Baltic Winter Drinks for Charity

Some of you might have already heard - some crazy Baltic people (+ our great Dutch team member) are organising a charity event here in Amsterdam on December 18!

It started as an idea "Let's do something good this Christmas and let's popularise Baltic countries" and it grew into this wonderful event. Baltic Winter Drinks for Charity is organised by youth from all 3 Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) to have a nice winter evening, to educate people here about our countries and to donate income to the charity (soup kitchens in Baltic states).

Able to join on Dec 18? Living nearby Amsterdam? From Baltic states or having an interesting about these countries? Just come!

Every day we are e-mailing each other, updating about news, supporters (today we got to know that not only the embassy of Latvia, but also the embassy of Lithuania is supporting us!), making sure the agenda, promotion and everything else is as good as possible. Feels like back in NGO times! :)

What exactly is voluntary work?

Yet another article to introduce you with.

It was still July (or maybe August) when for AEGEE's annual report "Key to Europe 2010/2011" I wrote two articles - one about voluntary work in general and one with quotes from several AEGEEans about their reasons to volunteer.

The annual report is published and my articles are published as well :) Go to your closest AEGEE office and read the magazine there, your board should have it!

Or do as I did - read it online here!

Hear me singing

As you might remember, I am singing in a Latvian choir here in the Netherlands. Although we have been rehearsing for less than two months, our first performance is going to be already this weekend when the Latvian community in the Netherlands is celebrating the Independence Day of Latvia (my country is getting 93 years old!).

Last weekend we had our rehearsal, where we also recorded the Latvian anthem as LNT (one of Latvian televisions) is collecting videos from Latvians abroad singing the hymn.

While it might not be the best singing ever, please, appreciate our efforts taking into consideration how young is the choir "Ziemeļjūra" (it means Nordic/North Sea)!

Spread the love

Yet another article - this time with the readers of Libertas Magazine I shared my opinion about love... No, not that kind of love as you might think - but my love to volunteer!

"We all know that (almost) all of us love our partners, parents, siblings, children and close friends. It is an unconditional love, which (almost) all of us have experienced in our lives and continue experiencing. But how about loving the world through volunteering?"

To read the rest of the article, please, click here!

1 out of 7 billion

I feel like an ant... How about you?

Caricature

What do you think about this version of Anita? :)

I got this caricature last week from my Dutch course mate who is a professional artist-caricaturist. Every lesson he is drawing some people just for fun (while studying Dutch), so finally I also got my picture.

Michael already gave his opinion - the straw symbolises me drinking capirinhas and the smile symbolises me making fun of Michael. :)

Other opinions?

Friends of/with beer

I have entered in a new photo contest, this time run by Van Gogh Museum.

Please, vote for my picture via Facebook and/or Twitter! :)

Many thanks!

Great food at "Moeders"

I am sorry for not writing so often here anymore, but somehow it doesn't feel the same... Maybe I am getting even more lazy than before? :)

Anyways, as I heard that today there is Blog Action Day 2011 and the topic is "Food", I decided to write about the great restaurant we went today - "Moeders".

I have passed by the place quite a few times and always been amazed by the great interior (as much as you can see without going in), but never had time/opportunity to check it out. Today with a few friends-visitors we finally did it!

At first I thought that it's a bar, so it was a surprise to go in and find out that actually it's a restaurant. As the name implies ("Mothers"), it has a particular design, all full of different mums' pictures, really cute. Also the plates and glasses, and all other cutlery is very diverse as it all has been donated by visitors when they opened the restaurant.

The restaurant is not very big, around 10-15 tables, so we were lucky to get a free table without a reservation. It seemed that usually it is completely full and there were still people coming in and being turned down (as there were no free seats anymore). Good to know and make a reservation for the next time!

The food was very good, and the dessert - cheesecake - was simply the culmination. Michael already said that we should bring his mum next time she comes for a visit. So if you are in Amsterdam with your mum - bring her as well!

Latvian Choir

Yesterday I attended my first Latvian Choir rehearsal in the Netherlands!

Seems that there are two choirs - one in Tilburg and one in The Hague, so twice a month I will be taking train to The Hague and singing together real Latvian songs with real Latvians :)

In the first rehearsal we were practising four songs - "Pūt, vējiņi", "Saule, Pērkons, Daugava", "Bēdu manu lielu bēdu" and, of course, the hymn "Dievs, svētī Latviju."

I have never sang those songs in alto, always only in soprano, but now I am an alto, so it was a bit hard to get used to a different melody to follow. Will do my best!

Will keep you updated how it goes!

Ik spreek Nederlands

For those who did not know yet - a couple of weeks ago I finally started my Dutch language classes, which are paid by the city council. Thanks, gemeente! :)

How did I get them? Well, the long to free Dutch courses was not so easy...

