Saturday

Saturday evening we walked to de Dobbe. Was nice with the sun shining. They had some event there too.

It was some kind of remebering day of the second world war. So they showed stuff they used then. They also had some kind off horse show.


We didn't stay to watch thoug.

xbox 360

Not so much happened lately, so I didn't wrote anything here for some time. We've been playing a lot of Assassins Creed though. It's a game for Xbox 360. We bought the game the first week I was here. It's really nice. And it's fun to play together. :D

Other games we play is Gta 4, Burnout 2 and Looney Toons.

I heard from Sara today. They're driving throuhg Holland tomorrow. Would be awesome if they would stay here for a day so I could go say Hi! to her. well well... we'll see..

Madurodam

Today I was to Dino's school. It was like a typical school. :)
Then we went to the Madurodam. Tiny models of real buildings in Holland. Really fun and interesting ;D !












http://www.madurodam.nl/templates/mad/global/index.php?lngid=5&sqlmode=1&fid=638

Sunset in Zoetermeer

This is how nice it looked last evening here in Zoetermeer!

scheveningen

We were to the scheveningen today. It's a big beach in Den Haag. Was really windy though. They have police on the beach. I saw police car specially made for the beach, and police boats. Last time I was there I saw police horses too. horse is paarden in dutch :D

You see that big tower there? You can bungy jump from it! I would never do i though...


Was a lot of people there for such a windy day. Dino said that if we go there on day when it's + 30 degrees, we have to fight to get a small piece of sand to sit on...
That big building in the background is a very very expencive hotel.



It was very windy like I said :p

We lost

It's a sad sad day here in Holland. We lost the quarterfinal against Russia... :(

So no more orange flags,shirts and welpies ( welpies is those small things on the ground in the picture..)

Too bad. It's been really fun. Oh well, Shit happens...

Bonnie

Just wanna put up some pictures of Bonnie.
She comes with me everytime I go out walking

A really nice dog :D

Buytenpark

We went walking in Buytenpark yesterday. It's alot of walking up and down there, so it was a good workout for my legs. It was a lot of people there. Not one person here and one persone there.. no, it was a big group of people coming running or a group of people biking after each other.

kijkduin

We went to the Kijkduin this afternoon. It's a big beach in Den Haag. And it's close to an other beach, called Scheveningen, I've been there too this christmas.


















It was nice and hot there. They had lots of cafe's and resturants there. I wanted something to drink so we went and ordered some Ice Tea. Was really nice and cold.






















Was a relaxed and nice day. Hope we go there again soon. Then I wanna go the Scheveningen and shop on the boulevard they got there.

Kangoeroepad

I walked with Bonnie on the Kangoeroepad today.
I'm getting to know all the roads and paths better here now. Still alot to learn though.


This morning Philomena woke me up at 08.40 and told me that Nathalie called and her boss wanted to interview me and that she was coming here in 10 min. Well, I was quickly up from bed and started to make myself ready. She came here and then we both went to see her boss.

It was a nice guy named Rick. He said I could start working there immediatly that I get my dutch social number. So after that I went to the City Hall and filled in some papers. Now I have to send them my birth certificate and then go to the immigration building and register there. And THEN I can get my number... damn, alot of paperwork..

I hope I can start working soon cause I really liked it when I was there on a "test round" :)

Birthday

It was Ton's birthday yesterday. I made this sandwich cake for him. They really liked it. And the guests liked it too. One of them even wanted the recipe. I think the first guest came around 13.oo and the last guest leaved at around 18.30 -19.00. My feets were really tired then cause I wore my new shoes, and they still need to be walked in good. :)

In total I think there came 15 people. Plus us 4 and it was crowded here. We tried to fit everyone in in the livingroom, barely made it :)

Westerpark with Dino and Bonnie

Me, Dino and Bonnie drove to Westerpark after dinner and walked for 1 hour and 20 min. It's a big park. We been there before and walked but at an other place in the park. I mean, we walked for over an hour and we didn't see any of the places where we walked last time... then it's a big park. :)

We saw sheeps and goats walking free there, and geese and I saw a rabbit running into the forest. Alot of people are there to walk their dogs too. We met alot of dogs but there was one that looked really cute, it was a small black bulldogg. Some people go there to fish. We only saw 2 persons today but the other day we walked we saw around 10.

Anyway, it was a nice walk and I enjoyed it :D

Sandwich cake

I just made the sandwich cake. So tomorrow morning I go up early and make the garnish. Then we gonna eat it for lunch before the guests comes. Yeah, it's Ton's 55th birthday. I don't really know how many that is coming but probably about 15-25 persons, I tell later how many actually came. Hm, I think the sandwich cake got a bit too sweet but they like sweet stuff these Dutch people. I tried eating their pickles... Way to sweet for my taste. And they put chocolate and other sweet stuff on their bread. I don't think I ever get used to that, not when the only thing I used to put on sandwich is salt things like ham, cheese and sausages.
















On the picture is the hospital here in Zoetermeer. It's called Lange Land Ziekenhuis and it's about 5 min walking from here. Nice to have a hospital close by if something happens. :)

We Won!!!! 4-1

Whoooooooo!!! 4-1!!! Holland - France!!
I have to say that they played awesome football.
It's wierd, I never been into football before but now I have a good team to cheer on. And it's so fun!! I hope we win the whole thing!!

Bioscoop

Yesterday, me and Dino went to Utopolis, a cinema, and watch the new movie The Happening. It was an okay movie. Not great but not awful either.

