Smash and win, go team Sin! ...and the mämmi experience

Team Schnitzel

Continuation to last semester, the International Volleyball event had to be topped with an international win yet again!

Team mates Jonas and Lauri having a break. Note Jonas wearing the true sports jacket - leather.

We gathered up teams, ending up having four international ones with exchange students.

And who came second?

Team Sangria!

Team Sangria

And who won?

The Se7en Sins!

Se7en Sins

Congratulations!

Team Schnitzel also did a fantastic job, as so did our Nordic team (which in the end consisted of Spanish, Thank you Josevi, Saul and Julen.)!

Team Schnitzel in "action"

Final game!

And Michel's smashhh.

After a great day of sports it was time for a "Suomalainen Iltapala".

I had picked up my mummy from the airport in the morning. Her suitcases consisted of...food. And food only.

She wanted to arrange an evening for all to taste some Finnish traditional and not so traditional specialities.

Ryebread with reindeer, roepaste crispbread, Carelian pie with eggbutter, bread cheese, smoked cheese, Finnish special easterfood "mämmi", pancakes, liquorice, cloudberry jam...and more.

For some reason the Finnish mämmi didn't quite do its' deal. To get a closer sight and idea, click here to see why.

We also had a little quiz about Finland, with team "There's f*** all in Bolton, isn't there" winning. All questions right except not getting a fully correct answer for the bonus: What's my mother's name? Mrs. Lundberg isn't enough. Interesting suggestions like Itta and Tallulah were also given. :-)

Thank you all for the nice day and evening!

Today some school and Amsterdam.

...and enjoying this:

xo

Linda

Rebecca&Fiona

Picture from Facebook, here.

If I still may - the music suggestion of the day:

Spotify just is one of my loved ones. The front page advertises great new music releases to my liking nearly daily. Today I bumped into this beautiful beautiful duet Rebecca & Fiona from Sweden. Two DJ+blogger girls.
Just look at those chicks! Oh gorgeousness.

Rebecca & Fiona on Facebook here.
Rebecca & Fiona own website/blog here.

Hereby their new single "Bullets". Can't wait to hear more.

2010 single, "Luminary Ones". Official music vid.

Enjoy!

xo

Linda

Once upon a sunny lake day...

BAZINGA, James!

A little practical joke.

Once upon a sunny lake day Karen (and/or Linda) went to the lake and took James' shoes. He did not notice. Linda fed the shoes to the erm animals or creatures or what ever they could be called, monsters. The girls went for a car ride to Bloemendaal. Found a hockey court and a HUGE hill. (since when has Holland had huge hills?) Did not find the center of Bloemendaal which Scott says to be awesome and have the same shops as Haarlem. Linda thinks he is lying. Karen received an angry phone call from Scott saying James was sad about loosing his shoes at the lake. Scott said James' granny had bought the shoes for him just before leaving on exchange and the shoes meant a lot to James.

Sad Linda and Karen drove to Albert Heijn. It was closing but luckily the nice AH-boy let the girls in. As the nicest friends in the world, Karen and Linda decided to buy a little "we are sorry" -gift for James as he had to bike home without shoes. And live in the thought of loosing his shoes 4eva.

The girls bought James some tortilla chips, wine gums and beer - all James' favorite. In addition some tuna, as James is a huge fan of...John West.

The girls felt guilty of their little joke, as they had made James nearly cry, according to Scott's words.

On the other hand, the girls knew the guys surely knew how to prank back. But would they play with such a serious matter - granny and shoes?

Getting back home, shaking, the girls finally saw Scott.

Scott advised to gently go apologize as the poor baby was so sad. The girls tried.

Knock one - the door didn't open.

Knock two - still no sign of James.

Scott said maybe James was Skyping with his parents, telling about his sad loss. "Nnnoooo", the girls said.

 Knock three - no, nothing.

"Maybe James has gone back to the lake to search for the shoes?" Scott comments.

The girls decide to go to the lake and get Mr. Macca back.

One thing first - is his bike gone? No?

BLAH! They must be fooling around.

Linda and Karen decide not to go to the lake - James would come back home soon anyway.

Up the girls go with a strong thought that it is all a lie, aaaalll a lieeeee.

They smell the smell of James, see Scott, and receive the information that James is home and very annoyed by the fact that the girls had bought a tuna can referring to a previous inside joke.

