Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Aussie Pride.... and a hockey game or two...





Well well,.... what a time we have had in the last 4 days... Firstly a  message to my sister Julie - hope you are feeling better and everything is ok, thoughts are with you.

On Sunday we played the team that is 5th on the ladder (we are 8th) on the glue pot turf of Boxmeer - it was the temperature where the turf becomes "sticky" and the ball is much harder to drag and perform skills. I started left midfield, funky left defender and mark left forward. I lost the ball early a few times, didn't play too well in the first half, but still worked hard enough to create a few chances. It was a reasonably even first half and ended up 0-0 at the end of the half. I was moved to forward on the right (thank goodness, cause I wasn't doing too well at midfield) and I think I played much better after that. I gave Koen a goal - except he missed it, haha but we ended up winning a tough fight 2-1 over a team that held itself in quite high regard. I think boxmeer will learn not to accept losing so much, as when talking afterward with Mark and Andrew, we didn't think that they were anything great. Bas (or bos) scored a match winning late goal to put us up 2-1 with 7 minutes to go - the team panicked a little bit but we held on to win, and move up the table to 8th position (when we arrived we were 10th). After the game we (well funky) introduced a new game to our new dutch friends.... 1. If you miss a goal - every player gets to punch them in the arm - it turned bad quite early, but it was still fun. We went to the de bok for tea, and got home reasonably early for a sunday night, as we had to wake up in the morning and go to city hall to work out our passport stuff.  So in the morning, we rode our bikes (dinked tarks with quite a dodgy ankle) down to city hall and had a nice non conversation with the dutch lady behind the counter. We had to give them our lease agreement so that we could get our registration for the province here. She opened my passport to my indonesian Visa - and this is the first time that I was glad I knew some more dutch - Zie kom uit Indonesia" - translated as "they are from indoensia..... I don't know how she got a job in an official position but when there is no photo or anything and the front of the passport has the word australia written on it.... geez... But after 30 mins we had it sorted, got some good news that funky had already been registered because he is a UK citizen and we could get a car after all.... yay... so ... and off to Den Bosse we went via wouters to borrow his car. (not spelt correctly) that was to get our work permit, we ended up driving to the IND (immigration) center, and got our work permits (well we get to work for 6 months) - until they approve our application. So done... next job was to find some flags.. Nijmegen has the previously researched place to get australian flags, so into GPS that went and we found it. We also found the first hill in holland. We bought all they had and off to germany to buy our soccer tickets.... about 1 hour later we arrived at the ground after a little trip on the autobarn, and we found out quite quickly that we didn't know any german at all... not a bit... but they spoke english, we ordered our tickets on my CC, and we were booked in. I drove home as funky was tired, everything went well.. Weird though getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. We dropped the car off at wouters, I went home to get our washing and take it to wouters to wash it... I had tea there, and we chatted for ages - polictics, travel, languages, religion, etc etc.. fun night. I got home and slept - a bit late because we had to get up and work in the rmoning.
The soccer day!!!

Mark's ankle had turned worse so he didn't work on tuesday. So we rode to work by ourselves and talked a little bit to yo. We are still painting, and we thought that a wood stained roof shouldn't be painted white... but who to you communicate that to someone who doesn't speak english...??? well we just did what we were told, painted it white - the owner came in and they had a mini argument about it.. then he told us to paint over it with black paint hahaha - we didn't care cause it was white on black anyway.. but oh well... that is thursday's job now.. After work we met at the de bok, and we headed off to the football - the germany vs australia game.... wow...

