Rotterdam: City of Statues

This coming Sunday, 25th of March, it will be a year since we arrived in Rotterdam after our epic travels through Europe. How did that happen?! A whole year since our travels and a year of being Rotterdamers. To celebrate here is the second in the series of Life in Rotterdam, Rotterdam: City of Statues.

Walking around Rotterdam you cannot miss seeing a statue or art of some form. There are statues everywhere! They vary in shape, size, material and subject. There are many dedicated to the Second World War but also many other simply random ones.

Today dawned bright and clear, a wonderful opportunity to head out into the city and snap some pics. It may be sunny, but it was still pretty cold! I took pics of all the statues I saw in about two hours, I am sure there are many I missed. We hope you enjoy a walk around our city with us =)

In other news we booked our flights to the States in September last week! Woohoo! NYC here we come =) We are flying with Iceland air and decided to have a stop-over in Reykjavik for a few days. Looking forward to soaking in the hot springs! Then we fly to Boston and return three weeks later. We still need to finalise our arrangements but plans include staying with Justin’s aunt in Boston, then moving on to New York City, Washington, staying with Justin’s uncle in Maryland, and hopefully there will be time to squeeze in Chicago before heading back to Boston. Let the visa applications begin!

And this Sunday is also the switch to Daylight Saving Time, woohoo! Officially Spring time  =) We are looking forward to cycling through tulip fields soon =) Spring time plans include a visit from our dear Chilean friends, Joan and Mayira, in early-May and a trip to Venice mid-May.

But tonight we are off to see Bryan Adams live! Yay! We are real children of the 80s =)

Have a good week!

x

'Fikkie'

One of our favourite statues is this one of Fikkie the dog. One day Justin saw a little puppy barking at this statue dog! Too cute. 

The above three statues are in a row on the Coolsingel (the main road through the main shopping area of the city). 

Musician on Meent Street

Father Christmas at Eendrachtsplein

A random one that looks like overflowing paint jars and also Bart Simpson heads

Figure on the side of a building

Regulatory dudes with lace collars outside the Stadhuis (City Hall).

Keeping watch at the World Trade Center, right next to the Occupy tents, lol.

Untitled outside de Bijenkorf (the beehive, think Stuttafords type shop) on the Coolsingel. 

De Verwoeste Stad (The Devastated City)

Remembering the bombings that flattened the city during the Second World War 

Triomf (Triumph) 

Celebrating 50 years since the rebuilding of the city of Rotterdam, a new favourite of mine

Ongebroken Verzet (Unbroken Resistance)

This is my favourite statue in Rotterdam. It is near central station and we pass it everyday on the tram. I like it because he always looks happy and peaceful, it doesn't matter if it is raining or if the sun is shining. It helps to remind me that my troubles are not as big or troublesome as I think they are. 

Sterker door Strijd (Stronger through struggle)

Remembering the War and rebuilding the city

Monument to the seamen and sea going merchants of the Netherlands during the Second World War situated on the Maas River near the Erasmus Bridge. There is another WWII memorial along the water but I couldn't find it this morning. 

View of the Erasmus Bridge along the River Maas

Rotterdam's own Walk of Fame.

The only two I recognised! lol. 

Some random untitled ones on Weena Street

I suspect this is another WWII memorial although I couldn't find a plaque with a name or description on. At first it looks a bit random...

THAT time of year

Last week one of Justin’s work colleagues said in passing, ‘you do know that tax returns are due on the first of April hey?’ ‘Uhm, no.’

Oh yay,  tax returns, my favourite time of year. NOT.

Much of last week was spent establishing what we have to do for tax this year. So we thought first place to look for help: the trusty internet! However, there is only about a quarter of the Dutch information translated into English on the Dutch tax website. The only forms I could find were for people who had lived in the Netherlands but are now living elsewhere. Apparently if you speak English you cannot actually be living IN the Netherlands.

Second option: phone the Dutch tax service (belastingdienst) helpline number. However, when you phone no one will actually talk to you as it is illegal for you to speak English to them or for them to speak to you in English. The reasoning being that what they say is legally binding and if something is lost in translation then there is a bit of a problem.

