Winter in Sydney

I'm fed up with the winter. The trouble is that winter in Sydney is quite complex. In the Netherlands it is much easier to endure. When you wake up in the morning you know it will be another cold day and you prepare for that by putting on a lot of warm clothes.

In Sydney it's also cold but not the whole time. It can be really nice and sunny or freezing cold depending on the time of day and the weather.

The Australian winter officially lasts from 1 June till 31 August. We are now half way and luckily the coldest period is already behind us. In August the average temperature is 17.7 degrees compared to 16.2 in July. At night, the temperature drops to eight degrees.

The past few weeks the temperature was a little below average. One night it was almost below zero which is very unusual (and cold!).

Our house only has a small gas heater in the kitchen. The rest of the house, including the bed rooms, is not heated. As I write this, I'm wearing a coat to give you an idea how cold it is.

So far we have never had the heater on during the day. A few hours in the morning and in the evenings. Somehow it doesn't feel right to turn the heater on when the sun shines.

We are not the only ones with a badly heated house. Everyone complains. "Sydneysiders" believe they live in a warm country and when they build a new home they forget to install proper heating. "Uhhhh, why do we need that?"

In the city you see a great variety of winter clothes. Some people exaggerate and seem to think they live on the North pole wearing woolen hats and gloves. Others wear shorts and thongs as if it's mid summer.

It is not easy to put on the right clothes and a mistake is easily made. One day I went for a walk along the beach wearing a winter coat and three layers of jumpers while people were sunbathing in bikinis and shorts. Ouch.

I JUST HOPE IT WILL BE SPRING SOON!

We have a new prime minister

To my surprise, I read in the newspaper this morning that 'we' are likely to have a new prime minister today. I just came back from tennis, and I hear on the radio that the current prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has stepped down. He will be replaced by Julia (nice name!) Gillard. This is an historical event as it is the first time Australia has a female prime minister. She is not married, no kids and she was born in the UK.

Could this have something to do with the World Cup soccer? This morning, Australia beat Serbia with 2-1. Despite winning the match, they are out of the tournament because Germany beat Ghana. Only a few hours later, the prime minister (a man) has to step down to be replaced by a women. That's more than a coincidence..

I don't understand Australian politics. This makes a move to a new country always interesting because you learn a lot of new things. Australia is a western country and at first sight there are not much difference between the countries. But the longer I live here, the more differences I see.

In the Netherlands, a political party does not have the right to replace its prime minister. I don't have a clue how that works here. I guess it's time for an online fast course Australian politics.

Thirty seconds and a Google search later I know the answer. According to the website of the “Parliamentary Education Office” (www.peo.gov.au) the prime minister of Australia is member of the parliament. He is chosen by the party (or parties) with the most seats. And yes, this party can vote against the prime minister and replace him or her by another candidate. This explains what happened today.

I like Kevin Rudd, he seems to be a very friendly person. I think it's a shame he has to go to make room for Julia Gillard. The things that I notice most about her are her heavy voice, strong Australian accent (I'm not sure what to make of her accent because she is originally from the UK), her big nose and red hair. Sorry, but for the time being she does not get my vote.

Its dark outside ..

I don't want to sound depressed but I guess I suffer from the "dark days before Christmas syndrome". This is not surprising because the days in Sydney are extremely short this week. Today it was already pitch dark at 4.50 p.m. Its also raining. Yes, enough reason to feel very depressed.

I remember how lovely it is to be in Holland right now where the sun sets around 10 p.m. Even in December in Sydney, when its summer, it won't stay light that long. This is definitely something I miss.

From now on the days will become longer again. Luckily I can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. In December, the sun will set at eight p.m. This doesn't make the days as long as in Holland but it gets close.

Dutch soccer in Sydney

Last night the Dutch played against Denmark. We watched the match in the Holland House in Darling Harbour.  It - almost - felt as if I was back in Holland. Lot's of orange and of course the Dutch food specialities 'bitterballen' and 'kroketten' and Grolsch beer. 

The Holland House is located next to the Fifa Fan Fest area. I can't help to feel sorry for the people who try to organise such a big event in a country where the majority of the people is NOT interested in soccer.  The average Australian likes rugby or cricket, not soccer. The main supporters are the immigrants from Europe (Italians, Greeks, British, etc.). The fact that Australia lost it's first match big time (0-4) does not help a lot, I guess.

Canberra

This weekend we visited Canberra. We didn't really know what to expect but as a newcomer to the country we felt we had to go to the Australian Capital to know what it is really like. We went this weekend on a very short two day trip. It's 300 kilometers South West from Sydney and the road is not very exiting. It's just one straight line and you hardly pass any towns. The trip took us a little more than four hours because we took the tourist route in an -unsuccesfull - attempt to make the drive a little bit more adventurous.

The city itself is not very attractive. There is a big lake which is nice. Despite a few attempts we were not able to find a city centre. The other thing was that we didn't see a lot of people. Because of the long weekend many people must have left the town to visit friends and family elsewhere.

The best thing about going to Canberra are the museums. We visited the National Museum of Australia on day one and Questacon, a technology centre for kids, on day two. The kids loved it and so did we.

I don't think it is worthwile to stay in Canberra for a long time. But a short visit to see the museums is definitely worth it.

The National Museum of Australia

Long weekend

This Monday Australia celebrates the birthday of the British queen and everyone will have the day off. Although the ties with the UK are not as strong as they used to be, Queen Elisabeth II is still the reigning queen of Australia. Long live the queen!

The weather will be good. It better be after all the rain of the past few weeks. In the morning it's chilly, this morning it was only 7 degrees in Sydney. In the evenings I use a blanket to keep myself warm but right now I enjoy the sunshine outside.

In a minute I will take my bike to go to the shops to get ingredients for an Aussie pie, the favorite food here. Tonight I will try to make one myself. The recipie does not look to complicated.  I will post a picture of the pies on the site tonight. 

A last thing. This is the headline of the article on the Dutch elections in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning: 'Dutch voters give anti-Islamic party boost'. It is unfortunate that it is also a boost for the reputation of the Dutch!

Where to watch the soccer world cup in Sydney

Soccer is not as popular as rugby and cricket but the Australians make an effort to make you believe something different. Sydney hosts one of only six official 'FIFA Fan Fest' sites in the world (see the website). Every match (64 in total) can be followed on one of the four floating maxi screens in Darling Harbour.