We donned our flags as superman capes, knowing we would be out numbered we took along 9 dutch guys to help us support our boys... and it must have worked.. well - let me go back a little bit. We waited in the car park when we got to the stadium, face painted up and face painted everyone else up, and in we went - people flowing everywhere - all germans - we were in foreign territory - really foreign. So after being physically frisked at the gate haha - (it's ok, everyone did) we found our seats and admired the stadium - it was just like telstra dome really, but a little bit better. We started singing and chanting, but the germans were all over us, it was like the world cup all over again. We started to lose interest a little bit, after half time we were chatting about how bad australia were and then someone said - 'pearse look' and australia were kicking a goal.... WELL WELL WELL.... not only did we not expect Australia to score,  I said anything better then a 4-0 loss was a win!! we went crazy, absolutly crazy - the whole crowd was dead silent, and we were jumping around cheering and cheering, it was so much fun. Solem Germans everywhere... We had just settled down and then we got another one - this celebration was probably the one that cost me my voice... With euphoria set in, we sat ont he edge of our seat as australia hung on to win 2-1 - against a team that has been a soccer powerhouse for generations... Against the country australian hacks.. so out of the stadium we went - to chants of Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi and walzing matilda, and I am, you are, we are australian - much to the dismay of the german crowd we were dancing past. So a failed attempt to convince the dutch to wait for the bus we hopped on the autobarn, and drove home - very very fast.. about 200kmph roughly. That was quite cool also. It sounds dangerous, but everyone is doing about the same speed, so it doesn't feel dangerous.    The next day was getting a car day... I have to go so I will skim this section -  long story short, we couldn't get a car because we needed the official document saying that funky actually was registered. What a load of crap - they rang boxmeer - confirmed that he was there, confirmed everything, couldn't fax it because we must have the original document... anyway. It is tea time, so we are going to eat tea. Cheers to australia and go australia!!!

Doi..

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Almost done.... And the FOOTBALL IS NEAR

So it seems to be normal that I write my blog the day before our hockey game. But I have to rewind the clock a little cause I have a fair bit to go through. Wednesday - the 2nd of 3 painting days... we painted. - see photo. Training on wednesday night was horrible... our coach doesn't seem to train on wednesday's but he is always here, so another player takes training, and the same as baw-baw; there is a fair few players that live out of town and come back just for weekends, so the attendance was poor. Morale was at an all time low, mistakes were made - it was just bad. So we left hockey after trying to organise some stuff - which comes to my announcement. We are going to the Australia V Germany soccer game on tuesday. We can't wait. I have been trying to organise the tickets... but it had been very difficult, why you ask? well, due to scalping they only sell 4 at any time, but we have 13 people that want to go. So.... I had to ring places and fax paper with addresses and details and blah blah, but anyway, long story is that we are goign (unless it sells out in the next 2 days). They don't allow you to book the tickets and pick them up at the ground.. stupid... so we have to keep an eye on how many tickets are left on the internet. If it fills up too fast, we drive an hour to germany to the stadium to buy the tickets.So - wednesday we were collecting money, and trying to call the ticket hotline. Wednesday night I went for a run with tarks for 23 minutes and then went to the hockey ground to play soccer with some of the younger guys from hockey (16-18) this was strange. they played this game called 'arse'. One person was the goal keeper, and the other x amount of players had to score a goal without the ball touching the ground, and depending on which part of the body you scored with, was how many points you lost (the keeper lost) if you missed the goal or the keeper caught the ball, then you become the goalkeeper....   You started with 10 points, and funky was the unlucky one to run out of points first. - they didn't tell us that you have to stand in the goals and get the ball kicked at you by everyione else!! but he escaped ok, (they aren't very good kicks) and then we played a game against them. We smashed them - probably because they are young, but we were winning 17-8 with only 3 of us and 6 of them... We also won the "serious" game 10-9. So 1 up for the aussies!
Thursday was australia vs india cricket day - but we had to paint still... so we left a bit early and got back in time to watch australia lose.. but we did try and explain the game to merlin and casper... they had no idea whatsoever.. Boring for them,but we explained cricket.. Australia lost to india... boo... but with how they had been playing - what do I expect.. Friday started off not busy, and ended up not busy, but with a few frantic moments built into it. Wouter came at 12.00 to pick me up (I watched st kilda v geelong in the morning) and do some internet/paperwork/washing and try and make sense of the immigration forms that we have to fill out. Our appointment is on monday to finally try and get our work permit/permission to stay here for a year... (weird, cause I thought I already had. but it turns out I am here for 3 months, and then they have to approve it while I am here) - bureaucracy at it's best. thanks netherlands. So we had a meeting to get our all important lease agreement, without it, we can't get a car or work or anything. But we finally got that - and I read one of my books for the first time in the trip. not bad for someone who took 8 books... Friday night at training was much better. I coached the a1 juniors and made them do running and drills, and I hope they understood me cause I obviously don't speak dutch, I wish I did cause I could tell them off better when they stuff around. But that was from 6.30   -8:00 then I had training from 8-10.30. it was a long night. It was much better, but what I don't understand is the lack of belief some of the guys have. We are playing a much better team today, and when I arrived to the group saying - so we going to win on the weekend, most of them said "no they are too good"  - I'm like.... well why do we bother training, lets go home now... ( i didn't say that though) but after training we spoke to them and changed their midsets a little bit... but geez!!  So friday night we went back tot he pub and had tea, and I had to look after andrew and mark, the younger (party style dutch guy) took them to nightclub, and by the time I got there with the older dutch guys (we are nicknamed the oldies) to see if they wanted to come home they were in big trouble.... it was an interesting ride home for me with mark on the back of my bike... Amusing... they spent saturday in bed.
Saturday I got up early and watched hawthorn lose as I told u before, and then rode my bike around a little bit looking at boxmeer, - what is amazing and what is constantly something that I look at is how the same and how different things are here. Like food is so similar, but oh so differernt, and houses are the same kinda, but so so differernt, And when i was riding past them, it is cool to just look around at things and observe how things are different. Horses in front yards, no fences on most houses, bricks are smaller and weird coloured, the roofs are pitched at frightening angles etc.. and then I went to hockey to try and organise tickets for football. No luck there... but I stayed at hockey talking to some people and watched a few games, and then went shopping. We made spag bol, which was surprisingly good, and then watched a movie - london boulevard - I don't think it is out yet, but it wasn't very good. - I fell asleep during it, so I can't tell you much about it, except that it is an english movie with colin farrell... So today i'm about to go down the street to go on the internet, hopefully talk to some of you on skype if you are around, if not then I'll just have breakfast at the cafe... My leg is almost better, but it still hurts when I get fatigued, so a 20-30m sprint is ok, as long as I have time to recover. - of course that is not how hockey is played, so I'm not at 100% yet.. here is to hoping that we can win, boxmeer needs to knock off one of these top teams... (people on the dutch hockey forum told us we would lose 5-0....) hmmm.... anyway I am off, hope everything is going well back in australia.

