Rainy & Gloomy Weather Ahead

I spoke too soon, just that I thought we're going to have a steady good spring weather and bang came the rain :( Last week, we have been experiencing some rain and gloomy weather, not something that anyone will be jumping up and down with joy about it.

On Sunday, we'd an outing to the city with my sister-in-law and her family and guess what, in the end, they were all drenched. They thought catching a few drizzles were ok but then again the weather decided otherwise. The drizzles became a steady fall of rain and the next thing we knew, the rain just stayed on for the rest of the afternoon. After a drink in one of the cafes, we have decided to call it a day. Walking in the rain and avoiding puddles especially with my bottom jeans were all wet and a drenched family with us was definitely not our ideal Sunday.

BOB Autowas is just so easy!

Normally my Hubs will wash the car whenever we visit his parents in Maastricht :) Today my Hubs decided to take his 'mistress' for a treat and yes that'll be his car for a all-in carwash.

BOB Autowas is a new automated carwash located near our neighbourhood. I'm quite wary when it comes to this kind of automated carwash as I'd heard a lot of complaints back home that these carwash scratches the car. However, according to my Hubs, BOB auto carwash uses very strong water pressure spray instead to do the deed so no scratches on the car. Honestly I've never been to this kind of carwash before as I'd my brother to wash my car all the time ;) haha (just a deal we made when he smashed up my car the last time). Anyway, while waiting for our turn, I was busy clicking away ;). When our turn came, we paid the attendant and told him our selected choice. Today, we opted for the Wash+Polish that cost us EUR13.50. After manoeuvering our car onto the conveying belt, the wash process began. Our car was sprayed with shampoo .... Then followed by very strong water spray to clear away the shampoo.....there were quite a few spray along the way actually. The 'mop' came....well I called it the mop ;) The 'rainy' journey....:) The last part of the process was the dryer.....before the mop came again to dry off the last droplets from our car. And bravo, we were done in less than 5 mins!! Then we drove out from the washing area and did a pitstop to vacumn the car where we can use the facility for free. It was so easy and fast!! And now we've a clean car to last us until our next trip to the carwash again or to Maastricht :)

Blijdorp Rotterdam Zoo

Tue, sunny with cool wind: It was a nice outing with my Hubs's sister and her family to the zoo. Blijdorp Rotterdam is also a must-visit zoo in this city. As I've been to Burgers Zoo in Arnhem so I am able to make a comparison between these two zoos.

Both zoos are big however Burgers zoo is a little tad bigger as the zoo is located outside the city whereas Blijdorp is right in the city of Rotterdam. We did spent the whole day at the zoo! I can even catch a glimpse of the zoo whenever I'm travelling by train via the Rotterdam Central station.

Blijdorp zoo are divided their animals into regions: Asia, Europe and Africa. On top of that, there are also the Oceanium (aquarium), Taman Indah, Riviera Hall, the Asia House and the bat cave. During this period, we were lucky to see a few proud mothers and parents of their youngs; among others are the sea lion, the elephant, the zebra and ducks.

We'd our lunch break (comprises of hamburgers and sates with fries, yummy) alfresco style together with some birds as company which we fed them with fries. (Yes, these birds are really fat and fluffy from all the high carbo they have everyday :P ). For our tea-break, ice-creams! *slurp* :) This was my first visit to Blijdorp but can't say for the rest. They have been to the zoo several times already even my little nephew :)

I'm quite impressed with Blijdorp though in the end I've preferred Burgers zoo concept. However, I am sure with the renovation almost done soon, Blijdorp will be equally impressive. I was very happy to see some animals at a very close range especially the tigers, the polar bear and the lions. It was amazing! The Oceanium was also very nicely done up.

My favourite animal from this zoo: The red panda...sooo adorable :)
These are some snapshots I took of some of the animals. Looks like Mr. Croc had an accident in his jaw area...hmmm...:)

Roparun 2009

Few weeks ago, I've received an email from a girlfriend of mine who will be participating in the Roparun this year. I was curious...what is Roparun?

The Roparun is the longest non-stop relay race in the world for people with cancer: it's not only a unique running event but it also has a unique goal:

"Aiming to add life to the days that remain, when no more days can be added to life"

Roparun is an abbreviation of Ro(RO)tterdam - Pa(PA)ris- RUN. The route covers approximately 530km. Each team comprises of 7-8 members which means each team member has to run for an approximately 65km. When it began in 1992, the race started on the Coolsingel in Rotterdam and finished in the airport area Le Bourget in the 'city of lights', Paris. Since 2004 the route has gone in the other direction, starting in Paris and finishing in Rotterdam. This annual fundraising run for this year will start in Paris (30-31 May) and finish in Rotterdam (1 June). This year alone, more than 270 teams had participated. Here is my girlfriend's team at the finishing line:

Great weekend in Maastricht!!

