On Thursday my life changed forever…I turned “Dirty Thirty”!!!
But you know what really happened…my age incremented by 1, taking me from my twenties into my thirties and that’s it. I know a few people who were fully stressed out in the approach to their thirties, but me, nope, I was more concerned about 25, the quarter century. My mum gave me a great little book for my birthday “Keep Calm you’re only 30” and it’s full of quotes; I think Mark Twain hit the nail on the head when he said “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
So you may be asking then”What’s so good about being 30?”
What isn’t good about being 30?? I have more independence now than ever. I have a steady job which I like and it gives me the financial independence to do what I like. I’m not stuck in any restrictive relationships that prevent me from doing what I want and I have the most supportive network of family and friends that anyone could ever hope to have. So I am free to live the life I choose. If that’s what being thirty means, then Bring It On.
So I had two days of celebrations, my actual birthday was a long work day with a few highlights. To share with my colleagues I had baked 3 dozen cupcakes and a batch of ‘like’ cookies. The kids actually all behaved themselves for a change, and my evening class actually bought me a cake! It is such an amazing feeling when you realise that your students do actually appreciate you!!!
I spent the evening at my mums place with my brother and sister-in-law. We had a pancake dinner followed up an amazing cake!!! My sister-in-law is the most amazing cake maker!!!! She modelled the cake on my dog..by the time it was done, the cake dog’s head was bigger than my real dog’s head!!!
On Friday I had a really chilled out day before teaching a class in the afternoon, where they all shared in the left-over dog cake. At the end of the lesson the girlfriend of one of the boys was in the hall outside the classroom and I invited her in for some cake, where I was met by another compliment “It’s a pity I am not interested in your subject, because you seem like a really nice person”. I now feel appreciated by more than just the students I teach, but by those who I randomly come across in the school. (I’m not saying I’m amazing or anything, but it is nice to know that I’m not viewed as some cranky bitch teacher)
In the evening I headed down to Cargo to enjoy some pizza and a few drinks with my family and friends…and even this old nanna managed to kick on until 3am!!!
I’m proud and happy to be thirty! The additional benefit according to Charles Dickens is that “Cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of youthful looks.”
I was spoiled by family and friends, who in addition to getting me awesome presents, made me feel very loved and appreciated. Thanks to everyone who made my birthday so fantastic!
After three short trips away, by the time we got back to The Netherlands it was time to take things easy for a few days.
I started off spending a day at home downloading the pictures of my camera, editing them and uploading them to my Facebook, writing my blog, and doing the mundane stuff like catching up on some washing.
That afternoon I was already ready for some more excitement. My cousin Quinty had organised something for all the girl cousins to do…but it was a secret. So dressed casually, ready for anything and toddled over to Quinty’s place. I soon learned that the afternoon schedule involved a cake decorating workshop followed by dinner with all the cousins and partners.
Starting our workshop we all had the choice of what cake shape to work with: round with a flat top or a dome. Considering the lady told us a dome shape was easier I put my hand up for that! We started by cutting our cakes into layers, then putting flavours into the layers, covering the whole cake in buttercream icing and putting it in the fridge to cool. By covering the cake in buttercream icing, it would make it easier to smooth a layer of marzipan icing over the cake. From there we had to decide how to decorate our cakes, and true to my name I decided to make a duck cake. I started by colouring and rolling out a light blue to cover the whole cake. Then I drew a duck on paper as a template, cut out my duck and then used this template to cut out a bunch of little ducks. I added little orange beaks and teeny tiny blue dot eyes (the person running the workshop made me an awesome duck to put on the top of the cake). By the time I put my ducks on the cake we were starting to run short on time, so Quinty, having finished her cake, helped me out with the waves and the clouds to finish off the cake. Consider I am not at all artistic and I really suck at cakes..I was incredibly proud of my efforts!!
Quinty’s cake had branches, leaves, flowers and birds; Maricia made a cake about her and Jeroens upcoming wedding, with champagne glasses, rings, the wedding date and their names on it; and Lianne made a hot orange cake with a Dutch flag in support of the European Championship football competition due to start that week.
L-R Clockwise: Maricia, Quinty, Lianne, Duckie
Happy with our cakes we packed up, put the cakes in the fridge and headed out. With all the cousins together (most anyway, Pat and Anna were visiting Ann’s family) we went for dinner to an Italian restaurant in Papendrecht. We all ate delicious food and had a fabulous evening enjoying each others company.
Mum and I headed to Rotterdam the following day for a spot of shopping. I had been very restrained so far!! I got some awesome jeans, chinos, sneakers and few other odds and ends. With our bags full we jumped on the train back to Sliedrecht where my aunt Marjan collected us and we all headed to Ikea in Barendrecht. Ikea is totally my most favourite shop ever!!! So I bought a few bits and pieces but not too much..very aware of baggage limits when flying!
Boer Family
On Tuesday Anna was a little bit disappointed that I had gone to Rotterdam without her, so I went again, with Pat and Anna this time. The market happened to be on, so we ate some yummy hot chips, drank slushies and filled the last little gaps in our bellies with freshly made super stroop wafels. Anna had waited three years to finally try a fresh super stroop wafel, so she was pretty happy!! We also had a look at the cube houses, checked out a few shops and then realising the time quickly jumped ont he train back to Sliedrecht. That evening we had a family dinner with everyone on mum’s side of the family. We went to an all you can eat sushi restaurant called Shabu Shabu. It was actually pretty awesome. There were 4 rounds and each round each person could order 5 menu items. It was great fun, and so tasty! Also surprisingly filling, we all crashed and burned after round three!! At the end of the evening as we all waddled back to our cars, we grabbed a quick family photo. The first time in 20 years that we have had a full family photo! (Sorry it’s not actually the best quality picture in the world..but at least we are all in it!)
Some other things we crammed into that week included a guided tour of my uncle’s shackle factory. Mum, Anna and I had an afternoon in Dordrecht, eating poffertjes and checking out the shops. Pat went out on the boat in the Biesbos with the boys. We all checked out the local market for fresh bread, cheese, meat and of course….super stroop wafels! One night the Stam Clan and Ineke went to Quinty’s place for dinner.
Before we knew it, it was Friday June 8th. The big day for Maricia and Jeroen!
Maricia had spent her last night as an unmarried woman, in her family home (where Pat, Anna and I were staying). In the morning the make-up person and hair person arrived to make her look all pretty. Then Marjan and I helped her put on her STUNNING wedding dress! We laced up the back and then stepped back to look at the huge grin on her face. She looked amazing and was super excited and anxiously awaiting the moment when she would see her groom. She didn’t have to wait long before there was a knock on the door. Jeroen had turned up in a spunky white porsche to collect her.