Third and final option: We were finally put through to the English version of the helpline where you can actually get help in English. What an exercise!

So apparently even though we live here and pay tax like normal Dutch people we don’t do tax returns like a normal Dutch person. We have to order and fill-in an M-form which will be used calculate how much tax we have paid over the last year and if we should get anything back. It sounded like a first-time form for foreigners to get all our info and then next year we can do ‘normal’ tax online. And then we heard that we always have to do an M-form (as opposed to an online return) and we have to do one when we leave the country again. But then we were told that no, we don’t actually have to do a tax return unless we are requested by the tax office but we can choose to do one. It’s all a bit confusing and we get a different story from every person we speak to at the helpline. Hopefully it will become clearer as we go along.

As for the M-form, I have heard it is long and quite a beast to fill out, is only available in Dutch as is the instruction manual for filling it in, and cannot be done online! Fun times ahead. We are still waiting for the forms to arrive (apparently it takes 8 weeks but I suspect it will be shorter than that) but we will apparently have until well after the first of April to fill them in. But we have had many offers of help to fill in the beastly forms from Justin's and my colleagues. Thanks guys! We will probably take you up on the offer! lol. More on this subject to follow in subsequent blogs I am sure.

So. Think again before you complain about how easy SARS has made it to do your tax return online!!

In other news Spring weather is finally here!! =) Over the last week snow-drops, daffodils and other bulbs have been sprouting forth and starting to bloom. No tulips in the fields yet but by the end of the month they should be starting. You can however get early hothouse tulips at the market. The days are also much longer now, so nice! And are slowly becoming more sunny. We had a really beautiful warm (~15ºC, lol) day yesterday and today. We took the opportunity of a sunny afternoon and had the first long cycle of the year =) We followed the canal that runs behind the house and back for about an hour. Was so nice to be outside in the fresh air again!

Well done to everyone who rode in the Argus yesterday! Heard it was extremely hot and that there were many crashes.

Have a good week!

x 


PS: Thanks for 7400 + blog views! =)

DISNEY

Ten days ago I lost a faithful friend. My precious cat Disney passed away from stomach cancer at just 16 human years old.

We rescued Disney from the SPCA when he was just a kitten. He was super tiny! He was always a bit wild and we suspected that he came from a wild background and that he got separated from his Mommy too young. Despite that he grew big and strong on good IAMS food. He used to suck on my ear as a kitten but slowly grew out of this habit reserving it for occasions when extreme soothing was required, such as a visit to the vet.

Disney was pitch black with a single small patch of white fur on his chest. I liked to call him my panther. Later on he had many ‘grey hairs’ peppering his sleek black coat.

I loved the differences between my cat Disney and Michelle’s cat Billy Bob. Bobby is quite the clown and loves lots of attention but he can also be quite moody. Whereas Disney remained aloof and preferred his own company. He didn’t like strangers in his home and would take off if there were too many people around. And he didn’t really like men, even my brothers couldn’t hold him! But he always knew I was his mommy and I could hold him anytime. As he grew older he mellowed out a lot. He would let guys pick him up and when I moved to Cape Town he became very attached to my Dad. In later years I would be the stranger to him.

I have many fond memories of Disney such as the time he got stuck up a tree as a kitten (true story, his first week at his new home!), the time he went walkabout as a young cat and disappeared for two weeks before finally returning home extremely thin, the feathers and bones love presents he left for me on my bedroom after a night on the prowl, the time he meowed like crazy outside the shower door after I had stayed out one night and left him at home, the swipe he gave on our dog Benji’s nose the first 5 minutes of being in his new home and forever altering the pecking order of pets in our household, and many many more.

In about October last year my Dad called to say that Disney was not well, he is throwing up and losing weight and he is taking him to the vet. After a few days in the hospital at the vet Dis came home a new kitty. But in January he started again and wouldn’t stop. We had him at the vet several times and had blood tests done and everything came back clean every time. The most recent and last visit to the vet he did a sonar scan of Disney and found that he had stomach cancer. The cancer was too advanced and because of Disney’s age it was not a good idea to operate. To save him he basically needed a stomach transplant which is impossible. We had no choice but to let him go, it wasn’t fair to let him to suffer anymore.

