Nijmegen

We finally took the time, even with me having a cold, to go and make another tour. This time, the city choosen was Nijmegen.

Nijmegen is baigned by the Waal river, and actually has hills! That's why it still has Romans' remainings as the old city walls.

Needless to say that it rained...

Zumba!

I already posted a Zumba video here, but if at that time it seemed like something weird and funny, now I see it as a genius combination.

I actually went to a class, and tried it. It's difficult! (at least for me, I love dancing but I suck at it).
Zumba combines salsa, belly dance and other styles of dancing that I don't recognise... and it makes you move a lot and very quickly, so it's really demanding! I really enjoyed it!

I think I'm going to join a class. :)

One of these days...

... I’ll be writing from an hospital, and not for a good reason... :( (Knock on wood)

I’m still getting used to the idea that bikes have (almost) always priority, so some times, I stop when I’m not supposed to and the other way around. But the closest I got from being hit by a car was on Wednesday – I was cycling in the rain in a very quiet street near a canal, passing some parked cars, and I just had the time (and most of all reflex) to divert from a guy that opened his car door!

Always busy

Breda is a small cosy town, but with something like 170.000 people! If you count in the urban area of the council there are about 316.000 people!

So you can imagine the crowd when there is an event like the red hair day (first weekend of September) or a festival, or simply “koopzondag” (first sunday of each month all the shops are open)!

Just today there are at least tree events happening in the city that I know of:

- Red Hair Day (roodharigen): natural red hair people from 20 countries come to Breda and there are exhibitions and workshops related to the red coloured hair (www.roodharigen.nl)

- Breda Hippique: Horse competition and others (www.bredahippique.nl)

- Summer Festival Ginneken: This closes the summer in Breda! (www.bruisendginneken.nl)

...And on top of it all, it was koopzondag! The one sunday in the month you can go shopping in the centre, most shops are open between 12.00 and 17.00.

Rotterdam - Biggest Port of Europe!

We went to Rotterdam for the first time, it might sound weird, but we always pass it on our way to some other towns and we never go there.

The main interest of Rotterdam for me is the harbour! It's still the biggest in Europe, but for about 20 years it was the biggest port in the world!

Speaking Dutch

We are (slowly) learning Dutch, it’s not too hard, but also not easy. Well I say that, but for now I just refuse the idea of learning the big words like “waarschijnlijk”, that means "probably". The thing is not only hard to read, but also to write because of all the “s” - “c” and “i “ - “j” combination. But there are, of course, bigger words, if I’ll say that they join names in one word, for instance, “parkkeervergunning” - licence to park! (These are the simple ones, that I’m slowly getting used to…)

When I say people that I want to learn Dutch, they all say a very ironical “good luck with that…” but I think it’s important! And even though every rule as more exceptions rather than anything else, I’m opening my mind to this new language!

This summer we got to study a lot! We had to sacrifice our beach time in the morning to do so, but it was worth it! When we arrived from holidays I said to Carlos that I would go to the market with him, but we made a pack – we would only speak in Dutch! And it worked, we could understand almost everything.

But it gets better: I went personally to the recruitments agency here in Breda, I thought that it could help if I presented myself personally. In one of the agencies I went, I started the conversation in Dutch, but always waiting for them to switch to English, as everybody does as soon as they realise we are not Dutch (they try to be nice and polite but they really don’t let us practice the language). I got to say everything in Dutch and I understood exactly what the lady told me – they didn’t recruit non Dutch speakers! Of course, my Dutch skills are not good enough to work, I still have to search for words, and some I just try the English/French version with a little bit of Dutch accent (as much as I can fake)… But I’m getting there! YEY!