They sped off to some stunning locations for their photos before returning to greet their guests. Together we all walked to town hall where we witnessed the official ceremony. The ceremony was really lovely and very personal, the celebrant had gotten to know them well and shared some great stories.
After they had exchanged rings and kissed…of course with much applause from us! We all walked down the street to restaurant Bellevue for the wedding cake/cupcakes and coffee. This was also the time we had for group and family photos.
Soon it was time to catch the party bus to the Hipper in Gorinchem, where we enjoyed a delicious BBQ buffet dinner. We were kept entertained by some nice poems about Maric and Jeroen as well as a powerpoint presentation with pictures. By the time our food had settled, the evening guests (everyone else who was invited) turned up to the reception to congratulate to the couple, celebrate their wedding and party on and have a boogie to the band’s great tunes!
A fabulous night was had by all…especially Maricia and Jeroen!
Group photo outside town hall
The day after the wedding there was no time for us Stam’s to relax, it was time for another family reunion. This time we caught up with the entire Stam clan (Dad’s side of the family) for the first time in 20 years!!
We started our Stam day at my aunt and uncles place for coffee where we met everyone. I think I had met almost everyone before; but for Pat and Anna it was a pretty steep learning curve trying to absorb so many new names and faces. After our coffee and introductions, we hopped onto our bus and headed out to a place called Hooghei. It is an activity centre, where they offer all sorts of activities for young and old, as well as offering buffet style meals. On arrival we started with some lunch, build up some energy stores before the games to come!
At hole 1, ready to start football-golf
The first game of the day was 18 holes of football-golf (by football, I mean soccer). It was pretty entertaining, there was such a huge variation in skills level. The young ones had completed all the holes before we were even halfway through! I accidentally kicked my ball into a small canal…luckily Patrick helped me fish it out without getting wet! Some of the other boys had less luck than I did, kicking their ball into a big canal, which required stripping down to their undies and going for a muddy, cold swim to retrieve it!
Stretching to fish the ball out of the canal
Unfortunately for us, the field where we were playing had about 10 centimetres of water on it, so by the end of the game we all had soggy, cold toes. This certainly didn’t stop the Stams! Off we went for some farmers games: team football, three people per team, tied to each other, playing as one…that got a bit messy!; wheelbarrow races; the thing where you throw horse shoes onto pegs, pitchfork throwing into bales of hay to pop the balloons and a few more. We calmed down from all this excitement with a horse and cart ride. We finished the day with a tasty buffet dinner while we watched the first Netherlands game in the European Championships football. Once the game was over, with a not-so-favourable result, we took the bus back home.
Before we did that, we did manage to get a quick snap of the whole family.
Stam Family
After so much busy-ness, Pat and Anna had no time to slow down, they packed their bags and took a train to Frankfurt to continue on the last leg of their round-the-world trip. Their final destination was a second honeymoon in the Maldives. Though I was sad to see them go, I knew it would only be a few short weeks till we were all back in Tassie together, so determined to make the most of my holiday, I packed my bags, collected mum and off we went to Belgium.
Belgium
Mum and I drove the short 1.5hours to Brussels, we found our hotel, parked the car, checked in, and set off to see the sights!
Brussels is cute little city, though I am sure we didn’t even see very much of what it has to offer. We wandered past some amazing old churches and watch towers, through the fish market, briefly checked out an outdoor concert/jazz festival and nibbled on some sugar dusted apple beignets. We continued our wandering and found the city center and the marketplace, with many cute cafes and beautiful old buildings, of course the streets were lined with chocolaterie’s offering so many tasty treats..this is where we had our first Belgian pralines. We wandered into a little store and asked “Which one is the best?” and that was the one we had. Using this method, I never got a dud!!
Before going too far, we sat down for some late lunch. What does one eat in Belgium?? Well, if you didn’t already know, I will tell you now, Belgium is known for several things: Chocolate, Waffles and Beer. Having already had chocolate, our lunch consisted of waffles and beer. I had waffles ‘mikado’ with ice cream, cream and chocolate sauce, I made sure to support the locals by selecting a local brew, Tongerlo.
Bellies full, off we went, exploring more streets at random, seeing more lovely old architecture. In our wanderings we of course tried some more chocolates and also visited one of the landmarks of Brussels: Manneke Pis. The statue of a pissing boy – who knows why that was ever famous, but the crowd surrounding the small fountain/statue was crazy!
Another thing that surprised me, were the Tin Tin murals I spotted on random buildings throughout the city. Very cool though!
After having explored many of the streets and soaking up some of the culture, also having walked off our food, it was time for dinner. We found a lovely little restaurant near the old fish market we had some amazing truffle ravioli with a fresh tomato sauce, and of course accompanying this meal was some beer. It was here that I found my most favourite ever, Pecheresse: peach beer. It was divine!!
The following day we had another bit of a wander around Brussels, enjoyed a few more chocolates and were even so generous as to buy some extra chocolates for friends back home. (Do you think those chocolates made it back to Tassie?)
By around 11am, we hopped back in the car and made the short 45 minute drive to Bruges. Again we found our hotel, checked in and set off to explore. Within a few minutes of leaving the hotel the rain started, it became a torrential downpour and we found a bridge/gate to shelter under. (The center of Bruges is a walled city, and this entire city centre is Unesco world heritage listed..it was under one of the gates to the city that we were sheltering) In the 10 minutes that we stood waiting for the rain to slow, I saw the water it the gutters build up and build up, until it was a third of the way across the road. The cars that passed slowed down and swerved to avoid the pooling water…all except for one… a range rover sped through the puddle, and we were showered in filthy street water! Soaked right through, we no longer had a need to shelter under the bridge and we continued our walk into town. Thankfully it was not too long before we found a nice dry cafe to sit, warm up, dry out and enjoy some lunch.
View from the top of the Belfry
Having sat in a cafe for close to an hour, we were still a little damp, but the rain had stopped and os spirits high we went off in search of pretty sights. The first thing we spotted was the Belfry. The big tower at the central marketplace. (this is the tower featured in the movie In Bruges). I’m always a fan of climbing towers and checking out the view. Mum decided to sit this one out and sat in a cafe for a cuppa. Off I went, climbed 366 steps to the top and even with the rainy-grey sky it still had a pretty good view. Just as I was about to head back down, it must have ticked over to the hour because the bells began to chime. It was insanely loud and a terrible tune, I assume/hope that those things sound good at a distance when they sound so bad close up. The last bell chime was more of a resounding ‘clang’ ..the kind that vibrates through your whole body and deafens you! I was definitely ready to head back down!
When I met up with mum we resumed our wandering, stopped for a chocolate or two along the way. We went for a boat ride through the canals and learned a bit about the city. Such a beautiful old city! In our stay in Bruges we saw many beautiful buildings and experienced many different things: We saw Church of Our Lady which housed Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child, one of his only works to leave Italy; we learned about the history of chocolate, and got a taste test at the Chocolate Museum; we tasted some interesting beer and learned about the brewing of beer at the Half Moon Brewery.
