AN UNCONVENTIONAL CHRISTMAS

Christmas day this year was not spent with my family. It wasn't spent basking in the summery sun and It wasn't spent at a beautiful wine farm in the Cape.

 

A visit from an Australian friend in Amsterdam was how much of Christmas day was spent. We drank far too much red wine, frolicked around in the forests, and made French toast for lunch.   we spoke about our futures in Holland , and whether or not we wanted to stay. We reminisced about memories of our friends, family and loved ones back home. We spoke Dutch, and then reverted back to English. We smoked cigarettes and lay in another's arms. It was a simple day

 

Christmas dinner was held at a good friend in my village, who so happened to be a chef. We sipped on onion soup for starters and a lightly dressed spinach salad with goats cheese and walnuts. There was meat too. Steak dressed with a creamy mushroom sauce and oozing medium rare blood on the dish. We played games, exchanged secrets, truths and dares and on my very short-lived drunk bike ride home, I couldn't help but to indulge in the thought that despite it being a somewhat unconventional Christmas , It may very well have been one of the most memorable..

 

COUCHSURFING IN BELGIUM

 

As I attempt to write about the past weekend spent Couchsurfing in Belgium, my fingers linger at each letter on the keypad. An experience I will most likely not forget and one I find hard translating into words.

 

Our Eurolines bus left from Utrecht station at exactly 09H00, leaving us with the long road to Belguim ahead of us. Michelle and I occasionally napped on each others shoulders, ate ginger biscuits and dreamily stared out the window. On our arrival in Bruges, we spent the remainder of the afternoon doing what one does best in Belgium, drink beer of course , followed by a quick train trip to Oostende where we could be staying the for the weekend with our couch surfing host, Yannick.

 

We drank copious amounts of beers whilst conversing about Africa, the history of Oostende, and a dismal attempt at his arcade games. As the night faded away, I fell asleep watching the Jungle book whilst Michelle and Yannick became better acquainted.

 

The best thing about Saturday was the chance to sleep in and laze about. We munched on a toasted 'stokbrood' filling our hungry belly's, followed by Yannicks historic tour of the war trenches on the coast and a stroll on the beach. When our time came to leave on Sunday, I felt I had witnessed two soul mates having to say goodbye. I'm quite a big cynic of love and anything 'relationshippy' and would rather stick a pencil in my eye, but these two were something else...

IT'S SUNNY OUT

Today was fridged, so much so that all the leaves on the ground had a thick layer of frost (a close resemblance to snow in my opinion). Despite the crisp, cold temperature, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and yes, the sun was out too. This was all the more of an excuse to bike to Doorn, the town next door to my own, to run a few errands and of course,explore. On the outskirts of Doorn are large green grassy pastures with cows, big wooden barns and tree lined streets. My mother suggested I roll up my sleeves and absorb some vitamin D when the sun shines, but in all honesty, it was way too cold to even take my gloves off. I suppose I will just have to pop some vitamin pills for the next couple of months since there is no way my bare skin will be able to withstand these temperatures. I happily biked back to town with Fiona Apple softly playing in my ear, and feeling somewhat happy and content at the days outcome.

 

*Due to the untimely death of my cell phone, I have had to make the temporary change of using a 2 year old iphone and its camera, hence the disgustingly poor quality of the photos. The landscapes and the fact that the sun is shining in all photos kind of makes up for  it though...

 

KNITTED BRIDGE

 

My first encounter with the knitted bridge in the Westerkade area of Utrecht was actually in the first few weeks of my new life in The Netherlands. I never seemed to have gotten around to writing about it, which is somewhat odd since I was in complete love when I accidentally stumbled upon it. The correct term for the whole concept  behind the knitted bridge would in actual fact be 'urban knitting'. This one in particular has the wishes for the community written down on squares of fabric by the children of the Westerkade.

 

THE SECRET LIFE OF AN AU PAIR

 

I  am quite perplexed as to why I titled this post  the 'secret ' of an au pair, when really it's not.

Au pairing is a strange thing to describe, and although I swore Id keep this blog as tastefull as possible regarding travel and design, I cant seem to avoid this topic.

