I just couldn’t resist… My birdy was chilling so sweet in my dad’s grape-tree (well, it’s not a tree, but grape-bushes sounds weird… and don’t know a better translation, so I am sticking with the tree for now!), so I had to make some pictures!

Just chilling	A close-up!	Bendy birdy…	Always curious

Posted in Animals | 1 Comment »

Last weekend was a very last minute weekend in Sheffield. Great fun! I had planned a visit to Mette in England back in October already, but injured my ankle badly just a couple days before departure… Booked this trip so late, nothing could go wrong this time! :-) It was great fun seeing Mette again, who I hadn’t seen for almost a year, and quite quickly we adapted our usual rituals again of relaxing, drinking cappuccino’s and having fun! :-)

Saturday night turned out to be a rather extraordinary evening… Mette, “Helle the girl” (Mette’s friend who is also studying in Sheffield) and I went to their favorite place called “Flares”. A bar/disco/club kind of place. Not sure how to describe it… They played great 70’s and 80’s music, so after a couple of beers you could sing along with almost every song! ;-)
But the extraordinary wasn’t the place, it was the people… oh my lord! Never seen so many weird people in one place at the same time!!!
Normally I wouldn’t have so much problems with women dressing very slutty, it’s a free world, but in Sheffield they should have a law forbidding it! I will paint the picture. Almost all women were definitely a couple of sizes bigger then they would like to be… nothing wrong with that at all, but why do they try to fit everything in clothes that really seem 3 sizes smaller then they are… they struggle all evening to keep everything “on board”… It’s for sure not sexy… it’s nasty… just very nasty… And do they really think men like that? Well… I guess the local men do… I started out a bit shocked, but at the end of the evening and seeing everybody in the same “dress code” there was nothing to do then laugh at it… Not because it was extremely funny, but more in a sense of: “Girl, what the hell were you thinking?” :-)
But besides that there was more shocking things! 20 year old totally drunk guys, being all over 50+ year old totally drunk women… *argggg* did I say nasty already? *hahahaha* Didn’t matter where you looked, it was a freakshow everywhere! :-) Another highlight was the girl who really looked like an Russian Matreshkas puppet! To our great joy, as the evening went by, it actually looked like she got smaller and smaller… Could it really have been… :-)
After a rather failed introduction of the “lawn mower” dance to the Sheffield club scene it was already time to split as the place close at 02:00 already… Strange people these British!

All in all it turned out to be a really fun weekend! The follow up party will be in Copenhagen later this summer! Let’s see if we can successfully introduce the “lawn mower” there! :-)

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

Well, the return to Stockholm turned out to be much shorter then I expected and hoped for. Last Friday was truely a “Friday the 13th” for me, as I was kicked of the project. It left me quite stunned I must say. The main reason was that I missed 2 project meetings. Unacceptable? Apparently. The first one I totally forgot about, the second one I missed because I didn’t have the impression it was so important, it was very late on the day and most of all… I wanted to go spinning… The weather in Stockholm had been beautiful all week, I missed the cycling after the week in France and just wanted to exercise really bad! Well, no excuse at all for missing a meeting. I realize that now.

Looking back at it all, I realize the problem is much bigger then just being kicked of a project. It’s not like me to miss meetings. Not like me at all. I seemed to have lost all passion for the work I do. Funny enough I talked about the same subject with some people earlier last week. That I was doing my work but mainly on routine and that was about it. Normally I like to push myself to put in extra effort and that combined with having lots of joy with the people I work with give me the extra satisfaction I need and want to find in a project. But this time around it was only the joy of being around the sweet people I worked with before… The main reason to return to the project was simply to be back in Stockholm… I guess that was the wrong reason from the start.

So the conclusion has been one that I probably should have drawn some time ago, but what happened on Friday just accelerated the whole process. The conclusion was simple. My IT days are over! :-) No more. The end of an era. Strange feeling comes with that for now, but I guess the decision is still so fresh I haven’t really realised it yet…

So the new question is: What’s next? Good question, but hard to answer just yet… I need to think a bit about this one. But as the way back is closed for good, it will only be a matter of time before I find an answer! Exciting stuff!!! It might be a new study, it might be something else… time will tell! :-)

Posted in Work | 1 Comment »

Don’t know what it exactly was… the fact I just got kicked off a project, the good company, the very nice tapas, the cold beer… well, it was most likely a combination of them all that made Ramblas such a great place!! :-)
Definitely a warm recommendation if you are in the area!

Ramblas
Långholmsgatan 3
Stockholm, Sweden
Telephone: +46 (0)8 669 25 36
Internet: No… or at least unfindable!

