After six months

Yesterday was our six-month anniversary, which we, of course, had to celebrate. We went out to dinner at Bellagio, a damn good Italian restaurant just around the corner. It is a little more expensive than the pizzerias that are next door, but the quality was incredible.

 

The food was good, I had a pasta with barolo wine coloration with fillet of beef. Anneke had Vitello Tonato. Both were incredible, and those were just the starters!

Our main courses were (for me) an entrecote with a balsamico sirup, Anneke had a risotto with cheese and deer.

For me it was the best meal we had in a long time, with some great wines with it.

Six months marriage, and I still love it. Without getting all 'doctor Phil' on everyone, I think it really was the icing on the cake for what we already had going on between us.

Not too much has changed, of course, but the idea of being married to someone rocks!

Corsica

Our honeymoon in Corsica was great, as I said in my last post. Nature is great there. A small island, but with a very diverse cover trees and a lot of maquis (Corsican underbrush).

The small town are nice, and have a very quiet and slow-paced atmosphere. In summer's high season it gets really crowded, so I was very glad to be there just before, when people are still friendly.

The small mountain roads are very cool to drive, but it is very tiring, so we had lots of in between stops. Being there for two weeks gives you the chance to see a lot of things, and have some days of extreme lazyness as well.

 

We planned to eat at our tent often, but in the end we only did that about 4 times. Going out for dinner is just a little bit more expensive than buying food at incredibly expensive supermarkets.

The local cuisine is incredible. Lots of good drinks, good food. Great steaks, great smoked porc. Only for the food I would recommend any non-vegetarian to go there...

Long time no see

It has been a while since I last blogged. A lot has happened, which is the reason for my absence.

Getting married, going on honeymoon, working your ass off just before your wedding tends to make you blog a bit less, apparently...

I don't have any pictures of our wedding yet, so I will report on that later. I do have some of Corsica, where we went on honeymoon.

Loved it there! Great weather, good food, better drinks, my wife and I without anyone in the area that we even remotely know... What else can a man want?

I even bougth three new bottles of whisky. I wanted to say Scotch, but since they are from Corsica, that would be kind of a lie. They taste great, for Corsican whisky. The P&M is very different with a chestnut flavor.

I will post a small report on our honeymoon soon.

The last week

In 8 days I am getting married, so I have one week of relative freedom left :)

In this week I still have a million things to do, like getting confirmations of all kinds of people that things are in good order. Also, paying for a lot of stuff is on the agenda. This is one of the aspects of getting married that I really dislike.

We are going to publish a couple of pictures quickly after our wedding day on www.sjoerdenanneke.net and after our honeymoon we are going to put all acceptable pictures online there. So check it out early in July.

I still have to work for another 3.5 days this week, and those days are going to be busy. I guess I will still make my regular 40 hours, at least.

Next weekend my plan is to stay in bed most of the time, to make 100% sure that I am well rested on June 10th. If I don't plan this ahead I know myself well enough to be sure that I am incredibly busy the days before and will be really tired on the big day...

I probably will not be blogging anymore before June 11th, and then there will be almost three weeks of digital silence on this front.

See ya!

Bachelor party

Last Saturday my friends threw me a bachelor party, about one month before getting married. I had no idea what we were going to do, but I did guess the date correctly (our masters of ceremony are not really obscure :-) ).

We went to play Highland Games. So an afternoon of throwing heavy stuff around a field was in place. Caber throwing, Cannonball throwing, Horse Spear throwing, Barrel rolling and so on.

We had a really great time, and I finished third. See below for some pictures.

 

We had trouble just lifting some of the things we should throw. Not too many pictures, because the Internet connection from Belarus is not too good...

A busy week...

This week has been a rush all along. Except Monday. Monday was 2nd Whitsunday (we have 2 in the Netherlands). After that everything was over in a couple of minutes, that is how it feels at least.

On Tuesday I worked till about 9.30 to finish a massive functional design for a big customer (not just me, but the team).