1) Register as living in the Netherlands

2) Find information about these courses. Not so easy, because it is (almost) nowhere written that also EU citizens can take them voluntarily, so you need to know about them in advance.

3) Send an e-mail to make an appointment with the city council regarding the courses

4) Go to an appointment and answer to questions like "why do you want to study Dutch?", "what will you do with the skills?", "how much time do you have?" etc.

5) Have another appointment where they test how fast can you learn aka "stupidity/IQ test" :) No language skills necessary.

6) Have yet another appointment with their chosen language school for you where for 1 hour they test your writing, speaking, listening and reading (15 min each) - all in Dutch, of course!

7) Wait results about your current language level. I got A2 for reading and A1 for everything else with a note "uses a lot of German words".

8) Start your classes for one year!

Next time I will tell you my opinion about my classes, which are twice a week for 3 hours each time (+ homework).

Calendar with my photo

I am rocking again!

Some months ago a shop/food place Kitsch Kitchen made a photo competition, asking to submit pictures showing the intercultural diversity of Amsterdam. Of course, I took part and sent a few pictures from Indian festival "Diwali".

Just last week I heard back from them saying that my picture has been selected for the calendar of 2012, yehuu!

Prize - a copy of the calendar, which I got just yesterday. My picture is placed in the (in)famous last week of the year/first week of the next year and there is also my name in the list of all the photographers.

Wanna get a unique calendar with my photo in it? You can do it on their website.

Problems with the car

Seems that we are quite unlucky with the car. Within less than a year we have got already problems with it already four times... :(

1) Once we arrived in our car park (as parking there on a street is for free) in Amsterdam Zuid to find that somebody has stolen our car's windscreen wipers. I don't know who would need just them, but it took quite a lot of time and days to find new ones as apparently this specific car type (and therefore also wipers) is not so common in the Netherlands...

2) In February during the Maastricht Carnival some carnival car was apparently too big and wide. At night/evening it was passing through the street where our car was parked and completely broke our right window and another car's window! Luckily the guy was nice and left a note with his address to clear the insurance papers etc. Unfortunately the garage which can fix the problem is not so fast and even now (after half a year) we still do not have a fixed mirror as they are very slow with ordering the new one. Hopefully soon...

3) Another time Michael was driving the car and suddenly noticed that the breaks were not working! Luckily he was not to the garage, so could go (very slowly) and fix it, but it could have been very dangerous if he would be already on a motorway...

4) And last weekend - see yourselves! Somebody wanted to steal the car! Luckily he did not succeed, but now we can't open the right doors and the driver needs to crumble inside the car through the co-driver's seat. Not very convenient, but we hope to fix it already this week...

Conclusion: don't park in the Netherlands your car, it's dangerous!

Latvian cuisine

A few weeks ago in one event I met a lady from Philippines. We started talking and she asked me where am I from. "Latvia, but probably you don't know where is it," I replied as I don't expect non-Europeans know our small country.

What a surprise I had when she asked which is my hometown! Turns out just only a few weeks ago she visited in Latvia and felt in love with the country and food! Now she is telling to everybody how nice and beautiful it is, unofficially becoming a kind of Latvian Ambassador :)

That's not all. She really loved our cuisine, so kept telling me about a book about Latvian food she saw, but didn't buy - and regretted it. I even didn't know that there is a book in English about Latvian tasty food!

With my help and a few websites she managed to find the name of the book, so tomorrow I am going to meet her and give her the book (thanks to Agnese who bought and brought it from Latvia!). It will be funny to think that a women from Philippines is going to cook home Latvian food :)

For all of you who also want to know more about Latvian book - take a look at the book here!

Fulfilled dreams

In the latest issue of Libertas Magazine you can read my interview with Haris Mexas about the topic "achievements".

"I always envy those people who can speak several languages and change from one to another without any problem. My dear Greek friend Haris Mexas is one of those lucky people. He is a linguist, so one can expect him to be able to speak fluent Greek, English, Spanish, German and French and add some respectable knowledge of Italian, Turkish, Latin and even ancient Greek. That's not all – this September Haris is starting to fulfill his dream to be a master student in the Netherlands and catching up with his Dutch language skills!"

Full article you can read here.

Maltese wedding

So it has happened. I was a guest at my first international wedding! :)

Yesterday my dear friends Alistair and Anna got married in a Maltese/Polish/international wedding, full of people from different parts of the world. It was interesting to observe and discuss the differences between wedding in various countries.

I guess that it was a quite typical Maltese wedding, which leads me to a conclusion that apart from the church and the white dress there are no similarities between Latvian and Maltese wedding. Amazing to be a part of so different wedding!