View of some old buildings and the Belfry, from a canal.
The Belgian people are very particular about the beers. You will never find a Belgian beer that is in a can. Also every beer (I do actually mean every beer) that is brewed also has a glass designed to match it. The brewmaster designs the glass to accentuate the flavour and smell of the beer, I assume he also factors in the look and the amount of head that the beer produces when poured into each different shape glass.Once the glass has been designed to match the beer, it is then also labelled with the name of the beer, so as not to confuse the drinker. No beer is ever served in the wrong glass!
After 3 days enjoying Belgium it was time to head back to Holland, pack our bags and head home. So I said “Proost” to a fantastic holiday!
Drinking the ‘Brugse Zot’ at the Half Moon Brewery.
Over four car loads (13 people), most of mums side of the family drove to a region in Belgium called the Ardenne, which is mostly known amongst the dutch for action adventure sports. My uncle rented a 12th century castle for us all to stay in, it was called Chateau de Rolley. It had something like 7 or 8 bedrooms, there was a living room, sitting room, kitchen, dining room, chapel and an armoury..of course containing a few suits of armour, spears and trumpets! I had planned on sleeping in a room by myself, until I found a secret door in my room leading to a bathroom, which also had a secret door to another little bedroom and yet another hidden door into an attic/storage space. After finding weird stuff stashed in there I was too creeped out to sleep in a room by myself, so I made my cousin rob sleep in the other bed!!
Team challenge
So the action adventure aspect of the weekend included two full days of activities: a high ropes course, archery, team challenges, rock climbing, abseiling and canoeing. The team challenges were pretty fun and hard! Things like getting the team from one small platform, via a central platform, to an end platform, using only two planks of timber and no one is allowed to touch the ground! Also things like tightrope walking, and rope swings. Hilarious!! I have a few scrapes and bruises from it all. But it was well worth it.
My archery attempts
In the archery we also had individual competition. Six arrows each, best score wins. I was equal last with a few others on 10 points. Pat was the winner on something like 95 points. The canoeing was down L ‘Ourthe river and was the most amazing scenery. It was really pleasant to paddle down the river slowly and soak it all up. The serenity was occasionally disturbed by some evil cousins, Rob and Roel, who had an absolute blast splashing everyone with the icy cold river water!! Eeeek!
Priest Rob, with the happy couple Maricia and Jeroen
Around the castle we also wandered around the lake, explored the castle grounds and the castle itself and sat around chatting in the sun (of course I took every given opportunity to enjoy some rose beer). At one stage Pat found a random old wedding dress, so Maricia tried it on, then Jeroen (they are the two getting married next week) found a random priests outfit and put that on. My cousin Rob put on another priests outfit..then we had a pretend wedding and took photos in the old chapel. It was hilarious!!!
We arrived back in NL Monday evening, quickly did a bunch of washing and went to bed, as Pat, Anna and I had to get up at 0530 to get ready for a 7am flight to Barcelona.
Dinner with everyone
Barcelona
Sagrada Familia
It was a quick 2 hour flight to Barcelona, then we checked in at our bed and breakfast (brilliantly clean room!! always a bonus when you travel) After dumping the bags we started exploring. We started by looking at Sagrada Familia which was only a few blocks from our accommodation, it is a famous cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi. The building was started in 1882 and is projected to be finished sometime between 2020 and 2040. Gaudi got hit by a tram in 1926, so after that obviously other people had to take care of the project. It is solely funded by donation (my guess is actually that that means its funded by ticket sales).
Gaudi was an architect that designed some amazing weird and wonderful stuff, that was well ahead of his time. I really love his architecture, so visiting Gaudi works was pretty high on my list of things to do and see.
We spent quite a while at Sagrada Familia..it was all pretty amazing! And really interesting design, an amazing level of intricacy.
Model of the Casa Batlo lightwells
After Sagrada Familia we went to Casa Batlo. Casa Batlo was also stunning!!!! It had a sea theme, and it could be seen in everything, the shape of the walls and ceiling, the colours, the window and door shapes etc. The way he designed the lightwells was probably one of the most fascinating aspects, and demonstrates some very clever forward thinking. A light well (like a stairwell but without stairs) is open to a skylight at the top. Obviously the higher up floors get more light as they are closer to the top and lower floors get less light. So Gaudi designed the windows of the lower floors to be the same shape, but bigger than the higher floors, each floor you went up the wnindows got slightly smaller. This way the rooms would appear to receive an equal amount of light no matter which floor they were on. Another aspect was that the lightwell was tiled in shades of blue. The top floors that receive the most light were darker shades of blue (with the light buncing off them they would appear quite light in colour) and the lower floors a very pale blue (less light bouncing off them, they appear darker than they are). In theory this would also mean if you looked down the lightwell from the top, or up from the bottom, it should appear as the same shade of blue all the way. Pretty cool!!
I also saw more Gaudi works incl. Palau Guell, some lamp posts in Placa Reial, Casa Mila ..otherwise known as ‘La Pedrera’ and together with the three of us we went to Parc Guell. I loved it all!!!!!!!
La Pedrera rooftop
At one stage Anna had a shopping day, and Pat and I had some brother-sister time. We did a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter and saw where the old roman part of the city was, learned some history of Catalonia and of some of the artists who came from Spain, like Picasso. (Catalonia is the area of Spain where we were. The people that live there will tell you they are Catalonian, not Spanish. and many are voting to be separated from Spain to become their own country). That afternoon we spent some time chilling at the beach and writing postcards. It was interesting to sit there and appreciate the beach, having just learned that the whole 5km of beach was man made using sand imported from the Sahara Desert. The Beach Promenade (as well as some other areas in and around the city) had beautiful palm tree, these are not native to the area and were imported from the Canary Islands. They imported so many palms that at one point The people from the Canary Islands had to say “No more” and the remaining palms were imported from Hawaii!! (these things changes to the city were completed to improve the city in preparation for the Olympic games held there in 1992)
For lunches and dinners we enjoyed quite a few different tapas…some good, some not so good. But I think the biggest decider in that was the restaurant itself. The Galician Octopus was the definite winner! Not sure how it was prepared but it was the most tender and tasty octopus I ever ate!!
Our last full day in Spain was spent on a ‘Dali’ day tour. Salvador Dali was the artist who painted the melting clock. The trip started with a 1.5hour drive to the Dali museum in Figueres. This was also where he lived in his last few years and died there. His tomb is in the center of the museum. There were some pretty awesome works in the museum. But it didn’t have as much of the colourful artwork and random sculptures as I had hoped for. Then we drove another hour to the coastal town of Cadaques. We stopped there for lunch. There were two other people on our tour, a mother and daughter from Texas. They had a cousin who lives in Barcelona who is a food writer, and he had recommended a few good restaurants in that town, so the 5 of us went to one of them..it was AMAZING!!!!!!
