King's Day

Our first King’s day, after having queen's days as long as I can remember. If my memory of history lessons is not leaving me totally I think we have them since Queen Wilhelmina became queen in 1898.

Although it’s not the really high day that it used to be. In my childhood all the shops were closed and everybody had a day off to celebrate. Complete families were competing in all sorts of games organised by the so called oranje committees . Most of the games were the old Dutch games. I guess this was to remember the good old days. Nowadays most shops are open and not everybody has a day off. I expect this day will become more and more commercial to persuade people to go out and to have fun, in the hope they are going to spend money on food and drinks.  In the big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, it always start on the night before: the king’s night. There is a variety of music and shows to go to and with nice weather it’s always very crowded mostly with people who have had too much to drink but always seems to have a lot of fun.
When I was young I lived in Apeldoorn and my grandparents were living in a nice part of the town called ‘the Parken’ just across “Het verzetstrijderspark and the historical building Marialust” .

 There was always a three-day fair where we always went with my family. The fact that my grandparents were living next to the fair was very useful. After  my parents had given us money my grandfather always asked us if we already had money for the fair. We never lied, but just said yes we have some: then my grandfather always said: something is not enough, and gave us a handful of money. This ritual also happened with my grandmother and so we always went off to the fair with more money than my parents would like us to spend. I have to explain that my grandparents were relatively wealthy and always spent a lot of money on us on every occasion.We of course did not complain about this at all. On the other hand, I know we were spoilt by this and it took us a long time to get used to the fact we couldn’t run to them when we wanted something right away when we were getting older. The time that grandparents spoil their grandchildren disappears as children get older unfortunately.

Secretary’s day getaway

As some sort of tradition all the secretaries of the RSM have a surprise getaway each year on secretary’s day. This time we were invited by the director of the Wereldmuseum for a lunch and of course, he had a hidden agenda and gave us a grand tour along all the conference rooms and their facilities. His main goal was to convince us to suggest to our bosses that the next time we have to organise a conference to go to the Wereldmuseum. And it has to be said, it’s a really wonderful old building with several nice rooms all with an amazing view on the Maas and the Erasmus Bridge. After this tour, which also included a part of the museum, we had a guide who was a bit weird. Or maybe this is normal for artistic people. I have to admit, I’m not really into art and for me all paintings are the same. I can see a whole museum in 30 minutes. When the guide finally decided we were finished with the tour we all went back to Cheryl’s wedding room to eat a really tasty lunch. First a salad with fresh tuna fish, which tasted wonderful and after this a truffle soup which I I didn’t taste. This was followed by small sandwiches with smoked salmon, chicken filet or “cheese “kloosterkaas”. 

This delicious food ended with a very nice dessert combination of coconut, chocolate mousse and something else. That something else was a jelly with a taste I cannot describe unfortunately. By then we were full. Our next step was to go to the Kookstudio 25 to prepare and eat (yes, you read it right food again) a High Tea. Luckily we had to drive for 20 minutes and because Ingrid was born and raised in Rotterdam she drove us there in her cute cabriolet.

Cheryl and I did the talking so Ingrid could keep her eyes on the road. After 30 minutes we were still driving but there was no sign of the Kookstudio. At that time my phone started beeping with incoming messages asking where we were. I will leave out the complete sightseeing part, and end it with; finally we arrived at the Kookstudio, 45 minutes late. We received a warm welcome with a Prosecco and a small bite to eat. In the meantime the master chef explained to us what was expected from us and how we could manage this. I have to say, it was funny and instructive and in the end we all managed to serve a really good home-made recipe from what we had to make. We all had different food to prepare; I made cupcakes together with Mariska. Cheryl and Myra were in charge of the sandwiches and so we had about ten different meals. After this cooking and baking we had to eat again.

Unfortunately, we were all not very hungry anymore so there were a lot of left overs. I forgot to ask what they do with all the good food afterwards. Lastly we had coffee or tea and then we received a bottle of Prosecco and so our annual secretary’s day out come to an end.

Results and Improvement

Okay, I did it. The CAE exam, and though it’s not the highest score ever, it was enough. I scored 65 out of 100, all together not so bad. I had a very low score on reading, and that’s a bit unsatisfying. That Use of English and speaking were not so good was expected. I‘m now thinking of doing it again, or just wait and see when I’m ready to try the last one in this row the CPE exam. In the worst case I fail that one and improve the CAE results in the same time. One thing is sure, if I really want to improve I have to write and read a lot more. Therefore I try to post more frequently. Let’s see if this will work out.