Sharpupdate

Hi folks, just quick one from my Auntie's luxury pad in the Midlands. (Eng-al-and) . I've been to London the past few days, done a stint in a suite with my ernest listening face on followed up by frantic typing and organising, battled the rain, the suffocating tube, the monstrous city. But I've also seen that eye-popping fluorescent green countryside that looks like it has been painted, mysterious chalked horses in the hills, a double ring of standing stones, and played a quiz show on the Ps2 that I felt oblided to lose to a 9-year old. Back to the 'dam on Tuesday, I'm enjoying the proximity of things here in the old word, and may get the train to France next week. La di da. By the way, the train from Amsterdam, to Brussles, to London, took about 5.5 hours. Flying back though - about the distance to Melbourne. Half way there with the carbon load. Oh yeh, remind me to tell you about the big push here to 'buy british' and to reject additives, etc,etc.

Altering history

First the CIA get busted, now the PM's office.

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary." —1984, George Orwell, pg 36

Cheese, boats and floats

You know, I really wish I had something insightful to share here. You move to a whole new continent and its meant to bring out deep revelations about culture, about being a "foreigner" about the underlying similarities of us all and the amusing differences.

But mostly it's beer, cheese on toast, going for walks in the afternoon, working remotely from my clients, and trying to remind Mr B to have dinner most nights. Just like home.

Oh yes, you read right, I've picked up a wee little bit of work. Actually the continuation of work from before, so that's all right. It seems as if the official emigration "to do" list is now:

- Get SoFi Nummer (like medicare/taxfile number combined I think)
- Register with Town Hall (requiring Birth Certificate, yikes, thanks Dad for filing that one!)
- Register as a "zelfstandige zonder personeel" (freelancer) with the Chamber of Commerce. Otherwise known as zzp.

As the Ginger would say "they don't mind a bit of a long word over here, do they?" Appointments booked for the first two, and seeking advice on the third. Yipeee.

So for this weekend our former housemates, the above mentioned Ginger and Jess are here. I'm surreptitiously blogging while they are looking at Van Gogh paintings. Soon we shall attempt to completely tire them out by riding in circles around Amsterdam.

Last weekend was hot, hot, hot in more ways than one. It topped about 28 degrees (sunbaking weather for sure) and there were lots of hot oiled bodies on display at the annual Gay Parade.

Here's a photo of a tiny fraction of the people that rolled out to watch it all afternoon. Note the significant audience who have rafted their boats up and were drinking and snacking on all afternoon. Click the photo to see the some of the boats tricked out for the parade. One thing that was a bit different from Mardi Gras at home, was a couple of big, well organised barges entered by companies, like ING finance, with their employees wearing matching t-shirts and doing co-ordinated routines. The TNT guys (courier and post service here) even had brown cardboard boxes in theirs. That was cool.