Our weekend "away"

Jeroen and I just spent a relaxed weekend at Piet's place in Grave, and during our time there we played "tourists" and managed to see a little bit of everything!


Friday evening we headed into the "centre" of Grave, to the market square, and watched the annual Taptoe (a sort of mini Edingburgh Tattoo, with brass military-style marching bands). The evening's activities began with a "ganzenfanfare" (goose parade). See above for the gaggle of very well trained geese being led through the village by a drummer and a tambourine player :-)) The Taptoe itself seemed very popular with the "older" generation, with the market square lined by dozens of camping stools and grey haired people enjoying the music and final singalong of the national anthem.

On Sunday we paid a visit to the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal. The third of the large "museums" in the local area, after the Museumpark Orientalis (the religion museum) and the Bevrijdingsmuseum (the liberation museum), and the last one to complete our check list of musuems visited in our local area ;-) It was a beautiful autumn day - just perfect to wander around in the sunshine through the reconstructions of some typical African villages from countries such as Lesotho, Mali and Ghana. I've never been to Africa so can't tell you how authentic they are, but it was funny to see re-creations of a hairdressing salon and an African "beer bar" in the middle of a Dutch forest! The indoor part of the museum is more like an art gallery and had an interesting collection of traditional and modern African art, including a display of wooden coffins from Ghana. These carefully carved and brightly painted coffins are designed to represent an important aspect of the deceased's life eg a fish for a fisherman, a car for a taxi driver, or a sewing machine for a dressmaker!

And on the way back to Piet's in Grave on Sunday afternoon, we noticed that one of the old WWII bunkers by the Grave bridge (over the river Maas) was open so paid a visit there too. It is around this time of the year that the liberation of Grave is commemorated (officially 17 September), and the old bunker is set up as a mini museum. The bunker was actually constructed by the Dutch in 1936 to protect the bridge from the invading German troops, but was taken over by the Germans, then eventually won back by the allies on 17 September 1944. It was a bit eerie standing in the cold little concrete bunker (over two levels - one of which is actually underground) thinking that over 60 years ago there was heavy fighting right outside, and artillery fire coming from that very concrete box!

Today the weather has turned cool and wet again, and tomorrow it's back to work.

Alli xxx

Out of Africa (the museum that is!)

Just checking in

Well, it's been pretty full on for us over the past couple of weeks. You already know about our awesome weekend in London, but we have also been having major hassles with our upstairs neighbour again (I won't go into the details here - most of you know what's going on anyway!), and it has been crazy busy at my work. One of my colleagues has been away on vacation so I have been "forced" to learn a lot of new tasks faster than I would normally. At least it makes the day go incredibly fast. I have been eating my lunch at my desk and not really getting time for a proper break until about 4.00pm (almost home time by then!). I've even overcome my "phobia" of answering the phones at work :-)) I used to try to answer the phones as little as possible 'cause it meant I had to talk Dutch - what a wimp hey? ;-) But I have literally had no choice, and it's all good now!

Anyway, this was just a quick note to let you all know things are ok (considering the circumstances) and we will let you know what happens as far as the household "situation" goes.

Alli xxx

Wow...what a weekend!

Well, we are back in the "land of cheese and drizzle" after a fabulous weekend in London. It sounds a bit wanky to say that there aren't many words to describe our experiences there, but actually all I can say is......WOW !!!!

We arrived midday saturday, and after checking into our cheap but definately cheerful hotel, we headed straight off to Shepherd's Bush to catch up with our Sudanese friends who used to live here in Nijmegen. We spent a very funny and lovely afternoon/evening catching up, visiting the local market, cooking a meal together and generally having a rollicking good time :-) Sunday morning/early afternoon was spent at the Camden Market. Browsed all the stalls, bought some stuff, drank some coffee, went back to our hotel. THEN our Prince "experience" really began.

We headed off to the O2 Arena at about 4.00pm and after wandering around the many funky bars, cafes, restaurants etc in the complex itself, we decided to go to one of the few real local pubs left in the immediate area, The Pilot Inn, to meet up with other Prince fans Jeroen knows through a fan forum. It was lovely, and everyone was so nice and ultra friendly, and all VERY excited at the prospect of the impending performance! We met up with people from the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The main show in the O2 Arena itself was great - fabulous stage (in the middle of the arena and in the shape of his "symbol" - exactly like this year's Superbowl performance for those of you who happened to see it). See the photo here to get a bit of an idea - it's not the best quality 'cause my phone doesn't exactly have a zoom lens, but you get the idea! Prince was full of energy and humour, and played a good mix (for us non hardcore fans) of hits and non hits.

BUT, the aftershow was something to behold. Totally stunning!

After the mainshow we went to the Indigo2 (a smaller club-like venue in the O2 complex, with a capacity of 2,000). We arrived at about 11.45pm, Prince came on stage at 12.30am and played (together with his amazing band and backing singers) until about 3.00am. OMG 2 1/2 hours of pure funk, jazz, guitar and amazing energy. There was even a little piece of Oz in "da house" (apart from me that is!) when Shelby J, one of the fab backing vocalists, did a pretty funky version of Kylie Minogue's 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' :-) Prince was truly connecting with the energy of the crowd and he just didn't want to stop. The whole place was going mad !!! It wasn't a concert, it was one big party!

I have definately become a convert to the reign of his royal purpleness (his live performances at least)!!! Don't have any photos of the performance itself - security was VERY tough and anyone caught taking piccies were to be immediately evicted so didn't want to risk it.

Our fabulous night was topped off by a boat trip down the Thames at 4.30am back into the city. Spectacular views of Tower Bridge and the London Eye, before stopping at Waterloo to catch a taxi back to our hotel. Oh, and almost forgot to mention that I did manage to stock up on crumpets :-)) Extremely handy having a proper freezer now!

Phew, what a weekend!!

Alli xxx