This is how my Hubs and I were pampered in Maastricht....food! food! Lunch at my parents-in-law's place sometimes were of breads with cold cuts, jams, eggs and others. This weekend, my mother-in-law made this salad (small cubes of potatoes, pickles, eggs with a sourish taste to it).

We'd also a typical Limburgse food, 'zuurvlees' (sour & sweet meat) with fries :) :) Beef or horse meat are often used to make 'zuurvlees'. My mother-in-law told me this dish required a lot of work as the meat has to be cooked at a long time. However the real 'zuurvlees' are with horse meat...hmmm....that's something not for me. After the heavy and delicious lunch, we decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood. It was actually a nice walk in the woods ..... to see wheat fields, beautiful gardens and flowers, pear and cherry trees along the way. However the last few meters before our pitstop at a cafe, our path was blocked by a few black cows that were chilling right in the middle of it! Boy, was I terrified when I'd to walk pass them and seriously it was so close especially one of them were staring hard at us for a long time before we made our way to pass them. Thank god nothing happened :) I definitely deserved a nice cool drink after that passing :) In the end, I'm still a city gal at heart :P Big farm animals still terrifies me :P

A Little Town Called Eijsden

Last weekend my parents-in-law suggested that we should have a drink after dinner in this little town called Eijsden. Eijsden is a cosy and close-community town in the southern part of Limburg province in the Netherlands. I've not been there myself and I was curious. We took a short drive to Eijsden via the fields. With good spring weather, the sun does not set until 9pm or so hence we still had plenty of sun even at 8pm :) The cafe that we parked ourselves for our nightcap was a very nice and cosy place overlooking the river. We sat by the terrace enjoying the nice view and good company of each other. Trust my dear parents-in-law to know the best cafes around here as they did their cycling around this neighbourhood. One can even catch a glimpse of Belgium on the other side of the river. After a nice 'gezellig' (cosy) drink, my father-in-law mentioned that there is a nice castle around this neighbourhood and that peaked my interest. I love castles! I'd seen many when we were in Loire Valley, south of France last year :)

We make a slight detour and head to Eijsden Castle. Though the castle itself is not very big, the castle has a bailey and a big garden. Eijsden castle is L-shaped and was built in Maasland-Renaissance style. It is now a private residence of a noble Belgium family.

The Downside of Going to Pinkpop or other Music Festivals

A typical festival like Pinkpop and any other music festivals such as Bospop and Lowlands are usually a 2-3 days event. Many festival goers prefer to camp there throughout the festival period. That is definitely not my cup of tea. Being cramped up in a camping area, using public WCs and having difficulties in finding my way back to the tent after visiting the WC at night are a few things in life that I will not want to experience. Though I can imagine this will be so much fun if I'm still in my teens but I guess I've passed that phase. If you ask me to do this now, my answer will be a quick 'NO'. Despite having a great time in Pinkpop last weekend, I must admit that though it was great but hygiene is definitely not listed in my list. For instance, going to the WC is like going to a WC back in Malaysia (not all but most public ones are horrible). The WC provided at the festival was the portable ones - no flush system was included. It was all about 'quantity' until the WC was full! So what I did is to control my liquid intake to a minimum so I can avoid visiting the WC again. Litter were everywhere therefore I just have to make sure that I kept both my eyes on the ground while walking. I definitely did not want to step into any garbage that contained food, sauces, etc that was lying everywhere. Mind you, there were some who went around bare-footed....eeeeewwww!!

What is a festival without beers and alcohol or soft drug to go with it right? Occasionally you will bumped into some annoying festival goers who are stoned , drunk on something and obviously doing things that are quite annoying to others. That happened to me while I was standing in the tent stage listening to White Lies performing. There was this tall gal in a ponytail standing diagonally in front of me which her constant and elaborate movements were darn annoying as already all of us in that tent was getting very cosy. Plus her constant 'movement', it was very unpleasant as I need to shift or move to avoid been hit by her or slapped by her ponytail *grrrrrrrhh* That's the disadvantage of being under tall :P

Pinkpop 2009 is Sensational!!

