I like to move it move it

Yes I've been away for loooooong.. That's because after the 20 hour flight+transit back to Brisbane, I got straight back into work at the daycare, moved out of my old place, got more busy with long days at the day care, and moved into the new place with Jerrine, which is, by the way, a lovely, warm-looking (not feeling), quaint Queenslander near school!

The new closeness to school still gets me so excited that I still squeal when we approach the house, knowing that I need not crawl up the horrible Carmody Hill or navigate through the meandering bends anymore! For those of you that aren't aware, a queenslander is basically an ang morh atap house (all the wood and stilts without the atap). The place had previously been flooded to the top of the windows, and thus received a full renovation and refurbishing, which results it a very very very professional, very shiny and reflective timber floor! The toilet is AMAZING, with self-cleaning shower screens which apparently allow you to use it without ever having soap scum/water marks!

I think both of us have never been so happy and satisfied with a house and it's providings. The owner is really a sweet old man, like the grand dad I never had really.. He's quite stern and anal about his house, but sooo helpful and friendly. If only all owners were like that

Anyways, alas I'm here writing this in the school library because

1) We have no internet, as usual.
2) I stupidly forgot to bring my keys and my housemate is out till late.
3) I even more stupidly forgot to bring my phone. so, which is the stupidestest??? ?

I suppose this means I get the chance to finally sit down and update my blog about something going on, although I am sad to not be able to put up photos. There's so much I want to talk about! Belgium, Luxembourg, Zurich and Gaby and all the other random things I so like to talk about =))

Well I guess that will have to wait! till then,

Adios!

Nightmares

Last night was pretty epic. I woke up to loud huds on the window and thought that the world was ending. You know how you get jolted awake suddenly by noises or someone suddenly and the adrenaline just causes your stomach to churn and your muscles to just tense and function despite your mind still being in a semi-consious state? Well that's exactly how I felt last night when the storm woke the entire household up.

It wasn't just an ordinary storm, it was MASSIVE, and guess what, 

THERE WAS HAIL.

 The winds were amazingly crazy strong, and this picture from my sister's window doesn't give enough credit to the chaos and frightening tension brought by the storm. A piece of hail that fell on my mummy's toe was actually what woke her up as all our windows were wide open (It's pretty hot in Zurich now, and the nights feel very much like our Singapore nights).

So this piece of ice struck her awake and she quickly went around closing windows with my sister. It probably took me 30secs more before I woke up and realised what was going on.

 If you look closely you might notice the pattern of the rain on the road as the rhythmic winds gushed across the sky.

 I tried to take a picture of pieces of hail that fell into the balcony, but it didn't turn out too clear. Hail was actually dropping down the chimney too, but it was too dark and dusty for me to capture a shot. Plus my eyes were half closed and my brain half in dream land still.

 I'm not too sure if that white orb looking thing is hail. It might be since I don't see it on the floor now.

It took me a while to get back to sleep because of all that adrenaline and trauma, and when I did, I had the most frustrating dram (which I thus consider a nightmare because it didn't want to end). Basically I was ferrying 4 people home in my dream (this was in Brisbane of course), and after I drove almost all the way home, 1 girl told me she lived on the other side of the river, which meant I had to backtrack a whole way. The frustrating part came when I just couldn't get to the respective houses of the people to drop them off, meaning I was lost and jsut couldn't find my way. Which, in my opinion, is the most frustrating thing ever! I hate it when I get lost in real life, much more in my dream!

So bascially I woke up frustrated. Because I never got to send them home and they scolded me.

Thank goodness I have Ah Bee to lighten the days that I'm here! Honestly, motherhood is bloody tiring now that I see it up close and 24/7. Piang eh. I always thought I'd want to be a young mum, but now, I begin questioning if I'm ready to sacrifice and give up literally my whole life for someone who's just going to be a pooping, crying little monster who has her moments of cuteness and warmth. Don't get me wrong, it's not that my niece is a monster, but it's just that I never know if my kid will turn out to be one!

 We frequently try and let her self-entertain in her walker in order for everyone to get on with doing their own thing. But when she frets, she frets. I've watched the video of 'Elmo's Song' so many friggin times I think I'm going to have dreams of that soon!

 And Miss Poopy Pants doing a Poop!! She's SOOO adorable when she sits on the potty!

This was taken during one of the 'Elmos-Song-Consolation-Session' when my sister was in the shower and she was pining for her. Elmo seems to be the best substitute so far.