The games will start at 9.30 pm, 2 am and 4.30 am. The Dutch team will play the first two games at 9.30 pm which is very reasonable. For sure I will not see the Dutch team playing against Cameroon on June 25 at 4.30 am.

Australia (with Dutch coach Pim Verbeek!) plays it first game at 4.30 in the morning against Germany. I'm not sure how many fans will go to Darling Harbour to see this spectacle. I know where I'll be. 

Monday morning exitement in Sydney

"Oe, oe, oe, ahhhhhh!" A big adult Kukabara just flew inside the house through the open doors. After a few attempts bumping into the glass doors he managed to find the way out. The bird with his very long beak, now sits on a chair on the deck looking at me. He probably expects me to invite him in again. No way.

The owner of the house used to feed the birds sausages. Even though it's been a few months since the birds were fed for the last time, I'm sure they still remember.

Just before my adventure with the Kukabara I had to remove a black house spider with the vacuum cleaner from our window. I just checked the internet and for a second I thought this was a funnel web spider because they look a bit similar. Luckily it's not, but it is not a friendly spider either so I'm glad it's gone. 

Surfing

Today it was very windy with a high sea. But when you go down to the beach you still see lot's of surfers. These are the really cool guys. Peddling until they finally catch the right wave. It can't get more Australian then this I suppose.

Vivid Sydney 2010

To keep the tourists coming, Sydney organised yet another festival, Vivid Sydney.  Lights everywhere and old buildings along Macquarie street in CBD are beautifully illuminated. We went yesterday at 6 pm to see the spectacle. It didn't rain! These are some of the pictures I made:

Wettest May month in Sydney in seven years

This morning I read in our newspaper that the month of May was the wettest month in Sydney in seven years. I'm glad because this means the past few weeks were unusual. I really started to worry.

Today we have a dry day. Thank god! I even managed to play tennis this morning and I just spent some time outside reading a book which was nice. More showers are expected this week. I hope we are not heading for another record breaking rain month.

Due to the rain we have not been able to read our newspaper for a few days because of the very bad throwing skills of the newspaper boy. Instead of throwing them under the car port (an area big enough not to miss) he manages to (deliberately?) make them land exacly in the water stream going down the road resulting in a soaken wet pack of paper. I believe the newspaper boy (we have never seen him.) doesn't like us. The Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald came without the promised car flag for the Australian soccer team (The Socceroos) with Dutch coach Pim Verbeek. 

It started with a blown fuse

We just had another busy weekend in Sydney. Yesterday the weather was very bad so we stayed inside a lot. Today was supposed to be worse but it turned out to be a really nice day. No rain and no storm as they had predicted. We spend the afternoon in the Royal Botanical Gardens where the kids spend over an hour to build a 'pretend' castle.

Yesterday, we enjoyed ourselves trying to use as many machines (washing machine, dishwasher, dryer, microwave, bread machine and coffee machine) as possible at the same time. Unfortunately, the electricity system in our house can not really cope with this. The result was a blown fuse. What followed can be seen on the picture. Instead of telling what happened because that's just too easy, I ask everyone to come up with ideas. So, what happened here? That's the question of the day.

Rain, rain

Sydney is a sad place today. It just does not stop raining. Very depressing. A few days ago people told me that they were looking forward to the winter. Not sure why. Especially because the Sydney houses are not build for cold weather which I define as anything below 18 degrees. We have this silly gas heater which is supposed to provide enough warmth for the entire house. Ha, ha. Not really. I think about joining the local fitness club just to be able to make use of their sauna facilities. The weather forecast for the next seven days doesn't look good. More rain... I want to emigrate.

Baby crying room and Andre Rieu

Compared to India, where I was constantly confronted with things that interested or amazed me because I had never seen them before, this does not happen to me a lot in Sydney. Imagine my surprise yesterday when we went to the movies to see 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' in a small local movie theatre in Roseville, about 20 minutes from our house. This cinema has something I've never seen before: a baby crying room. A special key provides access to a room where you can let your child scream as loud as it wants and see the movie without disturbing anyone. Superb. The room has a hugh window (sound proof I assume) so you can just sit, relax and watch the movie. I'm not sure if parents are allowed to put their kids in the room, lock it and then join the other people in the theatre. Probably not.

It's a funny cinema. The average age of the audience is 65+. Before the start of the movie, they show a commercial for a retirement home. Ha, ha.

On July 19, they have a very special 'live' performance of Dutch artist Andre Rieu 'direct via satellite to a cinema near you'. They have two shows, one at 11 am and the other at 4 pm. Mmm. To play at 11 am Sydney time, means Andre Rieu has to perform at 3 am in Maastricht which is the middle of the night. Interesting.

I read the announcement more carefully and noticed that, at the very end, it said:  'for the enjoyment of the Australian audience the timings have been changed'. Ahhhh. I think it should read instead: 'for the enjoyment of the people in Maastricht the timings have been changed'.

Cycling in Sydney

Today I finally bought a bike. It took me a few months to decide if I really want one here. Sydney is not made for biking. There are too many hills, the roads are too bad, and there are hardly any dedicated cycle ways.

I don't know what made me change my mind but this afternoon we took the car to Padington to buy a bike. I don't regret it. We went down to Rushcutters Bay Park, near Padington. It's a beautiful park with a playground and a cafe (very important). We didn't cycle for very long, I think it was about two kilometers maximum but it was lovely. Julia still fits into a child seat and for Sebastiaan we bought one of these kids bikes which you can fix behind your own bike.

My new bike.

Coffee in the parc.

Pictures of arrival Jessica Watson

Today we decided to drive down to the North Head to see the arrival of Jessica Watson. Expected time of arrival: 11 a.m. We arrived a bit late and had a hard time to find a parking spot. Because of the large number of people who were expected to come, the city had blocked part of the street so we had to walk about two kilometers before we arrived at a viewpoint.

Jessica's is a great sailor but she needs to work on her time management skills. We had to wait for almost three hours before she passed the finish line just past North Head where we were. We were lucky because we came late. Other people got there already at nine in the morning.

There were some television crews and they provided a bit of entertainment. It's funny to see how the media makes up a story. The presenter from Channel 7 told the viewers at home that the spectators didn't mind the long wait and that the children were playing happily. Well, the children were very bored and hungry and not happy at all. 

