Una vida Holandesa en Mallorca

In Nederland was het vnl. werk en af en toe een (alhoewel erg leuk natuurlijk) uitstapje.
But last week we really went on holiday. No internet, no phone connection, house from 1781, 38C in the shadow......... Everything in holiday atmosphere:-)
The only thing missing was peacefulness as we went on holiday with friends and their two daughters of 22 and 6 months. But whatever, we´ll rest at the job (still no childcare, two weeks to go). Next week: fieldwork in Cadiz:-)

Bye!!!! Now we are REALLY going on holidays. In Spain:-) But the North, bye heat (it is not cooling down...), bye pouring sweat, badly build apartment blocks and dry landscape. Hello pittoresque towns, oakwoods and river valleys:-) And if it rains, so be it:-)
see you in a week..........

Even though I haven´t got pregnancy leave until I manage to get rid of the belly (now enormous) I took some official holidays because Femke is on the island (in Holland they do have holidays....). We went walking, swimming, shopping and.......... BOWLING!!!!!! Of course I did not win but at least did not end last and Femke even managed to squeeze a decent 146 out of a bad lane. Tropical swimming pictures on my Flickr. But now it is time for a nice (0,0%) beer on the terrace in the afternoon sun:-)
 

Even here we have Easter holidays. Thursday-Monday. Unfortunately I have nothing exciting to tell (yet), we did only boring stuff (not for us though, quite excited!) like buying bathtubs, baby trolleys (is that the right word? wandelwagen, carrito, start to lose my English...) and trying to make space in the house. The last is accompanied by advertisements for obsolete furniture on segundamano.es and strangers in the house and a good bit of the better do-it-yourself departement including electrical equipment and lots of dust. Even though I do not actively participate in the last activity I had an opportunity to demonstrate I am getting increasingly clumsy: I hurt my thumb trying out the baby bathtub on our big bath. Well done....... Few months left, I went to ´preparing-for-giving-birth´ (direct translation) classes and they get me increasingly nervous and anxious with their lists of things that can go wrong and their insistence that the social hospitals are better (will go private) and that Spain is not so bad compared to other countries based on arguments that I interpret completely different. Oh well. No going back now.......
 

Back again. The canary islands are a recommended holiday destination, we have only seen Tenerife and el Hierro but both were nice. Photos on Flickr.  Tenerife is much more touristic than el Hierro, the latter has NO internet cafés, no signs to touristic attractions, just lava (see picture) and La Restinga, a diving destination (rightly so). In la restinga you can only dive since the only way out is 1000 m heigh. But the diving makes up for that inconvenience. If you ever decide to stay overnight in Valverde (capital of el Hierro), do NOT stay in pension casañetas, these people are more sour than any Mallorcan.
Tenerife has a great rural hotel, in Grandilla de Abona, senderos de Abona, do not hesistate to book halfpension, the restaurant is very good. Only minus: church bells: bring earplugs.........

I cannot believe it, tomorrow 7:00 am (yes, unfortunately) lift of to the Canarias. We will spend a few days in Tenerife and then go on to el Hierro for a few days of diving in (allegedly) the best diving spot of Spain. Keep an eye on the site after the 25th because we bring 2 underwater cameras (bought a new one plus the old one) and you might be able to judge for yourself just how nice it is there.