Dare to be different and learn to be lonely

Last week I went on an international worktrip to Zadar in Croatia, a country I never visited before. When I was traveling Europe back in the 1990s, Croatia was still part of Yugoslavia and that whole area was in the middle of a civil war. (Croatia declared independence in 1991 and the last occupied areas were restored in 1995).

My Dutch colleagues and I flew into big city Split and from there drove to Zadar, which is about 170 km to the North. On the way we stopped at Vransko Jezero (Lake Vrana), a nature reserve, where we spent the late afternoon bird-watching before driving on to our hotel.
On Sunday I explored the old city centre of Zadar with my British colleagues and we caught the ferry across the Zadarski Kanal to climb to a viewpoint in Preko, on the Ugljan Island. Back in Zadar we saw one of the most amazing sunsets EVER.

The conference took up most of the time from Monday to Friday and it was dark early, but I did manage glimpses of a few more of the famous sunsets. During the week I had to present quite a few briefs. I had a side meeting with the delegate from Sweden on Monday evening, but on Tuesday evening we all got to go into town for a guided walking tour in the dark. On Wednesday I swam in the -very cold- seawater pool, just before the fancy hosted dinner. Best thing on Thursday was the green apple icecream I had for dessert. On Friday I went to a supermarket, that's always exciting in another country ;-).

After a very fruitful week we traveled back home on Saturday, with a short stop at the Krka river viewpoint for a final goodbye of Croatia.
I made tons of photos, here's a selection (check out the sunsets!!!).

( Day 1: Travelday(s) from the Netherlands to Croatia )

( Day 2: Exploring Zadar and the ferry to Preko )

( Day 3-7: Workweek breakfasts, lunches, and dinners )

( Day 8: Views while traveling back home )

What a wonderful week!

J.

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A travelpost unrelated to work! I scheduled two separate weeks for my summervacation. For my week in July, I wanted to travel to Spijkenisse in the South-West of the Netherlands, to visit The Bridges of Europe, an applied arts project by Robin Stam (2011-2013) who actually built the non-existing bridges that are featured on the backsides of Euro banknotes. When I checked out if there was anything else worth visiting nearby, I found a watertowerhotel in Dordrecht (the oldest city in Holland, 1120) from where I could explore wetland area The Biesbosch, that was also on my wishlist!
I had a lovely couple of days; I read on the train, cycled around on my rented bike, went on ferries and boattrips, and was spoiled with views and bubblebaths. On my way back I stopped in 's Hertogenbosch, birthplace of 14th century artist Hieronymus Bosch (aka Jheronimus or Jeroen), so I got some culture in as well. Here is a massive picspam of all the things.

( Day 1: Eurobridges in Spijkenisse & Cycling in Dordrecht )

( Day 2: Whisperboat through the Biesbosch wetland )

( Day 3: Bubbelbaths, more cycling & Walking through the wetlands )

( Day 4: Art & Food in 's Hertogenbosch (Hieronymus Bosch & Bosche Bollen!) )

The End; for now it's back to work (But there will be another summervacationweek in September:-)

J.

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This is a relatively short picspam to give an impression of my work week. It was a very succesful week; I had a lot of proposals to present, and I'm happy to say all of them were approved, yay! (Just a majority of votes is not enough, you need a consensus of all nations. We have a lot of technical meetings to streamline proposals all through the year, but decisions are made at these biannual in person meetings. One of my proposals required finetuning at three of these meetings to finally get full approval!).
In between work we were spoilt rotten with great food and facilities. At the end of each workday, a whole bunch of my international colleagues and I would meet up at the outdoors pool, where we'd hang until closing at 7 p.m. Then we would get dressed and spend the evening at the restaurant for scrumptious buffet dinners. Some chose to sit outside, which was too warm for me; I prefered the indoors section. Different colleagues would join me every night.

I must say this eating arrangement inside the hotel made for a very relaxing week, as we didn't have to have discussions every evening about where and when to eat and with whom and how to get to the restaurant. (There were three other restaurants in this fancy hotel, but most of us chose the included dinnerbuffet;-) There was an abundance of food from all over the world, including very fancy desserts; everyone could eat whatever and how much they liked. There will be a bonus foodpost for the finale of my trip to Abu Dhabi.
Photos below are a glimpse of food and work, an eveningwalk to the mosque and views from the plane home.

( Abu Dhabi, Workweek April 2025 )

This was the final travelpost, but I will share some photos of the hotelbuffet later!

J.

Part 1: DW / LJ
Part 2: DW / LJ

Summary in 10 photo's on my Instagram

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Well, hello! Checking in with a picspam, because I've been on another amazing businesstrip! I went to Abu Dhabi for work and was fortunate enough to start with a weekend to explore this capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Here's day 1: I took the local bus into town, quickly figured out the place isn't made for walking outside, so I got on a Hop On/Hop Off bustour to see ALL the things :-)

( Abu Dhabi Saturday 12 April 2025 )

To be continued!

J.

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On Sunday September 1st, the third day of my long weekend in the South of the Netherlands, it was finaly time for the main event: Bloemencorso Zundert 2024! (More about its history and the preparations for this event in my previous post. [LJ

( Getting there )

Here we go!
I combined photos of each float from all the three times they came by to show them from all angles. The first passing was from 13:45 (quarter to 2 p.m.) until 15:15 (quarter past 3 p.m.), so it took all floats an hour and half to pass me by. Second and third passing of the parade went quicker, the last float on the way to the exhibition site passed at 18:30 (6:30 p.m.)

There were also a couple of musicbands in between the floats, but I didn't get any good photos of those unfortunately; they put on a great show!

( Let's go watch the Flowerparade! )

What a great weekend!

You can find my videos of the flower floats in my YouTube playlist: Bloemencorso Zundert 2024.

J.

Previous visits to Zundert:
2016 [LJ | 2018 [LJ].


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For my most recent long weekend off, I started planning in April when tickets for the Flowerparade in the small town of Zundert went on sale; I've been to this yearly festive event before (in 2016 [LJ and 2018 [LJ] -it's on every first Sunday of September-, but it's a long daytrip from where I live, so this time I wanted to treat myself to a hotel nearby, in Breda. I added extra days before and after, to also have an opportunity to explore that city in the South of the Netherlands. I did a boat trip around Breda and discovered an artproject with murals all over town, so even before the main goal of my visit, my cameras were doing overtime, heehee. I came home with nearly 1000 photos, haha!
I'll start with a picspam of my days in Breda and will share my Flowerparade visit later.

If you can't wait to see the Flowerparade, I have already posted a couple of videos of that over at my YouTube. (I will be adding more to the playlist Bloemencorso Zundert 2024 soon!)

( Day 1: An afternoon in Breda )

( Day 2: Cyclingtour Murals )

To be continued!

J.

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Last Friday I got on a train to Amsterdam to cycle around for the Light Festival with brotherdearest. Was a little apprehensive because last year the installations were disappointing, but this year's artworks totally made up for that; so many gorgeous designs! After two hours of cycling (and stopping to take photos) we took a short dinner break and then did another final hour to finish the whole route. My butt didn't appreciate it, but (ha) it was an excellent evening:-)

( Here's a complete photo tour! )


Is it really you? - Studio Mast (NLD)
Another favorite: this installation starts with just coloured dots and then different faces are drawn with lines connecting the dots.

( More photos and links to videos! )
The current edition is running until January 21st. For everyone who wants to see more, I made a list of previous Light Festival picspams below:)

J.

December 2022 (LightFestival 2022/2023) Boattour with Mom and Brotherdearest, photos on Instagram

December 2018 (LightFestival 2018/2019) Cycled with brotherdearest, photos and video post on Dreamwidth (and LJ)

December 2017 (LightFestival 2017/2018), unplanned walk with brotherdearest, I only posted 2 photos on Instagram:
ships in the harbour and a gif of my face lit up in a box:-)

Januari 2017 (LightFestival 2016/2017) with Mom, J. and brother H., photos+gifs+videos in Livejournal:
Part 1 is a walk called Illuminade,
+ Part 2 is the boattour section called Water Colors

December 2015 (LightFestival 2015/2016) Walked with Mom, photo and videos in LJ

November 2014 (LightFestival 2014/2015) spotted two artworks on a random walk with brotherdearest, picspam of Amsterdam in LJ

Playlist of all the Video over the years on my YouTube

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Yesterday I came home from a lovely four day trip to one of the Wadden Islands up in the North of the Netherlands: Ameland. It's an hour by train and half an hour by bus plus another 50 minutes by ferry, so just enough travel to make if feel like a true vacation:-) I had booked a fancy suite in a 'boutique' hotel with 2 (two!) rain showers and a free-standing bath tub. I had brought a whole bunch of books to read and hadn't really planned to be very active. Beforehand I had checked if I could hire a regular bicycle, but found they only had bikes with gears or e-bikes available and neither suits me. But upon arrival at the hotel I discovered there was a rental bikeshop just around the corner so I decided to ask in person and they had a perfect bike available after all. I love cycling lots and it's so much easier to move around than walking and I couldn't resist exploring the island beyond the tiny village I stayed in. Want to come along? Here's a picspam of my first two days...

( Day 1: Travel to Nes )

( Day 2: Cycling to 't Oerd )

Size facts about Ameland: the island is 25km long and varies in width from 4km in the West to only 2km in the East. There live about 3700 people permanently and all year round there are about 40,000 visitors (25,000 from Germany)!

To be continued!

J.

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Had quite a busy few weeks, so it took a while to sort through my photos, but here it finally is: the last picspam of my hoteltrip to Doetinchem. On the second day of my visit, I explored the city. As it happens, on top of all the regular sights, there was a creative street exposition of World Street Painting! I also discovered one of the awesomest artinstallations I've ever seen. Join me on a walk with a bit of history, architecture, (street)art and butterflies!

( Day 2 in Doetinchem )

( Day 3 in Doetinchem )

The End.

Hope this was as much fun for you as it was for me! (Part One)

J.

Had a very good night's sleep after all the walking (and eating) I did on my first day in Zaandam. For my second day I had nothing planned but reading and relaxing. But since I hadn't had a chance to go inside the main tourist attraction yesterday, I put that bit of sightseeing on the program as well. My main event however was a visit to the Wellness floor of the hotel... but let's start with breakfast. Twice!

( Thursday August 12: Czar Peter's House & Wellness )


( Friday August 13: Zaanse Schans & Home )

The end.

J.