Having un-Dutch summers and working hard
Door: Carine
06 Augustus 2006 | Nederland, Hengelo
But let's just start at the very beginning of July, which is where I left off last time... So I got back into the working class after two full years of not working at all(I admit it was me being lazy, though when in Oz I had the excuse of my visa not allowing me to work :)) No gentle, slow start to my new job as the local fruit & veg girl for me... My very first day started at 7 am (and I'm definitely NOT a morning person) and ended at 6 pm, which basically meant a 10-hour work-out and one hour of breaks inbetween. I was so sore that evening from all the heavy boxes of fruit and vegies I had carried that day and all the walking I had done to help customers and simply standing on my two feet all day long. I was feeling muscles I didn't even remember having :) I don't know what it feels like having just run a marathon, but to me, this seemed pretty close to it :) Getting up the stairs to my bedroom seemed to have never been that hard, but lying in my bed and not having to move at all anymore also never seemed that good as after my first day that night :) My dreams were filled with the hundreds of numbers I had to remember for all the stuff we sell (every single thing has its own three-digit number for the check-out), but all I could remember in the morning was "Lettuce-100 and strawberries-201" :)
Luckily they did go a bit easy on me the first two weeks I started working. I didn't have to work too many full days, and was only working about 3 to 4 days each week, every day slowly training my muscles so the soreness in the evenings lessened (though still very present after each day up until now at least), and slowly training my brain to remember all those 900 numbers :) Not getting even one bit more used to having my alarm go off at 6 in the morning to get out of bed though :) And it was a good thing I didn't have to work that much those first few weeks too, because we have had the biggest heatwave I can remember we Dutchies have ever had here in Holland. Which is not too strange, coz apparently this years July has been the hottest and driest month since somewhere early in the 70s... It was un-Dutch, seriously!! I think we had almost 3 weeks in a row of temperatures well into the thirties, where normally we get maybe 3 days in a row of those temperatures in July (and at least one of them will be so humid, you wouldn't really call it nice weather anyway :)) I loved it, though some days were way too hot to do anything, so I'd just sit in the shade and hardly do anything :) Luckily they've got airconditioning at my work, which is actually quite a rarity in Holland. We're not made for the heat and don't expect it to happen that often either :)
My Australian cousin Martin came over to my parents' place for a couple of days two weeks ago, which was absolutely awesome :) He has learned quite a lot of Dutch while being in Holland over the past 4 months, but he still had such a cute accent :) It was good to have Martin over, there's always lots to talk about somehow (maybe coz we usually only talk to each other once every 4 to 5 years and therefore have lots of catching up to do :) This time it was a record, less than 2 years since I last saw him, haha) We were constantly switching back and forth between Dutch and English, it was funny... But anyway, so we picked him up on a Monday from the train station, and after I had been struggling for about 10 minutes to get the car out of the parking spot ( I still totally suck at that with my parents' car, absolutely love driving though, once I get going :)) we went home and that's when it all began... Two full days of playing this game called Colonists of Catan, Cities & Knights. Don't know if any of you have ever heard of that game, but it's a pretty popular boardgame over here in Holland and it's so much fun :) And when I say full days, I seriously mean full days, as in starting right after breakfast, playing on during lunch and only stopping during dinner to pick it up again after dinner and then going on until bedtime :) Sad, but so awesome, haha. I had to work all day on Wednesday, and Martin had planned to leave that day anyway, so I was kind of surprised to see him still around when I got home that evening. He had decided to stay another day after all, coz he really liked it at our place, so that evening was another evening of Colonists :) Good times :D
Since he left, it's basically been all work for me... I'm spending most of my waking hours in the little kitchen out the back of the shop cutting the vegies for the salads we sell or packing and cleaning stuff, or helping customers as a check-out chick and restocking the stuff that has run out in the shop itself. Only had the Sundays off and a couple of mornings off too since Martin left, but I slept most of them away :) And the other day I was determined to see the end of this movie I was watching on TV, and it was finished at only 12.30 am I think, but I missed the last 5 minutes of it because I fell asleep on the couch!! I woke up with a start when the credits came on... I was so tired from work that day :) I absolutely love my job though, my colleagues are crazy in a good way, and it's just always so much fun!! At the moment we're just with the three of us, coz the others have all gone on holidays, so it's hard work to keep everything going, but it's great :) I made close to 50 hours this week, and have two more weeks like that ahead of me, so it's good money as well as good times :) And it makes me feel like I've got some sort of life here in Hengelo again, coz I was sort of lacking that with my friends being everywhere around the country (or Europe actually), but not at all close to Hengelo.
I went to the movies with my friend Jelmer last week though, which was good fun :) We went to see The DaVinci Code, which I thought wasn't even that bad... It seemed like some bits were missing which I probably would have understood had I read the book, but it was an alright movie all the same :) And it was simply good to see Jelmer again, coz I hadn't seen him in ages... Two other friends, Rick and Gabi, had coincidentally planned to go to a different movie that same night around the same time too, so we picked them up beforehand and had some drinks together afterwards, which was coowl too :) Hadn't seen them in a while either...
And now I've been home alone for about a week now, as my parents have set off to Sweden for a two-week holiday, leaving me in charge of the house :) Love having the place to myself, and as we don't have any neighbours at the moment either, I can just put up my music as loud as I want to at whatever time of night, without bothering anyone, it's just great :) Just be a total couch potato and do nothing all night can be absolutely heaven after a long day at work, haha.
That's kind of what's been going on in my life at the moment... I took you all the way through July and into August, which is certainly not as hot and dry as July!! We've had some massive flooding going on earlier this week. We've got this little stream behind our house, and it had seriously turned into a wild raging river the other day. The water level had come up at least two meters I think with all the rain that fell. Guess it felt like catching up on all the times it didn't fall throughout July :) Good thing the house is on a bit higher ground, haha.
Anyway, I promiss I'll try to reply to the emails I got from some of you later this week, and I hope this sort of makes up for my lack of keeping in touch lately a bit... All take care and know I love you :) -x- Carine
PS. Just one comment to Kyle: The new look is so much better than the long hair!! Like it (but don't try to look into the camera like you're some macho on that last photo you sent me, coz you're trying too hard :P Love you anyway :))
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07 Augustus 2006 - 07:20
Kyle:
haha nah i prefer the long hair, but it sure is a cold change
i dont need to try, i just am! -
07 Augustus 2006 - 08:07
Melly:
Hey..sounds good! Hope your not burning out too much! Ill write to ya soon! Luv Melly xoxo -
08 Augustus 2006 - 01:03
Mum:
Hey Caz, Is that a different settlers of Catan? We are really enjoying the Nizlopi CD - best of British hey! -
08 Augustus 2006 - 01:45
Kim:
sounds like you had another few days like you did with seth after we introduced you to rickety kate...the greatest card game ever! fantastic to hear from you again, and great to see your pictures, you look happy and healthy, and your hair is so long!!! and your job sounds like its terribly hard work, but at least your enjoying it!
thanx for the lengthy update ...(that was me being sincere too, hehe it was good to get such a long email coz i havnt heard from you in a while) lots of love kim
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