The Amazing Adventures & Untold Stories of Astrid

Astrid & Her Amazing “Five out of Seven”-Adventure

2009-11-06T22:48:00.006+01:00

Astrid had not been on any big amazing adventures for a while, so in September 2009, she decided to take some extreme measures and to go backpacking from Cairo (Egypt) to Amman (Jordan).

I don’t know whether you are familiar with the game Frogger and it’s first level, but crossing the street in Cairo felt just like it (without the three lives):

Luckily, frog Astrid survived all trips to the other side, so she could venture on to see the Great Pyramids of Giza (Astrid is on a mission to see all the seven world wonders and this was the fourth one on her list!).

After seeing the Great Pyramids in Giza, Astrid travelled on through the dessssssssert. She even made it her home, because she could handle no more hotels with cockroaches.

She had breakfast with the Bedouins and climbed mountains in the early mornings, because why would you stay in bed when the sun is out and there is so much excitement to be had?

In the evenings, Astrid danced on commands of the Bedouins. Although she is, until today, still unsure whether “Yalla! Yalla!” means “Dance! Dance!” or “Faster! Faster,” but Astrid danced as if her life depended on it and after slept surrounded by millions of stars.

She easily got used to making a toilet out of big rocks and not caring whether people could see her bum or not as it is not hairy or anything like that at all and when being on public spaces now and then and no toilet near, she was often tempted to just quickly find a space of her own once more.

In Petra (world wonder five on Astrid’s list!), Astrid felt like Indy running all over the place and making millions of discoveries with her eye:

Crazy stuff!!! Within the heat, Astrid and a few new friends also searched for treasures and .. even found them!!! Yes, broken necklaces were found on several locations. They were repaired carefully and would later be handed to friends back home as valuable souvenirs.

While Astrid had no-food related-issues on her travels and loved the falafels with all her heart, the diarrhea hit her hard when she came back home, so she told her housemates to make an extra effort in supplying a few extra rolls with soft layers.

Astrid is still wondering whether this would have been the revenge of the Egyptian gods for fooling her friends with fake hidden treasures from Petra? What do you think?

Astrid & Her Amazing “Whatever Happened to Amazing Astrid”-Adventure

2009-08-21T23:47:00.005+02:00

Have you ever wondered what happened to Amazing Astrid? Is she still out there? Does she sometimes still go back to Albert Heijn? Will she ever again stop people in the street to blow bubbles for her? And how are Outer Space Owen, Frivolous Fran, Restless Richard, and Terrifying Tom? Are they still alive and kicking?

Well, everyone grows up in the real world, even little Amazing Astrids! Yes, believe it or not. Astrid quit her job at LEGO and obtained a job where she improves the lives of factory-workers!!! However, this is not a matter of waving your magic wand. It means travelling and meeting lots of new people (and getting paid for it!).

Astrid once had to assess a factory with a Russian princess. To save on company expenses, Astrid and the Russian princess had to share a room the night before the assessment. However, the princess, whom Astrid had never met before, did not show up at the confirmed time at the hotel the night before the assessment. Thus, when it was midnight, Astrid decided to put her pyjamas on, take her contacts out, and do some light sleeping. Deep in the night, the Russian princess knocked on the hotel-room-door and Astrid did her best to make a bedazzling appearance in her pyjamas and with no vision; it worked and both the princess and Astrid slept for three full hours.

In return for a little sleep-deprivation, Astrid goes on trips to LA and Hong Kong. Well, Hong Kong is still on the list, according to her boss, Astrid first has to learn to eat with chop-sticks, but LA was there. With a little emergency-landing in Newfoundland, Astrid arrived in LA. During the week, Astrid stayed in a hotel to work around the clock, but in the weekends, Astrid only lay on the sand and jumped in the waves of the galore of beautiful beaches. She was introduced to all these new games, such as Apples to Apples:

“Apples to Apples will enliven Family Gatherings” Apples to Apples is the game in which players must choose nouns to fit a particular adjective, with unpredictable and sometimes hilarious results.

