In Holland the weather is always the subject of the day, mainly because it is never the same as the day before. Last week, the weather has been the main topic over here as well. Not because it is changing so often (I wish it would!), but mainly because it is so bad. For the people who still think that I am in a warm sunny country: you’re wrong!!! It is f***ing cold over here!!!

It came by surprise. When I was in Holland it suddenly started snowing. And because that hasn’t happened the last decades, they are not prepared for it. Therefore it took while before they got all the material from other provinces. As a result, I was forced to spent the night in Barcelona last Sunday, because the road between Barcelona and Lleida was still blocked and it was too late to take the train. Fortunately Carme and Marta were so kind to buy already a ticket for the morning train and to pick me up. Thanks a lot!!!!!!!

At this moment most of the big roads are cleared, but the world is still very white. And to be honest: I am getting quite fed up with this weather. After all, one of the reasons I came here is the sun.

At this moment it is already a week ago since I was in Holland. Yes, I have been a litlle bit busy this week (indeed, I slept a lot).

Anyway, I can say that I really enjoyed my short visit. The wedding of Paula and John on Thursday was really great. But OK, free beer is always great, isn’t it? It was great to see everybody again. And in such an atmosphere, it doesn’t matter that the band made all the songs sound like René Froger.

Friday was another highlight, the concert of De Heideroosjes. It was a pleasant surprise that we went with 27 persons. At the busstop I found out that I was by far the oldest: The second (Jos) is 6 years younger!!! At least it shows that I am still young of heart. The body however was having some more problems. I had to go to the side a few times to get some fresh air. The concert was as I am used to.

Saturday and Sunday I have spend with my family (indeed, sleeping again). My room at home has really been transformed by my parents. They bought a new bed for me and removed the old computer desk. A think they want to tell me this way that MJ and I are always welcome.

After hearing a lot of times that having fog every day is not normal, and that it is only the case here in Lleida, I decided to check it out myself.

So last Saturday, MJ and I decided to spend one day on the beach, hoping to see some sun. We woke up early (at least for us), prepared all the stuff for a pick-nick on the beach and got into the car.

Although it was not as sunny as we hoped, the weather was good enough for a pick-nick. We found a nice spot on the beach to sit down and eat our sandwiches and our salad and drink some red wine. In the mean time we could enjoy the view of the sea in front of us. We were just in between Salou and Cambrils. After the pick-nick we walked to Cambrils to get a cup of coffee. Cambrils is a pictoresque little town with a lot of nice shops and restaurants. Unlike Salou, it hasn’t got bars and discos, and as a result the atmosphere is much different.

The 6^th of December is an important day: it is the birthday of ‘Sinterklaas’ (yes, I know it is Paul). Every year the old man leaves Spain to visit Holland for a few weeks and to give presents to all the Dutch children. As you can imagine, the Dutch children are very pleased with his visit.

But I have to warn all the Dutch parents: DO NOT TRUST THIS GUY!!!!!!! I haven’t found out yet what is wrong with him, but it is a fact that the Spanish people are really happy because he is out of the country for some time. The party here is even bigger than in Holland: here everybody receives an official free day, only because Sinterklaas is out of the country. You can imagine how much they hate him…

To celebrate our free day (día del constitución), I went out with my colleagues yesterday. It is very common to visit a restaurant with your colleagues in December. Before that I visited a pub with two others. I hoped to get to know another pub, but they decided to visit Scrub. OK, it is a nice pub, so I was not complaining.

The supper was really good, although the others were complaining a little bit about the price. Here 4000 pesetas (Fl. 53,-) is a lot of money for a meal, but for me it is a quite normal price. Afterwards we visited some pubs. And yes, the very first one (O’Sullivans) was the one where my sweet darling MJ and here friends happened to be… At 4 o’clock I met here again in River Café. She came to see me, because I had the keys of the car… 😉

This weekend MJ is in Lithuania for a Fimcap meeting. I better say ‘was’, because she is almost back again. In a few hours I will take the car and pick her up in Barcelona.

Of course I could have used this weekend to have a big party (after all, the b**** is gone…), but I decided to have a quiet weekend. Of course I went to drink a beer yesterday, but most of the time I was sleeping, reading, watching television or studying Spanish. Today we also celebrated the birthday of Cristine, MJ’s sister.

The weather here is alright. During the day it is sunny, but in the morning and after five (I had to check at the window…) there is one problem: FOG! Not a little bit, but really a lot; sometimes you can see only ten meters. That is also one of the reasons why I have decided to leave really early to Barcelona. The other reason is that I expect a lot of traffic, because this weekend the winter sport season has started. There are some places where the entrance to the pistes was free this weekend (yes, in some ways the Catalans are like Dutch).

By the way: did you know that Catalonia has over 300 pistes? Me neither.

No, I don’t have an argue with MJ and no, I will not go back forever. But in December I will be back in Holland two times.

First from December 13th until 16th to be present at the wedding of John and Paula and later from December 29th until January 1st to celebrate a new year.

If you have any interesting and nice activities, just tell me, and maybe you will see me one more time…

Today it is Saturday, the day of the cleaning the house. MJ and I always do the first floor.

Or better: MJ is doing the first floor, and I am bothering her a lot, thinking that I am helping her. Fortunately it is not a lot of work, so we only spent some time in the morning doing that.

This afternoon (after lunch, so around five o’clock) we will go to town to do some shopping. I really like the opening times of the shops over here. In the Netherlands shops close at the moment that they open here. On the other hand, I feel sorry for the people working in the stores.

Yesterday somebody tried to phone me during the day. Unfortunately I was not home yet, so I thought that it might be handy to explain something about my working hours.

In the morning, usually I leave at eight o’clock. First I go to Lleida to bring MJ and her sister Cristina to their work. Afterwards I drive to Torrefarera where my company is. I start working at nine o’clock and finish again at half past one. Then I go to Lleida again, pick up the others and arrive home at half past two. Sometimes I don’t have to go to Lleida; then I leave home at half past eight and arrive home again at quarter to two.

In the afternoon I enjoy a nice meal with the family (in Spain the lunch is the most important meal of the day), and I go back to work again at quarter past three (or twenty to four if I can go to my work directly). I work until 8 o’clock, and usually am home again at half past eight.

Of course there are always exceptions. Sometimes after work we go the pub to drink something with some friends. Usually we go to Scrub. And other times I spent some time in town shopping or arranging some papers.

Anyway, I think it is long enough for today.

Yesterday MJ and I decided to visit the cinema. After a very busy week with a lot of new impressions, we felt that we had deserved it. Our choice was “The Score”.

We found out that we were not the only ones who have had a busy week, because the city was full of trafic, looking for a place to park. Normally in the Netherlands the Sunday evenings are quiet, but here Sunday is the day to visit the cinema. After 10 minutes circling around the cinema, we were lucky; a place for our car only 2 minutes walking!

Fortunately we arrived early, because only 10 minutes after we arrived the entrance of the cinema was completely full with people. In their wisdom, the designers of the cinema had decided to place the entrace to the halls, the toilets and the ticket office all in the back of the entrance hall. As a result, it was almost impossible to arrive to the ticket office and to go to the toilet before the movie.

When the movie started, I came to a big surprise: Marlon Brando has learned to speak Spanish really good! And he also had an operation of his throat. He sounded so different… And not only Marlon, but also all the other actors. By the way, I think that this also explains the average level of English spoken in this country: people never hear English in the cinema or on TV.

And yes, the movie was Ok.

Today was the great day… working at ICG. After a short tour through the building and meeting a lot of people of whom I can’t remember the names anymore (as usual on a first day) I was introduced to Massimiliano. He told me everything about his job and about the company. After three hours of listening to Spanish, my head was at the point of exploding. No more information please!

Fortunately, the Spanish working hours foresee in these situations. After a nice lunch at home I was ready to listen again. Besides listening I also installed Windows 2000 on some computers.

At the end I have a positive feeling about it, but I really have to get used to speaking Spanish the whole day, because now I still have to concentrate too much.

Next to me is the big bag with the last things to take. I only have to pack my laptop and I am ready to go. In 90 minutes my parents will take me to Schiphol airport, and that’s it. Tonight I will be a citizen of Alpicat.

I spent yesterday evening at the “Jeugdhof” just like most Thursdays the last 13 years. Sure I will miss that. Just as usual, it was way too late when we finally went home, but this time I had a good excuse since it was the last time.

So far this last message from Harmelen; the next one will be from Alpicat.