I'm so gonna be Gaby-sick when I leave for Brisbane!!!! =((

Amsterdam

I'm back in Zurich with the family! Feels good to be back to the familiarity (somewhat) of having dishes to wash, meals to cook and baby to sit. We came home to an awesome Bak Kut Teh meal filled not only with pork ribs but fish balls, wantons and dumplings. BAsically it was a very nice, processed meat meal which served as a good end to the holiday in Benelux!

According to the mother, Benelux refers to the country combination of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. I'll start with Netherlands, also known as Holland, also known as the underdog team that made it to the World Cup finals last year (WOOHOO). The only thing I actually remembered about them was that they had the awesomest colour combination.

Anyhows, what does a better job than pictures right? 

On the Mercedes Benz taxi from the airport to hotel. I love it that all the cabs are either BMWs or Mercs, makes me feel so rich when I'm not, haha...

 We spent the first 2 nights at Hilton (as provided by the tour), which was pretty fantastic apart from the fact that they always charge you 22 Euros for a day of internet (Retarded shits..), so I had very limited internet throughout because the tour company appears to have plenty of ties with Hilton (Darn!)

But look what they had! A PILLOW MENU!

FLUFFY!! I didn't bother to try though

 And many of you would know the association Amsterdam has with liberal laws regarding weed and prostitution. Here's a cute write up I found in the guide book provided by the hotel. Zoom in and have a read!

 The entire area outside the hotel was surrounded by sculptures and displays, here're just a few I took

The beautiful sunny sky!

 The streets of Amsterdam are really easy to maneouver around, and almost everyone has a bicycle. You'll see in the pictures below on the crazy amount of bicycles in the city!

One of the random areas next to a park where people parked their bikes. It was like that the whole stretch

And the very economical looking car! Looks like a very very old version of the smart cars we have in Australia.

 Amsterdam is pretty much like Venice, a city surrounded by water, possibly sinking and structured around canals. The -dam in Amsterdam actually does refer to the dam that is in the area (as do many of the other cities in Holland such as Rotterdam). So of course a canal cruise was part of the tour (yawn) it was pretty cool though, cos we got to see a lot of the boat houses. I can't imagine living in a boat house for your entire life!

And guess what I had for brekkie the next day? ? RAMBUTANS!

Random shot of the grass/clouds/electrical wires as we went out to the country side

 What else is Holland famous for besides weed, prostitutes, dams and tulips? Cheese and wooden clogs of course. Typical tourist fare...

Mummy mummy look at my giant feet!!

 And this shot was hilarious! A bunch of girls walked into Maccas with heads full of curlers! Brilliant aint' it? hahahha.. I sneaked a shot.

And what's a visit to Amsterdam without going through the red light district? It truly was eye opening, not many photos of the place though, cos it's not very ncie to take pictures of the ladies at work. They basically sit in windows and do their own thing, whether it's texting, or talking on the phone etc. You really get to see all shapes and sizes and ages though.

Goods they sell

The bicycle multi-story 'carpark'!

 What did I tell you about the amount of bikes??

A nice random arty farty picture of a building 

 To be honest, I wasn't listening much to the tourguide. She had the amazing ability to lull me to sleep anytime of the day.

And that's only Day 1 of Amsterdam! Don't worry, I won't be boring you with daily summaries, just the key points in each area. blog more about the diamonds tomorrow! They were pretty amazing, and I never saw a rock so upclose before, haha..

Adios!

Waiting for my Jet Plane!

We're here at the Amsterdam Schipole (Airport) 6 hours before our 1.5 hour flight to Zurich because the tourbus could only drop us off at this time.

Oh wait, yes, I've been MIA because my mum and I have spent the last 10 days in Be-ne-lux, which apparently stands for Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg.

I think my ultimate favourite was Netherlands without a doubt. It's small, modern, full of weed and prostitution... Nah I'm kidding, that's not why I liked it (but weed and prostitutes were pretty obvious only in the red light districts). It's such an accessible town, small and compact. With awesome road plans. Everyone got around on bikes, I even saw people dating on bikes. Some girls were so dolled up (I suppose they were going clubbing), and they rode bikes! How cool is that?

More updates soon once I get back to my sister's place where I can sit down and enjoy uploading posts, blogging, reading journal articles... (as if).

For now, I only have 10 minutes of internet left before the airport decides to charge me 10euros per half an hour. They sure know how to make money.

As our tourguide said, the Dutch are famous for doing one thing: Making money.

"We sell sand to the people in Egypt, and ice to the people in Iceland" - my tourguide

~Adios!