Twenty-four hours from now, this Lucky Dutchy is flying overseas to the other side, Down Under. Bags packed: CHECK, last interviews with newspapers and radio stations: CHECK, my house cleaned for renters: CHECK, inviting my friends and family for a goodbye drink: CKECK… What more is there to do?
In Amsterdam it hasn’t stop raining since yesterday and I do all my movements on a bike, so I’ve got the curly hair coupe now, which will get stronger for sure in Australia. I brought the borrowed camera back to Cam-a-lot, got a relaxing facial treatment from Face to Face, my favourite beauty salon next door, and they even sprayed some magic twinkles over my feet that made my winter toes thongs – ready.

I also passed by the exclusive sneaker and clothing store called Acht, which is “eight” in Dutch, to say hi to the owner Philip and before I knew it he pointed at my shoes and made me change them for lightweight sport sneakers. They have a nice grip for the climbing that is sure to be done at Hamilton Island between all the beachy activities. Big up Philip, ”dankje wel”!

Tomorrow I’ll have my last tv – interview on Dutch ground and the very last huggs from my family and some friends who managed to extend their lunch break with an hour.
At this moment some friends are preparing an exclusive dinner and later on I’m sure they will retell their best Aussie stories, fuelling my urge of going NOW even more.
From 9.30PM on I invite you, dear reader, to have a last goodbye drink at Momo. They are so kind to reserve a huge part of the bar for friends and the girl who’s walking on her dream…

View the Photos

Posted from Amsterdam with Vodafone Mobile Internet on my notebook

Today launched itself straight into the top 10 of the Best Days Of My Life. My dearest friends dragged themselves out of bed too early, considering it was a rainy Sunday morning, to help and join me with my Beach Stunt. A production team was quickly formed after an email I sent asking for help for the Beach Stunt and they replied with “of course, tell me what you want me to do”. That’s all I could ask for and since 9.30 AM they have been running around to get set at 2 PM, as the helicopter flew over to shoot what we created on the beach.
Over the last few weeks it has been amazingly sunny and warm in Holland, so we all thought luck would be on our side when we needed to organize something on the sunny beach. Or at the very least it would be cloudy but not raining. Oops! We almost forgot Dutch weather is as stable and reliable as the stock market, resulting in the First Very Cloudy and Rainy Day in weeks! Bummer! On our way to the beach my friends and I tried to think of the best stories to keep our minds off the greyish sky. Once we got started drawing the characters “GREAT BARRIER REEF” on the sand, our specially made “Ma ga li” – Vodafone T-shirts got wet in a second and we got very cute curly hair thanks to the rain. Tough as we are we decided to make the best of it and just continue with what we’ve been planning. There was no sign of a single other human being on the beach as far as we could see while I needed lots!

Luckily the media showed up as promised and I took them 40 meter high to conduct the interviews on the areal platform stage that I rented. Unfortunate, but understandable, I had to face questions like “How do you feel now that you see this Beach Stunt is going to fail?”
Hey guys, that’s not what I had in mind all these weeks, so it WILL be a successful event! You can never accuse a Dutch person for acting like a crybaby whenever it start to rain, so naturaly I reminded them of this.

As more loyal friends arrived – with umbrellas – the atmosphere became better and better and the worried faces changed slightly into happy and energetic ones. (Maybe that starting up – process had something to do with their Saturday night, who can tell?)

At 1.30 PM my friend Anatol, who was in the helicopter armed with a camera, texted and gave me the 20 minute notice, so I immediately grabbed the megaphone and directed my friends, family and staff from other beach bars to take their places on the characters. As the clock ticked to 1.45 PM I got a text saying “3 minutes” when suddenly…
The sun came out! Call me superstitious, but that meant something to me and the 100 souls lying on the wet sand  while having their face kissed by the sun. It was silent for one moment before…
TADADADADADADA we heard the sound of the helicopter getting louder and flying in from the sea.
View the Photos“ACTION”, I yelled from the top of my lungs and at that point could not stop feeling proud of what we accomplished. The helicopter circled around and around and I looked up to a camera I wasn’t even able to see. After some minutes I directed everyone to stand up and jump ‘n wave when I would pass by a character. Starting with the letter G and finishing with the F of GREAT BARRIER REEF, I ran a good 60 meters. That moment I looked back and saw my sweetest friends jumping and screaming… shivers and pride took over me.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with, oh yes, sunshine, sandwiches & Oz-cocktails provided by Rapa Nui, sending press releases and photos out to the Dutch media, awesome group photos, yells, high fives and grooving tunes played by DJ Gmo and Meester Moeilijk & Sjonnie Disco.

The results of this stunt, besides spending an exclusive action – packed Sunday afternoon with my loved ones, is here for you to watch. I hope you’ll have a smile on your face at the end of the video, as big as the one we all had for the rest of the day…

Posted from Amsterdam with Vodafone Mobile Internet on my notebook

You would say I’d be counting down the days, but actually… I’m counting up the things that still need to be done! Last week I felt a bit guilty for not going to the gym to look super hot and fit in Queensland, but boy, did that change! I’m running around, biking – let’s say crossing – through Amsterdam, sprinting to catch this tram and that train then stumbling up and down the stairs in my house to grab this instead of that…
Vodafone gave me a mini laptop and a mobile phone, both with fast internet connection, so that relaxes me again whenever I have to wait somewhere during the countless moments I feel the unstoppable urge to email and call to arrange and confirm.

