Aruba

October 2009, rain and wind in The Netherlands... summer is truly gone... so Sander and I went to Aruba for 2 weeks for Sun, Beach, Balashi and some diving....

The Hotel...complete with dock for the boat that takes us to the private Island.... ;-)










The Island... what an amazing location...


The walkway to Flamingo beach...

With Salamander, Iguanas and Komodo dragons...









The Blue cocktail bar... with drinks from Rafi..



The beautiful aquamarine waters of Aruba...




Local Flora...






California Lighthouse...






The Jeep Wrangler we rented....


Casibari rock formation...



De hooiberg...





Baby Natural Bridge...




Sunset at Flying Fishbone...





Diving with Mermaid Divers....





Hotel pool...


Dinner at Yamanja...


Hmm, now back to Rain and Wind in Amsterdam....

My new houseguest

Meet Suki... my new houseguest...



Posing for the camera...

she is very curious...

Loves chasing her tail....

Loves to take naps during the day.... and then she thinks after a few hours sleep at 5 am it is play time and that I should get up...

Her little hideway...

Beef

Sander and I went to see Beef in concert. Beef is a Dutch reggae band that mixes reggae with ska and rock, really cool stuff. They are about to go on a sabattical and this was their last concert for a year. They rocked the house!!!

Coldplay Open Air Concert

Fran and I went to see Coldplay in the Goffert Park in Nijmegen. A fantastic location; Open Air concert in the park and it was a beautiful day!

Opening acts were Miss Montreal and White Lies. Then Coldplay gave an amazing 2 hour concert. There was an acoustic intermezzo which they played in the middle of the crowd, with Chris Martin making up lyrics on the spot in honor of Jonny's birthday...

Here are some pictures of the show.

Here is the setlist:

Life In Technicolor
Violet Hill
Clocks
In My Place
Yellow
Glass of Water
Cemeteries of London
42
Fix You
Strawberry Swing

B-stage on catwalk
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
Talk
The Hardest Part (Chris solo on piano)
Postcards From Far Away (Chris solo on piano)
Viva La Vida
Lost!

C-stage in crowd
Green Eyes
Happy Birthday (to Jonny)

Death Will Never Conquer (sung by Will)
Rhyming Song
Billie Jean (MJ cover)

Viva La Vida (Remix)
Politik
Lovers In Japan
Death And All His Friends

Encore:
The Scientist
Life In Technicolor ii
The Escapist outro

De Mannentester

Mariette invited me to the book premiere of Heleen van Royen's latest novel de Mannentester (the tester of men) at the Tuschinsky Theater.

There were free drinks courtesy of Coubergh and Amaretto di Saronno, dark chocolate courtesy of Cote d'Or and music entertainment courtesy of Babette van Veen.

The presentation was done by Albert Verlinde, with special guests Kluun, Ronald Giphart, Saskia Noort, Isa Hoes en Marc Klein-Essink.

Oh yeah, and we got a signed copy of the novel...

Macy Gray Concert

Macy Gray in concert in the Paradiso in Amsterdam - what a party that was!

Dinner with Tennis Team

So to finish off the Tennis season we went to dinner at Blauw, amazing Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam..