Exported to The Netherlands

Hello Guys,

Greetings from the Netherlands! :) I arrived here last Thursday, spent the last few days getting to know the neighbourhood and I have to admit Haarlem is a beautiful town that I like very much. The flat, located in 2 minute-walk from the railway station at the corner of a street, is lovely as it has windows on three sides, also in the roof, so it’s ever light no matter where the sun shines from. At the other side of the railway station there’s a small canal surrounded by a nice park where people go running, relaxing, feeding the birds, etc. We have run there twice already and I have heard of other parts of Haarlem suitable for running – but those are a bit far from us and I will need a bike to check out myself. If you have clicked on the link above you might have noticed that this small part of the city with the central station is surrounded by canals on all sides, so literally I’m living on an island… :) These little canals are not just pretty, but offer us a great range of activities such as canoeing, kayaking, drowning etc. So I am looking forward to exploring them! :)

Like I said the city is beautiful and big enough to have all kinds of restaurants, shopping centres, sport facilities and candy shops one possibly needs. And of course Amsterdam is still on the doorstep if you need something special.

Also, there seem to be much more Hungarians in the region than I thought, so I will be able to find company much easier than expected. We already have a football team that will be playing every Saturday morning against other foreigners – and I hope we will make friends with some of the non-Hungarian foreigners too! As the team seems to be piss-poor, without the smallest chance of victory, we will be a team obviously loved to play against… :)

But what about you guys? I hope everything goes fine and you are preparing your move to the Netherlands too! We could skype some day, maybe on the weekend – Sunday? If I can help you with anything just let me know – I ‘d be happy to listen, although my prices are not negotiable… :)

See you,
G.

Ps: my address is not the same what you may find on the page of the map - although 'A' points to the very flat where I'm staying at - I'm just telling you this to avoid unconvenient situations: e.g. if you came Haarlem and knocked on my door you would be surprised nobody answers it and eventually you'd find out that's my neighbour's door. It's good for noone. So please do your best and knock on my door - then it won't be surprising at all if you don't get answered :)

back on the horse

Surprise, surprise... enjoying my happy mood I decided to write a new post.
Today is the 20 of August in case you didn't know that. While I'm sure Gábor and hopefully most of the Hungarians know what it means but let me tell you Leho, that it's an important day for as, it's a National Day. And what does it mean? We celebrate the foundation of the Hungarian state by our first king, Saint Stephen.This is a statue in Veszprém (25 km from my town) about St Stephen and Queen Gisella. Stephen is mostly seen with parts of the coronation insignia: the Holy Crown, the orb (Globus cruciger), the sword. The coronation insignia consits of the sceptre and the mantle too.
Ok, history lesson is over..:) but I learned some new words as well.

There are more reasons of my happiness. I'm sure you cannot wait to hear them.
I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. A Dutch family wrote me an e-mail and they are very nice. I hope I can come to an arrangement with them. They live near to Utrecht and they need somebody from the end of September. They have got 3 kids, 2 girls and 1 little boy but I think what they expect from the au pair is quite fair. So I wrote them back and waiting for the answer now. And I think once I'm there in the Netherlands I might be allowed to spend some time with my old friend/s in Amsterdam.
Because if I were more brave, I'd go with Gábor. But because it's not sure whether I could find a job in Amsterdam or not, it would be too irresponsible and thoughtless to go into the big world.
So I choose the safer way.

And the university? Well, they didn't let me postpone a year so I have to apply again. Of course I'm sad about it but I'm trying to stay optimistic. And I still have lots of choices. And my CV will be so good by the next year that I'm pretty sure any university will be happy to have me. Maybe I will try to apply for the university in Amsterdam. And I can improve my English. I'm learning words every day, reading Harry Potter in English at the moment. There are lots of other books I would like to read but unfortunatly it's impossible to borrow them from the city library. They have got a very poor collection of English books. They don't even have the Harry Potter series, I had to ask my aunt to borrow it from the library in Veszprém.

How do you guys feel about series? Friends, Grey's Anatomy, Skins etc.. Well as you may know, I'm really into them. I've been watching a very funny series lately. It's called Weeds and as you can predict there are some illegal things sold in it. But it's hilarious. I can only recommend it.

Oh, and I watched Inception with my friends. I guess it was good. But I have to watch it again, then I can tell you my opinion. I wouldn't say that I didn't understand the movie because I did but there was sooo many things going on at the same moment. But there were some good action scenes, specially at the end. So watch it and let's talk about it.

Mira

P.S.: Leho my skype name is myra_m, can't wait to talk to you.

Return of the King :)

Hello! Time goes fast. What have I've done? Well, I have swam in different places in Estonia and traveled around quite a bit. Once I've was even in south Estonia where I met Margus. U know, this better and cooler Estonian in NH. We went swimming in Latvia, he showed me Valga (small border town), we BBQ and went in sauna.

Also what is worth mentioning is that we gathered a small team of friends and went to one of the hardest hiking competition in Estonia, Erna hike. I'm sad to say that we canceled after 18,5h. But it was hard. We had to orienteer with a base map where 1cm is equal to 500m. It a lot bigger ratio and less detailed than usual orieteering map. The terrain was mostly hard forrest (most of the roads were forbiden or there were patrols who had to catch teams). In checkpoints we did fairly well (diving, climbing, first aid etc) but at the end our painful wet feet and too heavy bags (I don't know how heavy was it at the beginning but at the end it was 13kg) broke us.

Now I have to say sorry to out dear Mira! She have answered to my sms' and asked about me but I've been too busy/tired/lazy to answer at that point. Well, I'm quite fine. I got one new fantastic friend, I've had fun with older friends, I've visited nice places etc. Sure, I've also wasted time and been lazy. :( There is hot too and sometimes rainy. Big thunderstorms are also visited us leaving houses (even one church) without roofs and breaking down a lot of trees (after one storm we saw hundreds of meters long road strips under trees). Only problem is that I'm quite bankrupt. I miss U too very much and I repay your hugs with twice as many. :) Btw, we STILL wait pictures of your butterflies!

Funny thing is that sometimes while speaking estonian english word comes in or in the middle of sentence I start speaking in english or I know the english word and have to think few seconds to remind estonian meaning. :D

Now... I lost track. What I wanted to write at first place. Well, I'm postponing my future every day. I'm to lazy or afraid to start looking what to do where. But I still think that Amsterdam with Gabor is the best bet. Guys, U should push me harder to look for a job etc. :)

Emm... I got writers block now. If I had something else to say I will write a new post. 'Till then - bye and I love u!

the prodigal girl

Hopefully you can understand the title I chose. But I have got very good reasons why I haven't written for a long time although I promised Gábor to do it a week ago.

So let's start with last Monday. I got the answer from the university and they admitted me. I was very happy but sad as well. The perfect word would be bittersweet because I knew my parents' answer to the school. And unfortunatly I was right. So I wrote to the university if I can wait a year with the studying. They haven't written back yet. I really don't know what to do...surprising, isn't it? :) I was talking to Zsanett about it because I wasn't sure about going myself but she asked if I would be more certain if I had the money and I said I'd go. But it doesn't matter anymore.
I'm only 20 and I don't know what to do with my life. Of course there are things I cerainly wanna try but I should decide because what I'm doing right now is very pathetic. Well actually I'm doing NOTHING. Maybe I should've applied for a university in Hungary. But that wouldn't be better just easier.
My family is telling me that time is running so I have to decide soon.
I'm still looking for a family to be a nanny or something like that. I got answers every week. I could go to Italy or to the Netherlands now.
And there's Gábor who's moving to Amsterdam and I'd be the happiest if I could go with him (if he still lets me). Zsani sent me the Hungarian guys' phone number from the bar maybe it would be a good start to talk to them. Or I could just go from bar to bar and sell my CV. or myself :)
Any suggestions guys? Are you thinking also about moving to Amsterdam, Leho?

Some other news and reasons of my disappearing.
My cousin gave birth to her little daughter last Tuesday. She is the prettiest baby I've ever seen. Her name is Csenge, and only 50 cm long and 3 kilos. So she is very tiny. They came home on Saturday and both of them are healthy. I'm very happy about them. I can't wait to play with the little girl, see her learning everything. I'm not the youngest in that part of the family anymore. Yes! :)

And I was coward to show my tattoo to my mum but accidently she saw it. She was okey, I'm still alive as you can see but she didn't like it very much. One more thing off my shoulders.

Ohhh, and the most important thing of the week :) I have got a new point to write into my CV. I was selling ice cream during the weekend. One of my friends asked me if I could work instead of her because she had other things to do and I said yes. The weather could've been better because on Saturday it was very boring to sell only 10-20 balls of ice cream but on Sunday there were more people. And I met some Americans as well. It was wonderful to speak in English to somebody again. I miss it very much. And at least I have some money so I don't have to ask from my parents if I want to go to the cinema to see Inception and Salt. Hopefully I'm going to see these movies. Have you seen these? I read/heard they are very good. Okey maybe Salt isn't but still..:)

And I've got a suggestion for you guys to watch. It is a Swedish movie. I didn't hear the Swedish language before so I thought it's like Danish. Well...no offense but it was something between Danish and Russian. But the movie, called The girl with the dragon tattoo is a must-see. It's a little long but I think worth to watch. There's going to be an American adaptation but you have to see the original.
And I watched Kingdom of Heaven today. I liked it very much.

And an other suggestion if you have time we could talk on/in/through (?) Skype. The 3 of us just like in Bjerringbro :) Most of the time I don't have anything to do so if you find some time we could arrange it. Because I haven't heard your voice for a long time. And because I miss you a lot. And we could talk about amsterdam or you could tell me what to do in the rest of my life :)
Thanks in advence.

XOXO ( sorry I'm watching Paris Hilton's BFF show..I know I'm hopeless)

Mira