Posted in Restaurants | No Comments »

It’s never that much fun to go out for dinner alone when staying at an hotel. Always feel kinda lonely sitting in a restaurant… Alone, no one to talk to, only the cuttelery to play with and a drink to zip on more frequent then you would like. Luckily there are always more fun options! Dinner with friends is of course the most fun, but I always enjoy my little Sushi picnic in the hotel room! :-)
So when I was staying at the Adlon hotel in the center of Stockholm some time ago, the Japanese Restaurant Onaka was the place to be! Their Sushi is really good! The best in the center area if you ask me! Oh, funny little thing… When I was searching on the internet to see if the restaurant has a website, I found out that Onaka means “tummy” in Japanese. Good name, as they sure please my tummy! :-)

Onaka
Bryggargatan 12b
Stockholm, Sweden
Telephone: +46 (0)8 24 10 85
Internet: No… although it looks like they had one, changed it and finally removed it… :-)

Posted in Restaurants | No Comments »

A week in the south of France. What a life. Briljant weather, never forcing the issue, opening the first rose every day at 1600, a daily barbeque, French bread with great herb butter, fresh croissants and pain du chocolate’s, cycling in beautiful surroundings… how could you not enjoy it?

So enjoying we did. First day started with a lunch in St. Tropez, followed by our first little ride in the area. When we booked the holiday house we had no clue about how the area would suite cycling… we got lucky! Very lucky! When we arrived we drove through the thick fog over, what we believed was, quite a big hill. That proved to be right. The whole area inland from Cogolin was full of small mountains. Very quite roads and the climbs were not to steep, so briljant for cycling!
Already on day one it became clear that I was the better climber and Bastiaan was better on the flat. Or in other words… I annoyed him greatly when cycling uphill and making little movies and pictures of him at the same time… But I also struggled on the flat to keep his wheel… when he was powering through full headwind with 35 to 40 km/h!!! He kept wondering why I never took over the lead while I was just giving everything to stay in his wheel!! :-)

This was Bastiaan’s first reaction on top of the first climb of the 2nd day, the Col du Perier (350m). This was our first real climb and good for at least 6 km of climbing!

First reaction! (8.0 MB)

The tone was set for that day. Two more climbs would follow. In the downhill after the second climb (Col de Taillude, 411m) I got a little bit carried away… Well a little… maybe I should say “a lot”… It was a long downhill with speeds constantly about 50 km/h and not long after we started the decent, we caught up with a car that was also going downhill. Because of many years of watching cycling on TV, I knew someone on a bike goes quicker downhill then a car, so I only thought one thing: “I have to pass it!”. And I did. On a little less bendy piece I didn’t hesitated and passed the car! Totally crazy move if I think back of it… I could hardly see if someone was coming up the hill, plus speeds were close to 60… Strange maybe, as I didn’t think about that at all at that moment. Just that I was faster and had to pass it.

The last, Col de Babaou (414m), was a lovely climb. Very steady grade so after finding a good climbing rhythm it was a nice ride to the top. Even Bastiaan looked really good on this one! On this one… it did cost him a lot of energy and the downhill after the climb and 22 km flat roads back towards Cogolin took his toll… When trying to be funny and making pictures behind my back, I got a well deserved finger! :-)

A deserved finger! :-)		Cogolin

Besides the cycling, time was mainly killed by relaxing. Just relaxing. Reading books, lying in the sun. Here some lovely views:

Reading a book		Newspaper and rose

Taking different routes in the area, took us over different hills as well. And sometimes the grade on a climb could change rather drastically, like in this turn:

Steep turn (4.0 MB)

Or, as we saw in Bastiaan’s last ride (his “jour sans”, when his left knee stopped working!) sometimes hills would pop up which even couldn’t be found on any map, but turned out to be very, very steep!!! And when cycling with one leg, they are very though:

Not a col! (8.6 MB)		The only day with some clouds

What didn’t help was the fact that his “jour sans” was on the worst day in Cogolin. The day started out as beautiful as all the others, but in the early afternoon we could already see the clouds in the distance… I pushed to go cycling either way and it turned out to be a mistake… Luckily the ride we choose (to the Col de Collebasse, 131m) wasn’t that long, although going downhill with 50+ km/h on super small tires on wet roads with unknown corners wasn’t the most pleasant feeling… but a long warm shower makes up for a lot! :-) Not to mention the barbeque and rose in the evening! :-)

Posted in Friends, Cycling | 2 Comments »

