August 2003

Well, as you know, we have now moved into our new place in Belgium. We have been living in the bad side and now we finally got the keys to the other house of ours. The exchange was Friday before last. Last Friday we started stripping the wallpaper. Can I just say, I HATE WALLPAPER!!! There, now that feels a little better There was wallpaper on every wall of the house except the spare room, toilet, and bathroom. It was all old and falling off in places plus wallpaper does definitely not go with the cats, so it HAD to go. We hired a steamer and have ploughed our way through it. Although Hans mostly uses the steamer. I find it cleaner to not use the steamer and have sticky wet bits everywhere so I just work away at the walls that come off reasonably easy. And the lower parts of the walls. We finally finished stripping all the wallpaper yesterday and today had a rest day. Then it will be time to wash the walls and then paint, painting is the fun part.

Apart from working on the house we havent done a real lot of other stuff just lately. Last weekend we had Hans' family come to see the new house And one night we went off to the Tilburg Kermis. Every summer here, every little tiny town to every big city has its own kermis (fair). Sort of just like the annual shows over there in Oz. But these fairs are just a side show alley and they wind their way through the main streets of the town, village, or city. There is also no admittance. The Tilburg Kermis is the largest in Holland and one of the largest in Europe. It is so strange seeing a flume ride, roller coaster, or bungee type ride just sitting there in the street, right outside somebody's front door There is also poker machines, fair type foods, fairy floss, etc, etc, etc. The atmosphere is fabulous. We just go for a look around though, everything is so expensive, but I never leave without my huge bag of suiker spin (fairy floss/cotton candy). I only got the second largest size this year, the turbo size I think I really should have got the mega size

Before the summer vacation we also went to a few animal parks. We went to the drive through safari park called Beekse Burgen and the amazing zoo called Ouwehand Zoo where they have what they call the Berenbos (Bear Forest). This is where they keep bears rescued which used to be in Russian circuses or dancing bears from Greece and Turkey, etc. Some of them are completely blind from the bad treatment they used to receive. One of the bears there caught my eye, he was found in a small cage and nearly starved to death behind a demolished bar in Bosnia where he used to perform for the patrons. I just loved this place and the work they do. I think it is absolutely marvelous and am now enclosing a little info about the place:

"All over the world, bears are mistreated and killed for money or the entertainment of people. Furthermore, people are a threat to the bear's natural habitat and the bear is threatened with extinction. In order to act against all this, Alertis (before: International Bear Foundation) was established in 1993 on the initiative of Ouwehand Zoo in Rhenen, the Netherlands. From september 2002 IBF started a collaboration with Ouwehand Conservation Fund. International Bear Foundation has therefore changed its name into Alertis - fund for bear and nature conservation. Alertis is engaged with the conservation of the eight bear species and of the other animal species living in the same habitat.

Report mistreatment of bears!!!Over the last years Alertis receives many calls about bears in distress. There is not always a way of helping these bears, but it is good to keep record of these abuses. That is where we can use your help. Inform us when you think bears are being mistreated. This may concern bears in cirusses, smalle enclosures, dancing bears, etc. We would Like to know who the owner of the bear is, where the bears lives and the number of bears involved. We would also welcome pictures."

Well, apart from those few outings, we are keeping pretty close to home during the summer vacations over here. It is too hot and everything is sooooooooooo crowded. And besides, we do have an awful lot of work to do.........

We did get our resident permits for Belgium :) First one is for 5 months and the next is for 5 years. And they only cost us 4 euro each! And I didnt have to deal with any foreign police or immigration or anything seeing as we have a registered partnership. It was all done through the Gemeente huis and as soon as they had all the documents which was a HUGE list including police reports from our local police in Holland saying we were of good behaviour, and my the marriage certificate of my first wedding in Australia? then we got our permits done over the counter while we waited. Boy that was sooooooo easy.

