Tjeerd's zicht op de wereld

stephen lynch + new post?

Hiya everybody I'm planning on creating a new blog post soon. I hope I have some time oncomming weekend. will try my best :)

untill then please click the picture below and try to get Stephen lynch to Vienna ;).

View all Vienna events at Eventful

Living the Vienna life!

(Nederlandse versie onderaan!)

Hi everybody!!! I was planning on writing a new blog entry last weekend but eventually I didn't find the time to do it.

SO! A lot actually happend... where to begin... Well first by thanking some people for the replies of the previous post I guess :D, THANKS!!!! to my little brother :) (I found some nice beers), Milli (I will keep an open mind as always, thanks), juud (I'll pick up some calve pindakaas during my christmas visit ;) ), Marieke (I was litterally waiting for my "gloup" moment, but it's much better now :) ), Marlies (Mein deutsch geht besser, Doing a course now started last monday ;) ), and Lies! (It's indeed not so far away and I'm looking forward to christmas, Still working for holland, remember?).

Well let's see where do I have to start. Let's put down a link to a photo album of Verena so You can see some pictures with the stories I will tell :)

http://picasaweb.google.nl/h9850403/1108FirstTimeInVienna#

The story I'll tell will be in chronicle order with the pictures. So try and guess which pictures belong to what story ;).

Well the first next weekend after our move we went hiking in Baden, a place which is south of Wien and not too far of. A little trip of 15 minutes or so by train and we were there :). After buying some roasted Marony (sweet chestnut) we started our little trip through the hills. It was really good and the weather was really nice :). We visited 2 ruins opposite of each other that defended the pass in the old days :D.

The next day (Sunday) we went to Florian (an old friend of Verena) where we were invited for dinner :D. He's a really good cook and we really enjoyed it. He's also the kind of person who has a lot of special wines and schnapps laying around and wanted us to taste pretty much every single one of them. We had a great evening and went home pretty much completely wasted :D.

Then we went to the Schonbrun tiergarten (zoo) with 2 other friends from Verena  (named Verena and Markus) which was also a lot of fun :D.  Really nice Zoo and we had a great time :D.

We visited the naschmarkt. This is a market where they have a huge amount of exotic food from all over the world. It's really nice and because I like cooking I really checked everything out :D. Will definitly go and check it out more times :D. as soon as I have a bit more time on my hands ;). (did make some sambal though ;) (REALLY GOOD SAMBAL!)

While we were doing all these things we were of course doing multiple things in between such as getting to know new people. I've been to AIESEC Vienna and I'm on there mailing list which is perfect :D. And I already met some great people there  :). Went out 2 evenings with them and so far it's been very nice :). I've also started a German course last Monday. Intensive course for 14 day's; 4 days a week 3 hours a day. So far it's good, The group of people is fun and I'm learning faster then I would have thought.

And last but definitely not least, Verena and me (mostly Verena) have of course been very busy looking for a permanent residence here in Vienna. Which cost a LOT! of time I tell ya. BUT! We did actually find one :D. In 1 and a half week we got an apartment which both of us really liked from the moment we stepped inside. We didn't need to thing or argue everything was just perfect. (these are the last couple of pictures of the picasa album)  67 m2 a hallway with extra storage room, separate toilet, bathroom WITH BATH!!!, rather big kitchen, small bedroom and a HUGE living room :D. It's really nice, some paint and everything is good. (furniture will not stay there btw).

OH I also bought a bike (wohoo dutch guy on the bike in Vienna!!), Vienna is REALLY weird with the biking lanes, you can't imagine. It's not that they don't have them and it's not that there are not biking lanes everywhere (there simply aren't) but it's the fact that biking lanes start and stop being there in total random selection. so your biking and all of a sudden the biking lane just stops. (pretty much no warning, sometimes you don't even notice!). then it starts again but maybe on the opposite side of the road (who knows everything is possible) sometime biking lanes go on for 2 maybe 3 kilometers and sometimes they stop 50 meter after they actually begun.

but here's some pictures of my bike! Bought it second hand but it's pretty much completly new and I only payed.... (you guys guess!) (unless you already know then you not allowed to guess ;) ).