Around 2 pm the helicopters started making more noise and we could see lot's of boats. One of them - we were told - was the boat of Jessica Watson. But which one? After trying - unsuccesfully - to spot her  we decided to leave and walk back to the car. We will watch television tonight to check if she actually arrived.. 

Sydney prepares for the arrival of Jessica Watson

Sydney prepares for the arrival of Jessica Watson, the youngest person ever to sail around the world. Everyone is exited and you hear it non stop on the news. She is expected to arrive at 11.30 tomorrow morning. Streets will be blocked because the city expects many supporters who want to see Jessica and her boat. She'll be at the Sydney Opera house at 12.30. You can call it a media hype but of course it's a great achievement for such a young girl. This is the link to her blog if you are interested.

I think it's quite typical for Australians to be so exited. It's a sportive event and everyone here likes sports. Tomorrow will be another sunny day in Sydney and it will be great to see all the boats in the Sydney harbor to welcome her.

In Holland there is another girl who wants to sail around the world, Laura Dekker. She is only 14 years old but very determined. End 2009 Laura was placed under state supervision to prevent her from starting her adventure. This must be so frustrating for her.

A Friday morning in Sydney

It's already the end of the week. This morning I had a meeting in North Sydney. To get there it only take me 15 minutes. How convenient! Because CBD is so small and expensive, companies move elsewhere and you see a lot of new business areas which are as attractive as central Sydney. To get from CBD to North Sydney you just pass the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's as simple as that and the views on the harbour and the Opera House are just as nice.

Of course, you find coffee places on every street corner, also in North Sydney. It's crazy this fascination with coffee. If you want to work in a coffee shop in Sydney, you first you need to follow a Barista training course where you learn about the basics but also about getting the right foam and decorations.

This is a picture of the bus stand in North Sydney. The time tables are not always easy to read.

And the weather forecast? Sunny but on the cold side. Today we have a beautiful blue sky as you can see on this picture.

Mother's day in Sydney

Yesterday we celebrated Mother's Day. My highlight of the day was the awesome breakfast in bed consisting of a honey sandwich and glas of cold water served by my kids at 7 a.m.  Very jummy and a good way to start the day.

It's hard to ignore Mother's Day in Sydney. It seems to be a much bigger event here than in Holland. 

To 'celebrate' we took a ferry trip to Watsons Bay to spend the afternoon there. On our way to the ferry at Circular Quay we passed a few old buildings. Before living here I never realized how historic the city really is. The highrise modern buildings dominate the city but you also see many old buildings like the ones below: 

Watsons bay has a great playground for the kids and from the park you have wonderful view on the city in the distance. We were not the only ones to go to Watsons Bay. It turned out to be a very popular spot for a Mother's Day picnic. This is the queue in front of Doyles Fishermans Wharf on Sunday at 2 p.m. I don't know how long these people had to wait for their take away fish and chips but I would not be surprised if it was over an hour. A nice way to spend Mother's Day..  

Sydney bridge climb

Today we finally climbed the icon of Sydney, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The weather was great, blue sky, no wind. We had a great time and I think we can now officially call ourselves Aussies.

I organised the bridge climb because of Marcel's birthday. Surprise, surprise! A day with the two of us in Sydney without the kids. Heaven! So what else did we see:

This is this sign of the Glenmore hotel in the Rocks, the area next to the Sydney Harbour bridge. Downstairs it doesn't look very nice but if you walk up the stairs you reach the rooftop terras with great views and excellent food and drinks. It must be a popular place because I saw 'reserved' signs on a few of the tables. From the terras, enjoying a cold beer, you can see the roof of the Sydney opera house and of course the city skyline with the Sydney tower in the back.  

After the climb we went to Kings Cross to do a walking tour with Bounce Walking Tours. Since I arrived here in Sydney I've never been to this part of town and I wanted to go somewhere new. There is tv show in Australia called 'Underbelly' and this tour takes you to the places which feature in this show like the nightclubs and other 'dark places'. Without having seen the show, the tour was very entertaining and I enjoyed walking there. I almost made plans to move to this part of Sydney because it's so lively. This is not exactly the case where we live. Oeps, I forgot that I have two young kids who may not like it here. Colin, our guide, told me that in this part of the city the ratio of dogs to kids is five to one. Interesting. So this is the perfect area to live if you have a dog and you don't like kids. Anyone? 

Night zoo Sydney

In our garden and on the deck we get lots of visitors. Almost every night we see a few possums. They are very curious animals and they just sit there looking at us. In Australia possums are protected animals so they can pretty much do anything they like.

This one was looking at us but just as a I tried to take a picture he took off. He may be back later tonight and then I'll try again.

Flip Flop fashion

I'm on my way to a first meeting for volunteering work at the Biennale of Sydney. I go by bus into town which will take me about 25 minutes. I then need to walk for about half an hour. For the first time I do this the Aussie way. I put my nice shoes in my bag and I'm wearing my white flip flops. They are easy to walk with and this way I don't arrive at the event with sore feet. During the day you see lots of women doing this, especially the ones wearing 8 cm killer heels to work. Feet happy, I'm happy.

The 'pleasures' of renting a home in Sydney

I guess we are quite lucky with our house because it's in a quite area and we have a nice garden and deck for the Aussie barbeques.

Living in a rental home does have it's inconveniences though. You need to accept the house as it is because you can't make any changes. One of the problems I have is with the washing area. The floor in the washing area is very slippery and not straight and the washing machine keeps moving. Last week, when the machine was standing against the wall, I couldn't get any washing done because the machine did not finish the cycle because of an unbalanced load. I now moved it forward and I don't get the message anymore. Hoeree! The only problem is that the machine is now standing a bit awkward in the middle of the washing area. See picture.

Anyway, I decided to keep it this way because at least I get the washing done.

Another problem with a rental home is that you don't know how everything works. It's getting colder now so I keep the door to the garden closed at night. As a result the fire alarm went off everytime I was cooking. Very annoying!! The other day I got so angry (the alarm makes a lot of noise) so I just ripped it from the wall to make it stop. Luckily there were no kids in the room. This worked. At least that's what I thought. Silly me.

The next day a workman knocked on the door instead of using the doorbel. I didn't know why he did that but that didn't really matter.

Later that day I slowly started to realize what I had done. Instead of destroying the fire alarm I had completely destroyed the mechanism for the door bell. To stop the fire alarm from going off, all I needed to do was to take the batteries out. Oeps. So we now don't have a door bell anymore and we have an inspection of our house on May 25. Oeps again.