 

Some days I only deal with the 3 boys I look after for a mere hour, yet I find myself crawling back into bed of exhaustion afterwards. This is where the 'lazy' part of being an au pair comes into play. After taking numerous naps in a day, what happens after mostly entails sitting in bed on the internet where I hound all my social media sites and a few travel blogs along the way. Yeah sure I do a post here and there but for the most part I have become extremely lazy!

 

Along with being lazy, comes the constant habit of eating. Because I am in the house on a pretty much 24/7 basis, I find myself eating even when I'm not hungry, be it biscuits or broccoli. I find comfort in staying In my tracksuit pants all day and can't even be bothered on trying on my pair of favourite jeans I brought along in fear of knowing they will most likely not fit anymore.

 

Its very easy to fall into the trap of being lazy whilst being an au pair, but as a pulled myself out of bed to do the grocery shopping today, I passed an old man crossing the road wearing his wooden clogs. All I could do was smile and tell myself that only such a sight would be seen in Holland. I most certainly wouldn't have seen that from staying in my bed all day...

 

UNPLANNED AVDENTURE

For the most part, my weekend consisted of laying in bed, watching children's films and getting up every now to take a bathroom break. On the odd occasion, when Michelle and my nicotine cravings set in, we would wander in the forest and happily smoke cigarettes while sharing stories of friends in South Africa. We reminisced about both friendships and relationships that had come and gone and the people we missed back home. We lazed in bed till 12 each morning and only got our day started by 1.Today we ventured out of Driebergen on our bikes on what we regarded as somewhat of an ' unplanned adventure'. The weather was crisp and cold and we biked along golden tree lined roads whilst autumn leaves fell to the ground. We passed green pastures with cows and goats grazing and admired a few castles along the way. When the cold got the better of us and could no longer feel our frosted fingertips, we biked back home, snuk into our central heated rooms and crept under our fleecy covers.

Its been an odd experience the change of seasons in Holland whilst everyone back in South Africa is basking in the thirty six degree sun and sipping on summer cocktails.



MOOSHED AND MASHED

Winter is fast approaching us here and Holland, and with that comes the age old Dutch Tradition of  'Stamppot'. What this can roughly be translated to it 'mashed pot' where potatoes are boiled and mashed followed by adding fine chopped up vegetables and letting that soften in the mix. Once the meal is dished up on a plate, slices of smoked sausage or 'rookworst' are placed ontop and sprinkled with bacon. What I find somewhat bizarre is that some families eat this dish with 'appelmous' or apple pure' on the side as if its some sort of desert. It is a very simple dish that the Dutch take pride in and I have found myself digging in for seconds, minus the appelmous thank you very much.

Although the basis of any stamppot is potatoes, almost any vegetable can be added as a filler. Carrots and sauerkraut are a favourite in my household, as is andijvie (a green leafy vegetable similar to lettuce)and kool (a sort of kale like vegetable). The first few times I ate this dish, I could barely stand the fact that there was almost no seasoning and flavour and most of all  no SALT. However, the more I began to eat this dish the way the Dutch do, I started to realise the 'rookworst' and 'spekjies' (bacon) was so salty itself, that they didn't bother to season the rest of the dish, quite ingenious if you ask me.

STUFF ON BREAD

When one first hears 'stuff on bread' you might conjure up images of tomatoes, cheese, marmite for us south Africans, or jam. For the Dutch, this image is slightly warped. Hagelslag and muisjes are such commonalities for a topping, it would be odd if someone didn't have it. Within the first month or so of being here I thought this tradition was a complete outrage. I just didn't get how smearing butter on bread and then sprinkling it not so generously was seen as tasty and nutritious.

 

What I found even stranger was that there were hundreds, if not thousands of varieties of the stuff.

 

Muisjes

Muisjes translates into 'mice'. Yes, mice, a strange thing to call a topping (strange is becoming the operative word in so many of my posts it seems). The story behind its name is in actual fact due each sugar coated aniseed having a small string, resembling the tail of a mouse. I never knew what these kernel type things tasted like before I came to Holland, but to all of you out there who don't know, its a crunchy liquorice flavour.