I expected more from it though but it was nice to just go out and do something together too. They have a nice bioscoop here. (bioscoop = cinema) But we had to walk up around 6-7 stairs to get to the right room. But it was big, nice and clean there.

When we gave a lady our tickets, she said we had to go to room 8. So we did. And sat there waiting for the movie to start. You know there's always commercials about other movies first. So it came a few commercials... but one was long... then I realised We were at the wrong movie!! We were watching Indiana Jones.. Nothing wrong with Indy, but I dont like him that much. So I told Dino to let me look at the tickets and there it stood we should go to room 6...

So we sneak out and walk into room 6 and we were lucky. They were still watching commecials there so we didn't miss anything of the movie. Not so nice lady though, the one who told us to go to room 8. Maybe she thought they needed more audince there...

They always have a break in the middle of the movie here. I don't like that so much. Once you're in the movie you dont wanna stop.. But a lot of people went to buy candy and popcorn then so I guess the bioscoop make a lot of money on it. Damn, I bought a bottle of water there cause I was thirsty and it costed 2,50€!! For water!!

Where I live

This is where I live. Click on the picture and you see it bigger :)
Our garden is where that grey swing is. There I sit and feed the fishes or just watch people.


This is the view from our doorstep on the frontside.
I really like this street, it's very cosy and oldfashion. :)

I'm feeling lucky

One thing I noticed here is that all houses are high. And therefore, they all have a lot of stairs. In this house theres 6 different stairs you can choose to fall in ;) Yesterday I almost fell all the way down in this stair on the picture. Lucky me I only fell a few steps before I reached the stair rail... and broke it. It all happened so fast I don't really remember how I fell but it was scary.
I'm lucky that it didn't end bad. I didn't even get a scratch. Now I have to ask Ton to fix the stair rail, for the next time I'm clumsy...

Grote Dobbe

Today I walked to de Grote Dobbe. It's a small lake and next to are some stores. It used to be the center of Zoetermeer but the city has grown alot the last couple of years and they built and new mall with alot of stores, called Stadshart. It has 200 stores and 3600 parking places.









But the older stores looks a bit more charming.
You see and learn alot by walking around here.
If you click on the pictures they get bigger :)

Noord Aa

Yesterday me and Philomena walked around the Noord Aa with Bonnie, the dog. On the picture you see Philomena and Bonnie. It's nice and beatiful to walk there. It's around 10 km so I dont wanna do it everyday though :)

When you walk there you walk around a kinda big lake. And there's a resturant on the other side of the lake. Next to it there's a small beach and I've seen lots of swans swimming there too. At the resturant they have a special place for the dogs to drink water. Looks funny :)

After you walked past the restautant you walk through a place where they have sheeps walking free. One time when i walked there with Bonnie the sheeps didn't really like us and they were stomping in the ground with their hoof. That was a bit scary so i walked by them fast.

It's nice to walk and bike in this country. They have special roads for bikes and next to the bikeroad is often a road to walk on. The bike roads are red so they are easy to find. It's almost easier to bike somewhere than driving. Cause I think it seems hard to find a parkingplace and if you do find one it's not so big so watch out for the other cars parked there..

Fhishing

It's really nice here where I live. In their garden, which is on the backside of the house, you can sit and relax and watch the water that goes by or even fish. And you can get big fishes.

This photo is taken on the backside. There's alot of water lilys here and it looks beatiful. It can get pretty hot sitting in the sun though so then I can't sit too long there.

Soon it's Ton's birthday (Dino's dad). Yesterday we went to the town Benthuizen to get him a present. I'm gonna make him a sandwich cake (smorgastarta). They never ate that. I think maybe it's something that we only have in Finland and Sweden. Cause they never even heard of it before. Well, i hope they like it. I just hope I can find some ingredints too. Last time I was here around christmas I wanted to bake a cake. But I couldn't find baking powder anywhere... In this family, no one really bakes and stuff. They buy it from the store or the bakery, and that good too but i really like baking myself. We'll see how it goes on sunday :)

3 - 0 Holland wins!!

Hurray!!! Holland won their first football match against Italy yesterday. What an awesome match it was :D And winning with 3-0 to Italy, who won the championships last year is even beter.

This is the outfit I had to wear. All orange, except my pants... Everyone else wore orange too here. And when Holland scored a goal all jumped up and down screaming. Not me though, but it was funny to watch. Philomena (dino's mum) had to go to work in the end of the game and when she came back Holland had already won. She said that the were lots of people on the roads driving with orange flags and there were even people that had fireworks. I could hear them from the livingroom.

As you can see, the dog too had the nations colours on her. :D Crazy dutch people. But it's fun :D

Hup Hup Oranje

Today is the first match for Netherlands in the European Championships in fotball. It's orange everwhere. Almost on all streets are there orange flags and even at some places they wrapped orange plastic around the trees. One thing is sure, the Dutch love fotball. We're gonna put up flags here as well soon. And tonight it's tv-time. The match starts at 21.00 and ofcourse are we all gonna wear orange t-shirts and a orange cap. I got a orange t-shirt from Dino's parents when I came here, so tonight it's going on!

I never saw anything like this madness about a sport in Finland where I lived. We're not that very good at fotball so I understand we don't go all blue and white about that but in icehockey we actually have a chance of getting a medal. But I never saw people hanging flags and balloons from their balconys for that. Maybe it's something we should introduce in my old country, casue I must admit, it gives a nice "Let's go get them!"feeling. I hope we win against Italy tonight. Keep your fingers crossed!