I also bought some christmas lights and stuff and an Adventkranz (Advent wreaths). I wanted to surprise Verena with it and as it turned out she wanted to surprise me with it to! :P. So we got 2! advent wreaths. So we traided it for a nice room plant to put in our new house :D.

Well Catch you guy's LATER!!!!

Nederlands!, Gaat nog komen ik ben hier al een uurtje mee bezig geweest het vertalen kost teveel tijd op dit moment ik probeer het morgen te doen! SORRY!

Arrived in Vienna

Hi there! it's been such a long time since my last post... Well moving to another country does take up some of your time... actually pretty much all of your time, including saying goodbye to friends :).

Well last saturday it was time to actually DO what I've been yelling around ;). Moving to Vienna. One week before I had my little goobye party which I found barely time for to have... I had send around an email with the basic message that I was going to say goodbye and I would be in the booth hill saloon in amersfoort. And a lot of people actually showed up ;) :). (thanks everybody!). We started at 3 O'Clock in the afternoon and I got home at 02:30 AM. (haven't got any pictures btw can someone send me some or the url for these? :).

Then we got a goodbye party from Verena which was also lots of fun :). brought my Wii and we played werewolves :) (mafia). After this a lot of carying boxes and stuff around from my room and Verena's room and eventuely on the 8th of November we got in our rented van and drove of at 4 AM towards Vienna :).

The trip itself was actually not as bad as I would have thought and around 17:30 we arrived in the grohgasse 6/4 where we will spend about 2 months before (hoping) going to our more or less permanent place. We got some good heavy food from Verena  who went to Vienna the day before and bought all the groceries etc with some help from her mom who was there also. after that we drank some wine and we were pretty much exhausted.

The folowing day we went to Verena's father and dropped the rest of the stuff which we wouldn't need for the first 2 months. Her father also cooked diner, which was VERY good :). after this it was time to say goodbye to my parents who were heading home ;(. A small emotional moment went past and after that the thing I was waiting for FINALLY happened. I realized what I was doing... I was quiet for some time and we went home and started unpacking our stuff. After some time Verena told me that we were going to make a walk around, I wasn't feeling so great... I was actually rather depressed...

The walk around did me well though and when we came home Alex and Alexia came by (2 friends from Verena which I met twice earlier and are really nice) That brought my spirit back a bit and I realized I just needed to make some friends here and that would help a lot. I need some people who go out at night or whenever and with whome I can go and drink a beer :).

The day after we walked around Vienna some more and we unpacked the last things making the house a bit more homey and pleasant. This made me feel more at home and when Verena told me that the booth hill "poster" would look nice on the wall and we hanged it I felt good and happy :).

Well I ordered a bike yesterday which should arrive today, So I can start being mobile :). I'll send an email to AIESEC and see if I can meet some people there and Verena has appointements with a lot of people I will meet during the weekend :), so everything should turn out just fine :).

And here are some pictures of the house! Click on them to get the bigger version!

Well that's it for now :). I will try to update at least once every 2 weeks, so stay tuned!!!!

Nostalgics

Okay let's see what happened the past period. Did some fun stuff and worked, and OH went to Lowlands! Which was really great :). Loved every minute of it and saw a lot of great bands, stand up comedy and movies :D.

Furthermore, with Verena and me it's going great :). Plus I'm really looking forward to Vienna more and more every day, partly because of just looking more forward to it, partly because I notice I really need something new and partly because I notice I REALLY cannot live at my parents house any longer. It's not just a bad day I had, it's pretty consistent. It's also nothing bad against my parents, I got wonderful parents that try to help me as much as possible, but I simply notice I really need my own space and life BAD! Most of the time I'm spending half my week at Verena's place, but when it happens that I spend more then 2 nights at my parents place I have a 95% chance to have a fight with my mom. The whole situation tells me... MOVE OUT!

