Netherlands - Part 7

Hello lovely readers, 

Its that time of the year again. Its bitter cold in Holland and all the leaves are falling. Whereas on the other side of the world in India, it's the season of festivities. People are celebrating Diwali, Durga Pooja, Chatt pooja and what not. When you see your facebook news feed sitting in your room in Holland in the month of October and November, it's quite easy to get depressed or home sick! Your family and friends from India upload awesome pics of festivities where you see all the family together, with all the nicest food and with everyone wearing nicest clothes! And what are you doing? Checking your facebook feed alone at home on Friday night :(  Thankfully because of size of Indian diaspora it is not very hard to find celebrations of Indian festivals pretty much anywhere in the world.

This year, I participated in Durga Puja and Diwali celebrations in Holland. To my surprise, there is a significant Bengali population in the Netherlands. Here is the link to the Indian Bengali Association (called Kallol) in the Netherlands: http://www.kallol.nl/. Now how Bengalis love durga puja is a well known fact. So offcourse they organize a big durga puja event. This year, i went to the durga puja festivities organised by Kallol as Sayantani was performing! It was a 4 day long proper Durga Puja celebration with puja, performances and food on each day. It was inaugurated by the Ambassador of India to the Netherlands in the presence of few mayors and deputy mayors. Below are some pictures of the festivities.

Me and Sayantani and Durna Ma ;)

Just before Sayantani's Bharatanatyam performance!

After durga pooja came Diwali celebrations. A Diwali party was organised by Indian's living in Wageningen. It was great fun. The students from wageningen university gave some very funny performances. This is probably the only time of the year when Indian's in wageningen come together. So it is an event that i always look forward too. Some pictures below reflect our mood that day! 

Shake that booty ... Shake that booty :P :P

Meri Shan with Wageningen Indian ki Shan ;)

With always smiling and cheerful Raghu, Shital and Rashi :)

Our third Diwali together...

Diwali party was followed by a crazy Halloween party at my Spanish colleague Jaume's place. I think his house on Heerenstraat host's some coolest parties in Wageningen. By the way, this night reminded me of the Halloween + Diwali party we had in St. John's, Canada. Because of the proximity of these two events, it is quite possible that you have a Diwali party and a Halloween party on the same day. So me and my friends threw a compo party with Diwali decoration on one side and Halloween decoration on another side. It is a cool concept if someone wants to try :) 

Halloween Selfie!

Jaume dressed as Aladin with his monkey Abu and another trying to be monkey Sayantani :P

Sometime ago, I and Sayantani went on a weekend trip to the Ardennes region of Belgium. This region lies in the southeastern part of Belgium and it shares its borders with Germany, Luxembourg and France. This whole area is very hilly and is very scenic with beautiful rivers meandering around hills like a snake. We went to Vresse-sur-Semois (or the Semois valley), shown in map below:

Vresse-sur-Semois, a valley surrounded by nature in south Belgium

The whole valley pretty much looks like this, or prettier...

When you live in the Netherlands, the sight of nature and hills can excite you very quickly. And Ardennes region of Belgium is pretty much the closest location from the Netherlands where you can find scenery like this. The only problem is that going to this region by public transport is a nightmare! So we decided to do car pooling. We used the popular carpooling website in the Netherlands www.blablacar.com and we found our to and fro ride from a Mexican guy who travels to Luxembourg from Amsterdam almost every weekend to meet his girlfriend. There are many small villages in Vresse-sur-Semois. We stayed in a hotel in a village called Laforet. Now just to inform you how busy this place is in summer, we pretty much got the last hotel room available in the whole region!! We got this room probably due to a last moment cancellation, but the hotel and the room was wonderful. And guess who was super excited? ;)      

Excited Shan during one of our hikes:)

Soaking in the beauty

A stop during our lazy stroll along the river Semois, my feet got attacked by tiny fishes!

The SRK pose :P

Apples grow in Europe like mangoes grow in India

As it was a weekend trip, by the time we came back to our apartment in the Netherlands, we were pretty exhausted! It was a bit too much for a weekend i guess. But it was a great trip. I and Shan always learn things about each other when we travel together. During this trip, i  learned that Shan likes to hike with a lot of makeup on :P :P

Another thing that happened recently was that Chuha came to Holland for a conference. While he was in his conference in Amsterdam, I was in Rotterdam for a Port and Terminal Planning Course. During this course, I stayed onboard SS Rotterdam which is a beautiful ship converted into a hotel. I stayed onboard this ship for 4 nights and for the first time i realized how claustrophobic living on a ship can be. Once you are on the upper deck with restaurants and all the view, it looks amazing but as soon as you go to the hotel rooms on the lower deck, its a weird feeling. I wonder how people live on cruise ships for 3-4 weeks!

SS Rotterdam, my home for 4 days 

After his conference and my course was finished, we decided to go on a trip to Brussels and Luxembourg. With Sonam and Sayantani not around, it was a real boys trip! We were in Brussels on 31st October night and offcourse, it was Halloween night :) We were genuinely amazed by the energy of the city for Halloween. All the costume shops were so crowded with customers that there was no place to stand. We somehow managed to buy costumes for us and after all the makeup, we headed to the Hard Rock cafe. I informed a couple of my friends who live in Brussels that we are heading to hard rock cafe and later they joined us ... and the rest is .... wait, i don't remember ;)

This is how it started :D

The one with the Belgian beers ... yummm

After a bit of drinking :P

In full swing with Marta after drinking a bit more :P :P

The mandatory Halloween pic with the slutty bunny and the vamp!

After a crazy night, we somehow reached our hotel. Next day, we traveled to Luxembourg in a pretty hungover state. It is one of the smallest and richest countries in the world. I was surprised to know that the steel giant Arcelormittal is headquartered there.

@ Luxembourg city center

We stayed there for one night and offcourse it was another night of heavy drinking. Chuha was in full mood to party but i was a party pooper that day and was extremely sleepy. Anyways, we walked around the city, ate some nice food and then next day took our train back to Amsterdam. Here Sayantani joined us and we went to eat in Bazar (bazaramsterdam.nl), a hidden gem of a turkish/middle eastern restaurant in Amsterdam. They have converted a vast old church on Albert Cuyp Markt into this restaurant. After eating, we went to hilton skylounge in amsterdam for a drink. Its a unique spot in Amsterdam for those who enjoy high life. With a great selection of (expensive) cocktails and a great view, its a place you can't miss.

@hilton skylounge amsterdam with chuha and sayantani

Next morning, chuha left for Huston and i went back to work. It was nice to catchup with him. It is funny how our conversations change as we grow old. We spent a lot of time talking about our families, our partners, our carrier plans etc .. things that we didn't bothered much with when we were in early twenties. 

Well, pretty much i have told you all the highlights of my life in past few months. There have also been some low moments but off course no one likes to share them in public! I will end this blog post with a picture from last weekend when shan came to MARIN's open day.

My Mermaid @ MARIN's open day 2014

That is all for the moment guys. Enjoy your Sunday! I will see you all again very soon.

Love,

Karan