Queens day in Sydney

For the past few years we celebrated Dutch queensday in Mumbai. You can read more about this here and here.  This is the first time we celebrate it in Sydney. Is it very different? Yes. First of all, we did not get tickets to attend the official celebration organised by the Dutch consulate. They put us on a waiting list. Luckily there was another party after the official consulate event and this is were we went. Instead of the Mumbai expat crowd we are used to, the party was mostly attended by twenty year olds. Of course this did not bother us at all, being so young ourselves. It was a good party with nice and inspiring sing a long music from amongst others Andre Hazes. I bet they did not play this at the consulate party earlier.

Today we went to the Queens day event organized by the Dutch club Neerlandia which is run by the older generation of Dutch people in Sydney. They speak a nice mixture of Dutch and English. It's a real difference with countries like India were you only meet expats who spent a few years in the country and then move on. Here you meet people who built a new life for themselves in Australia. They don't intend to go to back to Holland or move to another country.

Today was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and nice Dutch food. Everyone was dressed in orange. The kids (and the parents) enjoyed selling toys at the 'vrijmarkt' (free market). As always, you end up buying more stuff then you sell... Sebastiaan and Julia earned six dollars and spent about sixty dollars on new toys. I already know what we will sell at the 'vrijmarkt' next year.

Ahhhhhhhhhh

It's bedtime for my six-year-old. I go with him to his room to read a bedtime story. As soon as we enter the room he starts to scream: 'Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!'.

Because he screams, I start screaming too: 'Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!' and we make a lot of noise. I ask him why he screams and he points to a huntsman spider on the door of his closet. Luckily it is only a small one. After my earlier encounters with bigger huntsmans, the small ones don't freak me out anymore. I somehow manage to ignore them.

Huntsman spiders are very quick so after brushing teeth in the bathroom it was no longer there. I'm sure it's now hiding somewhere in the closet, growing and growing and waiting till it is big enough to really scare us.

You can also read: warning, do not read this when you have a spider phobia

Anzac day

Today we had the day off because of Anzac day. It's about remembering the actions of Australian and New Zealand forces in the first world war and the wars since then. This year Anzac day was on a Sunday and therefore everyone gets the Monday off which is nice. If you want to know more about Anzac day this is an excellent link We didn't really participate in the ceremonies but our six year old could tell us all about the battles, the Japanese and poppies. He also made a beautiful drawing of a poppies.

This week we will be preparing for the Dutch Queens day celebrations. After celebrating Queens day in jakarta and Mumbai we are a bit dissapointed. There are so many Dutch in Sydney we ended up on the waiting list!! We also need to pay to get in. This is really unheard of. Luckily our Australian neighbour, a musician, has been invited to play on the event so we may be able to get to the Dutch reception through him. Tonight he showed us the Dutch songs he will be playing. One of them is 'Laat me' and another one is 'Op een Kangaroe eiland'. We are looking forward to it.

Autumn in Sydney

It's the end of April and it's slowly getting colder. This morning I noticed a tree with brown and red leaves making it look like autumn. It's getting chilly at night and in the mornings. Please don't get me wrong, it's still very nice outside. We had a beautiful week with a lot of sunshine and temperatures around 25 degrees.

The houses - unfortunately - don't have central heating. In our house we only have two very small electric heaters to keep us warm. This is not very practical in a house with four bedrooms and two separate living areas. I'm sure people in Sydney must use different ways to keep warm instead of heaters.

I must laugh when I see shops packed with winter clothes. They make you believe you need to prepare for temperatures below zero. Ha, ha. I bought new shoes for Julia and she now refuses to wear them. She decided she only wants to wear them when it snows. It's not very likely that that will ever happen in Sydney.

Things to do

As a not-so-busy-lately-looking-for-a-job-stay-at-home-mum I need to find things to keep myself occupied. I'm reading a book about how to find a job. The book is completely outdated (with tips on how to hand-write application letters, there is no mention yet of PC's. Ha, ha), but it is useful because it keeps me focussed. According to the writer I should spend eight hours a day on finding a new job. No way! That's much to depressing.

I need to do nice things as well to make me feel good. The main activity on today's to do list was to bring our brand new Samsung LCD TV back to the 'shop' in South Sydney to get it repaired. We bought the TV through Ebay. That's ok if the TV is working but not ok if it's broken. In that case you end up driving for almost an hour to get the TV fixed. Next week I'll need to go there again to pick it up. The money we saved by buying online compared to a traditional shop is gone because of the gas for the car and the toll fees. Luckily my hourly fee as a stay at home mum is not very high.

Tomorrow I have a more exiting 'to do' on my list. I'll start playing tennis in the competition. Tomorrow will be my first official match ever after I started lessons almost three years ago. I'm pretty nervous. I'll play doubles and I've never met my other team member, I only know her name. Let's see what happens. I can always try to find work as a professional tennis player.

Getting used to a new climate

While it was easy in India where it is extremely hot every day and where I didn't have any clothes with long sleeves, the climate and the 'what to wear today question' is not easy to answer in Sydney. Summer in Australia has officially ended. The mornings and evenings are now very chilly. During the day however it still gets very warm. Last week it was around 25 degrees and sunny every day.

I have not find a good way to deal with this temperature change yet. I don't want to be cold so I started to put my summer clothes away. As a result I wore a long sleeved shirt and jeans when we went to the beach today. Upon arrival I noticed that everyone on the beach was wearing hardly anything at all.. It looked as if summer was still in full swing. Does this mean I should not yet say goodbye to my summer clothes? I'm confused. It's so much easier to live in a country where it's over 30 degrees almost every day of the year.

A tree on Fraser island

Please let me turn the clock ahead again

Today at 6 a.m. while still in bed trying to get some more sleep I wondered why we had to turn the clock back by one hour. As a result the kids are now up and running by 6 a.m. in the morning instead of  7 a.m. This makes it a very long day. At 6 a.m. it is light outside so it makes sense for the children to get out of bed and start their day. Not for me.

Because we had to turn the clock back an hour it's pitch black dark outside at 6 p.m. so there is nothing you can do in the evenings.

On behalf of all parents with young kids who need their sleep, please turn the clocks back to where they were. Thanks.

Off road on Fraser Island

We just returned from our Eastern trip to Fraser Island. It's a drive of over 1000 km but the long hours in the car to get to the island are worth it. We had five days to explore the 120 km long island which is hardly enough. We just couldn't get enough of driving on the beach. 

