Sun, party, classes

Hallo! Here I am once again after a small break of blogging. I have been so busy with all this exploring and cycling, plus the weather has been really good so I needed to take advantage of that now that I still can.

Last week was full of new and interesting things! Last Sunday my friend invited me to a techno festival and I wasn't quite sure whether I was going to totally fit in...those of you who know me in real life techno and me just don't really get along that well. To my surprise though I had a good time and most of it was thanks to my awesome company! Now I can check out "Going to a techno party" off my list.

 Talking with my super tall Dutch friend, Geert and getting blind with the sun in my eyes

Some happy faces!

I also had my first Dutch lesson last Monday (which means that today is my second class) and I must say that my pronunciation is quite crappy. The whole week I have been trying to learn all these new words and I still feel like I forget them immediately! It's so different from the languages I already speak that it's going to be quite a challenge, but what the hell, I will learn it eventually! At least my life might get a bit easier with my communication with the kids at home.

 I also had my first art class on Saturday at the Rietveld Academie. I had the interview on Friday where they selected people and I was one of the lucky ones. The interviewer kind of disliked my drawings but she liked me so she let me in. I must say that showing my art for the first time to someone with a lot more experience in the field, was a very vulnerable moment for me and getting kind of harshly criticized, wasn't my best moment of the week. I guess it's something that I need to get used to.

I am also lucky to have found another salsa lover Laura and we have been going dancing together the last couple of times. My body is now complaining because of all the dancing and my feet are definitely suffering a bit, but it's good to be back on the dance floor showing off my super sexy moves again.

exploring the city with Laura 

The family is now coming back from their trip in Oslo and I need to be creative and cook something...I'm out of ideas! D:

ps. One of the many strange things I discovered in Holland: Why do they sell only carbonated ice tea? Real ice tea has no bubbles!

And with that last strange fact I end my post. Have a nice evening and greetings from Amsterdam!

Karoliina

Weekend fun and apple mousse

 Ahoy! Here we are once again in beautiful Amsterdam! After a splendid weekend I started my week with a cold and chicken soup...yey!
 The weekend included sitting in vondelpark with the other aupair girls, walking around the city, eating, eating, eating, drinking beer and listening to jazz. The weather wasn't the best on Saturday but that didn't stop us from having a good time.

 Sitting in museumplein

 Some enthusiastic street musicians

Sitting by the canal! Another one of my shoe selfies...

I know that everytime you people wonder what I always take with me and my bags are so big all the time. First of all my camera takes a lot of space and second I'm a woman. I guess I don't need to explain myself further.

 It would be cool to try that sometime!

 Last but not least Jazzz!

 

Today I tried to impress the family with my baking skills and as it always happens the one time that you want things to go right everything goes wrong. I decided to make an apple pie and everything was going well until the pie got into the oven and the whole thing just turned into a strange apple mess. In the end we had to sieve the extra butter from the "pie" and ate it as apple mousse. The kids seemed to love it, but for me it was a total failure...

Funny fact is that I forgot to write on the recepy the flour and of course the whole thing fell apart without it! Maybe next time I remember that tiny little detail...

 

Time to rest!

Groetjes

 

Karoliina

Op de fiets

Hello lovely people!
The last week has been so hectic that I feel like I have missed days or something. Even though the beginning was quite difficult now things are getting better. On the weekend I also got to meet other aupair girls and it was good to be around people who understand your situation. Even though it feels kind of funny that we talked about how many children we "have". I understand now how difficult it is to raise children. Not an easy task I would say and I respect even more the hard work my parents had to do back then.

Like a proper tourist I had to get a picture with Iamsterdam

On Monday I also had my first proper day here which means that I stayed the whole day with the little one, picked the other two from school, bought groceries,cleaned and cooked. I feel like such a survivor! Also I know now that whenever the little one has a bad mood I put some music on and immediately the crying stops. God bless youtube!

From one thing to another I still need to get used to the cycling culture here. I see all this men with their business suits and the women with their 12 inch high heels cycling to work and it's a bit funny to look at. Here you are kind of a fool if you take the car because it's faster to go by bike and you don't need to wait in the traffic. Personally I still find it difficult to understand how bikes move here. What about the lights?? Which lights are for bikes? When it turns red for the cars do I need to stop or can I go with the green light which is for the pedestrians? And then there are seperate lights for bikes but they are not everywhere! Meeeh...I am confused! No big deal that I got almost hit by a car the other day...ooops! I don't know what I should be more afraid of, the cars or the bikes that come like crazy from every direction possible! Now I am trying to ride this monster they call bakfiets. Maybe by the end of the year I will know how to carry three children, groceries and maybe some extra children's bikes in there...or not!

Even thoug I like almost everything here there are two main things that kind of bother/surprise me:
1. No warm lunch during the day. Which means that basically they just have some sandwiches and then a big warm meal at 6 o'clock. The amount of bread they eat here is incredible. Breakfast: Bread, Lunch: Bread, Snack: Bread. There are so many wonderful things people can eat...why bread?
2. Paying for the toilets when you go to a bar. Yesterday I went salsa dancing and this lady started yelling at me because I didn't pay her for the toilet...which I didn't even use as I wanted to wash my hands. She wanted me to go tell her first what I wanted to do in the toilet and then asked for money which I refused to give. Does it cost more if I do something more than peeing? I don't get it. This system is just weird!

As promised I got a few pictures with my new pink bike! I was thinking to paint it something less bright but now that I think about it, a pink bike shall remain pink! Besides it stands out of the crowd. Especially the quote on the side "magic arrow" makes it even more magical haha



Have a nice day!

 

Karoliina