Last monday we had part 3 of our Barista-introduction-lesson. We visited Algra, our local coffee-roaster and supplier with a group of full-time employees of our three restaurants. We’ve now had three lessons and ended up with some nice designs:
We’re still training and i’m planning to compete in the Dutch Barista Championships in March 2008. So to be continued…..
They’re arriving back home today, so it’s already been a while since Phil and Neda were here. So nog finally you can find it on my blog. It’s already on theirs as well, but you can find the most funny picture here;
They arrived on monday in the afternoon. Phil had to be carefull while driving since he wasn’t used to all the bicycles ofcourse. In the evening we had dinner in the White Goose, one of our restaurants. You can find everything about that on Phil and Neda’s blog and I really didn’t make them write it. I’m thinking about forwarding that review to Michelin
.
The next day we went to the Hoge Veluwe, which is a national park in the center of Holland. They have free bikes at every entrance of the park, so we took those since you just have to bike when being in the Netherlands. It was a beautiful day. We had a sunny lunch in the park, but later on, in the end of the afternoon, it started to rain. We got soaking wet on our way back to the car.
But it was The REAl Dutch Experience!
Afterwards we chilled at my place, having hot showers, tea and sweets. In the evening we went out for drinks and Phil and Neda participated in my weekly tuesday night’s activity; the Murphy’s quiznight. We arrived when round 7 was on, which is the music-round of the quiz. They played the first part of different TV-tunes and they really helped the team. Phil taught my friends some good Aussie-slang.
The next morning we had a hard time getting up, with all these short nights. But we made it to Amsterdam. We were planning to visit the Anne Frank house, but the line was about 400 meters long from where we could see it (maybe it was even longer around the corner). So we decided to skip it and went to the nine streets, a very nice part of Amsterdam. We also did a canal-boattour, had a stroll in the Red Light District and passed a zillion coffeeshops.
The next morning Phil and Neda left at 5.30 at my place so this was their two day’s experience of The Netherlands.
A tip for every family!
On the birthday of my granny, we finally had cousin-day. Me and my cousins were planning to have this day for ages and since I picked this nice date in january, almost everybody was able to plan this day. Except Marieke who was on holiday and the family curse got her now 
. Only the girls were invited, so we with the four of us. We’re all more or less the same age and we use to play a lot together. One of the girls picked me up at my house and we drove to Utrecht where the other to are living. It was a nice sunny day that ended with a nice meal out.
On my coming home party next year my cousin met my friends. We had lots of fun and it started with my cousin getting special bites since he’s vergetarian. My friends (all girls) reacted by saying real men eat meat. So that’s why my cousin promised us to proof that vergetarian food is also very nice. So this summer we finally met on a hopefully sunny sunday in july. We drove from Zwolle, picked up a friend in Utrecht, and drove a touristy route to Loosdrecht, where my cousin works at a marina. Tjeerd (my cousin) and his friend Kees were already waiting for us. Tjeerd was probably scared to join 5 girls on a boat on his own, hi hi. So we took of , but the moment we arrived at open water we saw thunder and lightning everywere. So we went to shore for coffee first and waited till the rain stopped. In the afternoon the sky cleared and it became nic and sunny. Tjeerd and Kees were well prepared. We had wine and nice veggie nibbles on board. After that we arrived at one of the little islands in the middle of the lake. (don’t imagine white tropical beaches, we don’t have those unfortunately). We had a nice partly vegetarian BBQ and even had a swim at the end of the day and Tjeerd had proven his point to all of us….
Furthermore we are doing a Barista course with our staff (same as I did in Sydney). So the coffees in the restaurants are getting even more delicious and the cappuccino’s will soon be decorated by some nice latte art. You have to train with at least 8 litres of milk in order to get the right feeling with the frothing. I just came home from my sunday afternoon shift so I did a couple of litres again. To be continued….
I developed a winecourse for the less experienced people in our restaurant, in order to increase their wine knowledge. It was a basic course of 9 lessons and it was a very good experience for me. It ended up being very succesfull, also because all the candidates were very motivated. The final lesson existed of a exam and we went out for a nice dinner afterwards, where I apprised the winner. She won a very short lesson in opening a bottle of champagne with a sabre and did this succesfully.
We toasted and had a nice 4 course dinner with two tasting wines with every course. The candidates had to choose which wines was the best to go along with the dish. It was a brilliant evening:
The first person to visit me was my dear friend and collegue from Sydney; Holger! He was staying with friends in Amsterdam so I picked him up and showed him The Hague, the city where our government is located and where our queen Beatrix has her working-palace. We also visited Scheveningen (no foreigner can pronounce it) the biggest city at our coast. It was really nice to see Holgie again and hear all the news from Sydney.
I’m really looking forward to August since the second visit of Aussies is coming up; Phil and Neda from Adelaide are coming over and they are staying at my place for a couple of days. It will be fun to see their experiences with Amsterdam, clocks, mills, tulips, our gorgeous museums and ofcourse the coffeeshops ;D
On the first sunday of August Deventer (a town south of Zwolle, 30 min. drive) organizes the biggest bookmarket of Europe. The whole town is filled with little stalls with both new and second hand books. Me and my friend made it a tradition to go there every year. It’s funny to go even if you don’t buy anything cause it attracts an interesting melting pot of many different people. Here are our scores of 2006:
Back online
Finally, I found some time to reboost my blog again. My adventures downunder are ages ago, so it’s about time to inform you about my life now. I decided to change into a english version now, since my dutch friends are already part of my life now and this is easier for everyone outside of Holland. B and I already discovered in Adelaide that you get weird things, translating my dutch blog on an online translater.
I’ve bought my own appartement in the centre of my little town Zwolle in the northern centre of my tiny country. And I became part of the management team of the three restaurants of my parents. So I’m about to tell you all about my massive (yeah right) dutch adventures. We’re starting on the day that I came back from Australia, July 25th 2006. My parents organised a party for me and my brother since he graduated and I came back home. We held a terrific very sunny party in my parents back garden.
From now on i’m going to inform you about my life again, whether you like it or not.
