Campanile Hotel Eindhoven

Hi my dear friends,<br><br>it is now official, I am going to write my thesis in Dublin next year :):):) This means, that I will move there beginning of January 2010 until at at least end of May! Yeahhh, I cant wait to be back!<br><br>And I got more great news: I will spend Xmas ...

... viral infection or enteritis that was acting very atypically (ie. no vomitting or diahorrea, just heaps of pain), and they kept me in the hospital to recover and to keep an eye on me. They only let me out this afternoon (Friday). Other than the complete hell of having to convince the insurance compâny that what I had was not pre-existing when I left Australia, and that they needed to give a guarantee to pay before I left the hospital, because I would not otherwise be able to find ...

... alley where Hugo won handily.<br>The next day the kids had to go back to school, so we decided to head into Maastricht and have a look around. I'll let Whitney tell you about Maastricht and get to the important stuff -dinner! Trees cooked us Bami for dinner, which is a delicious noodle meal that went prettyquickly.<br>The following day is was time to say goodbye, so we bid farewell to the kidlets before school and got dropped off at the station with our bellies ...

... period and I found NOTHING to eat. NADA. ZILCH that was open. Now if you want to buy a child's chest of drawers, that store opens at 8:30. Caffeinated shampoo to shield against hairloss can be had at 9am. But God forbid should you want coffee or a pastry. Eindhoven, where do you hide your supermarkets and food stores? And no neighborhood bakeries on every corner? My two feet are planted in Europe, right? Man was I hungry but my emergency stash of food and my umbrella ...

Knowing that I was heading through the Netherlands, I got a hold of my friend Simon, who I met in Dublin. I was excited to be able to see him again since was had such a good time boozing in Ireland. Much to my surprise, he told me that his band (the Folkaholics) were playing in a FolkFest in Eindhoven over the weekend, and he could get me a ticket to join them in camping for four days. That sounded like good times. I was excited. I know what you are ...

... and listen to live music from the afternoon into the night. There were some great bands from Holland and Belgium and it was a fantastic atmosphere. On Sunday I was invited along to the family annual barbecue. There were about 35 people from Erik's family including partners and kids. A girl from Wings of Desire brought along two owls, a buzzard and a hawk for a small bird show which was really fun.

... each other just the other week. Had a coffee, drinks and dinner. One of the biggest dinners of our trip. Three course meal for 15 euros, good deal and a nice active location. We found a hotel to stay in a place that was looking a little questionable to Tommy and Paul, but not any worst than most of the places we have ...

... CROSS. Mark put me up for two months and saved my ass during my first winter in Holland in 2003-04, and his apartment in the Noord of Rotterdam is the closest thing I can call to a home here in the Netherlands. I'm eager to see Mark this time because we've got a lot to talk about: getting our CD released, planning a duet tour of Holland and Germany, assembling a band and dealing with the logistics for our concert in Rome next month. Mark invites me to join ...

... 65 so I was excited. Then we went out to eat at a pancake house terrace on the main street. It was great, and we were well tired by the time we got home. Then on Friday Nina, Marieke and I went up to Appledorn to visit an Ape, Monkey, and Gorilla only zoo with some of her friends; Eva, Edward, and Susan. It was a great place, completely open, no cages and natural habitat ...

... to residents, and outsiders. De Naber is next door and was built, in effect, as an overspill from Hofstee. The ground floor is for 30 dementia residents and 6 mentally retarded residents. The upper floors are private flats and are completely seperate from the care accommodation. This is divided into individual homes of 6 residents (not ensuite rooms), two bathroom/wc (with sliding doors), lounge, kitchen/dining and store. These are grouped around a central ...