The day came and went by so fast and the next thing we knew, my Hubs and myself were sitting in the train on our way back home after a day in Pinkpop. It was ggggreeeat!!! To be physically there, to experience the whole Pinkpop culture, to see multiple great music bands in one place was simply amaaazzing!!! It took us 1 hour to get to Landgraaf (all the waiting for the public transport and queuing at the entrance) and finally we were there! You can see how crowded it was just to enter the Pinkpop area...there was not much of a queue I think....oh well but we finally got in. The sign on the right said it all... "NO crowd-surfing" :) I find that quite amusing actually, not that I have seen this signage in Asian concerts though.

The first impact when I walked into the open field was the loud music and thousands and thousands of people everywhere! And the first band, Milow was already playing at the main stage so we quickly joined in the crowd before exploring the other areas.

Multiple F&B stalls, souvenirs' stalls, sponsors' stalls, beers' stalls and WCs, were seen surrounding the parameter of the area, some people were in their pink Pinkpop hats and T-shirts, semi-naked guys were walking around with beers, some even wear costumes and of course the more hard-core ones were the ones at the front of all the stages.

The festival was divided into 3 stages: Stage I-Main stage (which was located right in the middle of the field) and flanked by the other 2 stages; Stage II-3FM stage & Stage III-Tent stage (the smallest area of all with no big screens).

Many festival goers like us were busy shuffling from one stage to another depending on which bands will be playing as these bands will be playing simultaneously in all the 3 stages. My Hubs and I managed to catch all the bands that we wanted to see :) - White Lies, Keane, Placebo.

Rowwen Heze, Maria Mena, James Morrison, Milow and Madness were a bonus. For those who doesn't know Rowwen Heze (which I didn't until Pinkpop day), they are one of the biggest local band of the Limburg province singing folks, fanfare and some ballads in the Limburgse dialect. You can't imagine my surprise when the crowd went wild with them. Obviously the crowd at Pinkpop adores them. Everyone sang along and got super active when the band was playing (actually personally I think, the crowd went wild with this band rather than Milow, the band that played before them :P)

Krezip, a Dutch band from Tilburg who sang "Sweet Goodbyes" which replaced Depeche Mode. Krezip planned to disband by end of June so their last performance was at Pinkpop.

Another delightful performance was by Maria Mena, the latest songstress from Norway with her hits such as "All This Time" and "Just Hold Me". She was funny and won the crowd by reaching out to her fans with her great songs. The other band, Madness from UK, with their dry sense of humour and their swingy-jazzy songs also kept the crowd going, it was simply entertaining!

White Lies (another Britisth alternative-rock band) was also very good but I was disappointed that I could not see them. The band had their performance in Stage III-Tent Stage and this stage had no big screens and catching a glimpse of them playing on stage was a mission impossible when I have rows and rows of 'giants' standing in front of me. The only time I get to see them was when my Hubs carried me and that's where I saw them!! :) Nevertheless, they were great. We left 15 mins before the performance ended to catch the last bits of James Morrison :)

Last but not least was Keane's performance (another British band), we went half hour earlier before the band started to play so we can 'reserve' a place nearer to the stage. Before we knew it, the crowd came and the whole area in Stage II was filled up in no time. Everyone from young to old were eagerly waiting for Keane to show up. They did and it was just sooooo great!! They sang all their best hits songs such as "Everybody's Changing", "This is the Last Time" and "Perfect Symmetry". Everybody went wild!! I did, dancing and singing along. Even my Hubs had some sort of reaction :):) normally he's pretty cool over this sort of 'things' unless it's his most favourite band playing ;) We were pretty close to the stage so when the lead singer walked to our corner, I can see him so clearly *swooned* Love them!!!

Apparently one of Pinkpop culture was nobody goes home without getting wet...hmm...The crowds love to throw leftover beers or even the whole cup of beers to the crowd!! Of course, I did experience the 'beer shower' but a light one ;) When the festival ends after the last band which is Placebo (this year), bonfires were started by groups of people who stayed on to relax after the full day of partying at the festival. I must say, I do like some of Placebo's songs but on that evening, they played pretty heavy music. It was a little too heavy for me after a day at the festival. We did not finished the whole performance of Placebo and decided to head home.

It was a memorable festival for me, that's for sure. Despite the tiredness of walking, jumping, dancing and occasionally singing along the whole day, it was worth it. My Hubs and I both crashed out the moment we head home Zzzzzzz....:)