Tot ziens..

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Game 2...

Well we had to travel for game 2. Against a team called "HOD" they had 5 hockey fields I was told - although I only saw 2. We lost 3-2, down 2-0 at half time, and it's not a good thing to bag the umpires... but my goodness they were bad, and not consistently bad - just plain wrong. I got sent off for something that one of my teammates did, but in my opinion the attacker should have been sent off for it anyway. Just ridiculous...  Our first half was one that I predicted, slugish, slow and we were clearly outplayed, I instigated a chat with our midfield at half time(dunno what the coach told us to do.. but something had to change...) and we started to change the way we played in the 2nd half. We got two quick goals quite easily at about the 10 and 18 min mark of the 2nd half and slowly took control of the game. The turning point was, when I got sent off. The rule is in hockey, if you have the ball and step backwards with it, it is obstruction.. EVERY TIME. there is no grey area with this rule, but holland doesn't seem to call it, so if the player backs into you (like he did to yurrick) and falls over, then it is against him, not against the defender.. but apparently the nearest player gets sent off... so our team erupted ( i don't know if it was protecting me, or explaining on my behalf, but it was quite heated...) I was absolutely baffled as to why I got sent off... usually I know why but sunday, not one idea... Another weird decision they were not calling, was the flick (or the lob) mark was running to tackel the guy and he almost flicked it into his head - nbot once but like 10 times... our teammates said that it wasn't dutch, it was just wrong.... grrr   But that happens, then another poor call for a short corner went against us - they scored off that, and another player of ours got sent off, then our coach got sent off (out of the ground) and we then got a goal disallowed from the other end of the field that would have made it 3-3... so now we are back into relegation territory after our win last week. But as I said to the guys after the game... 'after that first half, we didn't deserve to win...  you get home at 5am.... you deserve to lose...'  but boy... they were bad.....