Amazing Astrid did not win the game, but got hooked to talking to the most interesting people instead, Marty, the actor from Australia, Torin and Steve, both in the dental- care industry, Rusty, the entrepreneur, Jeff who likes to do his conference calls on the volleyball-court, and Mary Jane the Schoolteacher, and many many many more.

It is the lack of time which stops Astrid from writing; NOT the lack of adventure!

Until soon!

Miles of smiles,

-Astrid.

Amazing Astrid & Her Amazing Friend - Adventure

2009-03-19T22:14:00.004+01:00

Amazing Astrid has a friend. She doesn’t just have one friend; she has many! One of Amazing Astrid’s friends, however, gets a golden star for his role as a tour-guide; Amazing Astrid could go on amazing adventures with him every day!!!

Astrid and the tour-guide spend an amazing day in England’s capital London for only 8 British Pounds. One British Pound was spend on the bus to London, another British Pound was spend on the bus from London, another British Pound was spend on a bun to eat and to feed to the squirrels, and a big number of five British Pound was spend on an evening dinner.

The day started off at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Slough, Berkshire, England. This day took place in the Obama-era and if you, as a customer, surprised the donut-maker with the slogan “Yes, we can,” you received a big glazed doughnut for free. Yum! So good; you wish they did not have a hole in them!!! Being lost in the delicious taste, Amazing Astrid and the tour-guide had to run for the bus to London. Luckily, they managed to catch the bus just in time and took a seat on the second floor of the double-decker.

Once in London it was a big tour around the city and lots of visits to free musea.

* Astrid also saw Big Ben and Little Ben.
Little Ben is a cast iron miniature clock tower, situated at the intersection of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Victoria Street, in Westminster, central London, close to the approach to Victoria station. In design it mimics the clock tower commonly (though incorrectly) known as Big Ben of the Palace of Westminster found at the other end of Victoria Street.

* Astrid saw a crocodile, only slightly chained up.

* Astrid saw the real Peter Pan.
The statue was erected in secret during the night and 'magically' appeared on 1st May 1912. There was no publicity before the statue's arrival and on the day, Barrie placed this announcement in The Times: "There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived.

* Astrid had her photo taken with a “laughing cavalier.”
In reality he is not laughing at all though. He is smiling in a rather self-satisfied, provocative and disdainful way. One itches to wipe that smile away. Yet it is irresistible, almost infectious. We occasionally meet people we don't like and with whom we have little in common, and yet are charmed by their smile, by how they present themselves to the world. The Cavalier is one of them.

* Astrid had dinner at a restaurant and had the restaurant pay for the most expensive meal.
“The 2 for 1 deal at pizza express now allows you to get the most expensive meal free, so for example, you could get a £15 main course and a £5 margarita pizza and just pay a fiver!”

It was a good day and it was unfortunate that it exhausted Amazing Astrid so much that she had to take a cab home for seven British Pounds!!!

Amazing Astrid is back!!!

2008-12-03T21:59:00.001+01:00

Amazing Astrid is back and ready to tell you all the tales you have been missing out of since March the 16th 2008. Are you ready for it?

Astrid & Her Amazing "Where Your Fettish Fantasies Come Alive" - Adventure

2008-03-16T21:14:00.012+01:00

If you go to the website GOOGLE and look for Amazing Astrid, the first hit goes to AMAZINGASTRID.com- where your fetish fantasies come alive!! However, in the old days when everyone still wore togas, one used to arrive on this page.

Obviously, Astrid is to blame for losing her crown. She hasn’t made any reports about her life for the last couple of months. While running around on the streets, she was hit by a car, but no, she did not fell into a deep coma and cannot blame it on this cause.

Astrid hasn’t been writing, because Astrid moved house. Yes, she said goodbye to all the good characters, such as Terrifying Tom, Outer Space Owen, Restless Richard, and Frivolous Fran and now lives up the Hill on Hill Street with only a limited connection to the Internet.

Life is different here. We take baths instead of showers. Empty bottles no longer go in the bin, but they go into the red recycling-box. Telephone-calls to foreign countries are made for free and Astrid saves thirty minutes to get ready for work in the morning.