Wednesday we went to see CocoRosie in Eindhoven (again). We tried to skip the support acts, since they suck. We still had to see the last 20 minutes of Quinn Walker. Boring as hell, but the CocoRosie show afterwards was very good. A couple of new songs, a solo by the beat boxer and many good songs. Lovely!

Thursday I went out for dinner with a couple of guys from work. Good food and a couple of beers afterwards. We had a very good time.

Yesterday we went to see Angus & Julia Stone in Amsterdam. That was the highlight of the week. It was a short but very good show. Even the support act was quite all right.

They played many songs that I more or less know by heart. A couple of new and unreleased songs too. Really good. It was fun to watch too, since they tend to be a bit too innocent / naive in their behavior apparently. Nice crowd too, not too busy.

Today our masters of ceremony (for the wedding) are visiting to talk everything through a final time. Tomorrow is day of rest and barbeque at the butcher where Anneke used to work. After that another week in Minsk, Belarus.

When I get home I get married in less than 20 days, so those two weeks will, most likely, be incredibly busy too. At work as well as at home.

Whisky and more

Last Friday I organized, together with a colleague, a whisky nosing and tasting at the Whiskykoning. He invited some friends, I invited some friends and since we had a bit of room to spare we invited some other colleagues as well. In the end we were with 10 people.

The line up of whiskies was pretty ok. I had to come up with a couple of whiskies to do the tasting, and in the end it seemed wise to go for different kinds of finishes. So we had the following whiskies:

• Glenmorangie Cellar 13 (bourbon matured)
• Cragganmore Distillers' Edition (port finish)
• Dalmore Black Pearl (madeira finish)
• Springbank Rum Wood (rum finish)
• Bruichladdich 15 (sauterne finish)
• Blackadder Port Ellen 21 (sherry matured)

The results were not really predictable, and since everyone had their own favorite, I am only going to give my results:
 
#1 Port Ellen (slightly sweet, fruitcake)
#2 Glenmorangie Cellar 13 (exceptional in its simplicity, vanilla and wood)
#3 Springbank Rum Wood (not too exceptional, but quite good. Too bad the typical Springbank edge was gone)
#The rest (can't choose)

The Port and Madeira finishes were not really my thing. I thought they tasted a bit stale and a bit too sweet. The Bruichladdich was a strange one. It tasted nothing like other Bruich's I have tasted (quite a few by now). It was incredibly sweet, too much. All this sweetness pushed all other flavors to the back.

Other things

The rest of the weekend was busy. We have been doing some preparations for our vacation to Mexico coming Friday. On Saturday evening, we went to Leerdam to see Last Horizon play again in a band competition, which they won this time!

On Sunday we slept in for a bit and then did some house keeping. In the afternoon I went to see The Bluegrass Boogiemen in Plein 79. They were quite cool and played some honest bluegrass tunes. Banjo's and Fiddles all around!

Yesterday we talked to Anneke's old boss, the butcher, for the dinner at our wedding. They had some great ideas and I got quite hungry! Looking forward to that!

Things about to happen

It is a bit of a calm before the storm. We are still very busy planning our wedding, preparations for our holiday, but it still feels as easy going.

There are lots of things that I am looking forward to:

• February 8th: Whisky nosing and tasting (Different finishes)
• February 15th to March 1st: Holiday to Mexico
• March 3rd: Nick Cave's new album
• March 10th: Joe Bonamassa in Eindhoven
• March 15th: Whisky Festival in Eindhoven
• March 17th to 21st: Another visit to Minsk (planned)
• March 28th: Whisky nosing and tasting (Lowlands whiskies)
• April 1st: The Black Keys' new album
• April 7th: Portishead in Amsterdam
• April 28th: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Amsterdam
• May 24th: Timesbold in Den Bosch
• May 29th: Flogging Molly in Amsterdam
• May 3oth/May 31st /June 1st: One of these days we are probably going to Pinkpop
• June 10th: OUR WEDDING!!!
• June 11th to ?: Our honeymoon
• August 14th to 18th: the Lowlands festival
• November 7th: Whisky nosing and tasting (Islay whiskies)
• January 18th: Whisky nosing and tasting (Bottoms up)