So monday we watched movies, went shopping and nothing much happened. Today we had our first painting day, not much happened really, just painted a front room that would have been a lounge room, pretty non interesting... what is interesting is what is going to happen in the next few weeks :-) very much looking forward to it. I will let you know what is going to happen soon, cause I will have nothing to write about... - how's the suspense... :-) sampai doi....

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Quiet few days and a frustrating rapat...

Well there hasn't been much to talk about in the last few days, I was going to wait until after our hockey game, but I thought that I better fill in the time before that. Wednesday and thursday were work days, and if you see the picture below, all that stuff was to grow marijuana. Our job was to tear it all down, it was a very sophisticated setup, but we made short word of it. We didn't end up painting, that is tuesday next week's job, but we found another room upstairs that we had to clear of black plastic and watering system. lol. So that was wednesday and thursday gone. It was slow going working as there isn't lots to do, but it is enough to keep you just busy enough not to get really really bored. Friday was our day off, and a lazy day it was, we went down the street to buy andrew and mark phones, met a few people that were to help them translate/talk to the phone shop guy and then we had a late lunch before we got ready for hockey training. Oh - I forgot to mention, on the thurday night we visited caspers house who had a magnificent basement setup of a projector and speakers, now Trafhi pay attention. Screen, surround sound, tv hooked into it, remote control, computer access wirelessly to the projector... now tell me we are not behind... So we watched PSV einhoven play football there, which was cool. then home. 
So i had a meeting with the coach and the captain about how they played, how we play, and what is the plan of the team... I think we understood each other on most points, but I left with the distinct feeling that nothing will change too much, which is fine - I just hope it goes better today(sunday). It rained all day friday, and training was not so fun. I found out my jacket that I have been hauling around is NOT waterproof. Mum, that guy lied to you. After an hour my arms were wet.. we have alot of players ~18 and there was lots of yelling at each other (in dutch) and lots of mistakes - no calling/talking to each other on the field, and it was just not a very nice place to be. The night after hockey training was interesting, had conversations to a few of the players about the meeting I had with the coach, they do understand what is going on - that is a positive - read between the lines a little here people. Anyway, saturday we had to pick wouter up from the airport in germany - so after a bit of streamed oneday action watching australia play very bad, we headed to germany. again some action on the autobarn, and a few loops of the airport trying to find out where the hell to go, but we arrived on time, and picked him up without hassle. On the way back we dropped some supplies of wouter's back at a/his vet clinic took us the scenic route back, it was very nice, forest, green fields, nice little farm houses everywhere... My mind can't help but cast back to 60 years ago when the ground was being blown up everywhere and people were being killed, maimed and mutilated... all in the name of some crazy guy... I guess I'm not the first one to think of this, but it is heavily in my mind as we drove through that part of holland. Wouter had "accidentally" clicked on a .exe attachment on his email, which had installed a nasty virus. I spent the evening fixing it for him, which was easy until a side effect of fixing the virus was the wireless/LAN was screwed, so a system restore fixed it... and we had tea at his place with his daughter. We had home made pizza and soup, which was very nice :-) Andrew and mark went to the pub to meet a few of the guys to my disgust, and I went home to bed. - They got home @ 5am... how the hell are they supposed to play well today... I'm starting on the bench thank goodness today, I am not looking forward to playing today with half a team having a hangover, and players running anywhich way... Leave me on the bench please.

So today is the game, there is no nervousness that there was the first sunday, we know the level, I hope we do win, but frankly, what chance do we have with 5-6 of our players being out the early morning...

veel succes i say to us... veel succes....

