Happy liberation day! In the Netherlands that is… I guess you could call it Defeat Day here in Germany, but in fact: it is simply the case that nobody cares. Anyway, it is a sunny day with the temperature finally reaching agreeable heights again (although it was below 0 overnight). The weather really is crazy, with 25° at some times, and 10° max temperatures on other days! Anyway, we are in an upswing again, so I am looking forward to the weekend!
Recently, we’ve been having quite a bit of fun: lots of visitors, a fair few visits to the local Biergarten and a few holidays in between. Like last week, when we went for another fun Queen’s Day event at the embassy. This time, we did not get embarrassingly drunk (Pieter and Nicole: we miss you guys!), which was good, because it turns out that I am on the list of “Zichtbare Nederlanders”: visible Dutch people (not to be mistaken with visibly Dutch people). This explains why we were actually sent an invitation without asking for anything, rather than having to beg for one like previous years… The week before that, it was Easter. Double fun, because not only was it a four-day-weekend (and wow, four-day-weekends are FANTASTIC), it was also a full-on parents’ weekend, with both my parents, as well as Fedor’s Mum+1 coming to visit. Lots of fun was had, board games were played, Potsdam was visited, Biergartens were enjoyed, etc. It was simply great! They all left on Easter Sunday, which gave us the opportunity to start doing something we had planned for quite a while (nope, not Spring cleaning):
The Berliner Mauerweg! It is a cycling/walking path that follows the path of the Berlin Wall (link). We started off near our house, in Mauerpark and managed to do a good chunk of the 160 km that is the total length of the way. We actually made it all the way to Staaken (going anti-clockwise, obviously), which is 56 kilometers off the whole length of the way. It is a beautiful trip, coming by the lakes, through the forests, across agricultural land, wealthy suburbs and many other interesting places. I am looking forward to doing the rest of the way (it is also a great way of getting to know some different Biergartens…)
Anyway, no news yet on jobs or our future!
Tschüßi,
OJ
PS OMG, I was in the Economist!!!!! LINK
1 comment:
Nice coverage in The Economist, I am happy for you.
Why don't you, as a Visible Dutchman, start a Defeat Day celebration? I guess that would be another major news entry for you.
It does make you wonder, though, what makes a visible Dutchman visible, if not for visibility. It's not the potatoes in the trunk, the mobile home, the accent... sounds a bit like you're wandering (or cycling) across Berlin; whispering to someone close to you at the traffic light "eh... pssst... I am Dutch" and then take off. Or not, cause then you would only be an audable Dutchman.
Which raises the question whether there are also audable Dutchmen, smellable Dutchman and sensible Dutchman (not to be mistaken by loud, smelly and sensical Dutchman).
Interesting.
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