I just watched the movie I made for the end "presentation" when I left Poland, also because we are busy trying to get as many people to Wroclaw from the time we were there for new years eve. And while looking at the movie with the pictures and the music I added all the emotions came back to me from Poland. Arriving in Poland, the first couple of days, the first days at work, everything I've seen and experienced in between, the saying goodbye to really close friends and eventually leaving myself and with that leaving behind a life which was more dear to me then the life I would return to....

Because of that I feel depressed and a little voice inside me say's "when you were in Berlin, you doubted whether you should buy a ticket to Holland or back to Wroclaw.... Why did I bought a ticket to Holland...........?

When I keep thinking back to that point in time the only really true answer I could give myself then... and now was... Because I promised I would come back on that day....

I've always believed in fullfilling promises. If you make a promise then you should keep it. Yet with this particulair case I'm very uncertain if this was actually a promise made to keep.........

past happenings

Hi everybody! Let me give you an update of my live once again . Verena has put a lot of effort in finding a temporary house for Vienna and once we got really close, but alas some Australian couple beat us to it. They probably gave more money or something. It was quite a bummer :S. Yet we won’t give up and keep an eye out for a temporary place. I will try and get some contact with spring this week and see what opportunities there are there. I also got a contact of a person working in a game company which is looking hard for additional employees, so maybe that’ll work out as well :D. who knows. Yet I prefer having a place to stay first… Oh well ce’st la vie!.

Apart from that I went to lowlands last weekend :D!! It was great not having to think about anything and just having fun enjoying all the good bands, stand up comedians and movies. And of course the whole atmosphere . I got to see a lot of good bands 2 really nice movies and stephen lynch!!! (look him up on youtube if you like dark cynical sadistic humor :D)

It was a wonderful weekend and now I’m sitting at work thinking what the f*ck I’m doing here. I desperately want another job and find that my thoughts and creativity is completely turned numb every time I go to Amsterdam and open my laptop. I’m actually getting rather depressed by the whole thing and I’m definitely going to do everything I can to get into a game company and work with the things I love so much. Some time ago I saw a movie with Verena called “into the wild” (please watch this movies at the first opportunity it’s really great) and I started thinking again what it is I want out of life. I came to the conclusion that the work I’m doing currently is definitely NOT what I want out of life. I need more creativity and less political rules in my work. I hope I can survive the last 5 ½  weeks I still need to work here. Probably will but not with a great amount of fun I’m afraid .

On the other hand Verena and me are doing great, still love her and really looking forward to having a life together. I’m also looking  forward to going back to Poland somewhere in 3 months or so. At least that’s the plan I REALLY hope that it’s going to happen, so basically that we have the time and money for it. Will really try hard to make it happen. I need to see some people from my time in Poland and be able to give them a hug ;).

Oh, last Wednesday my Mom had surgery. about 11 year’s or so she got breast cancer and now it came back. Last time her breast could be saved but this time it couldn’t. So her breast got amputated last Wednesday. It was sometimes hard but my mom is a tough one and she got through it really good. I was kinda down at certain moments because  I wished my mom never had to go through all this crap again. Happily the nurses and surgeons where really kind and caring and that made it a lot easier to handle (which is not TOO common here in Holland, most of the hospitals your just a product on which they have to work :S). Right now she’s doing really good, she has some trouble sleeping well because she needs to get used on how to lay comfortably but apart from that she’s doing great. She already walks around, goes grocery shopping with my dad and walks around outside every day.

All in all life’s not bad though. Having lot’s of fun moments in between with Verena and my friends. But I do want to have a change in my life shortly. Happily enough I know this is going to happen :) it’s just a matter of time  :D. Stay tuned! Till next time :D.

Working towards Vienna

Okay we actually are getting some stuff done and got some usefull information. I subscribed to a forum of dutch people who moved or want to move to Austria, which is rather interesting to read.

Apart from that Verena send out a masive email to about 100 people she know's in Vienna to get some options on temporary places to stay from where we can see if we can get a place we both like :). think it'll be okay :D.

Thanks to Alexia I got some other game companies and I checked with aiesec Vienna to see if I could do something through aiesec. as for the game company I think I'll just call them next week. first I'll have to send another email to aiesec because I haven't heard anything for about 1 week now. so first check their options and maybe I'll try to combine to do an internship at the game company via aiesec :). who knows.

well it's a short message but atleast there's a message :D. OH here's a link to the game company I'm interested in at the moment: http://www.sproing.com/

bye bye! till next time!