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Few photos



The dog

This was the dog that I was talking about. Very friendly. Note - the pictures above are of the Desseldorf airport, the inside of the house we are cleaning, and the huge watches that are apparently cool here in holland.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Game 1, and the start of our "work"

So. the morning of our first game.... The tension was in the air. Funky was up early as was I, but I don't think we were nervous, I think it was just we didn't know what to expect. Was the level higher then we were at? How would we fit in with Boxmeer's players? the team? how would my leg go? hand? would my eye weep open? umpires? etc etc. Anyway, we arrived on time, for once again my hate to stand around and talk instead of being at the ground at a time for a reason, people reading this from hockey will understand, but others prob won't, but I find it annoying. So we beat the coach by 30 mins, and down into the rooms we went, we got given our uniforms, and listened to the coach give his before game speech. (of course, we had no idea what it meant) we got a loose translation on the warm up. Was this followed? I don't know, but that is not a topic of conversation for this blog. ;-)  So I started at CF... my favourite position......, and I am going to talk hockey for a little bit, - if you aren't interested in hockey, scroll down.

So the dutch fullback was marking me almost in front, the two wingers were playing almost as high inners, and the inners (or midfielders) were playing wide. So there was not a whole lot of space to lead into to get the ball, especially being marked from almost in front. So i was moved back into midfield thank goodness after many frustrating minutes (maybe 10-15) of running around without really touching the ball, and it was much easier. Andrew and mark started on the bench, but they were on shortly after also, and really it was almost harder working out what our team was doing rather then what the opposition was doing. (beat your man - easy) pass to your teammate... much harder. So training this week will be interesting. But I almost hit a few goals, the game was quite scrappy, but we (Funky and Tarks and I) are SL3 scrap specialist. So when the going got a little rough - well.. lets just say the yellow card count at baw baw will drop this year... We got abused in dutch, and then English, and then back in dutch again. But we ended up winning 3-2, I got interviewed by the local paper, and the Boxmeer team were absolutely ecstatic with the win. So all good. After the game was weird. no cool down, I missed the team talk due to my media commitments lol but they gave us food, and then there was a black light party at the club - at 3:45!!
|I sat outside and talked about the game with some of the senior guys for a long time, hopefully we can try and teach them some things so we don't go crazy on teh field. My quote was: I don't know if we don't understand what they are doing, or if they have no idea, I hope it is the former....  That night our bike wheel got buckled by mark and funky trying to ride it home, but we got a new wheel today.

So if you are back after scrolling down and skipping the hockey talk, we had a busy day the next day after the game, I found out that my photo was back page big picture...
http://www.gelderlander.nl/sport/hockey/8320545/Australiers-blijken-aanwinst-voor-Boxmeer.ece#
But we had other things to o then think about apart from not being able to read a dutch article... We had immigration papers to print, i had my insurance for my eye to deal with, we had phone plans and people to ring, banks to call, and so on and so on, it was a busy day, - wouter was so much help, he printed things off for us, called when we couldn't understand the dutch, and we used his internet to send him documents also, couldn't have been more helpful. We had a scratchy lunch/dinner at our local restaurant, and then went home and watched tv and a few movies. - one of which was the 'next three days', of which I highly recommend. Later that night bongo's dad came over (who is a physio) and helped look at my leg, - as I didn't really play 100% - turns out that I'm just limping around, but if boxmeer was happy with today, then all good... but I do have to be careful...
The next day was the start of our working time at boxmeer - but before that we took wouter to the Airport, and not the netherlands airport, it was dusseldorf. We didn't know this until wouter said" we are in germany now" we are like.... ahhh cool... and the speeding started. That was fun. no 100kmph here... other cars were doing like over 200... and some 100 - we were about in the middle, but boy we were moving... When we go back we had to work - we have a working agreement that pays for our rent. We had to clean up massive amounts of well - rubbish. Our landlord owns multiple houses around the town and all of them seem to be stuffed. The tenants just leave all their stuff there.... rubbish, clothes, beds, etc, it is a total mess. We kinda cleaned out the house, which I took a video of, and will upload somehow.... We were working with a polish guy named yo, which was a little funny, and he spoke "not a word of english" although how ironic that seemed, we couldn't tell him that anyway hahaha.. So we got our bike fixed in the afternoon, played our lunchtime game of cricket with a piece of board, and went home via Aldi and cooked tea. Tomorrow and thursday are working days. We are painting tomorrow we think, and maybe dumping the rubbish somewhere...