As you might have noticed, I tend to plan ahead... Not all of these things are planned by me, like album releases, but I still look forward to those things anyway. I always consider that things that are going to happen keep you going. It is a bit of a reward after working and being a good citizen :)

We survived another Carnaval in our street again too. The last couple of days were days of partying in Den Bosch for all kinds of people. I still hate it, mostly because the biggest part of the party people are the most boring fellows you can meet during the rest of the year, and all of a sudden they think they can keep going for 4 days straight.
For some reason people get the idea that it is normal during a 'festival' that it is normal to throw all your waste on the street instead of IN the garbage cans that are 2 meters away. The street and the rest of the city center look like a refuse-dump now. Quite annoying.

Marriage preps

We have just under five months to go before I become Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer and I will no longer be single then. A friend of mine recommended getting a master in management and organization before getting married, and I am getting to know what he meant.

We have so much still left to do, but we are quite busy getting things done and making agreements with all kinds of people.

Up till now we have:

• Booked the place where we are going to say "I do"
• Booked the place where we are going to have our party
• Booked the place where we are going to have our reception
• Booked the place where we are going to have dinner
• Made an almost final guest list
• Been looking at rings

Anneke's cousin is already making a test version of the dress, but the final version will be made after we went to Mexico. Which means that, since they have not yet selected the fabric it is going to be made of, I cannot start looking at a suit that I want for June 10th.

We booked the bar where Anneke and I had our first date about four and a half years ago. The owner is a nice guy and arrangements were quickly made. He also had all kinds of good ideas, and combined with our own plans we expect it to be a very good party.

Still so much to do, but we are getting there. The only drawback thusfar is that our vacation to Mexico in February is more or less forgotten by everyone, including us. Marriage is just too big a deal to have anything else to talk about...

Finally

After my last 'busy' post, things did not calm down a bit.

Work did not calm down, I had lots and lots of stuff to do and the whisky cabinet still had to be finished. Of course, there is the small things called 'getting married' as well.

Last Friday, I went to see God is an Astronaut with two friends. We had dinner together and after that we went to the 'Willem 2'. We knew we went to a festival (although it is a small one), but we did not expect that GiaA wouldn't start till 0.15 hours. That was kind of a bummer, especially since the other bands turned out to be nothing above mediocre. It was worth the wait, becuase GiaA rocked. Of course, live music and beer are the same thing, so we had one too many.

The next day we went to Anneke's family to celebrate her aunt and uncle's 12.5 year anniversary. Not too heavy, but a nice dinner party and it was held at the same spot that Anneke and I are planning to get married next year. This was the opportunity to test it.

Sunday was a family day with a visit to Anneke's grandma, an aunt and uncle, and finally my sister in Amsterdam. We were quite tired when we got home in the evening.

The entire week was packed with things to do. We had several friends over for dinner or coffee/drinks, we had a party at my friends new house and we had to work on the cabinet.


But that last thing is finally over! We finished today by painting the last bits, and putting shelves and bottles in it. It was quite a hassle, since the glass shelves were not wide enought to fit (how did they fit before...) but we fixed that by adding some more wood, screws, nails and glue. It all looks quite cool and I am very happy to have all my bottles on display in our living room.

After all, this cupboard has cost us about three times the money we planned to spend on it, it took us a grand total of four months to get it where it has to be. But now, when all is over, it has been worth it.

Today we had a day off from work, because we had our "intended marriage" made official. It was necessary to have done that before we could book our wedding location, and since it is mandatory by law, we thought to do it as early as possible. Today was that day, and now we are officially registered as 'Intending to get married'. It was quite a big step in doing the marriage preparations, and it feels like we are getting in control of things that have to happen.

So, several things off the todo-list, and this might give us some more time. Time which I can spend looking at my whisky cabinet and drinking some stuff from it.

Not this weekend though. Tomorrow we are going out for dinner with a lot of friends. Two of those friends are going to South America for three months next week, and this is going to be the goodbye party.

