viktoritilburg

Grattis på födelsedagen min älskade Ninni!

I would like to welcome all af you the readers that have found your way here through my article in I*ESN Magazine, I hope you liked it. This is by far the longest blog post this far and is not recommended to read if you don’t have a lot of time. There are lots of videos and other fun events earlier in the blog.

Most of the events the last couple of weeks have gone unnoticed on the blog so far. Last Tuesday I cooked with my fellow Swede Johnny and the Finno-Swedish (in lack of a better translation) Henrik. Finland used to be part of Sweden, and some people in Finland are native Swedish speakers. Henrik is one of them so we decided to make him part of our team. That was a necessary decision since we wouldn’t have been able to serve 40 people just the two of us. On the menu was Köttbullar med Potatismos, Lingonsylt och Gräddsås (Meatballs with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam, and cream sauce). We served pancakes for desert with either strawberry or apricot jam, or nutella. Nutella were on the menu, because Johnny is living in the part of Sweden that really is closer to Denmark than to Sweden, I objected. People seemed to like it even though the nutella wasn’t Swedish enough in my opinion. I really enjoyed doing the cooking; we were busy for 2.5 hours, while everyone else was enjoying themselves. This was actually the first time since I arrived in Holland that I cooked. Then again, cooking just for me doesn’t give as much joy as cooking for many others. There was no theme this Tuesday, but I made something up as usual anyway, I wonder why Joep has got the same smile as my mask.

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I had a good time at LG; I mostly hung out with Captain and Michiel. Only two of us remember why it was so fun though. That person had one up on me from the precedent week though, so it was fine. I posted a text for the I*ESN Magazine last Friday. It will appear here eventually as well, but I would like everyone to read what Paul has been able to fit in it as he balances being editor of the magazine besides with his pursue to complete Amsterdam Marathon October 13.

We had French food the week before cooked by some girls from group 10. I don’t remember what the dish was called, but it was some kind of gratin. There were two versions, and I really enjoyed the one with pork, the vegetarian dish that I was told that was the original dish wasn’t as good in my opinion. That is probably just a question of taste as I prefer to have some kind of protein in everything I eat.  It was 80’s and 90’s theme at Lamme Goedzaak, and my mentors looked like siblings.

My parents visited the Netherlands last weekend. They arrived Friday, rented a car and drove down to Tilburg. They lived at Mercure Hotel at Heuvel, so they had a really central location here in the city. We went looking for something other than sandwiches for lunch as they would like to have warm lunch that isn’t another broodje, just like I usually do. We didn’t find anything like that so we ended up having hamburgers at Heuvel. I introduced them to some parts of the central city and showed them my room. My mother considered my flat being pretty dirty, but she considered the room alright. We discovered that my flat mates had decided on creating a cleaning schedule so the dirtiness may be reduced in the future.

Then we set off west towards Zeeland with the car to explore the country. We stopped in Roosendaal on the way as for my parents to be able to find the way to my football game the day after. It wasn’t that difficult finding the way concerning we had a gps-device, although without it we would have encountered huge problems when we went into cities this weekend. We wanted to just stop for coffee, but ended up having pancakes at Estaminet Pannekoeken Carrousel in Roosendaal. My father told me that it reminded him of when he was in Ermelo with his football team 30 years ago, when his coach had insisted that they should try some Dutch pancakes. After that stop we proceeded west through the typical flat agricultural landscape of the Netherlands. We ended up going all the way out to Vlissingen, where we drove into the city for a look. The city seemed like a really nice destination for a longer trip as it is a little cute city by the Northern Sea. Here is a picture of my parents in Vlissingen.