A little note about food - the food here is well differernt. (obviously you may say) but it is so close to what we have, but just well... weird. I have mentioned many times that I miss my beloved boston bun, and custard... oh how I like you custard tarts... but to no avail here. The best we had was a pizza style roll from the bakery, some biscuits, and some weird cake. Do the dutch know about boston buns? surely the custard recipe would have made it across the channel... (I'm claiming to know that custard originated from england now...) maybe I should make some and sell them to the bakeries.. now that could be a money maker...  Anyway, we cooked tea, had chicken (very cheap here, about $5 a kilo - being the home of intervet and chicken is what they do) and about to watch a movie and start work again tomorrow. Good thing that we are not doing this everyday, cause it's not the greatest fun, but being with 2 other friends does make it much better. I met a weird looking dog today too, it was like a extra large cocker spaniel but very friendly - and explaining what a kelpi or a blue heeler to a dutch person is like trying to order a boston bun in a bakery... hahaha... A little tired here, but it good spirits. Hope everything is going well back in Aus... Kasihan tentang negara Japan...

Doi

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Setting the scene - Almost 2 weeks here.

Well I stuffed up the days on the last post I made so I will set it straight. Today is Saturday, yesterday was Friday and the day before that was Thursday. And that is where I will begin, we were heading up to Nijmegen, apparently the town that claims to be the oldest town in teh Netherlands (just without any proof, maybe they can take a leaf out of America's book and just take the title anyway...) so we went up there to find a laundromat, not that we knew where they were, so we started out driving to the tourist information center, which once we stopped off and had our first dutch McDonalds experience found to be in another place... So after we asked about 5 people, we chose to split up, Mark went to find it, and me and Funky went to get the car. We moved the car, and then found mark who had 2 addresses, so we found them and they turned out to be either dry cleaning places or they couldn't finish it in time for us, so we then looked for a bike, found a bike for 45 euro, put it in the back of the car (with some difficultly, as European cars are so so much smaller then ours) and back to boxmeer for our laundry, which stung us a nice 37 euro...... Pretty lazy day all around...

The next day (Friday) I woke up after a terrible night sleep, not good at all. But i got up early and researched some places that we could visit. I ended up finding a gem of a place (the war museum, which is in and around the town of overloon)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overloon
It was a huge museum which detailed the history of the war from the early 1900's through to the start of the cold war but mainly the info was about WW2. The information regarding how the dutch people suffered and were treated was just sad. I'm not talking about the brutal murders, as shocking as they were, I'm talking about the way that they had to continue their lives, but with all their privileges taken away. Huge tanks, weapons,artillery, etc was at this museum. We had lunch (2:30) there and headed back to pick up our laundry and do a little bit of shopping.
That night hockey training was on (Friday.... strange, wednesday night and friday night with a game on sunday) so we warmed up ok, my leg hurts still, but it should be fine *cough* for the game tomorrow. So in a small game my night took a sharp right turn, almost like the ball that struck me just above the left eye, so as I was holding my eye, waiting for the pain to die down, I felt the dreaded trickle of a fluid down my cheek..... shit.... the ball had split my eyebrow... So, with blood streaming down my face I made my way to the change rooms, cleaned up and got a ride to the hospital. I was accompanied by Bas's father, who made it alot easier to talk to the dutch receptionists considering they didn't or wouldn't speak English. So I was standing there with a sore head, blood everywhere trying to confirm my damn address... Geez, if it was worse I would have got angry, but it was ok. We waiting for maybe 20 minutes and i got glued back together by a nice doctor. the bill 80 euro... wow. Insurance time... So i have a cut head, I hope it doesn't open up tomorrow when I play.

