I was given a little "test" to determine how well I can read :-)

Monday was Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) and we spent the afternoon at a park here sitting in the sun, listening to free music, and generally enjoying the festive atmosphere. Today is Dodenherdenking (Rememberance Day) and tomorrow is Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day), so there will be a two minute silence this evening at 8.00pm (even the air traffic at Schiphol is stopped for two minutes!), lots of solemn ceremonies involving war veterans, and old war movies & documentaries on television. And tomorrow, yet another free outdoor music festival. Life's just all go, go, go!

We are now at about day 42 without rain, and for Dutch standards that is a drought!! Don't laugh. It's actually quite serious and there is already talk of failing crops, massive price rises on fruit/veg etc and there have been plenty of "bushfires" breaking out all over the country. Sounds strange I know when you compare it to the drought in Oz, but it's all relative I guess.

Alli xxx