Astrid has also been introduced here to a new and exciting game called “Pub Golf.” The rules are simple, but they are often ignored after only a few holes.

At the start one receives a list of pubs one has to pay visit. At each pub one has to drink a drink that is listed for this pub. Then one has to down this drink in less attempts than listed to get points. The fastest drinker or the one with the most points can consider themselves a winner. The whole game is done while being in dressed in golf-attire.

More entertainment news will come up later this year when Astrid is taking Cat Leggy Liam to an art-exhibit in London!!

Astrid & Her Amazing "How many cars are there in Cardiff and which colours are they?"- Adventure

2007-12-29T10:55:00.000+01:00

Astrid simply loves pancakes and for this reason decided to throw an authentic Dutch pancake party in England.

The entrance-fee was an egg per person. Some people brought an extra egg, hoping that this would earn them a bonus stack of pancakes to take home!

Everyone baked and ate and played with their food like any twenty-something would do. The result was that the winner of the pancake-eating-competition even refused to have his grand-prize: A Chocolate Santa Clause. Despite of the fact that chocolate is the most popular item to eat over the Christmas-period.

Astrid had her Christmas-chocolate-pudding with chocolate-sauce and vanilla-ice-cream in Cardiff, Wales where she celebrated Yuletide with her Welsh-speaking Texan friends. Astrid thought it was fabulous due to a large variety of reasons:

1.) She got to take the bus from London (England) to Cardiff (Wales) and so got away with legally sleeping 3,5 hours extra during day-time.
2.) With no other major wine-drinking-fans in the household, Astrid could drink all she wanted as long as there was a bottle left.

3.) There were pancakes on Christmas-morning with butter, fresh fruits, and maple syrup!
4.) Astrid got to watch hilarious Christmas-movies recorded in the 80s, but taking place in the 50s.

5.) Astrid was allowed to sleep underneath the Christmas-tree with presents all around her on an inflatable mattress which inflated itself for more than 6 hours a night.
6.) Santa Clause spoiled Astrid with lots of presents too, including every single flavour jelly-bean: lemon, green apple, sizzling cinnamon, peach, lemon lime, chocolate pudding, bubble gum, raspberry, coconut, strawberry daiquiri, very cherry, buttered popcorn, blueberry, toasted marshmallow, Dr. Pepper, strawberry cheesecake, tangerine, licorice, watermelon, plum, juicy pear, strawberry jam, A&W cream soda, cotton candy, and A&W rootbeer.

7.) Astrid got to laugh, talk, eat, drink, read, watch Dr. Who and James Bond on the telly, visit the oldest pub in Wales, wander over a graveyard, play monopoly in Welsh, and and and got to take another bus home to do some more of that extra sleeping! Zzzzz…

Merry X-Mas everyone and a Happy New Year!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing “You Crack me Up”- Adventure

2007-12-06T21:49:00.000+01:00

From the day Astrid was born, Astrid has been smiling. To be honest, Astrid’s smile might have been the main-ingredient of all her adventures. Without her trade-mark smile half of Astrid’s adventures would have probably never taken place. However, a smile does not work well on it’s own; it works best when it is shared. So here are the tales of things that made Astrid smile just recently.

One day Astrid was at her number one train-station travelling on an escalator when she noticed that the person in front of her was not transporting a child in his buggy but a big suit-case instead, so Astrid confronted the fellow and said: “I must say, you have a child of extraordinary beauty,” to which the fellow replied that yes, he was very blessed, since he had another one of these beauties at home exactly alike!

Then Astrid and her friend went to see a modern art exhibit and were looking at this tremendous crack in the floor. Everyone around them was just looking at the crack with full admiration and were flashing away with their cameras. Astrid and her friend had no idea what everyone was on about, but loved to play along and started to pretend it was something big too.

In the end, the crack turned out to be something symbolic about racism and the post-colonial past and Astrid and her friend actually became quite intrigued, but then couldn’t stop laughing when reading something about the crack in the papers a few days later:

“A crack in the floor that forms an art installation in the Tate Modern [London] has caused 15 injuries in seven weeks.”