On Sunday we are having a small birthday/graduation party for the both of us. We have lots of things to do, clean the house, doing heaps of groceries, laundry, dishes from a week...

Marriage Preparation Kick Off

So, over enthousiastic as Anneke and I can be, we already started doing some preparations for our wedding in June. We have an option for the old City Hall in Zaandijk, which is where her family has gotten married for the last three generations. The rest is still in the "information gathering" phase.

I looked into car rental, but that is incredibly expensive, especially if you want to get a real American Muscle car (1965 Mustang, of course). Apart from that, I downloaded a wedding checklist.

That was a shocker. The list was about 5 pages long when I started looking at it. Luckily, it had all kinds of crappy things on the to-do list. "Informing your parents".. Duh..
Since we are not getting married in a church, we don't value churches that much, we could delete some lines on the list.

But still, it is quite an incredible lot of things to do before you can get married, apparently. The coming months will probably be quite busy in getting all kinds of stuff done.

We have both picked our "best (wo)men", we have chosen who our masters of ceremony will be, but that is about it, for now. The guest list will be a work in progress for a couple of weeks, everyday some people pop-up in our heads that should be on the guest list.
Guest lists are nasty business, anyway. You have to start selecting people for the entire day, for the party in the evening, and a reception for even other people. Quite hard to make those decisions. I usually like the "the more, the merrier" way of thinking, but that is just budgetary impossible. Never thought that things could get expensive like this, and we only have estimates.

Lucky for us, we have some friends who want to help out with all kinds of things. We have had an offer for a cool car to use, and a lot of experience in the family with these kinds of things...

Back to work...

Getting married!

This weekend turned out quite different than I expected.


After not going to Scotland, I had some cash to spare, and since we were in a Scotland and whisky mood, we, of course, went to the Whisky Koning. The three of us bought six nice bottles. Thomas bought two Blackadders: a 19 year old Bruichladdich raw cask, and a Laphroaig of undefined age, called Smoking Islay.

Floris aquired a new Springbank, the 1997 Vintage, and an Amrut, the Indian whisky.

I have a bottle of Bruichladdich XVII and The Macallan Elegancia, 12 years old.

We had lots of Scotch on Thursday night, after we went for a very good Steak in Eindhoven (Gauchos). Friday was a calm day, on which I finished Neverwinter Nights' expansion (the game I blogged about a little while back).

Saturday I went to the Whisky Koning again, with Floris and bought the last two bottles for my project: Scapa 14, and Bunnahabhain 12, both in the 1 litre edition. We, tasted the first 8 whiskies for my project on Saturday night in this order:

• Glen Grant 12
• Auchentoshan 10
• Battlehill (Miltonduff 7)
• Bunnahabhain 12
• Auld Edinburgh Islay (Bruichladdich 10)
• Smokehead (Ardbeg undefined age)
• Scapa 14
• Old Pulteny 10

We only tasted the first six properly, since that was the plan, to do 6. After that, we ended up in a mood for more, and took a couple more whiskies. The best of the evening was Smokehead, and then the Battlehill. Floris and I liked the Bunnahabhain too, but Thomas thought it disgusting.

Glen Grant was, without exception, the worst whisky of the evening.

Sunday was the day that we would have come back from Scotland, if the trip had started a bit different. But we made Sunday a very special day after all. I asked Anneke to marry me. I had been thinking about it for a while, and we have been together for four years and a bit now. I thought it time to take the next step.

Of course, we had to call a lot of relatives during the afternoon, and everybody was very enthousiastic. My sister and mother didn't see this one coming. Anneke's family had been expecting it for a little while (and wouldn't stop nagging about it).

Today is my last day off on the Scotland trip, so we have been doing all kinds of preparations and making some decisions for our pending marriage. The big day is going to be on June 10th 2008, since that is the day we met for the first time. We have decided on where we will get married officially, and where the pictures are going to be taken. We have also decided how we want to do our party, but not where. So, a lot has to be done, and 8 months seems a long time, but I think we will be married before we know it :-)

I am really happy about getting married!!! Can't wait...