Skiing, Paris and Amsterdam Housewarming

Fresh Swiss Snow, Beautiful Paris in Spring & Amazing Amsterdam by Night

Over the past months I have traveled to Zurich a couple of times for work. One of these trips happened to include a weekend and since Marc Frencken was working as a ski teacher less than 100km from there (in Engelberg) I decided to pay him a visit and do some skiing. It was great! Both seeing him again and skiing felt very good. The weather wasn't optimal, but nevertheless I got quite a bit of skiing done :-)



Since Shosh lives in Holland for over a year-and-a-half now and she still had not been to Paris, something seemed to be wrong... So "close" to Paris and not visiting..? Luckily we know a couple of awesome people that live in Paris (Sander & Susan) and that had no problem being our hosts. And what a hosts... they were fantastic!! The first night we went out for some real French food and the morning after they spoiled us with fresh croissants and champagne!

The rest of the weekend we spend doing all the touristy stuff like checking out some of Paris's many bridges.

Since they live smack in the middle of Paris we could do all sightseeing on foot. I think we visited all of the famous places and had a wonderful time.

All together now... sniffing up some culture "in front of" the Louvre ;-)

Be careful of the water...

Ending the day at the Notre Dame and a "biertje" on a terrace!

You can't visit Paris without going to see the real Moulin Rouge!!

The last bit... Sacre Coeur and Centre Pompidou.

Two weeks later we also finally had the Housewarming of our new crib in Amsterdam. It is an awesome place - a former mental health institute - and it is huge!!! Therefore we had no problem hosting over 60 people just in the kitchen area ;-)

More to come as Spring finally arrived in the Netherlands... :-)

Cheerio,
Ruudje

Serre Chevalier

Sun, snow, beer and friends :-)

My return from Asia didn't quite go as planned. The flight from Jakarta to London Gatwick was good, but then for some reason I decided to walk to the wrong train station and buy a ticket for the wrong train... Before figuring out that I did something incredibly stupid I was to late to catch my flight from London Stansted to Eindhoven. Luckily the next flight left the day after at 6.55 PM, providing me with enough time to catch the bus that would bring me (and Mark, Sven and Erwin) to our skiing destination (Briancon, Serre Chevalier).

The trip was once again amazing!! The first few days were hot, really really hot! So during our lunch breaks we could sit/stand on our balcony in our bare chest!! Just great!



Of course we also did a "little" bit of partying!! The party wasn't as good as last year... our hostess was just boring!! That meant we had to make our own party and when you have a notebook, lots of music, some speakers, lots of beer and us... a party is guaranteed :-)





The fourth day it started snowing and that made the skiing absolutely fabulous! Deep powder snow always ensures great fun on and off the slopes! The ski lessons we took this year only increased the fun due to the very nice people in our group (Karin a.k.a. Kaatje and Gert a.k.a Gerard or G-G) and our teacher Marc.





The last days the weather once again was sunny and hot, so Mark and I "abused" the situation and got really drunk on the slope drinking hot red wine :-) once again bare chested... And for some reason (probably because we looked so damn hot...) we got a round of free wine from the waitress haha!



Certainly something we should do again and again and again :-)

Au revoir,
Ruud

St. Jean d' Arves

Bonjour!!!

Mwahahaha, schaam me diep… tis gelukkig pas iets meer dan een dikke maand dat ik hier nog eens iets heb neergeknald. Er is wel vanalles gebeurd, maar om daar nou alles van op het web te zetten is ook weer wat overdreven.
Korte samenvatting zal wel volstaan:
*** Kerst was erg gezellig ***
*** Oud op nieuw was heel erg gaar en zeker net zo gezellig ***
*** De eerste 2 weken van het nieuwe jaren waren standaard zonder speciale dingen ***
*** Afgelopen week was geweldig!! Skivakantie met de Boys in de Franse Alpjes :-) ***

Nu weer druk bezig met de stage en verder gewoon rustig doorleven hè… Met Inge gaat ie ook super en heb dus eigenlijk niks te klagen!! Beterzzzz!! Enige “minpuntje” is dat er (nog) geen nieuwe spannende dingen op het programma staan… misschien dat iemand zich geroepen voelt om daar verandering in te brengen………..

Hou van jullie allemaal
Ruudje