“We must ban it. Simple as. If it injures 15 people then it must be the fault of the artwork, and not in any way a case of evolution in action. Only then will we eliminate risk entirely.”

Then there are so many people making Astrid laugh continuously! People who dry their chest-hair with hair- dryers or guys who throw in shoe-sizes of the continent in a conversation when girls discuss UK-dress-sizes:

Girl 1 (not Astrid): “A size 20? Does that even exist?”
Girl 2 (not Astrid):“I am a size 10.”
Guy 1 (not Astrid): “I am a size 45.”

And Astrid is pleased to say that the smileage is not over. It will only get better by time!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Piggy Bank”–Adventure

2007-11-12T11:14:00.000+01:00

Generous Astrid is nowadays a little bit greedy, because generous Astrid is collecting pennies for a great purpose:

Generous Astrid wants to go on a world-tour with the majority of stops taking place on the Southern Hemisphere.

Everywhere she goes, she tries to collect phrases which might be useful on her journey and so when she yesterday was in a Japanese restaurant she seized her opportunity and asked one of the waiters when she left what goodbye would be in Japanese. The waiter then argued, he did not know since he was Chinese. Astrid fears she is now no longer brave enough to pose this question to strangers unless they have their nationality written on their chest.

On Astrid’s refrigerator, Astrid finds awkward English phrases and is not sure how, when, and why to use these during her travels:

· Go date pretty easy people
· Sleep another night in this bed; girl you are spilling alcohol from your head
· Pour me a melon
· Use him only in the kitchen
· Wienie fart festoon
· I watch repulsively obnoxious wild monkey-sex
· She ate his love cheese
· Punch the sloppy party-guest

However, she wilfully takes on the challenge. Due to the cost of using wireless Internet-connections, Astrid will now sign off here, but don’t forget to purchase your tickets for Astrid’s World Tour in advance. Be quick; before they are gone!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Class of 2007” – Adventure

2007-10-11T22:32:00.000+02:00

One of Astrid’s friends is a school-teacher. All day long she teaches and teaches. However, sometimes she takes all her kids away from the class-room and takes them on a trip to see… Amazing Astrid.

Yes, her whole class hops aboard on a bus in Holland, then they drive all the way to France, and then, then they take a boat to England where Astrid currently lives.

The students, this time, got to meet Astrid at the nearly too friendly Mr. Big Ben whose hands were going around and around at rapid pace. A walk was then made along the River Thames. It was windy and Astrid and the class were being chased by Storm-troopers and weird colourful creatures on bicycles, but no one got their pants wet and they all managed to survive.

Dutchies are passionate about football, so a little stop was then made at the Chelsea Stadium where currently no Dutch people play since yellow cheese is hard to get in the area, but who are sponsored by the world-famous Dutch beer, Heineken beer. And Astrid checked, yes, the ball is round even here.

Now with the school-class gone, life is still not bad for Astrid. The other day, she came home to find a big plant right in front of her front-door. How odd did Astrid think? There was no way for Astrid to get into the house unless she would remove the plant. So Astrid did move the plant, because not only did she want to get into the house, she also desperately needed to go to the loo. Then Astrid discovered that it had been the postman who had been doing the gardening-work and he had left a box of chocolates for Astrid. Imagine if the plant with the heavy (!) pot would not have been there, someone would have stolen the chocolates (this product contains nuts, milk, wheat gluten, soya, egg and alcohol) for sure!!!

Quote of the day:

"If you are wearing bright colours, you may be mistaken for a flower. If this happens don't try to pick up a butterfly, just genly push it away."

Astrid & Her Amazing “Freshness Factor Five Thousand”–Adventure

2007-09-20T22:39:00.000+02:00

Astrid is still loving it! Astrid still loves living in the UK. Why? Because Astrid thinks it is just a silly nation with weird habits and… weird people! No need to say “thanks,” Astrid’s British friends, Astrid loves handing out compliments!!!