Gestampde Muisjes

This is pretty much the same as above, but its crushed into a powdery form. I don't have much of an opinion on it, excepts that the Dutch love it just as much as every other topping.

 

Anijs Muisjes

These look like white mouse droppings and also taste like liquorice. As far as I know, their ingredients consists of sugar, and sugar. Like I said a really 'nutritious' snack.

Chocolade Hageslag

This is probably one of my favourite toppings and I will disclose why. When I was a young girl my mom would always buy the chocolate sprinkles for cakes and keep them in our pantry. Having the sweet tooth I do, I naturally hunted them down and gobbled them up in one go (I'm shocked I wasn't obese as a child). I was scolded for this as they were meant for cake decorating and not for my enjoyment. You can just imagine how my inner child's sweet tooth went completely bonkers and self discipline out the window when I heard that they have this on their bread as a topping for general daytime meals. In the past month I have started to love the stuff and more often than none I find myself spreading chocopasta on a slice of bread and generously sprinkling chocolate hagelslag on top. I would say it has taken priority  on my list of guilty pleasures.

 

MISTER POTATO HEAD

 

The Dutch like their potatoes. No.. that cant be right, let me rephrase. The Dutch love their potatoes, be it boiled, steamed mashed or baked (which is actually pan fried, they seem to call it something its not). Regardless in which cooked form this vegetable takes, the Dutch can't seem to get enough of it.

 

In preparing dinner the other evening, I spontaneously decided to spice things up (excuse the irony Im uing) and grill potato wedges, something I was certain the family had never cooked before. Back home in South Africa my mom would make the most delicious assortment of grilled vegetables wedges consisting of butternut, potatoes, sweet potato and onions seasoned with all kinds of flavours and spices.  I thought I would spare my host family the shock of something that extreme and opted to use just the potato. I lightly doused them in olive oil and a weak sprinkling of rosemary (the Dutch way) before throwing the pan into the oven.

 

Whilst the wedges were happily grilling away, my host father returned home and asked what I was cooking for dinner, curiously pressing his nose against the glass of the oven. I beamed at my response of grilled potato wedges, when he turned and looked at me with the most confused and blank expression, merely responding 'why'? I couldn't quite comprehend why he questioned this, as if he was perfectly happy with eating bland, boiled and boring potato the same way day after day, week after week.

 

After serving the wedges to the boys and finally sitting down to the meal I had slaved over, I sneakily glanced over at the 3 boys and noticed they were devouring (more so than usual) these triangular shaped pieces of potato as if it were a piece of heaven. I relished in the brief moment of acknowledging my job here was done...

TAKE THE EDGE OFF THINGS

 

A South African friend of mine also residing in Holland, recently introduced me to this edgy and frivolous group that I found an extreme liking to. Skip and Die have a loose, raw sound and many of their sounds contain words in Afrikaans, Zulu, Spanish and Portuguese, think 'Die Antwoord' but kinda cooler in my opinion.  I  of course am going to check them out live at Tivoli in Utrecht on the 19th of December for a mere 13 Euros. Thins are going to get out of hand, what what!

 Taken from their website

 

' The group consists of

 Cata.Pirata // vocals / visuals
Gino Bombrini // guitar / percussion
Daniel Rose > string instruments (sitar/guitar/sas)
Jori Collignon > electronica / keys / FX

 

 

What started as a collaboration between South African artist Catarina Aimée Dahms (aka Cata.Pirata) and Dutch producer Jori Collignon (C-Mon & Kypski, Nobody Beats The Drum) has now grown into a full-fledged live band. '

 

 

 

HELLO BARCELONA : PART ONE



Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be writing about Barcelona, but here I am, blogging about what an amazing city it is and how it managed to steal my heart in only 5 days.