I am not sure how correct will I be comparing both of them, but let me give you my observations about the main differences:

Time: ~5 hours (Malta) vs ~24/36 hours (2 days) (Latvia)

Procedure: Church + standing reception (Malta) vs church + seated dinner/breakfast with a lot of traditions (Latvia)

Speeches: 0 (Malta) vs a lot (Latvia)

Flowers as presents: 0 (Malta) vs from every guest (Latvia)

Presents: usually money (Malta) vs anything (Latvia)

Nevertheless, it was an important moment for Alistair and Anna as well as all their friends and relatives. Some of us were present the first time both of them met, so it is a nice memory to keep with us - being proud to be a part of their family history.

Congratulations, my dears!

Open-air theatre

On Thursday we were praying for the rain not to pour and driving to a small place between The Hague and Leiden for an open-air theatre play in English.

A few months ago I won the tickets (of course), so it was a wonderful opportunity to enjoy another cultural performance in the Netherlands!

This time it was The English Theatre, which was organising another English theatre company's tour around the country with Shakespeare's play "The Twelfth Night". It was unusual because of several reasons:

1) It was outdoors. We were sitting on chairs, wrapped with blankets, sipping our drinks and eating food we have brought with us - a real picnic!

2) There were only five actors, but around 10 characters - so each of them were performing two roles, some even more. Men were playing women, women were playing men etc.

3) I haven't read the book and haven't seen other performances, but this was definitely one of the biggest comedies I have ever seen! Couldn't stop laughing (even if I didn't understand some parts due to the specific English) and wondering how did Shakespeare write it in the original version.

If you have a chance - go and see the play either here or in the United Kingdom!
If not - make sure you attend any other open-air theatre, it is a completely different experience!

I want a bank card!

So... The story about my "integration" and settling down in the Netherlands continues.

After I got my Dutch bank card to pay in the shops and to withdraw money, I found out that with this card it is not possible to pay online. I never had such a card before in Latvia (although I do have a similar Belgian card), so it was new to me.

Whatever - I went to my bank and applied for a credit card (MasterCard). After waiting more than one hour in the queue and filling out the form, last weekend I got to know that... my request has been denied! And in the bank they even couldn't give me a reason why.

What? Denied? For what? I didn't do anything, why wouldn't you give me a simply card so I can shop online (flight tickets, Amazon etc.)

As one Dutchie wrote - "It is probably because you don't have any credit registry in the Netherlands as foreigner. Often they demand Dutch citizenship with a proper creditrecord (no debts!) or explicit proof of high income and/or capital as non Dutch citizen."

Well, let' s try plan B then - apply for visa card as suggested in the bank. The lady just told me to go online on visa.nl and said I could fill the form in English.

Turns out not to be true. At first, the form is only in Dutch. At second, there are so many different visa cards, that I didn't know which one to choose and what is the difference.

Nevertheless - I applied for one of them and let' s hope they will accept at least that! Otherwise my boyfriend will need to continue buying my stuff online...

Getting ready for Malta

It is late, so I will not write a lot, but...!

Today we rented online our car for our trip to Malta, which starts in one week. Yippi!

Plan - two days in Gozo, three days in the main island and then a wonderful Maltese/Polish wedding in one of the most beautiful cities in the world (Mdina).

I haven't been to any wedding for years and I really like them, so looking forward to that.

Apart from that - sun, beach, hopefully swimming, showing Michael around the beautiful island, eating a lot of good, fat food and desserts, memories and meeting long-time-not-met people.

In short: holidays, here we come!

Article about Malta

This time my article was published in an online magazine "Dispataches International". The same as other magazines I am writing for, also this is an international youth magazine.

Article is about the new Maltese legislation, which nows allows people to divorce. Believe or not, before it was not possible.

"Over the last few weeks, the Maltese islands have received a much larger amount of media coverage than before. It is not only because of the increasing amount of African refugees who arrive in Malta each day by boat, but because on May 28th 2011, 52% of Maltese voiced their desire to legalize divorce," that is how my article starts.

Full article you can read here.

Open-air cinema

You know what is one of the things I love the most about Amsterdam?

The huge amount of cultural events, possibilities and things to do. I can't get enough of it!

Especially I love those free open-air cinema evenings, when it is dark outside, loads of people sitting together, having fun and watching great films on a big screen. Random people pass by, stop and stay even without planning to do so.

Why didn't we have such things back home?

One of the first open-air films I saw two years ago in the festival "Pluk de Nacht" - when I was living in Amsterdam for the first time.

This summer I was sure I want to enjoy the festival again as last year I missed it. So two weeks ago we want to see a nice French film "Les Emotifs Anonymes". We arrived two hours before to make sure we had a good spot and had a great time with champagne bottle from home and pancakes bought on the spot.

Yesterday we went to another festival with another open-air film - this time it was World Cinema Amsterdam and Israeli/Mexican film "Salsa Tel Aviv". So amazing, laughing all the time! Even a bit of rain didn't spoil it.

Now just need to find another film - I am sure there are some more in the upcoming weeks, e.g., in Het Ketelhuis etc.