We had a welcome drink. A champagne cocktail with some frothy pink stuff on top. We ordered a few dishes to share…including juicy lobster paella, catalan tomato bread, “he best ham in the world” – joselito ham?!, poached egg in creme with black truffle oil, razor clams and croutons, rabbit ribs and some other stuff. All amazingly tasty!! We waddled back to the bus!
We got back to the bus a little late and our guide totally panicked that we would miss our appointment to visit Dali’s beach house in Port Lligat. So she hoooooned through all the back streets, and then we had to jump out of the bus and RUN to the beach house. Thankfully they still let us in!
The poolside seating at Dali’s beach house
The beach house was pretty interesting, he had developed it over a number of years. Every time he had enough money he would buy another fisherman’s cottage and then connect it to the other cottage(s) that he already owned..slowly developed it into a pretty big house. I think it was made up of 7 cottages all up. Part of what is interesting about his beach house is that there are two unfinished works there. When his wife died, he put down his paint brush and left the beach house never to return. She died at the beach house, but wanted to be buried in the tomb Dali designed in the castle he built/bought?? for her, so when she died he sat her up in his Cadillac and drove through the city, so people could see her ‘alive’. Then he took her to the castle and buried her in the tomb. It was designed so they would be side by side, with a little tunnel between them so they could hold hands.
Just before Dali died in his museum in Figueres, he had a private chat to the mayor of Figueres. After this discussion and Dali’s death, the mayor claimed Dali wanted to be buried there in the museum. As it was a private conversation..who knows if that is actually what Dali wanted?!
To end our day we drove to the lighthouse at Cap De Creus. This is the eastern most point of Spain, it also happens to be the point where the Pyrenees ends. It was quite a pretty area. After that we drove the 2.5hours back to Barcelona. I think most of us slept because we were so knackered! We left on the tour at 8:30am and got back to Barcelona at 9:30pm! We were so tired we just grabbed some maccas for dinner and were in bed around 11:30.
In Barcelona it is pretty normal to eat dinner around 10pm….so our bed time got later and later…but we didn’t end up sleeping in much and with all the stuff we crammed into each day we just got more and more tired! However tired we are, the adventure is all still worth it!!!
After a rather uncomfortable and long flight we arrived in rainy Holland at 6:30am, thankfully for the family who love us and came to the airport to pick us up. It’s roughly a 90 minute drive to Sliedrecht from the airport, and when we arrived, we went straight to my cousins Maricia’s house for a cuppa (this was the first time we got to see her new house, and it is really beautiful!)
After a caffeine hit we dropped mum off at my aunt Inekes place and I went home with my aunt and uncle. We spent the day just chilling out, sitting around drinking coffee and chatting which was really good. By midday the weather was sunny and warm.
In the evening we had a family dinner which was great, with the aunts uncles, cousins and partners. To stay awake for the last part of the evening, I went for a ride on the tandem with my cousin Lianne. It was hilarious!!! It involved much squealing until we got the hang of it (which thankfully didn’t take too long).
Monday
Mum and I had a really chilled day, more coffee, more chatting, we also wandered around the neighbourhood and did a bit of sticky beaking in the shops. We weren’t particularly jet-lagged but had a chilled day anyway. The weather really took a turn for the good and we enjoyed mid 20s weather sitting outdoors.
Tuesday
In the morning mum and I headed off on a road trip to the north. I was pretty apprehensive to start with, driving on the highway on the right side of the road, but was feeling pretty good after only a short time. It is pretty crazy how people drive here. Flying down a 5 lane highway, I was doing 110km/h in a 100 zone, but being overtaken by EVERYONE!!! So the standard highway speed seems to be about 120-130km/h.
The days adventures mostly entailed seeing some of the older more traditional towns. we started with Marken, that has lots of old beautiful timber houses and a few people wandering around in traditional dress. After a few hours wandering around Marken we headed to Volendam, a similar old city along the water. We stopped for some lunch there and I took the time to enjoy a rose beer (delicious fruity pink beer!).
From there we headed to Edam where I was super keen to buy some Edam cheese. Sadly I discovered that Edam cheese is not actually made in Edam, so I had some locally made cheese instead. Still very tasty.
After Edam it was starting to get a bit late in the day and we decided to head to the island of Texel since it was fairly close by, and I had never been. We were pretty lucky that we got the ferry terminal perfectly in time to drive onto the boat and head off. It was about a 20 minute trip and then we headed to the ‘capital’ of Texel, which of course was a pretty small town but of course very cute with the paved streets and little houses with gabels. We drove around the whole island, checked out the beaches and lighthouses, had some delicious dinner and then found a place to stay the night.
Wednesday
After an early start and some brekky we jumped on the ferry back to the mainland, then drove across the Afsluitdijk.
The north sea used to flow into the zuiderzee, but this regularly flooded the area. So donkeys years ago they built a dam (its called a dijk, but its technically a dam because there is water on both sides), called the afsluitdijk which is 30km long.
After crossing from one side of the land to the other we ended up in a region called Friesland.
Friesland (Fryslan) is actually kinda weird because even though it is part of Holland they have their own language, which I can’t understand at all! We headed to the city of Leeuwaarden (I wanted to go there because I just love the name of the city). We didn’t really do a great deal here, wandered around the city, went to climb the church tower, but it was closed.
From there we went to a town in the middle of nowhere called Hegebeintum (the navigation system couldn’t even find it, it was so small). That was where we went to see Holland’s highest terp. A terp is basically a big mound of dirt which is a place you evacuate to when it floods (remember the afsluitdijk has now prevented flooding in this area). So the terp in hegebeintum is8.8m high. It has a church, graveyard and a few houses. It was interesting but only took a few minutes to see really.
We had a 4:30 appointment in Grootegast, so from there we hightailed it through lots of narrow little roads, following canals, through to the city (piss tiny) of Grootegast where we met some people regarding something mum does with the dutch australian society. There we had this meeting and chat, and they took us out for dinner. While I found it all pretty awkward to start with, it actually ended up being a really pleasant evening.
After that we zoofed straight through to Groningen. A bigger city. We crashed there the night.
Thursday
We started our day sitting in the sun with a tasty brekky and a coffee at the base of the Martini tower. After brekky, I went sticky beaking around the city, climbed the Martinitower and did a little bit of shopping. While I explored the city, mum had a meeting at a school regarding a student exchange program. After that we headed back to Sliedrecht, we had some dinner then picked up Pat and Anna from the train station (first time we have seen them since late January, so it is pretty awesome to catch up!!).