After waking up on the morning of Friday the 18th of October and preparing the boys' breakfasts and school lunches, I did a bit of last minute packing into the smallest hand luggage bag ever. Iv always travelled with a substantial amount of clothes, so this was something I had to get used to. The weather forecasts for Spain read in the mid twenties, so in I packed skimpy shorts and dresses, this made the process a lot easier as these don't take up too much space. Myself and the girls took the train to Eindhoven, and from there the bus to the airport which is so small in size it only has 1 terminal. We checked in, took toilet breaks in turns and finally had a chance to sit down and relax before our flight. A friendly girl, Derya, sat down by the table next to us and we ended up striking a conversation with her, she too was headed off to Barcelona. Lone behold, she ended up sitting next to me on the flight and we spoke about South Africa, Sweden  and listened to Swedish rap.

As we touched down, I could already start to feel the heat from outside. We yanked our hand luggage out the compartments as fast as we could and sped into the Spanish Sun. We purchased our bus tickets into Barcelona and because I couldn't resist the heat in long pants anymore, I sneakily changed into my short shorts on the bus.  We exchanged numbers and full names with Derya before she headed off into the city to meet her boyfriend. From there it was our turn. I must admit, we got slightly lost and had to ask for directions in a nearby café' only to find out we were a mere block away from our hostel.

We waltzed into The Black Swan Hostel only to be greeted by the front desk girl demanding us to get our bags out the way. I wont lie when I say she was not the happiest clam I have come across. Regardless, she appointed us to room 110.

We explored the streets of Barcelona for what seemed like a good 3 hours when our hunger pains got the better of us. In true Spanish tradition, we sipped on tall glasses of sangria at Maka Maka, whilst conversing with the Australian and South African lads sitting beside us.

We managed to muster up enough energy to traipse home and slumped into our lumpy hostel mattresses, completely exhausted from all the traveling our first day had presented.

RISE AND FALL

I awoke to a late Saturday morning and jumped out of bed to set out on my journey to Amsterdam for the weekend, yet again. Driebergen to Utrecht, and Utrecht Centraal to Amstel station, a mere block away from Basti's flat. On arrival we went to a local street market for fresh orange juice and a bite to eat followed by coffee at the cafe' we seem to have made our regular spot on my Amsterdam weekend stays in the city. Basti and I speak about a lot of things, mostly relationships, people and generally just wanting to be happy. He's cool like that.

Later on in the day I met up with Marie, a South African Friend who I had met a few months ago in SA through a mutual friend we shared. Our initial plan of visiting the Rijks museum was short lived once our eyes set sight on the queue.

Instead we opted to walk through Vondel park and catch up. The weather had cleared up quite nicely with sunny skies all around. We wandered through the red light disctrict and Dam square and I even spotted  the Old Amsterdam cheese store that I had seen so much about on design blogs and magazines.

We also may have set foot inside a coffee shop or two, as one does in Amsterdam. This stopover lasted longer than Marie and I anticipated. We ended up sitting on a few steps just watching people walk by for hours. We eventually set out to a friends place via tram. I was completely freaked out at this thought. I had never taken one before and in all honesty felt claustrophobic in the people moving machine. A lot of deep breaths were taken, but we prevailed and after what felt like 2 hours of walking around and taking one tram to the next we were greeted with open arms by my good old friend Reinoud.

The rest of the night was followed by drinks at Bar Nel and shocking service at Café de Fles. Their food however was incredible, as expensive as it was. Marie and I shared the "Geitenkaas salade" (goats cheese salad) which had goats cheese wrapped up in phyllo pastry on a bed of leaves with a dash of balsamic vinegar, fresh berries and some sort of caramelised nut shard thing ( a whopping 14 Euros= 150 ZAR), It was tastebud heaven and although I paid an arm and a leg for a salad, I was pretty pleased the meal didn't involve any bread or potatoes!

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Sunday was by far the most miserable day. It rained, and rained and rained, and it just didn't stop, I had left my bike outside the Rijks museum the previous day and had been putting off collecting by telling myself  I'd go when it stopped raining, It didn't. Resulting in facing my fear of taking the tram to the museum and biking back in rain and wind. It took me the entire day to convince myself to go and do such a meagre task. Sometimes the rainy weather here can make you the laziest person in the world. To justify this, as I write this post I am lying in bed whilst it rains quite severely outside...