Knock four - the door opens slightly.

Knock five - James opens the door. He doesn't look happy.

Until.

He can not keep his pokerface and reveals it all.

A LIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

After searching for a while on the lake, they had come to the conclusion that yes. They knew it was us.

The girls got 'bazinga'd in their own face.

What do we learn from this?

James is an expensive friend....Karen and Linda want the beer back.

Best Regards,

Bully the wnb bull

Coconuts, honey and cream

Today's drink

Many are already familiar with the Dr. Antonio Martins CoCo -water (which I largely recommend, what a nice refreshing yet super healthy drink).

But here something new, at least for my eye.

The CoCo smoothie from Dr. A. Martins, a sport medicine professional.

Pure Organic coconut - fresh, tasty and filling.

More products and the website of Dr. Antonio Martins can be found here.

Other interesting products I've been using, and have had to introduce for a long time now are:

The Baba De Caracol natural regenerating cream with Q10.

A cream for all skin types. What is best about it is how it reforms skin and cleans all impurities of the skin. The cream is said to also fade out and whiten skin injuries.

Q10, which the cream has in it, is a molecule that all cells of the body naturally include. Anyhow, when aging the amount of the molecules in cells go down. Q10 is important for generating energy in the form of ATP. Taking care of the skin, treating and feeding it with this important molecule keeps your skin younger and happier, as well as your body, too. Q10, which is also known as ubiquinone, can additionally be used for migraine pains and may be a help for muscle pains and injuries.

What last - the manuka and propolis bio toothpaste.

Can be found online here.

Checkmarks for: cleaner teeth, healthier gums and fresher breath.

Includes manuka honey, natural propolis, tea tree, eucalyptus and peppermint.

The best organic toothpaste I've ever owned. If anyone goes to Australia/New Zealand anytime soon - please inform. I request manuka-propolis toothpaste by rebirth!

Tomorrow I'm getting the best visitor ever round for a week, my mummy.

I can't wait to introduce her to all my favorites in Haarlem and around. Oh, a week won't be enough. (Sumo, Elswout, the lake, Zandvoort, V&D La Place, the beautiful houses of Overveen and Bloemendaal...and the list goes on.)

...and the very day my mum leaves, I get JP and Ansku round.

Excitedddd!

And then it's Queensday and...ahhh! Time flies!

Bisous,

LtoL

Flowers, parades and climbing

So the Finnish election votes have been counted.

Congratulations Timo Soini for getting the most votes. 43212, that's quite something.

I won't comment the upcoming 4 years of Finnish politics in any other way, at least for now.

Reading everyones Facebook status' with a nodding head is 'nuff said.

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Weekend.

Was calm.

As I'm still having my after cold cough and runny nose, I stayed in quite a bit.

Was getting waaay tooo boooring yesterday night, so I asked Scott, Karen and Tina to join to check out the flower parade.

Even though I'm not the biggest flower fan, it was quite impressive to see all the decorations.

The theme this year was music and musicals, or something like that. There were flower cars with Mary Poppins, Cabaret, West Side Story, Abba, and my favorite: Alice In Wonderland.

It was already dark and 11pm so we couldn't get good pictures.

We went back this morning with Annaïs and Nerea. The pictures didn't turn out too good today either. Just soooo many people around!

As the weather was amazing once again, we wanted to eat outside at V&D café. Tried the YUMMY hot chocolate made out of real chocolate bits and nice tomato soup. V&D has a lot of organic food. ;) ...but unfortunately I just can't taste anything. I want to get my taste backkkk!

On the way back to Grote Markt we bumped into beauty-Yana and her friend. Lovely street musicians.

Crazy stuff happening in town! It felt more like carnival than it did when the actual carnival was on.

Stroopwaffel ice-cream for dessert. Why do I eat that stuff when I can't taste? Pointless.

We went for a walk to Elswout with Karen.

Which turned into a three hour adventure!

The deers were mean to each other. One bit fur of an other. I'm sure that one was just jealous for not getting as much flowers to eat from us as the other one did.

Natural nature sneeze.

New hobby: root climbing.

Karen with her magic wand and erm, walking stick.

Our fairyland. Larping hoods.

If anyone saw me and Karen climbing over a fence to get out of Elswout to an other part of the Nature Park, we are greatly delighted to give you all the laughs you most likely got. We made it and are in perfectly fine condition. Despite the fact that Karen really dislikes spikes...and my shoes are slightly dirty. All's good.

