Friday, February 27, 2009

Congratulations David and Lisa!

My sister-in-law gave birth to her third beautiful child on Tuesday 24th of Feburary! Her name is Chloe Elise Haynes and I can't wait to see her!



Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Good Night Sweet Heart

I went to England 2 weekends ago, for a huge swing dancing workshop camp... It was great! Some of the best swing dancers in the world were at the camp - and we got taught by them during the day and then danced the night away in the evenings.


I caught up with Bridget who's living in Ireland at the moment - and I met two of her swing dancing friends, Alan and Gabrielle.
It turned out that Alan is half West Indian - like me! As you can tell... we are so black!


Check out Bridget's blog for more video's and pictures of the weekend.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Dad

I set this up as a travel blog and I was going to tell you all about my weekend, but today is my Dad's birthday... so instead, here's an old photo I found.

:)

I'm sure Dad would have been proud of me, and happy that I'm over here travelling the world, a bit like he did when he was my age. He was a very good man and he loved God with all his heart. He is my role model and I hope I can live like he did.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Greek myths and Turkish delights

I got to go for a long weekend down to Lesbos, a Greek island near the coast of Turkey! I was really looking forward to seeing some Sun, eating some nice Greek food and catching up with my friend from Tassie, Katie. I was not dissapointed!

I know Katie from school back in Tassie, and Katie has been on a month long all expenses paid "Greek culture school" trip along with about 100 people from around the world. I think the Greek government want to encourage Greek people who live in other countries to hold on to their heritage - and as a way to encourage them to do this, they fly to Greece and show them how great it is. Not bad eh!? Anyway - Katie had just finished up her time there and was visiting her family in Lesbos - so I came and stayed with her and her extended family!

* These kids are not Katies extended family - but they were cute and funny!
We spent our first day in Turkey in a small town called Avalyik. I loved this place straight away - it was warm, friendly, completely different to Greece (and the rest of Europe), and very beautiful. We met a turkish boy who wanted to "improve his english" by showing us around the city (and certain shops!) and offering us tea - reminds me of india! He was lovely guy though, so we spent some time with him and learnt a few turkish phrases - all I can say is that I'm glad I'm learning Dutch!

The next day we hired a nice little red car and drove around Lesbos!! fun fun...and we spent our final day relaxing in Mytilene and walking to tourist attractions that were closed because it was winter ... doh
A lesson learned - if I had my time again, I would have done everything the same - except the travel itinery. I don't know what I was thinking but I'm sure there must have been a better way to get to Lesbos than 12 hours of travelling! Oh well - you live and learn - and I managed to get stuck into a really good book during my journey. Thanks for the recommendation Glenn.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Kick the Castle


Last weekend I drove to Belgium for a weekend of swing dancing in a castle. It was excellent!! I'm taking lessons here in Eindhoven, and my teachers were kind enough to invite me to this weekend.
We had about 45 people come from around the netherlands and belgium and we spent a lot of time working on different routines and styles... I met some great people so I'm looking forward to the next time we catch up! I'll probably be going to some more workshop weekends in the coming months.

I didn't take too many photos, but I did manage to take a movie of our teachers doing one of the routines we learnt.