Disney, you were an amazing cat and a faithful loving friend. I am extremely sad to have to let you go. It was the most terrible choice to have to make but I know it was the right one for you. I am glad you are not suffering anymore. A friend told me you have only left your earth suit and gone to a better place. Thank you for spending your time on earth with me and my family. I love you very much! You will always be in my heart.

It was only when I was looking for pictures of Disney for this blog did I realize how few pictures I have of him. Most of them, including when he was a kitten, are on film from back in the day when that was all we had. Epic fail!

In other sad news, Justin’s previous boss at PRDW, Jo Dresner passed away two weeks ago. He had been fighting brain cancer for 3 years now. Jo was an amazing person and will be sorely missed. Why do bad things happen to good people? We are thinking of you Heather and family!

In happier news, we recently booked a long weekend trip to Venice in May! YAY! We get so few public holidays here compared to SA and they are all clustered around Easter. We really want to try and make the most of them this year! And we are busy finalising our USA trip plans with Justin’s parents for September. Watch this space!!

Hope you are well and having a good week!

x 

Disney shnoozing

Disney and Bobby shnoozing. They would often curl up together and snuggle (Oct 2010)

What a big cat! (Oct 2010)

An early morning snuggle (~2002/2003)

His favourite place, on Dad's lap, but where he still has a good view of everything around him (Dec 2009)

One of the rare times he came to sit by me on his own accord (Dec 2009)

Art in the Hague

During the first few months that we were in the Netherlands we spent our weekends visiting various different towns and cities. Most of these trips were day trips and so we would try and use the limited time we had to get a feel for the town or city we were visiting. Whilst exploring we would often come across museums and other interesting places that we added to our list of 'must see places'. The idea always being that we would come back in the winter months when being outdoors was less appealing. Well, we are more than half way through winter (or at least we hope we are!) and had still not got round to visiting any of the museums on our list. So this past week while we were deciding what to do with our weekend we had two options we were considering:

1) Visit the town of Leeuwarden or
2) Visit some of the museums on our list.

The museums won! (Leeuwarden, which is 2.5 hours by train, will be a spring time trip)

The Hague has two museums that we have been wanting to visit for some time. Mauritshuis and the Escher Museum.

One of the main squares in the Hague

The Mauritshuis is a 17th century palace in the heart of the Hague and is a great venue for a museum. The museum will however be closed from April 1st 2012 until mid 2014 for renovations and so an added reason for visiting it now. Whilst the main pieces (approximately 100 out of the 800) from the museum will be on show during this time at a temporary location, we don't think it will be quiet the same as seeing the art in the Mauritshuis.

The 17th century palace that houses the Mauritshuis museum

The Mauritshuis museum boasts a number of well known artists, including Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer. The big attraction though is Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. No photos are allowed in the museum, but here are some pics from the museum's website.

 Rembrandt - self portrait (apparently he painted over 80 self portraits over the years)

Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl Earring (a Dutch favourite)

Avercamp – Winter scene (this one reminded us of the recent cold weather we had and seeing everybody out on the ice – a typically Dutch scene)

And then it was off to the M.C. Escher Museum (where they do allow photography). Escher’s work has a way of drawing you in and fascinating you with his mesmerizing works. Some of the items that we really enjoyed are shown below.

This picture of three spheres (a glass sphere on the left, a metallic sphere in the middle and a non-reflective sphere on the right) makes interesting use of reflections. 

Bron looking at some of the patterns that Escher came up with.

Collection of pictures

Creatures that come alive and walk around and then return back to the page. But it is the reflections and the patterns that really make this picture amazing.

Day and night (and the Dutch landscape below)

Some more information on these interesting museums:

www.mauritshuis.nl

www.escherinhetpaleis.nl

And while we are promoting art, the website of some very talented friends of ours:

www.mpenja.com

Have a great week and until next time!