Our first game is tomorrow, but I will talk about today. We were going car hunting with Peter(our coach) we took the train to caijk, couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket, but we just caught the train so we didn't have time anyway, and he took us around to see some cars. We found a few bomb cars, with rusted engines and a van which was almost perfect, bit expensive (2100) but the tax was quite high (140 euro a month!!!) we went to another town and found our car (it was a ford mondeo wagon 1999) we hope he doesn't sell it. We took it for a test drive, it seemed ok, we did all the testing we could. Tyres, brakes, steering, over 100kmph and it seemed good. cost = 950 euro.. 215000kms on the clock. tax = 50 euro a month. So back home, we went up to hockey and said hi to some of the guys who were working there, watched a bit of football, and then came home to write this, an early night is going to be in order, as tomorrow we have our first game of the season, the local paper will be there, they will be videotaping the game, and the pressure is on us as we have 3 of our players out... here is to hoping we actually get on the field...


My dutch is slowly improving, but I am going to make a consistent effort to try and learn some more a little more formally. My indonesian is sufferring, I couldn't remember the word for disaster this morning.... bencana... if anyone was wondering.  Will let you know what happens tomorrow. Hope things are well back in Aus..

Tot Ziens






 

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Carnival - Part 3+4

Well, I haven't written for a few days because it has just been carnival time - see previous post regarding carnival But the horse race was a big letdown, we were expecting 10-12 horses galloping through the street - what we got was mostly 1v1 horses in a tournament style race.. to put with that the announcer was loud, and very dutch we didn't know what was going on. But we walked around met a few people, and went into the tents to listen to more music - bands and the very techno dutch music. We then walked back to boxmeer (the horse race was about 10kms out of boxmeer) stopping at various pubs along the way to say hello. We arrived back to find there was lots and lots of people in the street dancing and listening to music again! - (that is in boxmeer) so a few hours later, and then we went to dinner at Wouters place, met his son and his friends again. Tarks fell asleep again at the table :) (reinforcing his name "Sleepy bear") and then home we went.

The next day was a festival at a town (the next town) called Cuijk, where you had to pay 5 euro enter the town(whicch was closed off) and go around visiting various pubs and stages where music was playing. The main thing that I have found about the dutch, is that they will not talk to you or be very friendly until you speak to them directly and personally. Maybe it is because there is so many people in this country, but that is what seems to happen. I ended up meeting a few people that were nice, and had a lot of fun in the process. We left cuijk at about 7:00 when it closed, I got seperated from the group for a long long time and it is almost impossible to find anyone once u are lost. I would say 30,000 people in a space the size of Trafalgar main street, and you get the picture. So i had to meet people, or my day would have been very lonely. So anyway, we arrived back at our place where the hockey boys had already setup camp at our place, to promises from Funky and Tarks that we would have a BBQ and a cricket match soon (how without a bbq I don't know) but that will be fun. So we went down the street - I went home early again :) and woke up early again....

The next day (friday) was a lazy sleeping day, the only visit was down the street to try and find out why my phone was charging 50c per sms, - but to no avail, I have to ring the vodaphone hotline and explain.. (yay.....) we got some shopping, and then went to hockey training. Hockey training was slow, but I needed to run and after 4-5 days of not much sleep, we all suffered and our coach was nice and didn't make us do too much. We had a meeting with our coach about various things, insurance for car, registration, washing machine and of course how he wants us to play - and what positions we can play. After training everyone went home, we stayed and chatted to the few guys that did stay, and we got a ride home with bos's dad. (thankyou :) )


Today we have to find a place to do laundry, there is no place in boxmeer, so we have to go driving and find a place... washing machine is a necessity, but there is 2 problems. a) We can't get into the laundry to put it if we did buy it, and b) We have to find one that is not too expensive...

So a bandaid job for today, and then we will find out what happens. So we are going to drive out of boxmeer for teh first time really in a week, and we will see what happens.

Doi...