OH ALMOST FORGOT: I GOT A WII!!!!! W00t!!!!!!!!!!. and dragon ball Z budokai tentaikchi 3 :D WICKED!

Been to long

Yes! Finally a life update… euhm live up… li… AN UPDATE!!! Wohoo!!! Sorry to all you people who actually read this thing :) . It’s been WAY to long ago since I put something down. So this will be an overall coverage of my life of the past 3 or 4 months? Has it really been that long? Crap :S.

Okay let’s see, First of all I actually officially GOT MY DIPLOMA AND GRADUATED!!!! I had to wait for a long time but Finally I got my actual diploma from my school and am now an Bachelor of informatics. They made a little story for each person when they handed over the little (oh so important) papers which was rather fun. After this I took my complete group of supporters (parents, brother,sister,brother-in-law, and ofcourse my girlfriend) out to dinner to a restaurant which server Belgium food. We had a wonderful evening and the food was REALLY good, although the service could have been a little bit better, oh well can’t have everything :).

Before I finally got my little important piece of paper I actually went looking for a job :D. After I finished my thesis I got bored rather quickly, I send some letters to different game companies and checked if I made any chances what so ever. I was rather surprised to actually get some answers in return. One didn’t answer, One didn’t have any jobs open and with 2 I had a meeting. One of those I could start working but I was a bit shocked on travel time (something I didn’t check before I actually applied) and 2,5 hours travel time (times 2 because I also want to be back home at the end of the day) was just a bit to much so I decided not to do it. Eventually I started working at Capgemini where I still work at this moment but I actually gave them my resignation paper last Monday…. Why? Let me tell you :).

I’ve been doing more stuff such as resigning from a job I just got, like ending my subscription of my mobile phone switching it to prepaid. Ended my subscription to the fitness center. Looking for another job on the internet….

The reason behind this would be that I will be moving out of Holland and into Austria, VIENNA!!!!

As many of you know I went to Poland for 5 to 6 months and there I met an Austrian girl, we clicked and it happened to be she actually lived in Holland. Thing was that she actually just decided to go back to Austria after her project in Poland. But eventually because of me she stayed in Holland. She tried for me to feel at home but she didn’t feel happy here and eventually she told me she really wanted to go back…

In Poland I was checking the internet and embassies to check how to get to New Zealand for 1 or 2 years and work and live there for that period. I’ve been checking a lot of sites and decided I would go for it as soon as I would have a little bit of money earned in Holland. Yet having a girlfiend is going to chance those things and then in Poland I decided I would put working abroad in another country on the long run…

And what do you know? Well it might not be New Zealand but it’s definitely something new and exciting :). So it’s less far away then New Zealand, so everybody can visit me more easily :D. So that’s about the short story, we decided to go there together and at this moment we’re trying hard to make it all happen. Checking things, rules,jobs, houses etc etc etc. Luckily Verena has friends in Vienna which are really helpful :) . And I have once again contact with AIESEC-ERS :). This time in the beautiful city that is called Vienna.  So far the people from Aiesec has been REALLY helpful AND motivating.

I also found a game company in Vienna to which I applied. At first they wanted to meet and have a job interview. But the people who normally did that were on holiday. So I waited for them to come back, after 3 weeks I send and email, 4 weeks another one and 4 week and 2 day’s I decided to call:

“Sorry what was your name? Tjeerd, Tjeerd… mmhh doesn’t ring a bell. I’ll have to see and check gimme a minute please…………… Ah yes I’ve got it… Oh yes I send You and email a while ago.”

”Well I didn’t receive any email that’s why I send you an email 2 days ago and last week.”

"Oh yes it say’s the email wasn’t received correctly”

“Well that could be true,”

“Okay I will check up on your status and send you an email later today”

“Okay perfect, thank you”.