A surprise visit to SA =)

Long Haul flight to JHB via Dubai

Two weeks off work

Arranging a lift from the airport

Look on Dad’s face when upon arriving at front door unannounced: priceless!

My Dad turned 70 this past Saturday and I thought a surprise trip home would be a good gift for him. I was a bit early for his birthday but I think he enjoyed it all the same ‘~)

It was really awesome to be in SA after just more than a year of being away. I forgot how much I miss the sunshine, the hot summer days and the impossibly blue sky. It was great enjoying all the things we miss from home, I munched many hot cross buns and drank a lot of sterie stumpie milkshakes! I was stoked when the shops finally brought out marshmallow Easter eggs just before I left! Legend.

But I also forgot how slow African time can be, how security conscious one has to be in SA and especially JHB, how frustrating the banks, rika and fica are, how you can’t go anywhere unless you have a car but also how friendly the people are. It was really hard to say goodbye and leave my family again but it is also nice to be back with Justin. I think it was good to wait a full year before coming home. I don’t really miss Jo’burg that much, only my family who live there. I think it would be much harder to be in Cape Town for a holiday and then leave again. We really loved living there and miss the CT lifestyle very much.

I took it really easy in Jo’Burg and mostly spent time with my family. I was blessed to spend a lot of time with my Dad, my Mom, my brothers and their wives, my 15 month old niece Micaela, my uncle Hilton and a good friend from school Monet. I enjoyed the sunny days and swam and sat in the garden as much as possible. On the Sunday my uncle Hilton and I arranged a surprise birthday lunch for my Dad with family and some friends Dad hasn’t seen in ages. Was really good. I also spent a day at the Misty Hills day spa with Monet which was great fun. My Mom flew up from St Francis Bay and stayed with my brother Darrell for 4 nights. Thanks for coming up Mom! Was really awesome that you came and we could hang out.

And then it was time to go back again =( But first some shopping to take back some things we miss and other things we can’t get in the Netherlands! Thank goodness for the 30 kg luggage limit when flying with Emirates! (The long haul via Dubai is almost worth it.)

Highlights from the holiday:

- The look on Dad’s face when I arrived

- Spending lots of time with my Dad, my brothers Craig and Darrell and their wives Vanessa and Liz, my 15 month old niece Micaela and my uncle Hilton

- My mom flying up to JHB for 4 nights and spending lots of time with her

- A flying half hour visit from Justin’s brother Brenainn who was in town for one night for work

- Seeing Justin’s cousins Mike & Nicola and baby Aidan

- Dinner and a spa day with Monet, a good friend from school

- Surprise birthday lunch for my Dad with some of his friends too

- LOTS of sunshine and 30ºC days

- Summer thunderstorms

- Swimming almost everyday

- Having a braai in the rain with my Dad

- Spending quality time with my cats

- Fish and chips at Ocean Basket with my Dad x2

- Milkshakes at the Boomhuisie with my Dad

- Breakfast at the Boomhuisie with my Mom

- Shopping with my Mom

Things I brought back:

- Beacon marshmallow Easter eggs!!

- Woolies winter sheets

- Woolies duvet covers

- Woolies long sleeve vests

- Kway fleece jackets

- Perforated clingwrap

- Ina Paarman’s chicken and vegetable stock

- Sweet basil

- Viral choice C

- Germolene

- Flu caps

- Savlon

- Cocoa butter lip ice

- Cricket bat tape

Back in the Netherlands the temperature had dropped from a manageable 8ºC to ‑10ºC in the day. I didn’t take a coat or even a hat and gloves with me to save some space. A real problem when it is below zero outside! I was trying to find a nice kway 3in1 jacket all holiday and finally found one airside at the airport, thank goodness! It has warmed up now and is back to about 10ºC in the day, although today we had a snow shower again. But with the ‘warm’ temperatures and the rain all the snow and ice has melted. No more clear freezing days, back to rainy and windy days. I’m not quite sure which is worse! But the days are slowly getting longer; in December it was completely dark by 5pm and now it is still light till about 6:30 pm or so. And it is also lighter earlier in the morning. So that is at least positive.