Eastern hat parade

My son made a beautiful robot hat for the yearly Eastern hat parade at school from a big carton box with a big hole for his face. He asked me if it was suitable for the Eastern hat parade because it had nothing to do with Eastern. I told him that the children would wear all kinds of hats with different themes and that it did not have to be about Eastern. How wrong could I be?

When I arrived at school this morning all children wore hats with Eastern bunnies, Eastern eggs, chickens and many other Eastern related items. Sebastiaan was the only one wearing a carton box over his head looking like a robot. I felt weak in my stomach and felt really, really bad about myself and sorry for my son. Of course, he refused to wear his 'Eastern hat'. His teacher was so nice to give him her pink bunny ears and he quickly forgot about his Robot hat.

I guess I still have a lot to learn about Australian traditions.

Off road again

Today we went off road again with our Prado driving through a nature reserve, the Watagan Moutains, about one hour north of Sydney. It was fun but I saw too many trees. There were just too many of them and they blocked the views which was a bit of a shame but we had fun anyway. This is a picture of my six year old running around in the forrest.

Another Saturday in Sydney

I just finished another round of clearing out the garage where it is still a mess. After two days work, I achieved that it's possible to enter the garage without worrying that I break a leg or worse. It's a small step but an important one!

This morning in the shopping mall, after chatting with an Indian cleaner, my six year old asked me why only Indians do the cleaning in Australia. Mmm. Good question. I guess it is the same anywhere in the western world. In Sydney you see lot's of Indian working as cabies, supermarket staff, and cleaners. All low paid jobs.

This afternoon we go to the beach. We bought body boards for the kids and now we need to wait and see how long it will take them to 'ride' their boards the Aussie way. I saw an ad for a one day course for adults. It will be fun to do this but also very exhausting.

Last but not least, tonight we will turn off the lights for the Earth Hour event. I look forward to that. Tomorrow we 'celebrate' another Australian invention: 'Neighbour Day'. On neighbour day everyone needs to be extremely nice to their neighbours. Perhaps we will even say hello to them.

Marcel just came back from shopping with some new garden goodies. He bought for me a 'schoffel' for the weeding. I noticed on the label that the Australians call this a 'Dutch hoe'. Ha, ha.

Missing Mumbai

I miss Mumbai. Most people will say I'm crazy because I have been lucky enough to move to a beautiful country like Australia. I especially feel homesick when I browse through my phone directory. 90% of all the names and numbers are from people we know from Mumbai and these names sound so familiar. In Mumbai, I knew exactly where to go. Of course, it's a lot easier here. I can go to the Woolworths and buy everything I like in dozens of varieties. In Sydney, I don't have to look for places where I can buy meat or where I can get dough for a quiche.

Last night I went to the Woolworths for some late night grocery shopping and I felt at home. Really. At night, there are mostly Indians at work. They speak Hindi and they use the familiar words. They must wonder why this tall western woman was looking at them the whole time.

This morning I was very happy because I could send Julia to school wearing her Indian outfit instead of her Aussie school uniform. Today it was 'Harmony day' at school to celebrate the different cultures in Australia. Except for some beautiful Japanese and Chinese costumes, most children didn't look any different than usual. I guess that's the reason why I miss India.

School fees

Today I received the invoice for semester one 2010 of my kids -public- school. A public school in Australia does not mean children get free schooling. While the state provides for the building and the teachers salaries, the parents pay the rest. Mmmm. The invoice includes items such as a art levy, computer levy and a paper/photocopy levy. This is a big difference with the system in Holland where parents hardly pay anything for public schooling and private schools are almost non existent.

It's only a small amount (aud 142 for two kids) so luckily we don't have to stop sending the kids to school. I'll just prepare yet another envelope with money for the school. In addition to the school fees, parents organize a lot of fundraising events throughout the year to pay for school supplies. Tomorrow the parents of year three kids will sell all types of afterschool snacks and drinks on the school grounds to raise money. I wonder what the school will do with the money. Buy new toilet paper?

My first trip to the IKEA

It took me a few weeks to build up enough courage to get into the car and drive to the IKEA. The IKEA is about a half an hour drive from where we live which is not too far. However, it's not in our area and that's a big worry for me. I just don't understand the structure of this city. To me it seems to be a very chaotic place. There are so many cars and the traffic lights drive me crazy. Australians seem to love them because they are everywhere!

Fortunately we have a TomTom in our car. Without the TomTom, I'm sure me and Battlestar Gallactica would end up somewhere in the outback instead of IKEA.

Heavy traffic in the city on Sunday afternoon

Back to nature in Sydney

You find lot's of nature very close to our home. A great escape! I made these two pictures this afternoon when I went for a walk to see if I could get to the water front which is the case. I'm not sure if it possible to swim here. I heard that some parts of the harbour are a breeding ground for a number of sharks. I don't expect to see a great white shark at Sugarloaf but I guess other sharks can get quite big and hungry too.

Start of Rugby season

This is a very important week for Australian sport because it is the start of the Rugby season. Apparently this is when people start shaving their heads and do other crazy things to support their teams like taking hugh tattoos.

I have never been very enthousiastic about Rugby but now with a six year old I changed my mind. My very basic understanding of Rugby is that it involves a lot of running without too many rules. Perfect for my son! The past few weeks the local rugby teams advertised a lot to find players for their youngest teams. This afternoon I take Sebastiaan for a try out training of 1.5 hours. I hope he likes it. If he does I will get him a tattoo and shave his hair.

I don't have to be worry to much about injuries. Young children will play 'Walla Rugby' which does not involve tackling. What about hugging? This is something Sebastiaan is extremely good at as some people know.

Back on the black

This weekend we left town for a 4-wheel drive course about three hours south of Sydney. It's a funny that the car I usually only use to take the kids to school (a very boring 10 minute drive) suddenly turned into this very cool off road vehicle. We got stuck on a big rock going up a hill, we drove through a river and the car got very, very dirty. The kids loved it happily bouncing up and down on the back seat.

It was a beginner course so the exercises were not too difficult. Everyone had walkie talkies in the car. Our course leader had a good sense for drama and he managed to create some stress by shouting through the walkie talkie things like: 'you are in a mess!!' (when we got stuck on a rock), "keep going otherwise we get floating here!!" ( when it started to rain very heavily) and "Keep talking to me!!!" (to make sure we had not fallen from a cliff or worse).

