Sunday, July 02, 2006

Week update

As you know, we came back from Amsterdam two weeks ago. Man! Time sure goes by fast, doesn’t it? It seem like if it was just a few days ago! But you’ll understand why in the next few lines. I’m zonked, so I’ll try to keep it short.

As I mentioned in our last post, Jaap and Patricia were making a stop-over at our place on their way down to Bari, Italy, where they were invited to a wedding. They arrived here on Wednesday evening (June 21) and stayed overnight before continuing their trip southward on Thursday morning. They arrived safely in Bari on Friday morning. Imagine: They drove about 1700 km (about 1065 miles) and that, one way. I know that for you folks in North America, it doesn’t seem very extraordinary, but for Europe, it’s a stretch that one would usually fly. Well, I would.

Anyway, they came back last Monday and decided to spend the week here. While Orange and I were working, Jaap and Patricia slept in... No wait. Jaap slept in and Patricia got up early to study in the morning. They usually spent their afternoons at the public pool nearby or went into Basle to do some shopping. And when we got home from work, a lovely dinner was always waiting for us. We like call Jaap our little Jamie Oliver because he loves to cook and is extremely good at it. Now who wouldn’t like to have guests like that? You come home after a hard day's work, have a drink and then you are served dinner. Ahhhh!

On Friday evening, we invited them to dinner at the “Wacker”, a restaurant nearby that serves “Charbonade”. You get a mini charcoal grill and about 200-250 gr. of thinly cut pieces of pork, beef and veal that you grill youself, plus diverse pickles, three different home made sauces and fries. The boys decided to go for that and believe me, after an appetizer, the Charbonade was almost a bit too much. Being the men that they are, the bravourously finished their plates and nothing but a few fries and pickles were left. I must say that they had a refill of fresh fries and sauces about halfway through their meal.



That evening, Patricia and I went to bed around half past midnight and the boys chatted outside on the terrasse until about 3:30 am. That's also when Orange took Dale - who was deep asleep on his favourite spot in the garden- back inside. Dale was all wushi-washi and didn't care being dragged in one bit!


The next day, Patricia and Jaap left to go back to Holland. It was a great week and we hope that they could really relax a bit and take a break from their hectic lives. We know they’ll be back soon and look forward to it.

I don’t know why, but we took very few pictures while they were here. I suppose that we were too tired in the evenings to even think about it. Luckily, Jaap took a few with his cell phone.

Last evening, we were invited for a lovely dinner at Berit’s, a work colleague of mine. We spent a very nice, relaxed evening. After all the entertaining and being entertained, this is what we are doing today. The weather is beautiful and we're just laying around.

Ahh, my Adonis :)

Notice the Dutch beeron the left?? Ve-e-ery important!

PS: I have been trying to follow all of you, but my evenings were busy with our guests, and on occasions, I did visit you during my lunch breaks. So, even though I didn’t always comment, I tried to at least read your entries. Hope things calm down a bit, but summer and fall are always the busiest times at work. Have a great week!

19 comments:

Unknown said...

I had such a great laugh! Always love the pics and your posts.

Yes our vacation starts next Sunday. We are hoping for the weather to cool down slightly but we will take anything to get out of town!!! hehe...

Canada Day here was awesome though. We loved it and I took lots of funny pics. Not sure I'll post em since they were of the parade and not p and I...

We had lots of fun though... We do miss the fireworks because they cancel them bc too many rowdy out of control people. End of the month we get them!

Vive le tour!!!

CanadianSwiss said...

ET: What? No fireworks?? :( But I'm sure you caught a few nice colourful pics of the parade. Oh, and yes, Tour de France is starting soon, isn't it?

Mr. Fab: Hehe. But you are like me/us... we never grew up either :D

Unknown said...

I caught a few really funny shots in the parade. They don't do fireworks because it causes too many problems for the police.

And the tour is already going to stage 3 on tuesday, ends in Netherlands this time in an area where I've cycled! (below Eindhoven near Belgium and Dutch border)

CanadianSwiss said...

ET: Can't wait to seen them. And yes, I'm late in just about eveything that's happening lately :(

Ginnie Hart said...

So I'm catching up, too, and yours is one of the first! So glad you could post about your friends and what you're up to, even though it does sound like you're terribly busy. I'm guessing we all just need to row with the punches during our busy summer months. Just let them flow and not worry about out-doing ourselves. All of us who care will hang around and "be there," even if only reading. As always, I love your posts and pics!

CanadianSwiss said...

Ginnie! Great to have you back! Yes, life is crazy here and I know that we'll be following each other through these busy times ;) Thanks!

Rob7534 said...

Always the social butterflys! Tell Orange, I said he's HOT! :)

And your kitty still scares me! What with those brite green eyes.

The Dog of Freetown said...

You can trust any establishment called "Wacker."

Anonymous said...

that sounds a lot more sophisticated than my week.. hehe. I drank with some friends too... but in the yard :)

I am glad you had sucha great time though, they sound like wonderful friends.

christina said...

Wow, sounds like you guys really had fun. And geez, what's with all the pictures of good lookin' men lately? :-)

CanadianSwiss said...

Rob - Hehe. When it's over 33°C (90°F), everybody's hot ;)

Kieran - Indeed! :)

Xmichra - Yards are great to party, too! I hope you've recuperated.

Christina - Ahhh. I see you've been visiting Sal ;)

The Big Finn said...

Hey...
Is that one of those almost-Euro-Speedos-but-not-quite?

CanadianSwiss said...

Hey Finn - Long time no see! I'm not sure Hugo would like being called Speedo (even though it's an excellent make, too). OrangeX has a Speedo that looks quite similar to this one in orange (of course!) and dark blue. But who cares!?! At least he's showing nippies :)

Sal DeTraglia said...

This is great! We now have January, February and March filled for the Beefcake Blogger Calendar.

Only need nine more!

Sal

CanadianSwiss said...

Sal - So, who will we be showing in April? I'll leave it up to you to put up an appropriate post for that ;)

Sal DeTraglia said...

C-Swiss:

Who should be Mr. April?

I think that it MUST be Walt.

CanadianSwiss said...

LOL. That was a funny movie, Sal! Yeah, sure. Walt would be a candidate for April :)

CanadianSwiss said...

Just trying if I can post commenst as well from now on!

CanadianSwiss said...

Hey, where's my picture??? Aaarghh...