I played my first game with Merlijn’s Saturday 1 team Saturday August 24. I came in as a substitute with 30 minutes to go when we were trying to turn 0-1 around away against DVO ’60 from Roosendaal. Tobias scored the equalizer pretty late and we didn’t have any clear chances after that. We really should have won as DVO ’60 was a real kick and run team that let us dictate the game fully. Their 1-0 goal late in the first half put us in a difficult position, so we were both disappointed and also a little bit relieved, that we at least got a point, when the final whistle was blown. We were still leading our division also. We celebrated it by creating the Top of the League Monument, while having beer at Merlinello. Tom, Ennik, Bartels, Björn and Besters poses in front of it on the following picture. The night ended at the Live Music Bar, where it was too crowded that night.

I joined my parents at Sunday as well, they had had their last night at the Mercure Hotel, so we headed north as they were staying in Amsterdam for the rest of their journey. I was very tired as it was a pretty late night and slept a little in the car. We left at 9 am, and were planning on having some breakfast for me along the way as they had had their hotel breakfast and I were still hungry. We didn’t find any suitable places in Utrecht on a Sunday morning so we ended up having brunch at a Shell station outside of Amsterdam. Then we proceeded up north towards the bridge north of Ijsselmeer that is built to protect the Dutch from the water. We could notice that there is water everywhere in the northern parts of the Netherlands. My mother was particularly excited when she saw boats seemingly sailing in the middle of a field. We stopped in the picturesque little city of Heerenveen, that the former Djurgården and Heerenveen-player Abgar Barsom once described as the worst shithole he has ever been to. I would not say I agree even though life there seemed pretty slow. We drove to Amsterdam then. I would not recommend driving a car in central Amsterdam if you don’t know the city as it is pretty complicated even with a GPS. We managed to find my parent’s hotel at Damrak, as central as it can be in Amsterdam. The hotel wasn’t very nice though, but you don’t go on a city vacation to stay in the hotel anyway. Then we drove to Schiphol to drop of their rental car and I got on the train back to Tilburg.

The way I prioritize football over many other things has not often been appreciated by people around me. I tend to try too combine playing football with whatever else I've got to do to the extreme. When its not possible to combine, I tend to prioritize playing football even if it is just a training. I would have liked to play poker and go bowling last week; however both those events were scheduled during my football practices. I arrived late to both of them and got to see some of what went on anyway. Goeiendagschotel proved to be the leading mentor group in poker as Party Mentor managed to win the tournament.

My weekend was great. I went to Spoordijk where I have quite a few Dutch friends for dinner, fries and frikandels. The frikandels were apparently not cooked properly but it was still edible even though it looked pretty disgusting. Then I went to Koning Willem II Stadion with Jasper and Levi. We beat Sparta from Rotterdam with 2-1. The atmosphere was better than at Rat Verleigh Stadion. No, Matthijssen I’m not bullshitting you, but you are welcome to bring me for a Saturday game in Breda. The Willem II cult hero Arjan Swinkels had a head injury in the first half so we ended up being there for way longer than expected as we had to wait for the ambulance. I bought a Willem II jersey, pictures of that will come in 2 weeks when we have played Den Bosch, or even earlier if I decide to go for FC Eindhoven away. The night ended with the International party at Café Philip.

I played for both the first and second team of Merlijn this Saturday. We got 6 points after 2-1 against VVC’68 2, and 7-1 against TVC / Breda. I played one half for the second team and 25 minutes for the first team, were I definitely should have made use of one of my four massive chances, but dissapoingly no goals this weekend. We ended up at BP at night; Niels ended up having a few to many beers, the pictures of that are not for the blog. Here is a double adje schoen as both Jan and Ennik spilled beer.

The weekend ended with a trip to Rotterdam which I decided on 2 hours before the kickoff off Feyenoord- ADO den Haag. Feyenoord lost 0-3, but the Kuip is the best stadium I’ve been to in Holland. The temperature was tropical, thereby my lack of t-shirt. Feyenoord’s new Swede John Guidetti were a big disappointment, as he is one of the biggest mouths in Swedish football. I had two hours in the city as well, and I'm definitely going back for a more planned trip there.

That is all for now, there will be more videos coming up this weekend.

Houdoe!