Yes, I am unemployed at the moment. Yesterday was my very last day that I worked for Aino and on Monday I will start at ICG. That makes me unemployed for a few days. Don’t worry, I will survive this period… 😉

I can tell you that it wasn’t easy to say good-bye to Aino after working 4 years and 7 months for MultiSystems/Avalix/Aino. Yesterday morning I finished the last work. After I went to the baker to buy some pies (I hope that my former colleagues will remember at least the pies: “Jeroen? Yes, the guy from these wonderful pies…”). After cleaning my desk it was time to say good-bye. In the afternoon I arranged some practical things like the formal exit-meeting and bringing away my car. And that was it…

Today I have tried to live the life of a typical unemployed, but I was not able to sleep untill 3 pm. Maybe that is why I will start working again Monday.

[Update 2004.01.21]: Removed link to non-existing company 😉

As most of you know, I have spent a lot of my spare time doing voluntary work for Jong Nederland. Jong Nederland is a national youth organisation, with a local group in Harmelen.

Yesterday after a big fund-raising activity, the board and the animators of Jong Nederland Harmelen surprised me with an official good-bye. Normally leaving animators are thanked at a special evening with all the parents of our members, but since I am leaving the country next week they had to do it earlier.

Berry had prepared a nice document summing up the things I have done in Harmelen during the 13 years as an animator. If you know me a little bit, then you know that this list was not so long… The main point was that I have spent a lot of nights drinking a beer. After that, he gave me the presents. The traditional present is one plate to put on the wall. I will surely take it with me Catalonia. Besides that I received a set of pens and a pin. It is the small things that I appreciate most…

Of course I arranged a box of beer afterwards, which reminds me of one more thing: I still have to pay my bill!

On Saturday, October 20th, my parents and my sister have organised a farewell party for all my family. They have really made a big effort of organising a great party. The best for me was that all the invited people showed up. Fortunately the weather was quite good, because we really couldn’t fit everybody into the house.

MJ and I have received a lot of nice presents, mostly typical Dutch products as drop, hagelslag, erwtensoep and pepernoten. Some people also took the occasion to get rid of their last pesetas.

I can tell from both of us: Thanks a lot!!!!

One week of holidays is not a lot if you have to travel back and forth to the other end of Europe.

Last week, we have spent the whole weekend packing my stuff. The result was a huge pile of boxes, of which everybody doubted it would fit into the car. On Sunday evening we removed the couches from the car and started fitting everything in it. To our surprise, there was some space left!!! So we quickly went back inside to get three more boxes which I intended to leave in Harmelen.

On Monday we left at 4 o’clock at night to drive in one time to Lleida. Expected distance: 1600 kilometers. At half past nine at night we parked the car in the garage in Alpicat. Completely exhausted we made it just before the Catalan supper time!

Tuesday we took a rest and emptied the car, and on Wednesday we arranged some practical things as visiting a language school, washing the car, checking the oil and arranging some of my stuff (CD’s!!!).

Thursday morning we left at 4:30 in the morning, with an almost empty car. The trip went a ot faster this time, but again we were exhausted.

And now I am here, while all my stuff is over there. I will have to wait two more weeks before I will leave Harmelen definitivly.

Just a few more days to go! My room in Harmelen is turning little by little into a big mess. I am emptying my wardrobes, spreading everything out on the floor, putting stuff into boxes. Along the way I find back things of which I couldn’t even remember their existence.

And as you can imagine I just have to read those old letters, go through the old pictures, look into the old magazines…

In between there is of course my daily life: getting up, going to work, meeting friends, talking with my parents and of course phoning with MJ. The days all seem so very short…

Anyway, four more days to go, and then everything has to be packed. I haven’t decided yet the exact way to drive to Lleida. There are two options: drive over Paris – Toulouse – through the Pyrenees or Lyon – Perpignan. The first option is shorter, but with smaller roads and the second option has better roads, but over a longer distance.

The main reason most people will visit this site at the moment is because you want to know when I will be moving to Lleida.

The answer is: SOON!

Next week, on October 15th–20th I will be moving all my stuff to lleida by car. I really hope that everything will fit in, but we will see…

After I am back, I will be working again until October 31st. On Friday November 2nd I will finally take the plane to the south of Europe.

Yes yes, since last Friday my age starts with a 3… I’m definitely getting old. The next period I will be preparing my move to Lleida (Catalonia), so it will be quite exiting.

This is definitely the least updated page on my site!!! I see that the last update has been more than half a year ago. SORRY!

Anyway, as you can imagine a lot of things have happened in between. I have travelled a lot to Lleida, which is also the place I’m planning to move to next summer.

But first I’ll have to find a job and housing over there. I expect that it won’t be a big problem.