i saw a duck today. a duck sitting in a tree. yes, in a tree. oh how i laughed at the duck sitting in the tree. it didn't much appreciate my laughing. it looked at me carefully, with a quietly discerning eye, interpreting me in it's own special duck way. silly duck. i carried on running. ah, the bliss of a noon run through unexplored forest trails. i even found a slight hill-like landform. there aren't many hills in holland. it's a flat place. even bergen-op-zoom. that's a bit strange because it means mountain on the marsh. silly dutch peoples.
the days have whizzed by with little to write about i'm afraid, hence the lapse in entries. the days are hot already, and i've acquired a fairly reasonable skin colouration not too dissimilar from a tan. this afternoon i spent several hours reading my book, sat upon a sun lounger, with my good freind mr daniels, mr jack daniels.
to be honest, there isn't all that much to say about what i've been up to. i train all day, go to dinner, go home, go to the bar, and go to bed. that's the gist of most days. the training changes as of sunday when we're inundated with childrens couriers for the week. i've been looking forward to this, so it'll be pretty exciting indeed.
today is queens day, the whole country is set to party - the sun has warmed us all, put a smile on our faces and we're all prepared for a ripping good night out on the town... however, there is thunder in the sky and yet another electrical storm is about to release it's fury upon us. woooo hoooooo. oh, but my washing is out... gotta go...
one of the things i love about europe is that so many countreis are within easy reach of each other. today, we went to belgium.
mid-way through typing this i got a phonecall from a trainee needing travel directions, and i've just spent the last hour sorting that out. i'm tired of this computer, so, you can make up the antwerpen story yourself. ensure that you include a bongo drum performance, a statue busker, some dancing military puppet type tings, wafels, a good nordic style salmon sandwich, and a nice red shirt for nz$166 that i didn't buy.
i'm perplexed by the concept of fake meat. it looks like meat. it tastes like meat. but it's not meat. it's a trick. it's soy. now, if you want to eat something that looks like meat and tastes like meat, then eat meat. alright? i, however, don't want to eat meat, and thusly, don't have an interest in eating fake meat. people just don't understand. blech.
i guess it's about time i did a little bit of explaining. I have been exported to the netherlands to work for holidaybreak; the mother company of eurocamp and keycamp, among others. I work in a town called hoeven, about fifteen minutes from roosandal, thirty minutes from breda, about an hour from eindhoven, an hour from roterdam, and two hours from amsterdam. there is a windmill in the town. nice. i work in a team of five trainers, training groups of usually young people (over eighteen, but no cap on age) to work in management / leadership roles on campsites across europe. They head up a team of "couriers" who work in a customer service role, looking after happy campers and fulfilling to their everyday camping needs. We train concepts of teamwork, motivation, leadership, communication, delegation and a load of company specific stuff. In a few weeks time, the nature of the job changes when i start training young people to work with children on campsites. We're currently developing a company speciifc workshop on playwork after a load of meetings and observational work last week. This contract runs until the end of july and I'm now pondering taking up a new contract after that working on a campsite in italy, spain or france as a team leader for the "childrens couriers." But, that's yet to be decided.
I live in the same building we train in, but at the end in a block of apartments with the rest of the staff. i share with another trainer, steph, from ireland. my room is kinda small, but, now that i've spent some time and euros on it, kind of warm and arty. steph leaves in a week and a bit, so, i get a new flatmate. over the other side are five other staff, and upstairs there are six more.
and that's about that really. (and all i can be bothered typing today...)
Snow, in my childhood dreams, was fluffy like cotton wool; it drifted in the air like tiny butterflies on a warm spring day. I was wholeheartedly devastated when I met with snow for the first time and found a grey slushy substance not dissimilar from, well, grey slushy stuff. The same disappointment came about when I discovered that santa didn’t wear a big red suit and have a huge white beard, but instead, looked a lot like my mother (funnily enough, the easter bunny looked a lot like my mother as well…). Another of my childhood beliefs was shattered yesterday when I excitedly ran from the parked car, up the side of a dyke, and looked out at the north sea only to find that waves weren’t ferociously crashing against the side of the dyke, that the huge expanse of sea wasn’t being held back by some amazing feat of engineering, but instead, looking from one way to the other, I could hardly even notice the difference between the height of the water and that of the land. Dykes weren’t at all what I’d expected and, hanging my head, I turned, and wandered back to the car.
Given a day off, we ventured out to Zeeland, for, what better thing do on your day off than drive out to a place countries are named after, well, one country anyways. Zeeland consists of an assortment of large islands of low flat land. The land is so low, that the sea had a tendency to flood over it, so, the clever little Dutch people devised a system of protective dykes to ensure that the pesky sea wouldn’t consume their land anymore.
Croissants, jam, roomboter. Packing a jacket, and warm things, but not an umbrella. Driving towards roosandaal. Canals, windmills, sheep, funny sheep, big sheep, lambs, moo cows, highland cows, no cows, tulips, dafs, maize, ploughed fields. Driving on the right, driving REALLY fast, narrow roads, huge motorways, influx of german holidaymakers, grey skies. Spice cookies, almond thingies, fererro rocher, water. Middelburg, reconstructed sixteenth century facades, techno carnival, dancing children, kippeling an knoflooksaus, risqué talking soft toys, cool satchels, cheap shoes, rain, sea dykes, rough waters, large beaches, cold winds, the cat-piss plant, sandy trails, standing on logs, collecting shells, and filling my pocket with sand, roads on dykes, bridge dykes, special closing dykes, big dykes, little dykes, sandy dykes, grassy dykes, lots and lots and lots of dykes. Stopping at zierikzee, albert heijn grocery goodness, drinking yoghurt, reading maps, eating almond thingies and wine gums embossed with vodka. Driving towards Rotterdam, more dykes, more windmills, sheep, moo cows. Home. Cooking vegetable curry, basmati rice, Monsters Inc. DVD, laughs, yoghurt with fresh strawberries, Bordeaux rouge vin, sleepy early night.
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