Wim turned fifty last April, but this past Sunday we celebrated. He threw a very nice party in the “Huis met de Hoofden” (the house with the heads) here in Amsterdam. Some of Nick’s collegues came over especially, as did a few American guests. We (i.e. Jan) organised a chorus for Wim, and we sang four songs to celebrate Wim’s many qualities. I guess you had to be there.

But it was a very successful party, and I (like to) think that Wim had a good time. So now it’s on to the next 50th birthday. I think it’s Kees’ turn…

Better late than never: I’ve put up some pictures of the Queensday celebrations here in Amsterdam. The pasta was finished very quickly, but that was to be expected with 62 men on board of our houseboat.

Click the image to see pictures.

Tomorrow is Queensday, our national holiday. Traditionally, all our friends come over to the “Jonathan” for dinner, after the music stops outside the Amstel Taveerne.


A 5 kilogram bag of pasta, 2 tins of peeled tomatoes of 2.5 liters each, a 2.5 liter can of corn, 10 liters of tomato sauce… We’re getting ready for Queensday allright!

Last weekend was carneval, or as they say in Cologne: Fasteleer. We were there, as every year, and it was fun, as every year. But it wasn’t as busy as other years: maybe because of the time of year, too soon after Christmas, or maybe because so many people have the flu.
Our little bunch was one short: Henk was ill in bed, in Amsterdam, with a bad flu. While we (Frits, Niels, Thomas, Jan en Timon) were in Cologne, with a spare costume…
After a lot of phoning and asking around, we found Mario who didn’t mind helping us out. The problem was that we needed to be six, as we had costumes in the six colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. And Mario had to ‘fill in’ the yellow costume.
And even though we got a lot of compliments, we didn’t win any prizes – but then we’re used to that.
The costume ball of the Rosa Funken was as busy as ever, but a large part were ‘curious’ rather than ‘gay’: people who had heard that the Rosa Funken Ball was always such fun, and who had come to see what is was about. What they didn’t get, was that the idea is to come in an inventive, and possibly outreagous, costume. Something off-the-peg from the Kaufhof or Karstadt simply doesn’t cut it for this crowd. So we were not too impressed with the costumes.
But there were some good costumes: Josephine and GeraldineDaphne were great, we loved Audrey Hepburn: but they (like us) were not appropriate to the theme, which was ‘Pirates of the Seven Seas’, and so did not get to the stage, let alone a prize.
I’m just hoping that next year it’ll be more of a ‘Gay Ball’.

See more pictures here: carneval 2005

After celebrating Christmas Day with the relatives (my mother, Jan’s mother, Jan’s brother and sister with their respective children), we celebrated our ‘family’ Christmas on Dec. 26 (what we Dutch refer to as ‘second Christmas Day) with 22 friends. So there were 24 of us in all for dinner. Each course (there were seven) was prepared, served, cleared and the dishes done by one group: that way everybody did their share, without burdening anyone with the complete dinner.
It was fun, as always, but a few people had to work again the next day. So it was not as exuberant as last year’s ‘Scottish’ Christmas.

Today Jan celebrates his 44th birthday. The party was last night, and it continued until 3:30 am. Because it was Henk’s birthday two weeks ago, and we were all in Cologne for bear-weekend, the party was also for him. Together they had invited about 30 people, and most came. It was a great evening, just talking and having fun.
Jan got a lot of presents, and donations for a new sewing machine (you need the right tools for the job, after all). Henk also received quite a lot of presents, so they were well pleased.

Today we are a bit tired and the worse for wear. We had some other friends over fot coffee this morning, but other than that it was nice and quiet today. This evening we’re going to the Shako for what will be the last meeting of the Netherbears, as the Shako will close on January 1st. So the Netherbears will have to start looking for another place to have a regular bear-afternoon.