The language of off road drivers is interesting. I especially like this one: "We are back on the black". This is what the course leader said when we got back on the main road and the course was finished. I'm sure our very cool car (nickname=Battlestar Gallactica) will stay on the black for the next few weeks.

Laptop problems

This blog is not really about enjoying Sydney. So far, I wrote mainly about our house. I confess I went to town only three times so far. The first time was on Australia Day. The second and third time, I went for two useless visits to the Apple store. I thought my MacBook had some serious problems so I decided to go to the Apple store. The first day there was no one to assist me because I did not have an appointment. Uhhhh. On day two I waited for half an hour before it was my turn. I explained the Apple technician what was wrong. After no more than five seconds, he said 'ah", changed something very simple in the settings, and voila, fixed! In total I spent almost four hours on 'solving' this very complicated technical problem. I guess I could have made better use of my time.

Anyway, this weekend, I won't spend anytime at home. Today, we will leave for a four wheel drive course south of Sydney. Everything is packed and we will be back on Sunday.

The mess of moving

With our lifestyle moving to another country every few years, it would be wise if we would stick to a minimum amount of stuff. But we don't. With the stuff we have we better promis each other never to move again. We have enough books to fill a 20 foot container. The house we rent in Sydney is not small but it's impossible to fit everything in. This morning, five weeks after we moved in, I again had to spent time on emptying more boxes and deciding what to do with all the things we don't really use but we may use one day in the future. Any suggestions?

This is what our hallway looked like a few weeks ago. I'm happy this mess is gone but other areas in our house like the garage, still need a lot of attention.

Ferns

Thanks to all the rain our garden is extremly green. Everything is growing abundantly including the ferns in our garden. Today I made this picture of an unfurling fern. In New Zealand it's also know as the Koru.

Heat in the city

It's difficult to escape from the heat in Sydney. I just heard on the news that we had the warmest night in the city in 13(!) years. We seem to be going from one extreme (rain) to the other (heat).

Yesterday, after school, I took the kids to the Northbridge Baths to cool down a bit. I bet this is the only pool in the world where kids can go on a stingray hunt. I did not see the stingray myself but my six year old did. The wind changed to the south so today it's less hot but I guess it's still about 30 degrees outside.

Our high speed Internet is finally working!!! To get our 'naked ADSL' installed took a bit longer than expected. People from Telco company Telstra had to come and warned me that they may had to remove all the bricks from our driveway to find the right cable. Luckily it was less complicated and they managed to find the cable behind one of our bookcases. Tip when you move: check where all the outlets are before the movers come because they may hide the outlets.

With the high speed radio I can now listen to the Dutch radio. While I type this I listen to the faboulous item ' wake up your friend to test your friendship' at radio 3FM. It's 2.30 in the morning in Holland. Great fun!!! I'll try that too one day.

The city of Sydney

We live in North Sydney, about 10 kilometers north of CBD (Central Business District) famous for the opera and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Before moving here, Sydney always felt like a big city. Very busy and lively. I now know this does not apply to large parts of the city. I realize that the City of Sydney (mainly the CBD) is relatively small and that Sydney mainly consists of quiet residential suburbs. I believe Sydney alone has about 200 suburbs where you find hardly any high rise appartment buildings.

Anyway, this is the case in North Sydney where we live. It may be completely different on the other side of the Sydney Harbour bridge which divides the city in two. I’ve heard people say that if you live in the north you hardly ever travel to the other side because you have no business there. This is not the case for us, of course. Thanks to my ‘I can’t sit still’ husband, we’ve already been all over the place. I’m sure that in a few months from now we will know the city better than most Sydney people.

The suburbs all have a shopping centre with a Woolworth (or Woollies) or a Coles supermarket, a few shops, restaurants and of course lot’s of coffee places. Sydney has an amazingly strong coffee culture. While we live in a suburb in a quiet residential area we have a coffee place at about 300 meters from our house, next to the bus stop. I guess they must get enough customers to make it worthwhile. The people also use funny terms to order coffee. This morning I heard someone say: 'May I have a flat white? Can you make it very flat, please? ' Not sure what that means, 'very flat'??? Anyone?

We live relatively close to CBD. By scooter, it takes Marcel about 15 minutes to get to work depending on the traffic. By bus it takes about 30 minutes. It’s not a difficult route. From our house you just turn left, follow the road till the end, then turn left again, turn right after 200 meters, follow the road, over the Sydney Harbor Bridge, right into town.

Some people prefer to live further up north because you get a bigger house and more space for less money. There is a train line to get to CBD relatively fast. The scenery in this northern part of Sydney is definitely not what you would expect in a city. It’s a great place for nature lovers with lot’s of green.

Spiders in the garden (1)

This friendly creature, a St Andrew Cross spider, can be found in our garden. I love the cross he makes on the web.

I'm sure there must be more spiders in our garden. I will take pictures of the others too.

Rain

Nobody told me it could rain this heavily in Sydney. I heard stories about water shortage here. Ha, ha. I no longer believe this. During my first week in Sydney I felt bad about watering the plants. Well that's no longer the case! The plants don't need any more water anyway. It's just so wet outside! And it seems to go on forever. Slowly our garden is turning into this green jungle where people can get lost. I guess we need to start cutting some plants and trees soon.

Not sure about the impact of the rains on spiders. Do spiders like the rain or not and will they multiply more quickly now? I don't know. I hope not. The worms in our compost bin seem to be very happy because of the moisture. There are now hundreds of them and when you look inside the bin you see them moving around. Mmmmm. It makes me feel hungry.

School starting age

I’m confused. Every country you go to the age children start school is different. In Australia parents ‘ hold children back’. This means that they wait as long as possible before sending their children to school. Mmmm. Parents often send children to pre school but that’s only a few days a week. It appears that Australian education experts believe it’s better for kids to wait as long as possible before starting school. Living in different countries you soon discover it’s nowhere the same. Dutch kids are supposed to go to school the week they turn four. When they are four, it's not yet mandatory to send the children to school every day. That starts as of the age of five. I believe, similar to Australia, children in the US, also start school relatively late.

Because of the ‘holding back’ policy, my four-year old Julia, who will turn five mid July (she just made the cut off date of 31 July), has children in her class who are almost six. We’ll see what happens. Julia is very confident (this was confirmed last week by her teacher) and she goes happily to school everyday. No tantrums at school so far in Australia (knock on wood).