I suppose you want to know, too, how the registered partnership/marriage thingy went. We are basically married now. I will explain a little about the registered partnership in Holland. It was brought in about 3 or 4 years ago and it is basically a marriage in every way. There is only 1 difference between a registered partnership and marriage, if children are involved then they dont automatically take the fathers name with a partnership. That is the sole difference. Legally, there is absolutely no difference at all. And when we later marry, there is normally no ceremony or anything, it is just a little paperwork to change it over.
Also in May, I got to have a girls weekend away and man was it fantastic!!! Hans had scheduled one of his guys motorcycle weekends that he goes on with a couple of mates once or twice a year and this year they headed over to Sauerland in Germany with all its beautiful national parks. So a couple of girlfriends and I decided we would also take off for the weekend Tera, Amanda and myself had all been dying to see Friesland. One of the 2 norther most Provinces (States) of Holland. However, no matter what we did, our guys were definitely NOT interested in Friesland and would tell us there were only cows there Hans took off with his mates on the Friday morning and then us girls left on the Saturday morning. We went to the afsluitdijk which is this 30km land bridge (dijk). It used to be all sea but they built the dijk which made one side of it a giant lake. There is a place to stop along it and see the info on building, a coffee shop, and a souvenir shop. Then we went to this castle in a little town. Not a real castle as you would think, more like a old mansion, it did have a tower though. Friesland is really pretty and they speak a different language although it is part of Holland. They speak Fresian and yep, it does have a lot of Fresian cows there. The language sounds really weird, Amanda said it sounded like German a little. It is the very north west province (state) of Holland where all those islands up north are too. Then it was on to the zeehond creche (seal creche/hospital/nursery). That was really nice. It was just over the border of Friesland in the province of Groningen. Groningen is the north east province. We also went to have a look at the Wadden Sea which is a sea but at low tide it dries up and you can walk to the islands and everything. The seals all lie there at low tide too. Unfortunately the tide was in while we were there. We also stopped at a candle making factory and windmill and had dinner in a pancake place. On our way back to Jolynn's for the night, we stopped at the town where Amanda's grandma was born, she was born in Friesland but now lives in Canada and Amanda grew up in Brisbane.We had a great time at Jolynn's and sat up till 3am chatting. Then on Sunday we went to Bataviastad which is about a half hour from Jolynn's. That is an outlet mall. We didnt go to see the Batavia tall ship there as we were told it is REALLY expensive. Oh well, maybe another time. The Batavia is a tall ship replica of the original which sunk off the Western Australia coast in the 1600’s. We had lunch there, dropped Jolynn at home and started to home ourselves about 2.30 in the afternoon. I dropped the girls off in the centre of Eindhoven and we had coffee and drinks at a cafe there before we all split up and headed different directions. It was a really great weekend. I did a hell of a lot of driving though, about 1000km in the 2 days which definitely helped ease some of the nerves I still had about driving here.
Well that is pretty well all the news now! But I will tell you a bit about the dreadful heat wave we have been having here. It has been one of the hottest summers over here and really hot!!! England recorded its hottest ever temperature on record on Sunday at 38degrees. And in our little town of Kleine Brogel there is an international air force base so they have recordings for Belgium there, and a few days ago it was the hottest day for Kleine Brogel since they started recording in 1952. It was 37.7 degrees and a real stinker! And over here nothing is air conditioned. Everywhere has heating but nowhere, not even cafes, shops, shopping malls, businesses or anything, have air conditioning. I did discover the supermarket I went to today actually had it and boy was it a relief! But generally there isnt any. And people mostly stay home when the heat is like this so the shops were almost deserted on Saturday when I went out. It has been an awful summer this year, especially when I think back to my first summer here and I was sitting inside with a jumper on and the central heating on in the middle of summer. Well I am defnitely acclimatised now and I do not like this heat one bit! Railways are disrupted because of buckling lines, droughts are severe in Italy and elsewhere, fires are raging in several countries, glaciers are melting extremely fast in Switzerland, and water supplies from rivers are dangerously low. There is also a big lack of power in many parts of Europe because the power stations run by rivers cant operate because the rivers are too low or the power stations are affected by the heat. That is the case with some nuclear power stations that have had to close down because the heat is making them too hot and dangerous. It sure is pretty bad! And for the tour de France cyclists, the melting tarmac on the roads caused some horrible accidents. We have 2 standing fans and they are going pretty well around the clock.