So that’s the latest and greatest. Tomorrow morning we head off to the Ardennen in Belgium for an adventure weekend away with the whole family.
I have submitted my last uni assignment, planned all the lessons for the classes for the last two weeks of term (and caught up with the relief teachers to discuss it) and even packed my bags!
So I am ready to go! I have a very busy last few days and then fly out on Saturday morning (thankfully not on a red-eye)
The next 4 weeks are going to be heaps of fun, but crazy busy. I plan on blogging while I am away, so stay tuned for the adventures to come!
A number of months ago I had enrolled in a Graduate Certificate of Education and was “really looking forward to learning more about how to use ICT more effectively in my classroom, and hopefully a whole lot more!!!” (to quote myself from a blog I posted in January this year)
Seriously ..what was I thinking??
The first dampener on things was when I picked two subjects for the year and enrolled in them, only to find one wasn’t on offer this year, so I would have to change my choices. So I opted to study “Online Learning and Teaching” in Semester 1 and do the core subject “Understanding educational inquiry” in Semester 2.
There are only three subjects listed in the Graduate Certificate of Education, that are in my area of interest, ICT (and obviously my fourth subject would be the core unit). But two of those weren’t on offer this year, and when I asked if they would be on offer next year they said they didn’t know (Why bother listing subjects if you don’t actually offer them??). So I asked what I should do if I couldn’t do my selected subjects, and was told to do an “educational research project” and nominate one of the lecturers interested in ICT as my supervisor . This didn’t really align with my plans, but I thought that I’d just make a start and see what happens…
So I start this course ‘online learning and teaching’ and the lecture notes are all massive blobs of text, which introduce things like wiki’s and podcast’s and blog’s. It talks a bit about what they are and then maybe asks you to reflect on how you think they could be used in the classroom. So firstly I am put off by this “online learning and teaching” class not actually making use of any good technology.
The the assignments are all talking about technology, not using it, not discussing ways they could be used more effectively. There is absolutely no practical aspect to this course. Even the first assignment in which we have to participate in an online discussion forum…we have to answer a particular questions, so you essentially write a mini essay to answer it, with references and post it on the forum. A discussion forum, to me, is about sharing ideas and discussing things. It’s not inspiring to go to a discussion forum and have to read a wall of text, then be assessed on making original, thought-provoking and insightful comments/replies that demonstrate a breadth of reading and knowledge in the area. How does this encourage free flowing conversation around a topic?
The other assignments are all very formal, writing a project brief for an effective education resource that makes use of ICT, back up why it should be done, what will it cost, what is the project timeframe, who are the stakeholders etc etc. But you don’t actually have to learn how to engage with the technology you are discussing!
The last assignment is an essay discussing the use of ICT in your work climate. It is an academic essay. So again you simply yap about technology but never have to engage with it.
I find it so frustrating to spend my time on these assignments and weekly readings when I have not learned a single thing so far! Perhaps I just didn’t have a clear understanding of what I would be learning, or perhaps I was too hopeful about what I would potentially learn that I didn’t stop to think about what it would actually be.
Another aspect that really made it difficult to engage in the uni course, was the Udacity course I started around the same time. The Udacity course was designed brilliantly, it had heaps of short lecture videos for each unit, with quizzes for almost each lecture to gauge learning and understanding. The each week was supported by a number of homework tasks. It was so interactive and interesting. It also made it easy to work through in stages, watch a few videos, do a few quizzes and then take a break. The design of the uni course with all its text to read, meant you had to be prepared to sit and read for a large block of time. Also the interface of the learning environment is ugly..it just doesn’t inspire you to engage with it.
So to enrol in one course about learning and teaching that was presented in an non-interesting manner was very hard to deal with when compared to another course with such an interactive and interesting design.
The only plus that I can see from this class is that it has encouraged a little bit more web browsing and reading of technologies available. So it’s prompted me to a do a little more of my own learning, learning I don’t really get the opportunity to apply to my course of study, but things that I can then take and test out with my class.
So to cut a long story short, I think I will finish this unit (even if I don’t enjoy it and aren’t learning anything, I’d prefer to complete the unit than bomb out halfway), after that, I will ditch uni and will keep on doing what I was doing before and playing with the technology, engaging in it’s use, testing it out with my classes and getting immediate feedback, rather than philosophising about it’s potential.
I might even go back to doing some Udacity courses from time to time, in an area that interests me, that is presented in a way that encourages me to learn and engage with the material.
So I’m really happy with all my amazing plans for the year and so far everything is going well. Only I am definitely having to be very effective with my time management. The workload and stress is slowly starting to build!
Work Plans
The Computer Science students so far seem to be responding well to the new, interactive course design.
I have made a bunch of YouTube tutorials (not finished yet) and have a number of subscribers, some are my students and some are complete strangers. It’s really exciting for me to have complete strangers ask for my help and value my response!
My students are responding really well to lesson blogging and often turn up to class having already completed the lessons activities!! That level of interest and enthusiasm is fantastic! Even if it does make it a little awkward to teach something they have already gone ahead and done for themselves! (Still have to teach it, because there’s also a large percent of students who don’t work ahead..surprise surprise).
OneNote proved a lot more challenging to get setup and syncing properly than anticipated, but almost the whole class has got it going now (I have learned a few lessons and in future years I will know what not to do!) I am yet to form an opinion on whether or not it is successful, as we have only just got the syncing sorted.
My workload in general has bumped up to 0.95 which financially, is awesome! I gained a new bus driving role this year.
With the study on the side, I am freaking out a bit about how much time there is in each day!
Study Plans
The course with Udacity, all online, is brilliantly designed. It’s very interesting content and the short videos supported by quizzes are very engaging. The fact that you immediately have to learn to apply the knowledge you have just gained is very effective in reinforcing your understanding of the concept. I wish I had the time and technology to do this with my own course..I don’t, so I will just make do.
I’m really loving the Udacity stuff, but even so there is such a huge volume of content, that I am very glad its only running for 5 more weeks!!
My course at UTas started a week ago, and while it doesn’t have the huge volume of work that Udacity does, it certainly does require time and brain power. I am hoping that I have finished my Udacity stuff before my big UTas assignments. The topics so far are really interesting, and I am currently working on the module about ‘synchronous and asynchronous discussion and community’. We’re starting to get some pretty interesting comments on the discussion forum.
Travel Plans
In the few breaks I have had from work and study I am finally sorting out all the details of my Europe Trip.
Flights to/from The Netherlands has been sorted for a while now, and I have been looking at how to split up my time over the four weeks.
The plans include:
An awesome wedding!!!
A four day family holiday with mum’s side of the family
A one day family event with dad’s side of the family
I have booked a 5 day Barcelona Trip (at this stage I’ll be going by myself..but who knows if someone decides to join me at the last minute?!) I will have 2 full days and two half days in which I want to explore Barcelona. I’d love to see a heap of the Gaudi architecture: Park Guell; Sagrada Familia; La Pedrera; and Casa Battlo, perhaps taking a cooking class, go see some flamenco dancing, maybe visit the Picasso museum etc etc. I also have booked a full day trip to visit the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, and his beach house at Port Lligat.
Salvador Dali is an artist…you have probably seen pictures of his melting clocks…
Mum and I are probably also going to spend a few days in Belgium checking out Brussels and Bruges..since its only a short train trip, I’m sure we can go exploring for a few days.
I haven’t told her yet but I would really love to take my sister-in-law to the theme park we used to frequent as kids: The Efteling. It’s not amazing for rides, but it is a bit of a traditional dutch children’s theme park, and I have so many childhood memories of visits there. I’d also like to show her around the area a bit, places we grew up, spent time.
I’d also like to spend some time in a few Dutch cities that I haven’t spent a great deal of time in. First on my list is Utrecht, maybe Leiden and Maastricht. That’s as far as I have gotten so far..
So all in all, the year is off to a good start, but I am certainly starting to feel the pressure from the amount of study I have taken on. Please keep your fingers crossed for me, that I can keep up with the workload!!
As far as I’m concerned it’s not really the start of the year yet. I’m still on holidays. However with each new day l’m starting to feel the relaxing summer days slip away, and the busy days are coming at me like a steam train. I’m already past the point where I am relaxed enough to sleep in.
This year is going to be a busy one! I have some great plans for the year…plans for study, work and travel. Since they are all things that I am actually pretty excited about, I’m going to tell you all about it.
Study Plans
Perhaps I’m a little crazy but I have enrolled in uni…again…because it would seem 5.5 years wasn’t enough!!
I have enrolled in a Graduate Certificate of Education, which is essentially the first half of a masters. (A masters is 8 units of study, but if you were to do 4 units and bail, you get nothing. So you can do a Grad Cert which is 4 units, you graduate and then whenever you choose to go onto a masters, you have already completed half of it)
Over my two years of part-time study, I intend to complete a specialisation in online/ICT pedagogies. So I’m really looking forward to learning more about how to use ICT more effectively in my classroom, and hopefully a whole lot more!!!
I have also enrolled in a 7 week course through Udacity in how to build/program a search engine. Its only 7 weeks and has been designed for people with no programming knowledge, so hopefully it won’t be too full on. Udacity is a new educational site designed to offer a variety of courses online, for free. As they are new they only seem to have 2 courses available so far, but I expect that to grow pretty quickly. This is an interesting read on Udacity and how it came to be: Udacity and the future of online universities
Work Plans
Having attended a few Professional Learning sessions last year, as well as messing around with each new technology I come across (usually introduced to me by other nerd friends), I have decided I want to change the way I teach my Computer Science class.
I say that I want to change my Computer Science class – the reason I am being so specific, is not to say my other classes don’t matter, but when you have great ideas that involve radical changes, then you have to start somewhere.
So by now you may be wondering what these changes are.. In essence, the idea is to get the students to be a bit more proactive and take responsibility for their learning through an increase in availability of teacher feedback and learning resources. (I think that kind of summaries every teachers goal).
I might break down the “new” Computer Science into the technologies that will be used:
Lesson Blogging
I will blog every lesson, prior to the lesson. This means that students will be aware of what will be happening in the lesson and can bring appropriate resources. I will also upload any required notes or task sheet and embed any relevant YouTube clips. In addition to it being useful in the lesson itself, it’s also great for the student who can’t find his copy of that assignment sheet, or also for those who miss a lesson due to illness. I trialled lesson blogs for a portion of last year and the students, as well as their parents, thought it was fantastic
Student Blogging
This is one I am unsure about at this stage. I would like to see the students blogging their experiences and reflecting on their learning. It would also be great to see them getting into the blogging interface and learning a little more about web programming from a different angle – especially since a huge number of software engineers develop applications using web interfaces.
However, when I trialled this last year, the kids didn’t respond brilliantly to it, so I may leave it for a year before attempting it again (especially since I am already introducing many other things)
Microsoft OneNote
Using Microsoft OneNote I have created a student notebook with all the worksheets that are expected to complete throughout the year. Each topic has a main tab with a summary of the topic and a checklist of all the activities for that topics (students can tick the boxes as they complete the tasks to keep track of their own work). Then within each tab there is a page per worksheet for that topic. Also at the front of the notebook there is general course info, and a table where student can record the activities they’ve complete and the grades they got – so if they keep it up to date, they will always have a good idea of their level achievement, and if they’re aiming for a specific result, then knowing their grades will indicate where they can do better or slack off (hopefully no one will slack off though!)Thats not the greatest part about OneNote…the greatest part is that they can set notebook to synchronise with a Windows SkyDrive (online storage) and then ‘share’ it with me. So anytime a student does work, I get the update immediately. It also means that if I am looking at their work, and they are struggling with a concept, I can provide assistance by adding in text, audio, video, links – whatever the student needs in order to grasp the concept. This can happen in real-time!! (ok maybe a minute or two delay..but almost instant feedback if we are looking at the document at the same time). This has amazing potential to personalise the level of assistance I can provide students!!
YouTube Tutorials
To assist the students in being able to do things for themselves, thus freeing up my time to help others, I will also be making a series of video tutorials and uploading them to my YouTube channel. In programming there are a number of key concepts/structures that can combined in many different ways to produce weird and wonderful programs. I plan on making on video per concept. Each video will have an explanation, complete with one of my amazing drawings outlining the concept. I will then demonstrate how it would be coded in Eclipse (the software we use to write programs in). To finish each clip I will provide a coded example of where and how that concept might be used in an actual program. (I say “will” because I haven’t made these tutorials yet. I have a grand plan in my head and have already made a start on recording and uploading these tutorials, so they are ready to go at the start of the school year)
Laptops
For OneNote to really work, I need the students to have a laptop that they can take home with them, that has OneNote on it. Slowly but surely we are working towards a one-to-one environment where every student has access to a computer, and ideally they all have a laptop to use for the year. Before something like this can happen in a big school, it’s a good idea to trial it first. So this year I am really lucky to getting the opportunity to trial it with my Computer Science class. As mentioned, this means that I can be sure OneNote will work properly, it also means I can be confident every student has the required software for programming installed (it astounds me how many students attempt to go a whole school year without installing the free software on their home computer, and then complain to me about not having access to the software from home). I also plan on getting all students set up with a set of Internet browser bookmarks, so I never have to hear “I didn’t know where to find it” (usually in reference to an assignment sheet or my blog). I admit I pushed a bit to get laptops in my classroom, but I also I admit I’m quite stressed about it. There is so much potential for it to have huge benefits to the students, I just really hope that the students do the right thing!!