I really like the school timings: every weekday from 9.30 till 3.30 p.m. No Wednesday and Friday afternoon off as in Holland. Crisp and clear. In Holland, I had to get the kids from school at noon, take them home, let them eat and play, convince them to stop playing, clean them up and get them back to class at 1.15. Because there was so little time everything had to be done in a hurry. I’m not sure what the experts say about this but I personally think lunch breaks at home are not good thing. Everyone gets stressed out including the parents, usually the mums of course. The worst thing was that my four year old refused to go back to school in the afternoon. She just didn’t understand why she had to go to school again. She often threw a tantrum and I felt extremely embarrassed leaving her like that in the class room. Bad, bad mum.

We’ll see how Julia will be doing this year. As long as she is happy, I don’t have to worry about not ‘holding her back’. Children happy, mum happy.

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A typical bed time conversation in Sydney:
Marcel (trying to find something under the bed): 'Aaaaaaah!!!!!'
Me (scared): 'What is it, what happened?'
Marcel: 'A spider!!!!!'
Me (jumping on the bed): 'Aaaaaaaah, what kind of spider?'
Marcel: 'Don't know. It has a body and legs'
Me: 'Where is it?'
Marcel: 'Don't know. Get the vacuum cleaner, quick!'
Me (jumping off the bed to get our beast killer): 'OK. Aaahhhh!!!!!'
Marcel starts making a lot of noise under the bed with the vacuum cleaner.
Me: 'Did you catch it?'
Marcel: 'Not sure'
Me: 'Do you know what type of spider it was?'
Marcel: 'Not sure'
Me: 'Oh'
Marcel: 'Sleep well, have nice dreams...'
Me: 'You too'

Sports

After three months I finally started playing tennis again. I had an idea that the quality of the tennis coaching would be better in Australia than in India and this is indeed the case. While I loved my two coaches in Mumbai, Deepakh and Deepakh (no joke), I believe I can make more progress here. The tennis school is very conveniently located between the school of my kids and home. As a real tennis mum I can drop off the kids at school wearing my very cool tennis outfit and then play tennis at 9.30.

Today, I participated in a ladies tennis clinic. There are more tennis mums like me. I counted 10 other courts with small groups playing. After 20 minutes our coach Craig said we had 10 more minutes left. So I guessed the clinic would last for 30 minutes. A bit short. After some confusion on my side, I realized the clinic would last for two hours switching to another court and coach every half hour. Ouch.

I can only conclude that Australia is an extremely sports minded country. The kids don't have two or three hours sports per week. No, one entire day (Friday) is dedicated to sports. Children who play tennis after school are picked up by a bus and brought to the tennis club. Just to make it easy for them and their parents.

Swimming is also very popular with lots of possibilities for swimming lessons. My six year old started lessons last week in the swimming school next to his school. They teach the children in small groups of four kids max. During Sebastiaan's class there were about 10 instructors in the water with other kids. BTW, in Australia, kids are first taught freestyle swimming instead of the breast stroke as they do in Holland. It takes them longer to learn freestyle swimming but once you can do freestyle the breast stroke is a lot easier.

As part of our integration program we try to be more sporty. Last Sunday, Marcel won his first medal participating in the Cole Classic (www.coleclassic.com), a swimming race in the sea. Marcel entered the 1 kilometer race and managed to finish within a reasonable time. Being Dutch he was one of the very few using the breast stroke but as proven by Marcel also with the breast stroke you stay afloat.

I learned something interesting by the way with respect to the spiders (see my previous post). When you get bitten by a spider, you have to dial 000 and then they will come immediately to provide you with an antidote. This information falls into the 'Nice to know' category.

Warning: do not read this when you have a spider phobia

When we lived in India, people used to think we had a lot of scary insects at home. This was not the case. On the contrary, except for some cockroaches so now and then and a few small lizards on the wall, we were not bothered by any insects.

In Sydney it's different as I discovered last night. Just before going to bed, I entered the bathroom and could not stop myself from screaming. Next to the window there was this enormous ugly spider. Luckily Marcel was at home and he killed the beast. We first did a quick Google search to check if the spider was dangerous which was not the case. Our spider is probably a 'Huntsman' spider and they are low risk and non aggressive. What a relief.

Marcel decided to use the vacuum cleaner to get rid of our new Australian friend. To make sure that the spider would die instantly and not creep out of the hose, Marcel put anti-insect spray in the vacuum hose and he secured the exit of the hose with some toilet paper. The vacuum cleaner is now in the bathroom and no way I'm going to empty it..

The experience of last night further increased my spider phobia which is not helpful when you live in Sydney. There are less friendly spiders here. Read for example about the famous Sydney funnel web spiders. I also read somewhere that the population of Redback spiders in the northern part of Sydney - where we live - is growing.

Who says life in the suburbs is boring?

Desperate housewife

Yesterday I watched a new episode of ´Desperate Housewives´. It is always a good show to watch.

I came to the conclusion that the show is no longer like looking at a completely different world. The thing is that I notice a lot of similarities with my life here in Sydney. In Mumbai, it was a lot harder to compare myself to bored housewives in a suburb of an American town. It´s different here in Sydney which is a bit scary.

I don´t want to become a ´desperate housewife´ and this is why I officially started my job hunt today. I want a job but also would like to have flexible working hours, a commute to the office of maximum ten minutes and I want to be there 100% for the kids. In other words, I want the impossible.

Soon we can watch a new show ´desperate working mums´.

Kids and compost

Today both kids started school. The past few weeks my life was kids, kids, kids. I did not really have time to concentrate on anything else. Now I need to find other things to keep myself occupied. So what do 'mums-who-just-arrived-in-Australia' do on a first day without kids?

The past hour I emptied our new compost bin. At least I felt very productive and it was a good work out. I even discovered a few white worms but they are now dead. I had to empty the bin because last week we threw in a lot of long plant roots and I read somewhere that these will not rot easily so it's better not to put them in. I've thrown in a lot of things like eggshells and bread but these are now all gone. Did the worms eat everything?

We really need to concentrate on our garden. We moved into the house two weeks ago and the lawn already shows brown spots and some of the plants don't look that happy anymore.

For the kids we make a vegetable garden. Last week we put tomato and capsicum seeds in little pots and these already turned into little plants of about 2 cm. This weekend we will put them in the garden. Hopefully we can eat our own vegetables in a few weeks from now.