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Photos


Couple of shots of the main street of boxmeer

Boxmeer - the good and the bad

Well - it has been an exciting couple of days here in the da" box" - pronounced "boc" - after a goat... And lake is meer - so it was the lake of a goat, or something like that. So the next day after that we went shopping, went to the ground and did a little bit of painting and plumbing. We installed a drainage pipe on the storage shed of the ground. Which was installed with precision - might I add.... We then had our first training session, and after some "fitness" which was about ten minutes of running lol - prob enough for Tarks and Funky though, we started: it is so hard to understand what the hell is going on when nobody speaks English. Well - that is not entirely true, you get the gist of what is going on, but no specifics. So we played a few small games, and then a larger one, with a lot of the style of the game yet to be learned by us. For me personally,it was fun - , but with being injured it was always a risk playing in the games, and I had to be careful not to run too hard. After training we met all the guys properly, and stayed there till late. - Culture much much different then in Australia, everybody drinks - and then rides their bike home - the police passed us on the way home - they didn't even slow down. In Aus - that is a one way ticket to a $250 fine. Anyway, a late night the night before last and a late sleep in and it was the day of the carnival..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival

See that link for what carnival is about - basically it is a party where everyone dresses up - has a parade - a famous horse race here in boxmeer.
So last night we danced in the street to dutch music for a few hours, which was so much fun, - the jovial dutch - just dancing and being happy. So we are searching for a car - to take us around boxmeer and also to be able to start going around the county. The horse race through the streets is tmrw morning, and then onto hockey training - wednesday and fridays. Hoping for the weather to be a little bit warmer, not this go outside and freeze thing. Anyway - will post back later.

Doi...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Day 2 - The meer continues

Well, hoe gaat het?
A full learning day of the dutch language has made my head very sore... more the pronunciation then anything else, as it is 2 things - 1. How to remember something, and 2. How to say what you have remembered.

Last night we slept through our tea date with Wouter, we thought we would just lie down for a few hours and we woke up almost in the middle of the night, 2 or three times, but with some help I slept till morning. We then got up and went touring of de old boxmeer, going to the tourist info center - getting a map, seeing the "sights" of the town. We went shopping, saw the hockey ground, and walked around a bit - but it is crazy cold. well, not crazy cold but it is pretty cold - ~ 1-2 degrees with a chilling wind. It would not want to be any colder... Tus - I think that you have it on me, but it's not cold enough to crazy rug up, so we get caught out when the wind comes through. I don't have the cable for my camera here, but I will update the photos of our house and around town. We got a little lost coming home because we listened to funky and he didn't know where to go, but after consulting our map - we did an about face and 20 ins later arrived home, a nap and a visit to the hockey ground and we played our first practise match (not really a match because it was a half field training game against the u17 team, but we did ok... (.. :)   ) 22-3 or 4....

The food is normalish, we had ham and cheese and eggs for lunch, we supermarket shopped and had cereal and toast for breakfast, and for tea I had chicken snitzel... What I have noticed though is the quality of the beer. Bad is good over here. I have an early fear of becoming an umpa lompa.... Tomorrow is apply for work permit day, so hopefully everything goes well. Cheers for now - sorry there wasn't anything more interesting to say

Tot zeins

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Arrival - Welcome to the meer

Well - after a audacious flight from melbourne through singapore, we finally arrived to a chilly .5 degrees. After being met at the airport by a friendly but tired Wouter, we stuffed all our stuff into his car and we took off - and even as a passenger it took a while to get used to the driving on the RHS of the road. Through the city of Amsterdam, and along the road - with it being very very weird being in Europe. Seeing things that are just different, such as high tension power lines, roads, cars, lines on the road - not to mention the houses and architecture. We arrived in boxmeer - showered and had "breakfast" - which felt like tea.... and headed off to our new house. William (billy) our landlord was a character, I became the "leader" in charge of keys (why I don't know) but he gave us a brief tour of what was going on. - the top story was.. well a bit rough.. see photos later. But the rest of the house was quite fine. Still all over the place in terms of time, - it's 3:15pm and all I want to do is look at my watch and see that it is 10:00pm and time for bed. We had a look at the hockey ground - the setup is much much better then at baw baw - or bgo for that matter, with a decent change room setup and a fully decked out bar. We did some shopping - stumbled through our dutcdh with comical purpose and then home. Wouter is taking us out to tea tonight, and tomorrow to explore the town in more detail.

Doi...