Later that day I received and email that they chose not to fill the job opening at this time… So that didn’t went to well did it? No not really BUT I got some other game company addresses from Alexia (a friend from Verena from Austria) which look really great and I’m definitely going to try and apply there :). Maybe try to do a sort of internship there through aiesec and afterwards start working there for real. Hope it works wish me luck :D.

Let’s see that would be the main thread of my live, here are some side threads :D.

Verena and I celebrated our ½ year being together :D. We went to a big zoo here in Holland and went to dinner afterwards in a Mexican restaurant :D. Really nice J.Before that we went for a weekend to Austria so I could see the city and meet some of her friends, parents and brother. It was a fun weekend but also rather killing so to speak :P. No but in that weekend I got to know where my line is on things one person can handle all together at the same time. I got a migraine for 3 days afterwards and had a bit of a though period but all is well now :D. better then well actually.

At this point the only thing breaking me up is the lack of time to do stuff I want to do. The biggest cause of this problem would be my travel time to work. Which is 3 hours total a day. If I would have 2 hours a day extra for myself I wouldn’t have anything to complain about….mmhh me being a dutchman I would most likely find something though :D. we dutch are good in that :).

Well I guess this is pretty much it. I will try to keep this blog updated a little better from now on, maybe keep you informed of all the stuff we’re doing to get to Austria :).

See you later and stay tuned!

Long time no see!

Yeah Yeah I know, I've been postponing it for a long time now. Been busy with all sorts of things and stuff and today I saw that someone scribbled something on my facebook wall -> "Yello:) MIster, I am waiting for some news about your life...blogging:))" And I realised that at this moment I actually didn't have anything better to do ;), Thanks Milli ;)

Where should I begin? about 9 weeks have past since I came back from Poland. I have worked on school and had fun with friends, family and my girlfriend. A lot of time has past but in my mind nothing really much happened. not to complain but live back in Holland is just not as exciting. I'm still not used back to Holland and the dutch culture. For some reason things changed and they're unwilling to go back as they were. Which might actually be a good thing...

I finished school and graduated last Thursday :D :D :D. I wasn't a bit nervous for my final presentation which is quite strange I admit. But my examiner told me I shouldn't have to be :). And I finished it with the grade 8,5! (we got a system 0 to 10, 10 being the highest) This is quite good ;). really cool!
And ofcourse this day was a combined happy day because Verena had her birthday that day!!!! After the graduation Verena me and my parents went to a japanese restaurant and had a really good meal made by a cook who was cooking right in front of us :).
I actually got some pictures :)

With me and Verena things are also going well :). I love spending time with here and we've done a lot of fun things together and there is much more fun coming our way :D. This weekend we'll go to Liege to see Magda from Poland :D coolo!!! Verena got a job and I will try to start working at Capgemini next week :D. Really want to do something now. Have been not been really DOING anything much the past 8 weeks so I'm looking really forward to it :D. We also been to Cirque du Soleil with the show Varekai in Amsterdam :D That was just to amazing! Really enjoyed it.

Well I had some ups and downs as is normal in every live. but nothing much to report right now. Will try to update a little more often and try to put down some thoughts. I'll do my best :D

stay tuned!

back home

Hiya everyone!

Finally some time for myself. Where will I begin :). Well I've spend a good 2 day's in Berlin the first day I went to the concentration camp of berlin. I went with a guide and a group of people consisting of Irish, Australian, Scotish and some others. The guide we had was someone with a great sense of humour and he REALLY knew his stuff, talked to some of the survivors of the camp personally and could really tell interesting stuff. Although it was a concentration camp we still had a laugh every once in a while and ended up with the guide and the rest of the group in a pub for a nice beer :).

The second day I rented a bike and spend about 5 to 6 hours biking through berlin this was really fun and I enjoyed myself. Saw quite a lot of Berlin and it was beautifull weather so that was perfect :D. Then on Sunday morning 08:38 my train departed from Berlin HBF towards Amersfoort.
Hoping to not get checked because I lost my pasport in Jelenia Gora :P. They didn't check so when I crossed the german/dutch border I felt somewhat relieved. Wasn't to scared though because the only thing they could do is send me back to my own country :P

Then on 14:23 my train arrived in Amersfoort. I got my bags and got off. Walked towards the beginning of the platform and there where about 15 people to give me a warm welcome :). It was really nice and felt if I had been gone for about 1 week or so. We went home and had some beers with the whole group. It was fun and nice. In the evening I saw my Sister her husband and of course Jelte :). He's grown a lot!

