Next Sunday Fresh and I will leave Berlin for spending christmas with my family in Holland. Since it’s hard to find someone to take care of our pets at this time of the year, we will take Shanny, our dog with us.
Just like every time we are visiting Holland we are short in time since so many things have to be done before leaving Berlin :s At the beginning of this week I thought I had everything concerning the housekeeping under control. I really hate it coming home in a chaos, so the appartment had to be cleaned, all laundry had to be washed (I am kind of lazy in washing laundry * blush *), christmas shopping had to be done. But now it’s Friday, and when I am looking around I see I must clean again, I am washing the last laundry, need to doo the dishes and after it I need to clean the kitchen, need to buy the last grocaries so I can make some sandwiches for Sunday, we are still wrtiting the last bills for the business so they can be sent to our customers before the end of the year, tonight we have to go to the other side of Berlin so we can give the housekey to someone who will drop by to feed Pugsley, our cat, because we cannot take him with us.
I know, we’ve got tomorrow as well, but we planned to go see Fresh’s family since we’re spending christmas in Holland. So tomorrow is gone as well.  It’s a bit stressy right now, but I think somehow we will manage everything…

Written by Liekie @ 04:29:53 pm
Tags: cat, christmas, dog, Family, housekeeping, Work

So tomorrow evening at 9 pm local time I am living in Berlin for exactly a year. And I think I am going deeper and deeper in the German sysytem. It started a day after my arrival with calling in at the “Bürgeramt” (the office for citizen) and a day later calling in at the jobcenter.
Then finally in June I managed to arrange my healthcare insurance, that was quite difficult, because I don’t have a job here so that means I needed to get some kind of private healthcare insurance. But since I got operated on my knee October 2005 they won’t accept me as a customer. Since I receive some kind of small early pension from Holland I actually have the right on a healthcare insurance in Germany, paid with the money i received from Holland. At the time I left Holland nothing was known about this because the dutch government changed the healthcare insurance system at january 1st 2006. No- one was able to tell me what to do at that time.
Then somewhere in July I received a letter from the city of Berlin, they told me I was allowed to vote for the city council.  Unfortunately we were in Holland when the city council elections took place and we forgot to request to send our votes by mail .
And last and worst thing; last week i received a letter from the “Deutsche Rentenversicherung” (the german pension insurance). I need to call in there for a total health checkup because I requested a pension there??? I don’t get it… The only thing I could think about it’s an order to the german insurancecompany from the dutch insurance company wich provides me the very small early pension. I think they want to re-approve my healthcondition in order to take away my early pension.

Written by Liekie @ 03:57:44 pm
Tags: Berlin, Germany, health, insurance

Thanks to Jan who has send me his google earth holiday project tonight, I have been playing with Google Earth and a few of the pics we have made during our one-week stay in Holland. Here’s the link to download my created Google earth file: Holland.kmz.
Please note: To view the file you muste have Google Earth installed on your harddrive. You can download Google Earth for free here.

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Written by Liekie @ 12:37:11 am
Tags: Google Earth, Holland, Pics

??? Well, than you really should go to this Argentenian grillrestaurant at the Nieuwendijk in Amsterdam.
Rico and I Had dinner there when we were on our way to my parents when we visited the Apenheul. We passed by and noticed 2 restaurants near eachother. I wanted to take a look at the one wich was having some shields on the street, so I turned around to tell Rico. The waiter of Gringo who was standing outside heard me talk German and immediately guided us into his restaurant before I got the chance to take a look at the other one ( later we realized there were only tourists in the restaurant).
When we got the menus I found out you need to order every single course. If you order a meat dish, there’s no salat with it and no french fries, there’s even no sauce!! But we were so tired and wanted to continue our way to my parents ASAP, so we decided to have dinner anyway. 
So I ordered some kind of grilled beef stake with french fries, it sounded great, so I had high expectations. Boy was I disappointed… I got 2 very small stakes and the fries were terrible as well. Rico ordered some kind of lamb square with french fries. Well, lamb sqaure, he got 4 small lamb chops. Well, at the end I had to pay for 2 very small dishs of french fries, beef stakes, lamb chops, 1 small beer, 2 medium beers €49.00. And it didn’t even taste that great!!
And last but not least Rico got problems with his stomach when we returned at my parents place…

Written by Liekie @ 11:46:25 pm
Tags: Amsterdam, Apenheul, restaurant

We are at home again..Tuesday September 12 we left for a week of Holland to surprise my dad with a birthdayvisit since he was having his birthday at September 13.
The week in Holland was great, but being at home again is nice. We missed our pets a lot.
My dad was very surprised, and so was the rest of the family. His birthday was nice, almost all uncles and aunties were there and the weather was great. This made up the hour we had to wait before we could take the bus from Hoorn to my parents and the terrible busride..
The rest of the week was nice and easy… On Thursday we went to Enkhuizen by bicycle, on Friday we went to Alkmaar with my sister and on saturday we went to Petten to walk on the beach with my parents and on Sunday we went to visit my family at the Apenheul.

  

Written by Liekie @ 05:29:20 pm
Tags: Apenheul, birthday, dad, Family, Holland, mom, Pics