The last day in Cogolin was the day of the queens ride! A stage that would take us to the “roof” of the holiday, the Notre Dame des Anges at 780 meters. Or us… the day before the stage was planned, Bastiaan had a “jour sans” and decided not to cycle but ride the first following car. A wise decision as the queens ride would take us over 5 climbs.
The weather was briljant when leaving Cogolin. Morale was good and the first climb started out really well! The average speed was about 22 or 23 km/h. Until about 1 km from the top… There the climb got a bit more steep and stupidly I tried to reach to top at the pace I set earlier in the climb… a mistake… and I paid dearly for that mistake the last couple of hundred meters… Ouch… Knowing I only just begun and had 4 more climbs to do, morale took a big hit… Not helped by a Dutch couple that was also cycling in the area and at the top told me it was not a good day to cycle up the Notre Dame des Anges. Way to hot. But of course I was welcome to try.
After a short downhill, I rode up the next climb together with the Dutch woman. She rode a very relax tempo and at that pace I could ride all day! Before I knew it we reach the top of the second col. Another fast downhill. I left the Dutch couple behind when turning right towards the next climb. From this point it was only climbing for the next 15 km. There was not turning back now, the only way was up. I choose a lighter gear with a much faster peddling pace. A smart decision, as from there on the ride to the top became much easier. Pace went up and down but was always around 20 km/h and support was always there from the following car! On the first climb I got annoyed by my helmet, put up my hand and could throw it into the car. On the start of this climb I wanted to get rid of my helmet again, put up my hand but couldn’t be bothered to wait for Bastiaan to catch up in the car and just threw the helmet in the grass at the side of the road! :-)

Raining sunbeams! (3.6 MB)

When reaching the top of the 3rd climb (Col des Fourches at 535 meter) morale was at an all-time-high! Ok, I could definitely feel the effort in my legs, but I wouldn’t quite this close to the top! After a very short decent, the climb up to the Notre Dame des Anges started! Easy at first, but quite quickly the climb got really steep! Now it was serious climbing:

Serious climbing! (4.9 MB)

The pace dropped quite a lot the last couple of kilometers, but the feeling of being able to reach the top made even the pain in my legs disappear for a while. The last kilometer I rode with a big smile on my face! I was gonne reach the top for sure! :-) And I did, this is how my last meters looked:

Reaching the top! (15.8 MB)		A wide view

After a look around at the top of the Notre Dame des Anges and enjoying the far and beautiful view, it was time to go on again. The decent back to the top of the Col des Fourches went quite smoothly, but the next 9 kilometer downhill were just horrible… all downhill’s up to that moment were just great fun! 50+ km/h, fast corners, slow corners, good roads, good fun! But these 9 kilometers downhill were over a very bad road… unbelievable bumpy… After just a couple of kilometers my hands, arms, back… everything started hurting… This sucked big time… Downhill should be fun, not painful! :-|
When the 9 km were finally over, a long straight followed. 13 km with the wind in the back! That was very welcome. I could definitely feel the effort of the 4 climbs in my legs already.

The last climb was a struggle. A busy road, so the need to be very concentrated all the time. Some parts turned and were full against the wind, making the struggle even harder… Luckily I had a good moment halfway through the climb and was able to accelerate a little bit and keep the new pace until the top. Out of water at the start of the climb I tossed my water bottle to Bastiaan half way on the climb with the message for him to fill it up! He tried, but with his parking problems in the little village and the time it took to find a supermarket and buy a couple of bottles of water, I had passed him and was already in the 10 km full speed downhill (55+ km/h!!) and he could never catch up with me again. The last bit was pure joy! 81.82 km in 3 hours and 12 minutes and in lovely hot weather! I made it!!! :-)

The queens ride route

Posted in Friends, Cycling | 3 Comments »

Wow! So much to write about last weeks holiday in the south of France… But let’s start with a first impression with some pictures! Always nice! :-)

Climb	Bastiaan climbing	Butterfly	Mmm… desert!

Beautiful sky	Top of the col	What a view!	Kings in France

A bad moment	Concentration	Climbing	Wet, wet, wet

Attention	Wine view	Another climb	View Notre Dame

Posted in Travel | 2 Comments »

Cogolin. South of France. Sitting on a little stairway, catching my breath after a long bike-ride. Waiting for water and the key to the apartment. A sweet little old lady passes me for the 3rd time in 5 minutes. The small talk is similar each time around:
“Oh, pardon.” And I make way.
“Merci.”
“De rien!”
But this time she carries a pretty flower and I can’t help myself:
“Ah! Un belle fleur!” :-)
“Oui, oui, une très belle fleur!” [or something with that meaning, just in much more fluent French, followed by the gesture to actually give the rose to me!]
“Mais non, fleur pour madame et mademoiselle, pas de homme!”
She must have been puzzled by my limited knowledge of the French language and insisted again. Together with wild gestures I could make myself a bit more understandable with:
“Belle fleur pour toi, pour femme!”
She smiled and started explaining that in France women can give men flowers as well! Very normal. My “Aha, I didn’t know that” must have been a challenge for her:
“Aha, je ne pas comprendre …. que…”
Her smile just got bigger when she again stated it was a normal thing in France for women to give flowers to men. I finished on a high:
“Pas de normal dans Hollande. Dans Hollande belle fleur et pour belle femme…. pour toi!”
She laughed, thanked me and took off again! :-)

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »