Janneman in Holland.

Okay. What is that Jan doing in Holland. Now, at the moment my life is pretty regular i’m afraid. I’m searching for a nice job and home in Amsterdam. I still hope to be there in September-October. Until then I’m working at a government institution, 40 hours a week. And what am I doing? Putting stickers on files. Here is how a random working day looks like.

First I grab my bike to drive to work. That’s so Dutch It is 9 km to the office, so it takes my half an hour to get there.

And I see the beautiful Dutch scenery in the morning sun.

After 30 minutes I arrive at the big bad office in the city of Arnhem.

And it goes 8 hours like this:

1) Get files

2) Put stuff in them and put a sticker on it.

(the thing you see are all stickers)

3. Put them away in the archive.

It’s not the most intellectualy appealing work, but it gets me quite some good money for the big move to Amsterdam.

But, after 40 hours of putting files away, you always have the weekends. With friends, alcohol, and a lot of good times.

When I have more news about the move to Amsterdam, I’ll check in right away.

Last saturdaynight it was the biggest event of the year in Angeren. The yearly fancy fair! In the first weekend of August the whole village basically goes nuts. The normal quite town becomes a party place for people from the whole area.

The whole village gathers in a huge tent somewhere in the grass-land. In there it’s all about drinking beer and chatting up with old friends. This is what it looks like:

At this yearly fancy fair a lot of people that have left Angeren to live somewhere else come back. So it’s really great to see that old schoolmates again. This year I even saw my elementary school teacher again. Miss Gerdien! She was still gorgeous like in the good old days! She basically stood at the start of my academic career. Kudos for Gerdien.

My school friend Julian with two local babes.

Gotta love Dutch girls.

The music is provided by Summerland, the hottest band from the Netherlands…

Outside there is something typically Dutch. A snackwall. I’ve never seen it in other countries. You put a euro into the wall, you can open the door, and your snack is there. Easy and really delicious (when you are drunk).

Together with the notorious after parties, I was in my bed at 6 in the morning. The fancy fair is ofcourse not hip at all, but still, it’s great to see all those childhood friends once a year. Next year, I will be there again.

Welcome to my hometown. This is where I spend my whole childhood. My Parents still live here. It’s name: Angeren. Inhabitants: 2864. It lays behind a dyke that protects it from the Rhine River. Closeby larger cities are Arnhem & Nijmegen. Angeren is about 1.15h drive from Amsterdam.

But indeed very tiny, and therefore dull as f*ck. But still I have a lot of memories here of an amazing childhood.

De Duimeling, one of the oldest streets of the village.

De Kerkstraat (Churchstreet), the street where my parents live. My parents live at the same place where my granddad lived. So my dad now lives on the place where he was born. But, because the house from grandddad was to old and wasted, we build a new house on the place. It looks like this:

A look into our garden:

Oh. So. Dutch.

Angeren in Rush Hour.

Wanna visit? Just take Bus 33 from Arnhem Central. After 25 minutes you are in Angeren Central.

No Joke. The symbol of the village. A pig. Because Angeren has more pigs then people. (and most people are pigs as well)

It’s a small world. Even the iPhone has arrived in Angeren.

The main road of Angeren.

Cute house behind the dyke.

View from the dyke into the typical Dutch landscape. (green and flat)

Ok, this was the tour for now. Hope you liked it…..

I’m planning to be out of this place by september.

Jan in Holland? No. Jan in Poland. Just barely one week back in Holland I took the plane again to go on holiday to Poland with 4 friends from my studies. It was definitely a guys only holiday.Together with Joeri, Matthijs, Bob & Sietse we went with the always reliable Wizz Air to the east of Europe.

The flight to Poland was an absolute nightmare. We landed in a thunderstorm. And yes, the lightning struck the airplane. And I thought I was over my fear of flying. Now, not anymore. But luckily  the plan landed safely. (after 2 aborted landings)

First we went to Krakow. This is a real nice Polish town, with lots of history and culture. Oh my gosh, I needed a culture shot after 6 months USA. Nice European streets with no cars and terraces filled with people enjoying life (and beer).The Krakow nightlife was very entertaining.

On the fourth day we made a visit to Auschwitz, the concentrationcamp of the 2nd World War. This made a huge impact on me. The preciseness and systematic manner on which millions of people were murdered. It was really a murder factory.It strange that the place is now filled with tourist complete with fast food stalls…what a world.

After our visit to Auschwitz we went by train to second city of our trip. Wroclaw. You pronounce this in english as wrotzswav or so. Wroclaw was maybe less cultural then Krakow, but still very interesting. The nightlife was again very lively Did I mention that Polish girls are pretty georgous in general?

Anyway, after 3 days of Wroclaw is was time to pack our stuff and fly back to good old Holland. It was a nice trip with lots of beer and wodka, and it was really good to see my buddies again.

Some pics of me and my friends in the Polish adventure:

More pictures (more of buildings and stuff) can be found HERE:

Poland 2008

Okay. Audience change. Language change. From now on this blog will be in English, for the friends accross the pond to follow my life back in Holland. It will just the other way around

I arrived wednesday early morning on Dusseldorf Airport. My friends Jan-Henk & Stef and my brother Niels were waiting at the airport with a banner!

It reads: “Welcome Home, Niels!” What was a joke, ofcouse. Because Niels is the name of my brother. Crazy Dutch Guys. I was really surprised by the banner.

Coffee at the airport.

Then the drive home from Dusseldorf to….Angeren. My small home town. Really nothing had changed. Time stands really still here. We chilled out and had some beers in the living room.

Then mom and dad came home.

Mom.

Dad.

Then 2 other friends arrived. Pim & Rob.

And finally, Julian arrived.

The welcome committee was complete and then we got a dutch ‘Portie Frikandel Speciaal’ This is dutch fast food that i really missed. It was great. (it tastes better then it looks)

Here I was. Back in my small home town in my living room. God, I miss Princeton allready.

Ok. Het zit er helemaal op. Het is dinsdagmorgen en m’n spullen zijn gepakt. Lokale tijd 17.45 vertrekt m’n vliegtuig naar Europa. (Dusseldorf) Daar kom ik dan om 7.15 woensdagochtend lokale tijd aan. JH staat daar voor me klaar om me naar good old Angeren te vervoeren. Long live the homies! Natuurlijk wordt woensdag dan eerst Braulio bezocht voor een portie frikandel speciaal enkel.

Ok, het was me een waar genoegen vrienden. Tot snel in Nederland.

Ciao
Janneman

Ps: Op speciaal verzoek nog eenmaal de Dim that Shit video en 6 maanden in Amerika in 3,5 minuut!

En dan houden we er hier nu mee op in Amerika. De laatste week staat natuurlijk in het teken van goodbye’s. Afgelopen zondag hield ik een klein afscheidspartijtje. De grill ging weer aan voor burgers en co. Biertjes en wijn. Wat was het toch weer fijn.

God Bless America!
Greatest Country in the World.
Home of the Free.
Land of the Brave.

Nee, het is echt een tof land om een tijdje te verblijven
You love to hate it. You hate to love it.

Pffff. Nog goed 1,5 week te gaan in Amerika. Om er maar eens een cliche tegen aan te gooien: de tijd is voorbij gevlogen.

Ik overpeins hier de afgelopen zes maanden. Een korte tijd bomvol met zoveel mensen, indrukken en ervaringen.

Blij om te ontmoet te hebben: Orlando, Manuel, Steffen, Sebastian, Marie, Rob, Didi, Georgios, Daniel, Robert, Christoph, Jurgis, Julia, Ed, Misa, Veronica, Jack, Greg, Sarah, Conny, Silvia, Funda, Emrah, Marion, Kristina, Josephine & Seth.

Nee zonder dollen, het was een ongelooflijke gave tijd. Voor iedereen die niet de tijd had om m’n blog te checken en/of alles nog een keertje dunnetjes wilt overdoen… ik presenteer dan met trots “6 maanden in Amerika in 3,5 minuut.”

Licht. Camera. Actie. Youtube:

Thanks voor het volgen van het avontuur op dit blog. Tot snel weer in Nederland Vanaf 9 juli ben ik weer van de partij.

Update:

Nog wat meer partypics van de Booze Country Crew in action

Afgelopen vrijdag hielden de Fransen weer een feestje. De verwachtingen waren hooggespannen. Konden de Fransen het Boozed! festijn van afgelopen week overtreffen? De facebook attending lijst was langer dan ooit. Het thema was zeer origineel: Beach. DJ Luca, die zijn Princeton debuut beleefde op Boozed!, was wederom van de partij. Hij draaide de lokale hit ‘Dim That Shit’ maar liefst drie maal Kort maar krachtig, het was weer een bacchanaal. Interns gone wild.

Goed. Tijd voor picca’s!

Welkom @ the Beach party!

DJ Luca & de au-pairs.

Geen feest compleet zonder party crasher Silvia.

Al behoorlijk de weg kwijt

Samen met m’n wingman Orlando.

Orlando laat zien wie de baas in huis is. (ik chill op de bank)

Een beschonken Didi neemt controle over de camera.

Mariana uut Brasil.

Booze Country in da House. Dim That Shit.

Kijk jongens, ik drink ook een biertje.

Wardrobe Malfunction.

Teut-modus.

Jajajaja. Het was me het avondje wel weer.

(nog 2 weken te gaan…)

Even wat kiekjes.

Booze Country Crew (met mij nu wel zichtbaar)

Atlantic Ocean, New Jersey

Euro 2008 met Duitsers!

Clubbin’

Haar langer dan ooit!

ps: over minder dan 3 weken ben ik weer thuis! Het zit er bijna op.