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

Indian Fairytale

A wedding in Delhi, the Taj Mahal, a camel safari and beautiful forts... just to name some of the highlight of our India trip

Saturday 6 Feb we, being Shosh, Piggy, Bas (a friend and colleague)and myself took off from Schiphol Airport for our two week trip through India. After an uneventful, but comfortable flight with Turkish Airlines we arrived at around 4.30 AM in Delhi (on Sunday morning). The first day we chilled out and walked around the city to get acquainted with the Indian way of life. One of the first things we did in Delhi was leaving it to go to Agra. We went there by train early Monday morning. The highlight was, of course, the Taj Mahal but also the Red Fort and the food were well worth the visit... Check out our meter long "dosa" :-)


On Tuesday we had the wedding of a friend of ours. The wedding of Anuj and Nidhi took place over two evenings and we were told we needed to wear traditional Indian clothes. So Bas and I went for the "Kurta Pajama" and Shosh for the Saree. Pranav, another Indian friend who I met during the IIGP, showed us where to get these and also took us sightseeing Delhi. After a successful shopping spree we looked awesome!! The fun thing, however, was that we were the only men dressed like that. All Indian men were simply wearing suits. Oh well, we had a great time.




On Thursday morning we met up with the driver we had hired for the next ten days. He did not speak a word of English and our Hindi wasn't very good either. Luckily we still managed to get everywhere we wanted to go, but it took some effort... Our first stop was in Bikaner. Here we did our camel safari through the desert: two days including spending a night camping under the stars. It was great!! And we also learned that when a camel misbehaves you simply scream "TAKKIE" and it will stop... ;-)

Piggy loved the dessert as well!

The next two days we spent in Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. Both are amazing towns with spectacular forts and well worth a visit.

Opium, good for sex...



I think that all these forts were the biggest surprise for me. I never expected there to be so many of them and in such a "good" state. But due to the old trading routes that ran through the desert here, there was a need for good defense and that is exactly what these massive forts offered.

On the way to Udaipur we stopped at Ranakpur (a famous Jain temple), met some great local farmers and checked out Kumbalgarh, an old fort with a 36km long wall.


In Udaipur we took some cooking lessons and did a boat ride on the lake to get a nice view of the Lake Palace.

On the way to Jaipur we stopped at Chittorgarh, a huge deserted fortress. Still amazing to think that all these places once were in use and must have looked incredible. Now it is fun but not that spectacular (unlike what the Lonely Planet claims...)

Our last stop was in Jaipur. But none of us especially liked the city. We did climb up to a fort for a view of the city and a well-deserved cold beer, which was simply awesome.
And last but not least a picture of our driver with us and our relaxed Toyota Innova

I loved the vacation, but for us it is clear we should not go to Asia anymore for the cultural experience. We have simply seen too much of it. Also we are a bit done with seeing cities, so wherever we go next time it will not be in Asia and it will involve a lot more nature!!!

Other great news is that we moved to Amsterdam last weekend and that I am skiing in Engelberg (Switzerland) this weekend. But more on that next time.

Groetjes,
Ruud, Shosh, Bas & Piggy

Christmas & Bachelor Party

Nice Christmas dinners, presents and a bit later an awesome bachelor party...

For the first time since 1981 (the year I was born) we had a white Christmas in Holland again. So we didn't do anything except sit inside and eat, drink and laugh with family. Oh yeah, and of course exchange presents :-)



We all drew tickets and had to keep secret for each other who our gift persons were. For the person you had you had to make a fun surprise and if you wanted a poem. It was a lot of fun to see the different surprises everyone came up with. Once again a very nice Christmas!

As you might know Shosh and I'll be heading to India soon to have nice vacation, but also to attend a friend's wedding. Last weekend we sneakily organized a bachelor party for him in Amsterdam. Preparing it was already great fun and the night itself was even better. He, being Indian, has one favorite Dutch word: zakje (meaning so much as: little sack; which is often used to refer to your "nut sack"). He got it from a great sketch from comedian John Fealy who is describing the experience of shopping at Holland's most famous supermarket, the Albert Heijn. If you want to check it out, the "zakje" part starts at 2.56 (but the rest is awesome as well). Enjoy!

So one of the thing I made for him was his very own zakje :-) with balls that are squishy and actually lit up when shaken! How much fun is that... If you enlarge the picture below and look at the obvious place you can see them in action :-)

He also had to perform a whole list of challenges and he got pretty far.

Some pics are decent enough to put on this blog, the rest will be kept in a safe place ;-)


That's it. Coming two weeks will be used work wise to prepare for the eventual split of ING and privately to prep ourselves for our India trip!!!

Cheerio,
Ruudje