I'm very happy by the way with the choice of our house and the street. It turns out that all our neighbours have 18 year old daughters who are happy to baby-sit. Hoeree! Tonight we go out for dinner for the first time since I arrived in Australia. I look forward to that.

School uniforms

Children in Australia can't start school without a school uniform. Today I had to go to the shop to buy uniforms for the kids. Total costs: AUD 382 without shoes. I guess it's all part of embracing Australian life. There are only a few schools where the children don't have to wear uniforms. At Castle Cove school the main color is dark blue, a very exiting kids color. In India they call these dark colors 'Énglish colors' as opposed to the bright Indian colors.

Being Dutch, I could never have imagined sending my kids to school in a uniform. I don't think it contributes in a positive way to the children's development. Yes, it's very practical as I don't have to have early morning discussions anymore about what the kids should wear. What about the development of their own personal choice? Kids are not the same. The way they want to dress themselves is an important way of expression. You can't go against that because children will then find other ways to express themselves. At least that's what I think..

I'm glad that my six year old is very pleased with his uniform. I don't think he realizes yet that everyone will look the same tomorrow. In Holland, Sebastiaan had a bright orange winter coat. It was very easy to spot him at school pick up. That will be different now when all the boys look 100 percent the same.

Neighbourhood pool

When you live in Sydney, it's not a problem to find a place to swim close to where you live. This is a nice thing, knowing that with 41 degrees it's today the hottest day in four years!

This morning we discovered the Northbridge Baths, a five minute drive from our house. It's an extremely kids friendly pool for swim fanatics. We were kindly reminded by one of that dads that it's better for the kids to wear the Australian long sleeve swim shirt because 'the sun in Europe is different'. I was already chasing the kids with sunscreen lotion but that's clearly not sufficient.

The pool is made in a beautiful bay surrounded by hills and lot's of green. It has a shallow area for kids and there is a more serious swimming area for adults where you can do laps. The day clearly starts very early at the Northbridge baths. On the notice board I read that the 'senior swim squad' starts at 6 a.m.!

To Sebastiaan's excitement a lot of fish swim around in the pool. Fishing - unfortunately - is not allowed. A special activity is kayak fitness. Wondering what that is like.

What else do you need? Ah, I forgot to mention that they do serve great cappuccino's.

Combating the heat

When I arrived in Sydney I knew it would be warm because it's summer. But it's not only warm, it's hot! Instead of going to the beach which most people probably do today, I decided to take the kids by bus and train to Darling Harbour. Great decision. For the kids it was fun. They got two ice creams each and I let them get wet at the water fountain.

We are home now and I put the kids in front of the tv. It's just too hot to do anything else. One of the problems of this weather is that I don't get a lot of things done in the house. It's still a mess because of all the unpacked boxes so I would like to be more productive. A positive thing: today they delivered our new barbeque. Marcel ordered it so it must be big. It weighs no less than 82 kg. Wondering how big it will be when Marcel puts it together tomorrow morning.

Kookaburra

This is a picture of one of the Kookaburra's in our garden. They are extremely tame which makes it difficult to chase them away. They have an arrogant look on their face and don't seem to be very impressed by us.

Speaking about Kookaburra's. Today I almost ended up in hospital after I was almost hit by a two meter long branch. It fell down from a gum tree 0.5 metres from where I was sitting.

Jetlagged

It's now 5.30 am and I'm awake. It's very quiet in the house. The kids obviously don't suffer from the jetlag. They are still in bed. It must be my age. When I went to bed yesterday I was so tired from all the unpacking and running after the kids, I thought I could easily sleep the entire night.

Yesterday, I visited the new school of the children. We received a warm welcome from the principle and she gave us a tour of the school grounds. The principle has Dutch parents and still speaks some Dutch. A funny coincidence because the principle at the school in Mumbai was also from Dutch origin. Sebastiaan and Julia now think that school principles everywhere in the world speak some Dutch. Two more weeks to go before the school starts. That's the beginning of the new school year which is nice for the children because everyone will be new.

The Sydney life

This will be my first Sydney post. After a flight of over 24 hours we finally arrived in Sydney on Friday ready for a new adventure.

My recent stay in Holland was great but when I landed at Sydney airport I realized it's time to move on. When we walked out of the customs area the first thing we saw was Marcel. He actually was crying when he saw us!! For me it was a weird feeling that Sydney will be my home for the next few years. We have been here before as tourists but that's different from living here.

Marcel brought us to the car. It's not just a car, it's a very big car. I've given it the nickname 'battlestar Galactica'. It's not really a city car but an outback car made for very rough terrain and to be save for very big kangaroos which may jump in front of the car. That's not something that will happen here. I'm sure it looks cool from a men's point of view. I already put a 'small decent city car' on my wish list. We then headed for our new house which is a 20 minute drive from the airport. When we turned into our driveway I noticed a few boxes in front of the garage. I then suddenly realized that the movers had already come and that we would not have to camp. That was a great surprise!! A lot of the boxes are still unpacked but that does not matter. At least it feels a little bit like a home.

The house is great! Lot's of space, an outdoor deck with a big dining table and room for a barbeque and a garden. We already had our first encounter with Australian wildlife. Our landlord used to feed the kookaburra on the deck and these birds also expect food from us. Bad luck! They seem to be even more aggressive then the crows in Mumbai. When we had dinner outside yesterday one of the birds tried to steal food from Marcel's plate.

This morning Marcel left for work on his scooter. That way it only takes him 15 minutes to get to the office. My program for today: entertain the kids, unpack boxes, and meet with the school principle to get the kids registered.

A very cold winter in Holland

When we arrived in Holland eight weeks ago I told my two children that they probably would not see any snow. This was disappointing because being an expat in India the children had never experienced a real Dutch winter. Snow in Holland is not very common anymore. On the Internet I even checked out the locations of indoor snow venues.

A friend of mine gave my 6-year-old a sleigh for his birthday in December. I noticed the surprised look on the faces of some of the guests at the birthday party wondering why you would give a boy a sleigh. Snow in Holland is not very common anymore and it was very green outside. The birthday was less then four weeks ago. The sleigh has proven to be the best present ever. We used it a lot, for pleasure but also out of necessity because on some days the sleigh was the most practical means of transportation.

We are now nearing the end of our ten-week-plus visit to the Netherlands. I'm sure the kids will especially remember the snow and the sleigh. With our stay in Holland, we wanted to give our children a better sense of what it means to be Dutch. I believe weather wise we have been very successful.