In other news we have booked tickets to see Bryan Adams and Cirque de Soleil in March. We may still book tickets for Snow Patrol also in March. And yesterday we were online when ticket sales opened and were fortunate enough to get tickets for Madonna in July! Super excited! Slowly catching up for the slow year for concerts we had last year.

Hope you are all well and had a good weekend! Have a good week!

Some pics from my SA holiday:

 

My beautiful 15 month old niece Micaela in her favourite place, the swing! Her other favourite thing is pushing a shopping trolley around, too cute! 

Family birthday lunch at my uncle's house

Micaela's favourite fruit, grapes! She likes to have one in each hand and one in her mouth, lol. 

A tired teething Micaela on Grandpa's lap

The four cousins: Craig, Lloyd, Bronwen and Darrell

Braaing with Dad in the on/off rain! It was a beautiful clear day in the morning when we took the meat out.... 

Wors and mielies off the fire! =)

Boerie roll =)

Granny: Please eat the yummy dinner we made for you!

Micaela: Hm, I'll think about it!

On Granny's lap! 

Elfstedenkoorts!

This week the whole of the Netherlands has been gripped by Elfsteden fever!

The Elfstedentocht or the Eleven City Race is a 200 km race skated on frozen canals connecting 11 cities in the Northern Province of Friesland. 16 000 skaters are expected to take part and in order for the event to take place the ice needs to be at least 15 cm thick over the entire course. For this to occur it needs to be below 0ºC for at least 10 nights and days in a row. The race starts at 5 am with a cut off time of midnight. Skaters have to collect a stamp at each city and also three other secret check-points. It is a very prestigious race under grueling conditions and the winner is guaranteed instant fame in the Netherlands. Farmer Evert van Benthem won the race twice in a row in 1985 and 1986 and set a record time of 6 hours, 47 minutes. Needless to say he is a national hero.

The route of the Elfstedentocht in Friesland. The race starts and ends in Leeuwarden and includes the cities of Sneek, Ijlst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Horkum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker and Dokkum.

This week it came pretty close to being held but the ice was too thin in some of the Southern parts of the Friesland. Saturday would have been the best day since it is supposed to warm up again from Sunday. Saturday was forecast to be about -10ºC, Sunday about -1ºC and then going into the positives again from Monday and into the week (apparently 3ºC is warm! lol). So for now, the race is off for this year.

The race hasn’t been held since 1997. Apparently the conditions were perfect in Dec 2012/Jan 2011 but then it started snowing. Snow is bad because you can’t really skate through it and it also insulates the ice and prevents it from becoming thicker. The snow from last week Friday has been sitting on the ice all week and even though it has been really cold the ice still wasn’t thick enough. In the second half of the week the Dutch army began clearing snow off the frozen canals in Friesland in an attempt to help the ice to grow but no such luck. I think they started a bit late… To anyone who complains about how the government spends your tax money at least it is not for using the army to clear snow off the ice for a skating race!!

The Dutch love skating and are completely crazy over this race though. It has been the topic of conversation, the news and newspapers for the whole week. Some people at work have even taken some time off to go skating while the ice is still good. We were in the city doing some admin yesterday and we saw some special Elfsteden cookies and things available with packaging covered in the Friesland flag. And some shops had a special 11% discount for Elfstedenkoorts. I think it is great that the tradition of this race has survived and people are as excited about it as ever.

We would love to witness an Elfstedentocht while we are living in the Netherlands, the atmosphere in Friesland must be amazing. Hopefully one year. Friesland gets seriously crowded though and if you actually want to see any of the skating it is probably best to stay home and watch it on TV, lol.

So it was supposed to start warming up from today but it started snowing as I started writing this! So still pretty cold! But we are expecting to go into positive temperatures again from tomorrow. We can only hope as it is seriously cold and the train service has been reduced while it is freezing.

In other news we watched ‘Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo’ at the movies last night and Justin is coaching under 16 cricket again today (they have an indoor tournament today). I am glad I am wrapped up indoors! And later we have been invited to have dinner with some of Justin’s cricket people.

Hope you have a good week! Coming soon: Bron’s surprise visit to Jo’burg =)

x