(If you want to check out my blog and YouTube channel, feel free to have a sticky-beak: http://catscompsci.wordpress.com/. Obviously there are no current lesson plans up, as the school year has not yet begun)
Travel Plans
In true form, I am also trying to squish an awesome holiday into this busy year. June 8th I will be attending my cousins wedding in The Netherlands..which is really exciting!!
I am not going to fly over just for the wedding though, I’m going to take time out and hang out with the family as well as do some sight-seeing.
So I will take four weeks off (mid-May to mid-June … really I am taking 2 weeks off and also making the most of a 2 week term break), I will fly to The Netherlands together with my mum. There we will meet up with my brother and sister-in-law, who will be nearing the end of their 6 month round-the-world trip, and we will hang out with the Dutch rellies.
Because four weeks is way too long to be in one place, Mum is going to England for a few days and Pat, Anna and I will hopefully go to Barcelona for a week to soak up some spanish culture.
I’m really looking forward to showing Pat and Anna around Holland a little bit, so they can see where I used to live and work, and also show them around some of my favourite places. I’m looking forward to a holiday away with the Boertjes (family). I’m really hoping the Barcelona plans go ahead, as I am really keen to check out the Gaudi architecture, try some spanish food, maybe take a cooking class, check out some dancing and basically enjoy the city. Then to finish the holiday I am really excited about seeing ‘little’ cousin marry the man of her dreams!!!
I’m a bit of a dance nut, as many of my friends know. It’s been quite some time since I have taken a dance class, but nevertheless I LOVE dance: watching as well as doing.
So at the moment in Hobart the Mona Foma festival is on, which means that for roughly a week there are different music and art events being held every day around the city. This year there is a dance performance on as part of this festival. It is called Aviary and is performed by a Melbourne dance company: BalletLab. (BalletLab performed a trio of dance pieces at MOFO last year – the performances were free, however they didn’t advertise the fact that you had to collect a free ticket in advance to be able to attend the performance. I spent several hours waiting around for the performance only to be denied entry, and was furious!!)
This year I was on the ball, got the info early and booked tickets for Aviary.
As the name implies, the performance is about birds. “Aviary is a fantasia of contemporary movement and exotic birdlife, set against the avian-inspired 20th century idiom of French composer Oliver Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (1958). Between the twitchy agitation of British New Wave, recordings of birdsong and the paradise of the New Guinea jungle, this is a dance performance of uncommon adornment and flamboyance.“
After having watched a video clip or two about the performance, I am very intrigued as to what it will be like. I don’t expect it to be a traditional ballet in any way, and am pretty sure its going to be very ‘out there’. I’m looking forward to it…
First of all quoting from the program:
“Aviary is a romantic, exotic and visual art-based contemporary dance performance that pays homage to the spectacle fo the bird. It is a suite of experimental articulations based on French composer Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux, written in the 1950’s. These musical scores for the bird are interpreted through classical, modern and contemporary idioms, staged in a flamboyant rethink of paradise.
The suite arrangement implies a non-linking narrative structure. The scores are translated into different social, cultural and chronological locations: a contemporary experimental dance improvisation, a 1980s erotic disco floor, and a jungle in New Guinea.”
The first piece, Les oiseaux en cage, was set using black and white. The stage was lit with a very bright white, onto a white stage, with a white backdrop with a crisp black image on it. The dancers wore dress type outfits of black feathers and their movement utilised classical ballet to portray birdlike gestures. It was choreographed to look chaotic yet structured. The musical score was simple and supported by the dancers squawking like birds.
I quite enjoyed the first piece.
The second piece, Le coq dandy, set in “a 1980s erotic disco” used some phone booth type props and was lit with a grid of ever changing colours and pictures on the floor. The main dancers were dressed in soldier uniforms with birdlike headpieces on. There was a central character in the piece, who wore a suit with a jacket of white feathers to represent a broad white wingspan. The central character came across as a sleaze in a nightclub, trying to seduce and pickup people. The music was way too loud and pounded the ears and the movement style was modern, upright and quite angular at times.
This piece seemed very disjointed from the first and it was hard to grasp what it was about. I didn’t particularly enjoy it.
The third piece, Paradis, was much easier to understand. Its setting in a “jungle in New Guinea” was quite clear through the branches and leaves on the floor of the stage. The dancers came onto the stage by each doing a short solo, to the sound of the piano being played. The sounds produced by the piano linked into to the characteristics being displayed by each of the birds, typically higher pitched short sharp sounds were used for females, and longer, deeper, louder sounds for males. This one-by-one introduction to each of the birds was done well, with each bird giving a little ‘display’ as they may to another bird in the wild. The dancers were dressed in varying tones of brown, with headdress’ of long brown feathers. The movement type of this piece would be considered more contemporary and did not seem to have any of the structure of classical movement. Throughout the piece the birds formed different parings and went about different aspects of their mating rituals, I assume. They would scratch around and rifle through the sticks and leaves, gather what they wanted and carry them off to another spot to ‘nest’, and also take moments to ‘present’ themselves to another bird, or have a roll in the leaves with their mate. While this piece started off really interesting, it was quite long and as the music and movement built up and up, it then plateau’d and stayed where it was for quite some time before the piece simply ended.
All in all, I quite enjoyed the performance, though I did find it rather disconnected and confusing, however I think that was part of the choreographic intent.
I’m not a big fan of New Years, so rather than having people tell me to go out and drink and be merry, my friend Mark and I took off for a few days.
December 30 2011 We packed up the car with a tent and a bunch of food and headed off. We headed up the midlands highway, turned off at Melton Mowbray and drove over the central highlands, past the Great Lake and eventually got to Deloraine where we stopped at Red Cafe for a delicious lunch: Salt and Pepper Calamari Salad and Pumpkin & Prosciutto Pizza, and of course accompanied with a lovely glass of wine. Yummo!!
With our bellies full, we hit the road again and headed off to Mole Creek. We stopped here to do a tour of the Marakoopa Cave. I tried to do this tour with my cousin and her partner in January 2011, but it was flooded at the time. Marakoopa had some lovely rock formations, an underground river and much to my delight…glow worms!!!! The most stunning thing in the cave (glow worms aside) was ‘The Cathedral’.
After our tour we hopped back in the car and drove the last few hours to Cradle Mountain,. We checked in, found our allocated camping spot and set up the super amazing tent! After packing up we got out all our cooking gear and whipped up a delicious dinner of gnocchi with homemade rocket pesto.
December 31 2011 We had an early start to the day, meeting up with our Canyoning guides Leon and Nick at 0830. We thought it would be a great idea to end the year with a Canyoning expedition. We did the day trip to Dove Canyon with Cradle Mountain Canyons. The trip was roughly 8 hours.
