I wish you all the best for 2005 and hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and a good start of the New Year. And thanks a lot for the Christmas and New Year wishes I received by (e-) mail, SMS and phone. The Sydney Harbour Bridge fireworks were fantastic. Unfortunately I can’t put video clips on this page otherwise you could experience it yourself but there are a couple of pictures.
And especially for my grandfather, some words in Dutch: OPA, een gelukkig Nieuwjaar en ik hoop dat u een fijne vakantie heeft gehad op Aruba. Ik denk wel dat ze u weer lekker verwend hebben, of niet? Voor het nieuwe jaar wens ik u veel sterkte en geniet ervan. Groetjes van Ruud
But before I continue I think it’s appropriate to stop for a moment and think about the enormous catastrophe that hit parts of Asia and Africa. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to celebrate Christmas and New Year when so many people are suffering. Difficult question with a lot of possible answers, and I don’t have THE answer. But one thing I know: a lot of people are doing their utmost to help these victims, so let’s all be very generous and support these people and organizations.
So, I started working mid December, one week after Saint Nicolas birthday. As this Saint is unknown in Australia, I introduced him to my guest family by telling them the origin of Saint Nicolas, whose birthday is celebrated on the 6th of December in the Netherlands (Erminio, I used the same story we told to our international friends on the Mistral project) and treated them to ‘pepernoten’ (spiced cookies handed out by Saint Nicolas and his helpers).
After spending only one morning in the office (luckily I had time to provide HR with my banking details, otherwise I would have missed my first payment) I was already on my way to the customer to help them with an upgrade from SAP Release 4.0 to 4.7. I really had to get used again to get up (very) early in the morning to catch a train to work, but on the other hand it felt good. And after 2 weeks, the Christmas break started already. Have you ever heard of holiday compensation? This great thing exists in Australia and it means when a holiday falls in the weekend (like Christmas and New Year this year), the next working day is a holiday. Maybe you guys back home in the Netherlands should propose this to Prime Minister JP.
As I was leaving for Melbourne on the 24th, we had an early Christmas at Paul’s place and the kids didn’t mind getting their presents early!! And Paul neither, actually he was checking and asking for presents already two weeks before Christmas. I got some real Aussie presents: a stubby holder and an Australian wine book.
The 24th I flew to Melbourne and went shopping with my cousin Maria, where I was staying, for Christmas lunch at the Queen Victoria Market (supposedly the largest open-air market in the southern hemisphere): 2 dozens of oysters, 1 crayfish and a kilo of prawns for the 2 of us. And some bottles of wine!
On Christmas Eve we had dinner with our aunt and uncle from the States, who were holidaying in Australia. I hadn’t seen them for a couple of years, so you can imagine I was pleased seeing them. We had a lovely dinner and exchanged presents. As my aunt and uncle are also from Limburg, I gave them a book titled “Dat zijn nou typisch Limburgers”, describing the typical people from the Dutch province Limburg (great idea mom and dad!).
How to spend Christmas is quite universal you know: eating, drinking, sleeping, … Only a slight difference in temperature!! Maria and I started our Christmas lunch around one and if I remember correctly we left the table around midnight. A seafood platter is a great idea for a Christmas lunch: delicious and easy, and even Alice (Maria’s dog) liked it!! After a necessary sleep in, we had a BBQ with Gary on Boxing Day.
And I got some more Aussie presents: a travel book with the best places to recover, recharge and unwind in Australia and a Holden T-shirt (next step according to my Aussie uncle is to buy a Holden car - http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/).
The weather was quite chilly in Melbourne and we were even surprised by a hailstorm one night. So, I was wondering where I was: in Australia or the Netherlands.
OK, now it was time to return to Sydney and prepare for New Years Eve. First step was collect “my harem”. As my friends Paul and Pat went to Singapore for the Christmas holidays, I was able to offer some friends a place to stay: Desiree and her friend Janina from Germany, working and traveling in Australia for 6 months, Elise and Jeannette from the Netherlands, the first one holidaying and the second one just finished half a year of studying (??) in Melbourne, and Rubi from Mexico, a friend of Jeannette. Marion was also in town finishing her 6 month trip through Australia and New Zealand, but she wisely (?) decided to stay with other friends.
Second step was to do the shopping and keep the girls fed. Desiree and Janina made some delicious wraps (thanks for that!) the first night and the second night when all the girls were in town we went to the open air cinema in Centennial Park were we had a nice pick nick and watched Dodgeball. Definitively recommendable this comic about two fitness centre owners who are not the biggest friends and one tries to take over the other’s centre. Does he succeed or does the other one find resources to pay his bills??? Watch it yourself and you will find out.
This was the plan for New Years Eve: We had to be early at McMahons Point (one of the top spots to watch the Sydney fireworks) to save our spot because it would be very busy over there. And we needed a big spot as there were 15 of us: Sonja and Mark, both with their parents, Mark’s sister Julian with her boyfriend Alex and me and my harem. Luckily Sonja’s dad was still suffering from a jetlag, so he got up early and was at the waterfront at 7 am. Thanks to Kobus we had our top spot, good on you Kobus! The weather was perfect, sunny and around 25-30 degrees during the day and pleasant during the night without too much wind.
As Sonja and Mark live 100 meter from McMahons Point, we had our private (and clean, compared to the public one) toilet and chilled drinks and food all day and night.
Did you know there are actually 2 Sydney fireworks? One for the kids at 9 pm and the big one at midnight. But the 9 pm one was big already for most of us, so we were really looking forward to midnight. And we were not disappointed, as the fireworks were FANTASTIC, and they lasted around 30 minutes! When the fireworks were going on and I had a private minute, I thought: “This is not only the start of a New Year, but also a new start for me, YES!”
The second of January I had to throw out the girls as Paul and Pat were coming home that night. But we first sang Happy Birthday and had a cake for Janina’s 20th birthday. We decorated the house with balloons and flags and I think she was surprised.
One funny note related to the girls staying with me: I think I shocked the neighbour. Helen was looking after Paul and Pat’s animals and each morning when she came in, she met another girl.
And now life is back to normal, the house is clean, Paul and Pat are back home and tomorrow I will start working again. Hopefully I have some time the coming weeks to find an apartment.
By the way, if you have MSM and Yahoo messenger, let’s chat once in a while. My ID for both is ruud_dautzenberg@yahoo.com
Take care and talk to you soon, Ruud
PS: As I have problems adding texts to the pictures, I will put them here:
01. X-mas Eve dinner with Maria, uncle Frits and aunt Mies 02. X-mas Day lunch (starter) 03. Even Alice liked the oysters, crayfish and prawns 04. Me and my harem at New Year's Eve 05. Yes, the zoom of my new camera works 06. Kobus is having a good time! 07. Jeannette is ready for the party! 08. Rubi, la guapa de Mexico 09. A lot of boats were lit 10. Oooo, the 9 pm fireworks 11. There was a parade of lit sailing boats 12. Desiree and Janina are working on their slab of tinnies 13. Elise, Jeannette and Rubi with their glowing sticks 14. Mark and Sonja, no comment 15. Happy New Year I 16. Happy New Year II 17. Happy New Year III 18. Happy B-day Janina!