So what do people eat for diner here or so-to-say for “tea” (yes, let’s make life confusing by making tea edible as well!)? Well, there is baked beans on toast and there is spaghetti on toast! Yes, it all goes, but only on toast! However, while one can get away with baked beans on toast topped by melted cheese for diner, eating anything with any kind of cheese for breakfast is a total NO here! Yes, let’s be harsh on the Dutch. Hours later, after going out clubbing, it is toast once more (and cups of tea with more than a spoon of milk!). It is truly incredible!

Getting a hair-cut is great too! Astrid can walk into any saloon looking totally Dutch: blonde hair, freckles on her face, chewing on cheese, wearing clogs, but once she comes out of the saloon, she is English. Her hair is no longer wild and out of control, but as flat as a perfectly-ironed shirt, and Astrid acts and feels like a lady all of a sudden too queue-ing for the bus and taking a cab home fearing her hair might say *poof* again!

Hair-dresser to Astrid: “How do you dry your hair? Do you blow-dry it or straighten it?”
Astrid: “Umz .. the wind dries it ?”

*Beep*

Hair-dresser to Astrid: “And how do you part your hair? In the middle? To the left or to the right?”
Astrid: “Umz .. can I have a geography-question ?”

The questions in the UK are actually the best.

Astrid is on the train, waiting for the doors to open, when a guy taps her on the shoulder and says: “Are you a biker too?” What does one say to that? Yes, my bike has two locks one for the front wheel and one for the back wheel and my tyres are full of air? And when one goes out dancing with a bunch of mates, people come up to Astrid and say “Are you having fun?” Yes, yes, if there was no fun to be had, Astrid would not be there, right?

No day goes by without a smile for Astrid.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Campaign for Champagne” – Adventure

2007-08-18T16:55:00.000+02:00

It is the wedding-season in England.

Yes, looking outside doesn’t reveal a sign of any of the “normal” seasons like spring, summer, fall, or winter, but women in wedding-gowns are spotted on the streets more than once a day, while these gowns are most certainly not advertised in the August-issue of Cosmopolitan.

[Groom with food in mouth and baby]

The popularity of weddings in England may be supported by the tale of Tim, a real-estate agent from California, who is currently in the middle of a 5-day wedding-tour through England, taking his wife, seated at table 3, with him as well.

Astrid agrees that weddings are indeed a lot of fun in England, especially when champagne and other goods are being served (but let’s stress the champagne). When Astrid received her wedding-invitation, she could not believe her eyes when she read: “Two glasses of champagne on arrival, ” “Half-bottle house wine per person,” “One glass of champagne for toast,” and “cake stand and knife provided!” Immediatelly Astrid went out to buy the groom and bride the best present ever: Homemade tacos with peanutbutter.

[The Bride]

The bride had a few minor issues with delivering the wedding-vowels when the moment was there due to some water-leaks, but when the groom stated to the crowd that the marriage really wouldn’t be so bad, she climbed right up again and shrank her last name by a large number of letters. So the bride and groom were absolute winners, answering all the questions correctly, and were more than happy to share their grandprize and offered their fan-club wonderful meals, music, and yes, champagne and on special request more champagne!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing "Le Quatorze Juillet"-Adventure

2007-07-29T16:30:00.000+02:00

Astrid distributed chocolates around the office and said to each of her colleagues: “For the special occasion that I am going on holiday today, I brought some chocolates to the office.” All of Astrid’s colleagues were in deep pain and needed the chocolate to soothe their pain. Some even claimed that one chocolate was not enough.

Then at the end of the day, Astrid grabbed her bag from underneath her desk (it is always ready!) and flew to Nice (France) where the weather is always nice. Astrid was pleasantly surprised by the amount of ice-cream shops and ice-cream flavours out there, among the flavours were:

· Avocado
· Liquorice
· Pine-nuts
· Lavender
· Tomato-and-basil
· Corona-beer
· Sweetened chestnuts
· Crème
· Figue

And much more.

