Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Our new home




Don't expect high quality pictures because they were taken by my phone, but here are the first pictures of our new lovely home!

4 bedrooms, an open living room with kitchen and a huge loft which you can see on the picture on the left.

And a nice garden that surrounds the house on 3 sides.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!
Yep, we are now in Poland and have started to settle a little bit.
A lot has happened and there has been no time to update the weblog. Sorry for that ;-)
On a business level, the office has been officially opened on 13th December by my Dutch boss. This happened after a week full of painting, buying furniture, arranging computers etc. Esp. the arranging of computers etc. has made my admiration for Jola grow even more, because without her and her very good social skills this all could not have happened in one week!

In that week we also decided for a house in Wrocław. A very nice house with a garden and soon I will place some pictures of it.
We also have been for a small week to Holland to pack things in our 'old' house and transport them to the new house with a trailer behind the Volvo, and now after Christmas Jola and I are going to spend our first night in our new house.

TV does not work, and neither does the satellite and the house is still quite empty, but we have eachother and that is enough for us ;-)

Greetings from a freezing (-4 C) Wrocław.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Christmas 2005

Christmas 2005 was celebrated this year in Legnica, Poland with Jola's parents. Polish Christmas is full of traditions like eating carp and drinking 'compote'. And of course, giving each other presents. Lots of fun in a nice atmosphere.

Kerstmis 2005 hebben we gevierd in Legnica, Polen samen met Jola's ouders. Het Poolse Kerstfeest zit vol met tradities zoals het eten van karper en het drinken van 'compote', in ons geval een sap van gerookte pruimen. En natuurlijk tijd voor kadootjes. Erg gezellig allemaal. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Showing Jerry

In november we visited my parents to show Jerry for the first time to them. And of course, they loved him. It was a nice day with them. Drinking some wine, playing some guitar, and singing some songs.

In november brachten we een bezoekje aan mijn ouders om Jerry voor het eerst te showen. En natuurlijk waren ze helemaal weg van hem. Het was een gezellige dag. Een beetje wijn, een beetje gitaar, en wat liedjes Posted by Picasa

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Our office in Poland



Yep, indeed, now it goes fast, very fast, and sometimes it feels like too fast. Without being able to give too much details of what is going on I can at least tell you that I signed a rental contract for a 90 square meters office in Wrocław.
So it's now official, we have an address for our office in Poland:
Variomatic Media Sp. z o.o.
Ul. Ślężna 146-148
53-111 Wrocław
Poland

It has 4 big rooms and place for a small kitchenette.
We're very happy with it and will go round 5 December to Poland to furnish it.

But it goes fast indeed, and also privately now we have to arrange a lot. Mail forwarding, cancelling insurances, cancelling newspapers, etc. And all the things that pop up in your head during the day. Looking forward to it, but it will be busy, very busy.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Jerry - the first week



So we collected when we were in Poland also our 3 months old labrador Jerry. The first week was a week full of joy, aggrevation, and accidents of him peeing or pooping inside Jola's parents' house. But mainly... a lot of joy and love.
But, indeed when you have a puppy you have to think about a lot of things: is his food right, is his poo not too thin, should he not sleep more, does he have the right toys, is a bench a good idea, etc..
On the way back we were very proud of him. 9,5 hours in the car without peeing or pooing in the car, and mainly sleeping in the back. Such a good dog (dobre pies!).

Visit to Poland

Last week, we've been to Poland again. Nowadays it's still nice, but more work related than anything else. We've been busy with finding a suitable office location for Variomatic Poland. So Jola and I visited together about 10 locations varying from very old with lots of renovation needed to completely renovated and ready to go locations.
But in the end we think it has been fruitful, as we have found one location that we think could really be it. 90 square meters and just renovated, which means that from 1st December on we can start to furnish it and then we have our office there. Stil need a final go from the rest of the management here in Holland, but I don't foresee any problems there.
This indeed also means that it gets closer and closer that we ourselves move to Poland. Order is to first have office location and then start to look for ourselves and in the meantime we can sit either in Jola's flat in Legnica or temporary with her parents.
Exciting times! But sometimes also a bit scary.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Jola's birthday

It's Jola's birthday and we celebrated it in a nice restaurant in Hilversum. Jola got a nice present for her birthday, a nice new agenda in her favorite color... pink.

