Dear Family and Friends,
Our son Luke helped me a couple days before I left Australia with the set-up of this blog site but as you are all likely to know I (Lia) am not so skilled as yet in the use of the various internet technologies let alone finding my way around this blog site. Of course I did not immediately use it when I landed in Europe and therefore forgot again how to do it. Could not remember the full name (remembered Spokes and Lycra (thanks Hannah, did like your name suggestion immediately) we had chosen, but forgot that we also added 'our European adventure' and to make matters worse I could not remember log-in ID and password!!!! Should this forgetful business concern me or will I just brush it off and call it stress of leaving home for the unknown?? Anyhow, I don't know all the bells and whistles of this site as yet but ... I need to start somewhere so here I go.Most of you received my first email giving you a brief overview of my initial wonderful weeks in the Netherlands which were spend with my family so I won't go on about that. It was great to spend some extra time with my 93 year old mother and my brothers, sister and their families. After Graeme arrived in Holland we did some house sitting for a daughter of my Dutch friend Nora which was great as that gave Graeme a quiet place to continue his work, us some privacy and my brother and his family some space without us. Luke and Hannah arrived on Friday 13th of May and moved in with us for their first week. Whilst Graeme did his work I joined them on some cycling trips locally and on some sightseeing trips. We visited the Zaanse Schans (a living historic Zaans village (from the area where I grew up)), cycled along the canals, around the dunes, to the beach, along the fields, the dykes and the windmills, visited the cheese market in Alkmaar as well as the fishing village in Enkhuizen and lets not forget Amsterdam, Haarlem and Zaandam to name but a few lovely cities. My plan is now to insert some photo's but maybe this does not work and I may need to post the photo's on an other part of this site (learning new skills here Lia!!!! exciting stuff!!). Luke and Hannah left after this week to go out on a cycling adventure of their own for a week and Graeme and I went off to Vienna.
Week in Vienna: After an uneventful early morning flight Sunday 22th of May (had to drag my youngest brother Kees out of bed by 5 but he was ever so pleased to take us to Amsterdam airport) we arrive in Vienna Austria. Graeme managed to sort out the Public Transport system to take us to our apartment. The apartment was a fair size with separate bedrooms (2) and kitchenette. Space to move and space for Graeme to do his early morning work. After the initial check in we went into the city for morning tea (delicious Viennese hot chocolate and strudell!) which was followed not that long later by a delicious lunch. Vienna city centre is beautiful, build in a circle with many historic buildings (again I may try to post some photo's here – as they say a picture is worth a thousand words). There are many museums, galleries, concert halls, palaces etc, etc. People in Vienna live mainly in apartment building max. 5 stories high. The apartment buildings are build rather close together, most look the same or very similar (painted dull colours or look like concrete). I would love to have a sticky beak and meet the people who live in these apartments. How is life within their home and within their community, what make these Viennese tick (Aah, forever the OT)??? Whilst Graeme has been attending this oil conference (the reason why we came here for a week) I have been seeing the sights. I have no sense of direction and tend to walk in circles and as Vienna city is build in a circle, I tended to get lost the first couple of days! However, there was always an helpful Austrian (no not in leaderhosen) who would come to the rescue when they saw me on a street corner peering over a map (often the wrong way up!). I have been to the shops in the city, walked along the Danube canal (offspring of the mighty river), visited the Lipzaners horse events, went to the Belverde (magnificent historic building and gardens) and saw stunning paintings by Gustav Klimt ('the kiss'), Claude Monet, Egon Schiele and a painting exhibition called “DYNAMIK” to do with Cubism, Kineticism and Futerism (shattered forms and compositions charged with tension explored movement as a pictorial subject). I found this a fascinating form of drawing and painting life in action/movement (look it up on the net and see what you think). We also visited the museum Huntherwasser Haus which also was fantastic!!! Worth looking this artist up on the net, his art work and philosophy on life is fascinating! As you can hear, there has been enough for me to do and to see. By the end of the week I managed to get around the city without a map and even managed public transport without an issue! We flew back to the Netherlands on Saturday evening and are now preparing for our cycling trip. We hope to be leaving in a few days time.
I am not sure how long a blog should be, it seems as though I have been 'blogging/blabbing on for a bit by now so it is time for me to stop. .
Cheerio for now. We are looking forward to hearing from all of you. Any advice about blogging will be welcome.
Lots of love to you all, Graeme and Lia
