Nicolette Apartments Katwijk aan Zee

... time in Melbourne and on the Great Ocean Road. Thanks Australia for being such a beautiful and safe country and for making me have a great time! I'm in the Netherlands now, where my sister is going to have her first baby in the next weeks. I'll become an auntie for the first time. An other adventure. And then hopefully a next trip will follow soon. "Pluk de dag, want het kan zo ineens de laatste zijn." Marco Borsato - Rood

... selfish reasons at first. At some point, though, the needing fades and all that remains is the cooperation. We help other people because we can, or because it makes us feel good, not because we're counting on some future payback. There is a word for this: love. Excerpted from The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor y.php?storyId=17848293 Listen to http://www.npr.org/templates/player/med iaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false &id=17848293&m=17869412

... following day won't get me in on time at all for my onward flight to Lima and it's at this point, and this point only, I realise how much I DO want to make it over there.Until now it's been a mesh of "cool, how friggin cool " but mainly "Christ almightey Ashling, WHY exactly?". Chatting to the engineer sitting on the floor next to me (he's the Dutch John Malkovich opening a new club in Lisbon....hmmm...he gives me ...

... evening. I found a nice apartment for the four of us to rent for two nights. http://www.bedandnet.com/ The location was great. The cleanliness could have been better but that's par for the course sometimes. We parked the car outside the city, took the train to Central Station then took the tram to the apartment. It was great to see friends from home and get to enjoy the wonderful pubs of Amsterdam with them. We had great ...

... The Van Gogh museum-duh. I have no idea how long it took me to get through that building but I can tell you it was over 4 hours. It was absolutely incredible to see his work up close and personal!! Waaay better than I ever imagined it would be...I guess it just goes to show that pictures of his artwork really can't do them justice. I absolutely fell in love with his story and his painting all over ...

... me. Our host, Stephan, told us he actually got to participate in a show once. Stupidly, I asked what that meant. He told me that he ate a banana out of a ****. His words, not mine. And so, walking down the district means that you pass all of these places, as well as the girls in windows. Glowing red lights around the windows display girls in bikinis or less, selling themselves to men on the street. Personally, I think that it would be pretty boring ...

... Come to Amsterdam on Saturday the 2nd of February! 19:00-21:00 Dinner for donation (vegan) at MKZ, 1e Schinkelstraat 16, Amsterdam For reservations call: 0653980315 (on 2nd of Feb) 21:00-03:00 Party with: Texmex, Son5, Milvus, The Bucket boys, DJ's and... of course the samba band itself!!! at OCCII, Amstelveenseweg 134, Amsterdam Damage: 4 euro ...

... you took out the very loud people talking loudly in their other language...the crying children and the people that don't respect personal space (oh and the slight drizzle...and the looming camera worries) it would have been perfect but alas we did still enjoyed seeing all the sights we saw the day before from different views.... After the eye we phoned and found out that my camera would cost 105 pound to repair....funny thing is that we saw the same camera ...

... We cruised around the docks and then around and through the city. Riding a bike through Amsterdam (stoned) is definately really cool. Around midday we returned the bikes and headed over to the Cannabis College to meet the listeners of one of my favourite podcasts, The Dopecast, and the one and only, host of the show, The Dopefiend, a very cool British bloke. Albor and Takachi headed off in search for a coffee shop, since ...

... western suburb of Bos En Lommer. Its about 30 minites walk from the centre of town. There are lots of muslims and morrocans living there. So when i buy beer from the supermarket i always get foal looks from the checkout chick how is a muslim. Hehehehe. We had lunch with some of Yara's friends and i pretty much slept most of that night, as i was soo jet lagged. The next day, i went to venture into ...