So Astrid immediately went on an icecream-diet of three scoops a day. Now Astrid is back in the UK and has some issues letting this diet go, especially since there, in the past, were hardly any beaches to be seen in Astrid’s area, the beaches are now everywhere to be seen and ice-cream and the beach just go hand in hand for Astrid like a groom and bride and Coleman’s mustard and dripping noses:

Astrid also celebrated her birthday and got about 20 pairs of socks from work. They had played Secret Santa at the office around X-Mas-time last year and Astrid who had never played this game before had, when pulling the strings, thrown in the phrase: “Hint: Astrid wants socks for X-Mas” and had then pulled herself and had bought herself a lovely collection of socks. Astrid’s extraordinary sock-supply now was the “revenge” of Astrid’s work colleagues.

In Nice they had also not forgotten about Astrid’s Quarter Century-Birthday. There was a parade during the day, parties on the street in the evening, and fire-works when it was really dark:

[Astrid is currently working on getting some video-clips here; she has no clue how to do that yet.]

Now how many noisy games can you think of?

Astrid & her Amazing "Thingymajig"-Adventure

2007-07-09T23:10:00.000+02:00

Life has been crazy, life has been wild, life has been a lot of fun!!

Astrid has discovered a fantastic new swimming-pool in her own street.

Astrid has learned a new word:

"Thingymajig": It’s a thing used to describe something u can't think of due to being in a stoned mood. Being Dutch, gives Astrid the privilege of using this word at every occasion.

Astrid has been surprised by a housemate’s NAKED sleepwalking.

Astrid has been named “Acid” and Astrid’s parents have been argued to be hippies.

Astrid needs a break. She will be back before her canned red kidney beans in chilli sauce expire. So don’t worry too much!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Most Amazing of Them All” – Adventure

2007-06-26T16:44:00.000+02:00

Astrid went to the hospital for a three-hour health-check last week. Boring? Think again! We are talking Astrid-business here.

Astrid had so much fun in the hospital that she would do it again tomorrow. It all started with legally skipping breakfast before the take-off. Astrid was allowed to get up later, she had no dirty dishes to clean, and saved 100% on porridge-oats and milk. Great deal!

Then came her first “official” obstacle in the trial: Pee in a tube; Astrid had to pee for a bit “normal-style,” then in the tube until it was filled up, and then continue peeing in the pot again. Astrid only had one go, but managed to SUCCEED.

Then Astrid’s blood was taken. She was not allowed to faint and did not, but she did lose her band-aid before she arrived at work, so if you have found it, please return it to the legitimate owner, so Astrid can have her points back.

Astrid was also measured and weighed. Apparently, she had shrank a fair amount of centimetres over the years already, but, according to the wise doctor, this could be solved by having a healthy snack at that very moment. So I say, life is all about timing, and that is why Astrid will not continue this tale now, but continue with a better one.

This weekend Astrid was gonna see Jason Mraz at a festival in Hyde Park (London). Astrid is a major fan who did not know it was his birthday that day, but will not forget now. The Mraz-show was great. The songs rocked and rolled and were often hilarious. Astrid did not want the show to come to an end and luckily for her it did not also end here.

After the show Astrid went dancing on the tunes of the Buena Vista Club and discovered that Jason Mraz was wiggling behind her. Astrid was not brave enough to have her picture taken at first, but when everyone else did so, so did she, she also had a little chat with Jason where he tried spilling his birthday-wine all over Astrid’s white shirt, but Astrid’s shirt caught nothing but air, then Astrid talked some more and eventually said her goodbyes to the man without the iron mask.

Then he came running towards her, like a running nose without a tissue to stop it, to invite Astrid to his birthday-party. So, without a present, Astrid went to the party where she received a big piece of birthday-cake with marzipan and where she played magic tricks with the birthday-boy himself while being surrounded by his close friends and fellow musicians. She also became friends with one of his band-members who invited her to come see them again at the following gig as their guest.

Never forget your sun-tan lotion. Statistics have proven it is very healthy.

Astrid & Her Amazing “I’d rather be an Equestrian than a Pedestrian” – Adventure

2007-06-11T23:11:00.000+02:00

Astrid went to Epsom over the weekend. Epsom where the horses run and Astrid does nothing. Okay, well, anyone would be able to tell that that is a total lie. Astrid can never do nothing, so what did Amazing Astrid do this time?