Presentation in the morning.

Did I already mention that my new minor, The X Factor of Innovation, began?

We are arranging an event. (for the ones who know - it's like CE again but in 6weeks.)

G'nite,

Linda

xoxo

ps. annaïs always takes me to bad places. shopping. h&m. i might have done a few cute purchases. oops.

sick kitty, heat wave kitty, little ball of ...snot

Hello.

I am having a cold. Or a flu. But Karen says it's not a flu. So it's a cold.

Yes.

I think I have hot flushes... or just some other kind or random heat wave attacks.

We made a smoothie which will cure me so that i'll be able to party to Rebecca Black as soon as possible.

I've missed those times.

The cure smoothie includes:

- 1 banana

- orange juice

- lime

- 2 apples

- one full ginger

- hemp seeds

- maca

- lucuma

- MSM

- honey

It is super good. I can't taste it but I believe it is.

And Karen did said it was good. (apparently better than my banana+cocoa one)

Yesterday I can a Domino's collapse, which will not be discussed about anymore. Right, Karen!

We made a nice video for you, "my blog society" as we tend to name it from now onwards, but for some reason it doesn't work? So no video.

Karen sang soft kitty to me, so I'll probably be better in no time!

Sorry for the sight and snotty appearance, I guess I should have warned in the beginning of this post.

Or as Karen said: showered.

Linda

x

Home, went, gone

Last day of travel, day 6 of Rome

All the hotels we stayed at in Rome had check out already between 10 and 11 am. We packed our bags and set off towards the train station. A nice, and for once short, 2min walk. We left our bags at the luggage point of the station so we didn't need to carry them around for the whole day.

Last day, what to do? Nothing in mind. We'd already seen everything we came for.

We went walking around again. Colosseum, Pantheon, Vatican, etc etc. Also checked out the Hard Rock Café, which is a must in every country. Why? That I have no idea of...for the "walking in and out in one minute" -experience, maybe. There is never anything much to see.

We decided to go eat in the park and enjoy the sun. I craaaved for sushi, and still am craving (since the Albert Heijn sushi I had on Friday evening wasn't satisfying enough). It just didn't look good enough to beat its' price. Thankfully this Thursday should take care of the situation.

Killing time wasn't the easiest task.

Never had I felt like going home after earlier than my holiday would have ended, but this day I just had the thought of "wish I were back at home already" (meaning Holland) on my mind. 4 days of Rome is totally enough.

The last bus to the airport left already at 8.30pm, and the first one of the morning only at 5am. Both were super bad times for us, as JP's flight left 6am.  Anyway, we decided to take the last bus of the night since paying 40€ for a taxi didn't seem that exciting.

When we got to the airport it was already pretty quiet...seems like there's never any people! The door we went in through said the airport would be closed from 12-5am. WHAT? That was terminal 3, what about the other terminals? Terminal 1 must be open, we thought. Terminal 2 - closed from 12-5am, too. Finally terminal 1...

closed.

From 12.30-3.30am.

That meant 3 hours outside? Seriously? A main airport in Rome closed at night? No flights leaving or arriving at night?

We couldn't believe it.

All the cafeterias were closing and we had relied on them being open all night for at least some activity. food.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and JP went to buy playing cards.

Which turned out to be some random game cards... thankfully he could change them into the ones we really wanted.

12.30am came and we were kicked out. LUCKILY, we were informed that terminal 3 is open whole night. What? It didn't say so when we checked.

With great hope we made our way to terminal 3 and ta daa...open it was.

But only one door that was open at night.

And cafeterias open...everything we expected in the first place. Feeling a bit annoyed of all the worrying before and stress of having to stay outside, but still happy that we actually didn't have to.

We weren't the only ones staying for the night. We had company of e.g. around 30 homeless people out of which most were alcoholics. +some other backpackers and travelers.

Finally morning came.

JP left and I went to ask if I could change my flight to an earlier one. Well I couldn't. If I had come 30min earlier - I probably could have.

Anyway, we both made it back home.

Holland was waiting for me with bright skies and +15 degrees. Oh the joy!

xo,

linda

who is sipping some super chaga tea with liqourice root (that I got from Rome!) in it!

first try, and is super super.