Dare to be different and learn to be lonely

Wahey, I spent another week working in England with my favorite international colleague G.! Got a lot done AND had an afternoon off to visit a new town. Instead of spending my free time in London, I opted to go to Kingston-upon-Thames, when I found out the shopping I had planned to do, could also be done there, and would be more relaxing with bonus new sights on top :-D.
But work came first of course! I traveled to England with the Eurostar from Rotterdam on Sunday, then G. and I worked at his office from Monday to Wednesday. Because he had to take care of family stuff on the Thursday and Friday, I worked from my hotel instead. I usually only work half a day on Friday, but I flipped that around, and I took my free time on Thursday to go exploring in the afternoon.
Lots of photos of food, but also of all the cool things I discovered in Kingston-upon-Thames, where I had a lovely time walking along the River and through town. I even found an art-route with glorious bronze sculptures by Gillie & Marc from their series for Wild About Wildlife. Check it out:

( First half of the week: sleep-work-food )

( Last part of the week; work-art-shop! )

The End

J.

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In my second week of Summervacation (about a month after my first), I traveled to Germany for a few days. First to Wuppertal, where I wanted to ride the Schwebebahn, the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world, built between 1897 and 1903. On my way back I planned a stop in Duisburg to climb Tiger & Turtle, an art installation rollercoaster staircase! In between I spent time reading on the train and in the bath. I also visited a sculpture park. Of course I made a ton of photos (about 800), here is a selection to share all the views from up high :-)

( Day 1: Traintravel to Wuppertal )

( Day 2: Schwebebahn! Suspension Train! )

( Day 3: Sculpturepark Waldfrieden )

( Day 4: Tiger & Turtle rollercoaster staircase )

The End.

J.

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Went on a worktrip to England for two weeks(!) in January, I visited London and Windsor on the weekend in between. I already posted a short impression on my Instagram, below is a picspam of all the food in between and after work plus a full report on all the sights on the weekend. The first week was mostly me an my UK colleagues preparing for the second week when delegations from all over world came over to nerd/work together;-)

I traveled by Eurostar train which still required a transfer in Brussels, Belgium on the way to London (due to renovation of the customs building in Amsterdam), but is going directly from England to the Netherlands on the way back. From my hometown the best connection is through Rotterdam.

( Day 1: Travelday NLD Home to GBR Work )

( Day 2: 1st workday )

( Day 3+4: worklunches and take-out dinners )

( Day 5: a Saturday in London )

( Day 6: a Sunday afternoon in Windsor )

( Day 7-12: International workweek )

J.

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Last week(end) I traveled on the Eurostar to England for another businesstrip. I had a day of rest before work, and I decided to visit a part of London that had been on my to-see list for a while: Greenwich Park, the site of the Royal Observatory – the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the Prime Meridian of the world. The trip there and back was even more fun that I had expected; it was such a relaxing, lovely area and I got to go on a fast boat over the river Thames!

Here's a picspam of my adventure :-)

( London in August is very green! )
I took so many pictures (There are 10 more photos on my Instagram!) but I also spent a lot of time walking around without making photos. The Royal Observatory is an interactive museum with loads of information on all things related to time and finding our place in the world. I highly recommend a visit!

J.

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Two weeks ago I went on another international businesstrip; this time I had a week of day long meetings in Strasbourg, France! I had one day to wander around town and for group activity we went on a boattrip:) There were two days when the meetings lasted until 7 p.m., but on the final day I did have some time to check out the inside of the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Besides work and those sightseeing moments, we spent quite some time eating; for each lunch our host had picked a different restaurant and another local dish to experience. So much food! Sadly the meeting chair denied our request for naps before continuing our meetings in the afternoons;-) Nevertheless, it was a very succesful week. Enjoy the picspam.

( Saturday Sept. 23, 2023: traveling to Strasbourg )
( Sunday Sept. 24, 2023: exploring Strasbourg )
( Monday Sept. 25, 2023: Meeting Day 1 )
( Tuesday Sept. 26, 2023: Meeting Day 2 + Boattrip )
( Wednesday Sept. 27, 2023: Meeting Day 3 )
( Thursday Sept. 28, 2023: Meeting Day 4 )
( Friday Sept. 29, 2023: Meeting Day 5 )
( Saturday Sept. 30, 2023: Traveling Home )

Had a few days extra off to recuperate. My brother and his family were over from Australia and on Monday I took my nephew to the Efteling themepark: see photos on Instagram:) Now it's back to work and regular life again.

J.

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This month I've been busy with moderator duties for the good old NicknGreg fandom; I had to sort out a few issues on the WMTDB website in order to get it ready for the definite transition to AO3. It was such a relief when I finally traced some mystery tags back to a fic challenge from 2004! Hopefully that was the final problem and we'll have a smooth move from here on:)

Today I dove back into my pile of photos from my (business) trip to New Zealand; these picspams are of the last two days before I flew on to Australia for a family visit.
Because of my covid isolation I had lost some days that I had wanted to use for exploring around Auckland before I had to catch the train to Wellington. Thankfully I still had one day left to visit a sight on top of my list: Maungawhau (Mount Eden). The climb took a lot less time than expected, so I also had a few hours to finish the day on one of my favorite mode of transportation: a ferry!

Look at my happy face (That's Auckland in the background:)


Let's goooo!