Today I had to arrange a lot of stuff. New pasport calling some people meeting some people who are leaving to Costa Rica for 6 months getting my student free transport card etc. And Now I finally have some time to reflect...

To be honest I felt reluctant to go home. I felt it in Berlin, in the train and the problem is I still feel it. At this moment it feels like old times but it doesn't feel "home", it's not mine for some reason. It feels.... empty. Which is strange because I really loved seeing my family and friends again. Maybe I just have to get back used to it but at this point I'm not really happy without knowing what is wrong. I guess I miss Wroclaw and the people, but most of all I miss my "LIFE" which I had in Poland. And I miss one person in particulair of course but will see her very soon :).

But I will be better, I know it. But I guess it's a little bit harder then I thought :) and will need a bit more time. It's all really weird for me at this moment...

Oh well! I will keep you posted I guess just check my blog every once in a while if you'd like :). (here's the url once more http://farghal.web-log.nl )

But like Milli said. I shouldn't be sad because it's over but happy because it happend. So I will. So one again thanks everybody for making my stay in Poland just perfect :)

greetz!!!!

Laatste hoogtepuntjes/last highlights

Oke sorry maar heb op dit moment geen fut om een hele uitgebreide blog te schrijven. Maar vind wel dat ik weer even wat online moet gooien. even de hoogtepuntjes. Mocht je meer willen weten gooi dan een reactie met wat vragen neer ;).

Oke ik ben langzaam aan het afronden op m'n werk, laatste projectje beetje afmaken etc. Verder heb ik mijn scriptie bijna helemaal af :D W00T!. dus dat gaat allemaal lekker.

Afgelopen woensdag naar Within Temptation concert geweest (voor de gene die dit niet kennen het is een Nederlandse gothic rock band) In Warschau. Het concert was erg gaaf alleen moesten we ook weer terug naar huis. dus om 12 uur s'nachts op de trein gestapt en om half 9 in de ochtend aangekomen :S. slapen in poolse treinen is niet aan te raden zeker als je geen bed hebt :P.

Verder nog een aantal erg gezellige avondjes gehad zoals , poker avond, presentatie van whiter over nieuw zeeland en macau en luis de 2e zijn verjaardag :)

Alles bij elkaar erg gezellig en ik ben nu jammer genoeg echt aan het aftellen geslagen :(. ga polen en de mensen hier zeker missen :S.
Ik heb ook een video gemaakt over mijn ervaringen hier in Polen die online staat. Ik wil alleen niet dat de mensen die op mijn vaarwel feestje komen de video daarvoor te zien krijgen ;). Mocht je hem willen zien en niet op mijn feestje komen mail me dan ff ;)

laatste week...

Okay sorry but I don't have the energy to make put down a relly big story. But I do think I should put something down here. Just the highlights. If you would like to know more about whatever post a reaction with some questions ;).

Okay I'm slowly rounding things up at work, finishing my final project etc. Apart from that I almost finished my thesis :D W00T!. so that's all good.

Last Wednesday I went to a Within Temptation concert (for those who don't know this band, it's a dutch gothic rock band) in Warschau. The concert was really cool but we also had to go back home. So we took a train at 12 O'Clock midnight and were back in Wroclaw at half past 8 in the morning :S. Sleeping in Polish trains is recommended as a no no especially when you don't have a bed there.

Apart from that we had some nice evenings such as, Poker night, presentation from whiter about new zealand and macau and luis the 2nd's birthday :)

All in all a really nice time but I'm afraid I've really started to count down now :(. I'm really going to miss Poland :S.
I made a video about my experiences here in Poland which is online at this moment. But I don't want the people who are coming to my goodbye party to see it before I show it there ;). So if you want to see it and will not be at the goodbye party just send me an email ;).

last week...