Amidst all this human interaction, I had a tough moment saying goodbye to my dog Lluna. I remember very well that I actually only missed her during my one month trip in Brazil. Good thing is that I know she’ll be even more spoiled because my mother takes her everywhere, and in Maastricht there are more dogs and green areas. Mom will fall for the begging eyes Lluna gives anyone with food, so she’ll be a fatty when I’ll see her again in June. I had an exquisite lunch with my dad and Félice, my older sister, as we sat in the garden, complaining about how warm it was that day. It has been surprisingly nice weather for the last two weeks and right now I will NOT complain about the fact that I am sitting inside behind the computer a lot, because then my friends will kick me again while pointing out the coming – quiet sunny – month.

How have things been on Day of the Earth the 22^nd? Tell me you at least planted one tree?! I didn’t make it at the end to clean one single plastic from the beach but I did learn about some new, environmentally friendly techniques in the production process of clothing used by Volcom Stone. I went to their showroom and as I was allowed to take out the clothes that I liked, I felt like I was 20 years younger; in the candy shop, feeling a bit shy to ask for all those sweets while you would love to fill your every pocket with it! We had such a good time and they educated me as well on some fashion issues.

When I came back to the Amsterdam station I found myself going from sooo happy to truly depressed for some minutes: my sweet, beautiful, loyal & royal bike got stolen. I am VERY sad and will try not to think about her (Her name was Angela) too much. She was a typical black Dutch bike with a big basket in the front for Lluna/ shopping bags, so there’s no point in looking around, as they are all pretty similar. (Same but different because Angela and I were a real team) Luckily my sweetest friend Sabrina came to cheer me up by bringing some chocolate milk and a cheesy croissant and then you know everything is ok again!

 One of Holland’s best brands, in my opinion, is GSUS and I was so lucky to receive a text message of Britt, a girl I used to be flatmates with some years ago. She’s working for GSUS and asked if I would mind wearing some GSUS clothes in Australia. Now girls, come on, who would say “no, thank you” to an offer like that PLUS the fact that I’m really proud of this brand because they are conscious within their production process and a member of the Fair Wear Foundation. (Something that every clothing brand should be, I think)
So I jumped on my borrowed bike again, had fun with the staff, tried some lovely T-shirts and an hour later I was riding back with a bag towards the next station: Camalot, a renting company for everything that has to do with cameras who is so kind enough to sponsor a professional camera to shoot with during the stunt.  
Talking about the stunt, it’s going to be splendid, because all sponsors and my production team will stick to the plan.

Now I will shut down my laptop and have some Scroppinos in down town Amsterdam to celebrate the start of the weekend, cheers!

Dear diary,
Yesterday I experienced my first editing-drama. Together with my editor I have been trying every codec and application possible to get to edit the great footage we made during my marching day with StoereVrouwen a week ago in Haarlem. Without any luck. We decided that the tape and the DVD are cursed to not throw ourselves to the ground and simply scream & cry!
Bye bye amazing video, bye bye hours and hours spend on it, bye bye me trusting professional gear and computers in general… How will I win this peaceful relationship back?!
The video was going to show you one of the amazing publicity stunts StoereVrouwen are undertaking in order to create and raise awareness regarding the buying habbits of the Dutch consumer.
As “General Gaya” of StoereVrouwen points out:
“We are raising awareness among consumers about the power they have. In their wallet. We are telling people that they can enjoy life, and help the world at the same time, simply by buying certain products that are produced in a fair way and on top of that without harming the environment and the surroundings of people and animals.”
Amen to that.
Luckily a photographer made some photos which he will send any day now. Stay tuned as they will appear in my Photobook.

Let’s hang out some more in this “green corner” and let me tell you about the special day it is today, April 22^nd : It’s Day of the Earth!
Wikipedia explains:
“Day of the Earth is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth‘s environment. It is held annually during both springs in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern hemisphere. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year.”
Putting this into action it means the organization of a numerous amount of campaigns and events around the globe to “do good ´n green”. If you want to read and see more about the impact we have to create more Days of the Earth, visit www.earthday.net and see for yourself what you can do!
Up Here in The Netherlands a team of energetic positivists set up a “Clean the Beach” – event which means that people can sign up to help them clean the beaches along the entire coastline. As you might know, plastic garbage is one of a kind in giving nature a hard job to deal with. In several oceans, also in our North Sea, a horrifying quantity of plastics is creating a thick layer that’s endangering sea life.
By cleaning the beaches it sure won’t get those islands of plastic to disappear but at least it opens up the eyes of people in order to promote recycling garbage and so on. Hopefully I can give them a hand tomorrow, if my amazingly growing instead of reducing TO DO – list will let me.

HEY YOU!
Will you take part in any event or campaign during this Day of the Earth?
Dutchies , here´s your chance to combine that lovely sunbathing down the beach with some you-on-plastic-action: www.greendreamdistrict.nl
Or maybe you already did something incredible over the last few weeks you can tell me about?
I would love to read and see it! Post your comment here and I’ll get back to you.

Green’s up!!!

I´m starting to pack my bags for the big trip down under and since I only have to choose the sunniest clothes from my Dutch Dark Winter Wardrobe, I’m experiencing lots of delightful butterflies in my belly! These are getting stronger day by day!

As I told you before, my visit to Queensland doesn´t stop after the selection process is over and the Island Caretaker is revealed. Whether I am or am not the lucky employee, I´ll be travelling throughout Queensland until May 31st. I’d love to surf your couch as this gives me the best chance to adapt to the famous laidback Ozzie lifestyle and explore it from inside out.
So… If you have a nice hammock or couch for me to crash on, let me know by leaving your email in a comment!

Last but not least…
I’d like to invite you to have a drink with me in the hotel bar in the afternoon of May 1st, you can then tell me all about Queensland and your other Ozzie tales. Please leave a comment here with your email and I might contact you to meet in Down Under!