We walked in to the Dove Canyon area and got kitted out in super thick warm wetsuits, wetsuit booties, wetsuit gloves etc in preparation for the chilly Tasmanian water. We started with a short abseil ending in a splash into the river below. From there we walked, swam and crab-walked our way down the canyon. We did some waterfall jumps (the biggest of which was 6 metres), slid off logs and waterfalls, and zoofed down some natural water slides.
All the different jumps started off a little scary, but as we got more into it we started getting more adventures with our jumps. Rather than stock standard straight-ish legs drops into the water we started doing some bombs and crazy things..it was so much fun! (at one stage I did a 3-4 metres bomb off a waterfall..it was great!!
Our guides were fantastic, both informative and fun! The group of people who were on the tour were also a fantastic crowd, all offering encouragement for those with a fear of heights. Canyoning was a rush!! Absolutely awesome and well worth it!!!
By the time we got back to the bus, I was completely knackered. So we enjoyed an ice cream to cool off in the hot weather (the river was freezing cold, but by the time we were out of the water and had dried off, it was a scorcher of a day) before heading to the tent for a wee little nap.
Our new years was exactly how I like it: good company, good dinner (vegie stir fry), a cuppa and an early night!!
January 1 2012 We started the day with a little sleep in, before getting up packing our daypacks and heading out to Dove Lake. Today was a day for a challenging bushwalk.
We started at Dove Lake, headed around Lake Lilla and Wombat Pool, up to Marions Lookout, across the plateau to Kitchen Hut, scrambled our way up to the very peak of Cradle Mountain, then headed along the Face Track before cutting down towards Lake Wilks and then finishing off a stretch of the Dove Lake Circuit. On a beautifully sunny (in other words, way too hot to be walking) day, with only a few short 10 minute breaks this walk took us 7.5hours and by the end of it I was EXHAUSTED!!!!
So in a bit more detail… it was quite a nice wander from our starting point to Wombat Pool, a lovely morning, clear blue skies and a nice light breeze. Along the path we came across a teeny tiny brown frog, but apart from the birds, not much wildlife. Wombat Pool had no wombats, and didn’t look like it was the shape of a wombat either…but still it was lovely and in the distance you could just see the tip of Cradle Mountain. Shortly after Wombat Pool the incline to Marions Lookout started..and I tell you what, it’s a hard slog!! It’s quite steep and on a hot day, very hard work. The view from the top was pretty speccy though! Our reward for getting this far, was to sit down for a few minutes and eat an apple.
From Marions Lookout to just past Kitchen Hut the walk was fairly flat. We had a great view of Cradle Mountain the whole way. Just past Kitchen Hut was where the hard work started. The rock scramble/climb to the peak. Basically we had to climb up and over huge piles of boulders. At the peak there was a teeny little valley to descend into before climbing again to the higher peak. At the higher peak I had a huge dummy spit and went back down to the lower peak almost immediately…my conquering of the mountain was destroyed by a plague of bugs that kept buzzing around me and landing on me..it was what nightmares are made of!!!!!
The reward we had saved ourselves for the higher peak, was put off to a bug free point, after descending to the lower peak we gave ourselves time to sit down, soak up the view and eat some lunch.
The decent was almost as hard as the climb up, and by the base of the summit we had certainly earned ourselves a melted freddo frog!! Not spending too much time on our butts, we headed down along the face track, it was crazy how overgrown this track was!! Part way along the Face Track we took another track that cut down to Lake Wilks, and then further down to the Dove Lake Circuit. The last section of the Dove Lake Circuit that we walked was all nice and even timber pathways…a great break from all the hard work my legs had been doing.
At the conclusion of our walk we sat on some rocks and put out feet in the ice cold lake. My feet were hot and sore, so it was a great moment of relief!
I’m very proud of myself for having completed such a massive walk, the biggest and hardest walk I have ever done. It was hard work but well worth it. Now that I have conquered Cradle Mountain, I have no intention to do it again! My muscles are still aching!!!!
By the time we got back to our campsite it was time for food and drink, so accompanied by a nice glass of wine, we cooked up a big pot of pasta!!!
January 2 2012
We started our morning with coffee, some breakfast and made a start to packing up our super awesome tent. By 0930 we were on the road home. We made one stop along the way, to go and check out Liffey Falls. Luckily it was a short 40 minute round trip walk (my poor legs could not have done much more than that!!). There were people EVERYWHERE, which was a bit of a downer, but on the whole the falls were lovely. It was definitely worth stopping and even though it hurt a little, I’m sure that it helped my sore muscles to get a little bit of a stretch.
The remainder of the drive home was fairly uneventful, I drove and sang along (badly) to last years “JJJ Hottest 100” and Mark got the chance to catch up on some sleep (Probably a good thing he was dozing and not listening to my singing!!).
The changing of the year was heaps of fun and full of challenges!! Happy New Year!!!
But you know what really happened…my age incremented by 1, taking me from my twenties into my thirties and that’s it. I know a few people who were fully stressed out in the approach to their thirties, but me, nope, I was more concerned about 25, the quarter century. My mum gave me a great little book for my birthday “Keep Calm you’re only 30” and it’s full of quotes; I think Mark Twain hit the nail on the head when he said “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
So I had two days of celebrations, my actual birthday was a long work day with a few highlights. To share with my colleagues I had baked 3 dozen cupcakes and a batch of ‘like’ cookies. The kids actually all behaved themselves for a change, and my evening class actually bought me a cake! It is such an amazing feeling when you realise that your students do actually appreciate you!!!
On Friday I had a really chilled out day before teaching a class in the afternoon, where they all shared in the left-over dog cake. At the end of the lesson the girlfriend of one of the boys was in the hall outside the classroom and I invited her in for some cake, where I was met by another compliment “It’s a pity I am not interested in your subject, because you seem like a really nice person”. I now feel appreciated by more than just the students I teach, but by those who I randomly come across in the school. (I’m not saying I’m amazing or anything, but it is nice to know that I’m not viewed as some cranky bitch teacher)
A number of months ago I had enrolled in a Graduate Certificate of Education and was “really looking forward to learning more about how to use ICT more effectively in my classroom, and hopefully a whole lot more!!!” (to quote myself from a blog I posted in January this year)
Perhaps I’m a little crazy but I have enrolled in uni…again…because it would seem 5.5 years wasn’t enough!!
We started our morning with coffee, some breakfast and made a start to packing up our super awesome tent. By 0930 we were on the road home. We made one stop along the way, to go and check out Liffey Falls. Luckily it was a short 40 minute round trip walk (my poor legs could not have done much more than that!!). There were people EVERYWHERE, which was a bit of a downer, but on the whole the falls were lovely. It was definitely worth stopping and even though it hurt a little, I’m sure that it helped my sore muscles to get a little bit of a stretch.