Jola is jarig en we hebben dat gevierd in een nieuw restaurant in Hilversum. Voor haar verjaardag heeft Jola een nieuwe agenda gekregen in haar favoriete kleur... roze. Posted by Picasa

Jola's birthday

Today it's Jola's birthday and although it's not a Polish tradition we do celebrate it together today.
How old did Jola get? Well, you know that you are not supposed to ask that question about a lady.
What did she get from you? Well... a very nice pinky leather agenda that fits her like a tee.
And 32 pinky roses. Yes, pinky is Jola's colour very much this moment.

And this evening we're going out to a Japanese restaurant to celebrate it some more.

Happy birthday Jola!!!!

Jerry



Meet Jerry... or Ibro because that is his official name, but we probably are going to call him Jerry (after Jerry Macquire).
Jerry is now 3 months old (on the picture he is younger) and we are going to collect him probably this Sunday in Wrocław (Poland). A chocolate brown labrador retriever that is going to our newest assett.
Why a dog? I thought the two of you were working both a lot with achieving your goals in Poland?
True, but still we see opportunities and think that Jerry will also bring some discipline in our household, and most of all we think he is going to give us a lot of joy! To see him growing up, to play with him, to walk with him, to see him sleep a lot when he is still young.

And to be honest... isn't he a sweety!!!!!!!

Monday, November 07, 2005

Our plan


Are we too spontaneous or did we make the right choice when we decided together this weekend to look for a nice dog for us?
Don't know the answer yet, but do know that we are both now very much investigating the internet for information about which dog, race and names.
This is probably what we are looking for... and the name? That's still a secret :-)

Hunzedal 2



On Saturday we visited in Borger the National Centre of Hunebedden (beds of Giants) where we saw Holland's biggest hunebed and visited the museum there.

Afterwards we went to swimming pool and relaxed there for a couple of hours and afterwards went back to our trailer.

On Sunday we biked appr. 40 kilometres in the neighborhood and had nice dinner in the restaurant in the park.

With some muscle pain in our legs we went to bed after a lovely weekend in Drenthe with just the two of us.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Hunzedal

Yesterday we arrived at recreation park Hunzedal in Borger (Drenthe/NL) a nice park in the woods. Today of course we managed to find a clothing shop so I am now
sitting outside a fitting room and Jola tries on new clothes. Later we'll go biking.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Quote #1

A quote I heard this morning when I was listening in the car to an audiobook:
“ If you are afraid of dying than actually you are afraid that you didn’t live your life enough!”

Sosnówka

Here to the right you see the lovely house Jola's parents are building in Sosnówka. Sosnówka lies 3 kilometres from Karpacz in the South-West of Poland. Karpacz is known in the winter for good skiing in Poland and in the summer you can hike wonderfully in the mountains there (highest mountain appr. 2200 meters high).
For us it is esp. nice to see this house grow from the ground up until where it is now having tiles and all.
So this will at least be our holiday resort where we going to take our skis and explore the Polish mountains from top to bottom.

A new tool of Blogger

A new tool of Blogger.com, blogging from within MS Word. They just make it easier for everyone every time to just scribble some thoughts and be able to post it immediately to the outside world. One advantage I discovered is that now immediately my spelling is checked and therefore, better quality of blogs of me.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

New entry

Hello,
Do you see our picture on the left that was taken a couple of weeks ago in Scheveningen?

Plus, attention to the new Wedding day section on the left!

Friday, October 07, 2005

60th Birthday

On my birthday (7 Oct.) my uncle John and his twin sister Annemieke celebrated in Hoorn (NL) their 60th birthday. It was nice to see this side of the family after quite some time. Am afraid I did not recognize all, but in the end (and after some drinks) I knew them all again. On the picture from right to left Aunt Edith, Jola, and Uncle John.

Op mijn verjaardag (7 okt.) vierden mijn Oom John en zijn tweelingzus Tante Annemieke hun 60e verjaardag in Hoorn. Het was leuk om deze kant van de familie weer eens te zien. In het begin herkende ik niet iedereen, maar hoe later de avond werd des te meer mensen ik herkende. Op de foto van rechts naar links Tante Edith, Jola en Oom John. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Variomatic goes Poland




Long time ago, but that's how it goes... busy with other things and then the blog does not have a high priority at all. Sorry ;-)



So what have you been busy with the last months?
Well, with some huge developments at work! Variomatic has decided to open an office in Poland and has hired Jola to investigate the possibilties and to help starting up the office.
From 21st July, the company Variomatic Media Sp. z o.o. has officially started, and we are now very busy with finalizing the details. We have already our first employees working and it all goes smooth.
What does it mean for us? Well, in short term we are both very busy with arranging it all and in the mid term you will see us moving to Poland in order to form the management of the new company.
Exciting times so to say, and a lot of time spent on disussing things and arranging things.
But, we are both very much looking forward to making this move and see it as an opportunity to create something very nice and successful!

/Jan

Thursday, April 07, 2005

R.I.P. John Paul II




On Saturday 2 April 2005 Pope John Paul II died after suffering from bad health during the last couple of months.
Why do I mention this here? Well, as you probably know I am part of a multi-cultural household. I am Dutch and Jola is Polish, and especially regarding the Pope we come from different cultures.

The reaction to the death of the Pope in both our homecountries is completely contradictory. I will give you examples.

In Holland we consider ourselves to be liberal, modern-minded and nowadays anti-religious. It looks more and more that you have to be ashamed of the fact that you are a catholic, whereas when you are a muslim everyone has to respect it. The reaction of the Dutch to the death of the Pope is completely down to earth and was shown on the news in a 5 minutes presentation. Focus here in The Netherlands is more on who is going to be the new Pope, and about the contraversies around this Pope. Within a day all modern radio stations were already making jokes about the Pope ("Bedankt voor die Bloemen") and no one here shows respect to the loss of the leader of the Catholic church. We are even the only country in Europe that does not sent someone of the Royal Family to the funeral! Why is it that we are so ignorant!!!

In Poland, the whole country is completely devastated. The death of the Pope is considered to be a national loss of a profound father figure. The Pope for the Polish people is the recognition that they also are/were important in the world, and with his influence he was the person who hugely supported the downfall of the communist regime.
Here some examples of how the Polish mourn the loss of their Pope. From last Friday on (1st April) every TV-channel is 24/7 busy with broadcasting news around the death of the Pope. Not only the facts but also the human stories behind it, how it is perceived in Poland f.i.. Every TV-channel is in black, this means that even the logos of the TV channels have been decolorized and the presentors are in black. Right now there are some channels that show movies, but these are not happy movies. It occurs to me that these movies are broadcasted so that everyone will switch to a news channel. Papers are completely dedicated to the Pope and what he has done for the country. On Tuesday a national Mass in Warsaw attracted more than 200.000 visitors from all over the country to jointly mourn. The country is in official mourn declared by the government and f.i. on Friday, the day of the funeral, everyone got free to spend time in order to mourn.

Here, at home, we try to be as Polish as possible. So we visited twice the Polish mass in Amsterdam and even for me as a Dutchie this was hugely impressive. We also signed the condolence register in the Dutch church in Hilversum and even there we could see the difference between Poland and Holland. Here no big lines, but a small picture and some pages full of signatures and addresses, as if the people hope to get a thank-you card afterwards. The only stories in the register were of Polish people in Hilversum who wrote their feelings on paper.

For Jola, the loss of her Pope is difficult for the reasons mentioned above, and I try to do everything possible to give her the freedom to mourn in her own way. This means that the TV is completely on the Polish channels, which is of course good for my Polish, and we also talk a lot about the subject.

I, as a Dutchie, now more and more realize what the Pope means for the Polish people, and sometimes I also cannot defend anymore my own countrymen who are so completely ignorant of the significance of his pontificate. The Polish pastor yesterday told an example of this. From a Dutch priest he received condolences with the loss of the Pope. When he returned the condolences, the Dutch priest answered him: "Why do you give me your condolences?". The Polish priest was surprised and said: "Well, because he is not only a Pole, but also YOUR Pope!".

Maybe, I am getting more and more Polish, and I am too closely involved, but I am getting disappointed with this all. Is it so difficult to show respect to someone who made it possible that different religions came closer to each other (he visited Jeruzalem, spoke with Arafat, and visited Muslims on their holy ground). A man who asked for world peace by being outspokenly against war. The person who at least accelerated the fall of the communist regime not only in Poland, but in whole Eastern Europe.

So, although I have to go work tomorrow, I hope that with me, we Dutchies will show this Pope the respect he deserves.
Personally, I am happy for the Pope that his suffering has now ended, but that does not mean that I don't respect the things he did for the world, and in particular for his country.

Let him rest in peace.

/Jan

Monday, February 14, 2005

Venice


PICT0065
Originally uploaded by Eyckenstein.
After a long time, here a first picture from our honeymoon in Italy, August 2004.

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