( Wednesday, April 5: Maungawhau (Mount Eden) & bonus ferry )
... but then the bus turned out to be cancelled, as was the next one (an hour later) and all the busses after that, so at the end of the evening I had no choice but to walk all the way to the hotel in the Parnell neighbourhood, which took me about an hour *sighs*.
Oh well, I did have a wonderful day and tomorrow I get to sit down all day on the train :-p

( Thursday, April 6: Train from Auckland to Wellington )

Will be continued with my trip to Australia!

J.

NZL Picspam WEEK 1 on Dreamwidth [and Livejournal] | WEEK 2 on DW [and LJ]

Video Playlist of New Zealand

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Been back to work for a week already since my vacation and as always I'm surprised how fast the routine sinks in again and I forgot all the good intentions about reordering my daily life after traveling, haha. Oh well, I'm a human of habits I guess. Here's the second part of my short trip to the island Ameland, these are the final two days in which I do more cycling and reading (in a bath with bubbles of course) plus a walking excursion through the dunes. Come explore some more with me!

( Day 3: Cycling to the Lighthouse )

( Day 4: Back on the boat )

If you are a fan of nature, Ameland is definitely worth a visit. I understand summer can be quite crowded there, but it looks like it's a pretty awesome destination year round!

Picspam Day 1 + 2 [LJ]

J.

DW: X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/576260.html

It's been over a month when I posted my first picspam of my worktrip to the Czech Republic (aka Czechia) [LJ]. This is part two, which starts after the final morning of the conference, when I had a whole afternoon to explore the hills of Mikulov. It has lots of chapels on a holy hill, awesome views, butterflies and a batcave with the most adorable bats! Let's goooo!

( Wednesday, 6 April 2022 )

( Thursday, 7 April 2022 )

J.

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So I was supposed to go on this theatre trip to London in July 2020, but then the world got to go into lockdown and the play was cancelled. I was thrilled when I got a mail from the Young Vic theatre earlier this year announcing that they would put on Hamlet with Cush Jumbo after all and that my ticket would be valid for the new dates. I was very excited when I got the confirmation for Saturday October 17, a perfect day for me to organize traveling to London. Since the world still hadn't recovered fully, I planned for minimum travel: take the nightferry on Friday, spend Saturday in London and then one night in a hotel before catching the Eurostar train back to the Netherlands. Exactly the amount of traveling needed to see the play as comfortable as possible within the limitations.

I wouldn't have traveled at all if it wasn't for this rescheduled play, as the world was still not perfectly safe from Covid, but traveling was allowed with strict rules and I stuck to them all; wearing a face mask on the ferry and trains, getting tested within 2 days of arrival to the UK (even though I would leave again the next day, this test was still mandatory) and getting tested again to go back home. (Even though I am vaccinated, for traveling back into my country an additional negative test was needed). I was willing to do it all, just to see Cush Jumbo on stage.

I have taken the night ferry loads of times and love it lots, but for some reason this time it was too crowded and several things went wrong. The connecting train from Harwich was replaced with a temporary bus service, but that had also happened before, so I could deal. London Underground was hellish, with about half of the people not wearing a face mask (and in my opinion abusing the option for exemption) and for my afternoon tea I had to deal with a stuck up server, but I kept my eye on the price: a nice evening in the theatre... (I did have some fun in between all the hassle; I found a souvenir my mom had requested, I got to go shopping at Boots and Marks & Spencers plus I got fancy at Fortnum & Mason, so not everything was bad, but I did feel slightly off kilter all day)

And then, it was finally time to go to the theatre, yay! I was all giddy walking from Waterloo Station to the Young Vic, discovering Cush Jumbo's photo high up there. I took a picture with her in the background before going to enter the theatre, where I walked into a pamflet on the door stating that 'due to unforeseen circumstances, the evening performance was cancelled'! I was in shock but to be honest not that surprised, because of all the little things that went wrong, so of course this was the final thing that had to happen. I still went inside and found out the theatre had sent out an email in the afternoon, but I was glad I had missed that or I would have been moping all day and now I had at least had a somewhat pleasant day in London.
The staff was very nice and they were sad a rebooking was not an option for me. They did arrange an e-ticket for the online live performance at the end of the month and I got a program, which I loved.

I got on the Tube back to Leicester Square and walked through the theatre district to see if I could maybe get a ticket to another play, but I wasn't really in the mood for what was potentially available, so in the end I bought myself some comfort doughnuts and returned to my hotel where I relaxed in a bubbly bath with a book.

Of course I still did come home with a whole bunch of photos from that one day in London. See if you can discover all the signs that this just wasn't my lucky weekend;)

( A sunset, a sunrise and squirrels! )

So two weeks later I got to watch the play from home, on my computer. It was still great to see Cush Jumbo, but even though it was live and I got close ups, on screen is not really as intense as in the theatre, is it? I hope I get another chance to see her on stage in the future. (Now that she's living in the UK again, that could happen, right?) - good review of Hamlet by Nick here

J.

Ahw, my final day in Haarlem, so I'm saying goodbye to the fancy Royal Suite *happy sigh*. For my last bit of vacation away from home, I'm meeting up with brotherdearest H. He often cycles from Amsterdam through Haarlem to get to the beach and he was happy to show me a couple of sights that I had missed on my first visit.
The past few days were rainy, but we were lucky to have dry weather, so we could stick to our plan of cycling to the beach together!

( Steep dunes and cloudy skies )

It was such a great little vacation.

J.

Day 1: Exploring St. Bavo & fangirl meet up [DW] | Day 2: Bubblebaths & fancy dinner [DW]


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