Did she steal all the horses’ shoes to give them to those who really need the luck? Like that grandma who never manages to cross the street before the light goes red again for her and who now has not only lost her teeth but also two toes, an arm, her favourite slipper, and the key to her front-door of which she does no longer remember the address either? Nope. Did she press the equestrian-button to cross the street by pretending to be on top of a black beauty by jumping extremely high? Yes, she did and she got ten points for it too (and a purple medal!). And now what else did Amazing Astrid do while she was in Epsom?

Astrid lay down in a field, or to be more precise, Astrid lay down on a golf-course (Astrid truly has no fears), and made up stories while looking at the shape of the clouds up in the sky. There were monsters with open mouths who slowly lost their noses and the United Kingdom became slightly see-through too. The whole cloud-experience was part of Astrid’s recovery process from the night before when Astrid had gone to Kingston to see a few bandits perform in a venue called the Fighting Cocks. The Cocks served an endless supply of cake to stop the crowd from singing along all the time making all the glasses with visible spirits go KABOOM!

To reach Kingston, Astrid had to take the train to Strawberry Hill which according to famous dentists is not really a hill and where according to famous baseball-players are also no strawberries to be found. So what is Strawberry Hill like? One day, Astrid will put on her dancing shoes and explore! This weekend it was just Epsom (and Reading, Slough, Ickenham, London, Kingston, and Guildford).

Astrid & Her Amazing "Am I British?" - Adventure

2007-06-03T23:01:00.000+02:00

Woohoo! Astrid has made it to the top!

It wasn’t too long ago that Astrid was in a well-known English supermarket (read: NOT the Albert Heijn) when someone pointed at her and said:

“British girls are sooooooooooo pretty, because they drink a lot of shampoo.”

Astrid never drinks much shampoo, only on a rare occasion does she absorb some of that scented fluid in her mouth, but to be mistaken for a British girl is something -new- and somewhat confusing as well for Astrid. Do we take this as a compliment or not? Do we start drinking more or less tea? Is weather-talk good or bad?

So to sort our her thoughts, Astrid removed herself from all Englishness and took a train to Wales where someone lives with a strong resemblance to no one less than Buzz Lightyear (“To infinity and beyond!!!").

It’s friendly friend Chris.

The cold weather made Astrid borrow a sweater of him which in Finnish stated “Finland,” making everyone believe that the blonde girl in the pub was totally Finnish, making her a total hit-wonder with the crowd.

The day after Astrid’s arrival, a trip was made to a Welsh bay, could this be where the Whales of Wales are hanging out? Nope, no whales were seen nor any other animals, but there was a beer-festival, a Norwegian Church (have you ever been to one of those?), an opera house, and most importantly an ice-cream-van whose owner was shocked to hear Astrid was in no need for his ice-cream.

Then the following day it was time for magic! No wands involved though. Okay, well, maybe an oven-wand here and there then (read on for warm apple-pie).

Now what does the crystal ball say? Astrid will most certainly return to Wales, even on a rainy day when there is no tea to be seen, if only to have the warm apple-pie with custard in a pub called the Black Pig again.

Astrid & Her Amazing “An Intruder in the House” – Adventure

2007-05-19T17:06:00.000+02:00

Oh, no, there is an intruder in Astrid’s household! Popular as Astrid’s house is, a new person has moved in. It is OUTER SPACE OWEN:

And together with RESTLESS RICHARD and MISS FRIVOLOUS FRAN he is in the running of becoming Astrid’s favourite housemate next to big boss, TERRIFYING TOM.

How will he try to defeat the two other housemates? Will he give Astrid roller-skate-lessons, so Astrid can get to work faster? Will he learn her to eat a bowl of curried chickpeas in less than 5 minutes with disposable chopsticks? Will he drive her to the zoo around lunch-time when Astrid really needs to see that baby panda again coz it is oh-so cute?!

Outerspace Owen starts off by giving Astrid a KINDEREGG:

Restless Richard and Miss Frivolous Fran think Outer Space Owen is NO COMPETITION to them, after all one of them went out to play Frisbee with Astrid in the park, while the other one sat next to Astrid in a church while Astrid sang Christmas Carols!!!

-to be continued-

Astrid & Her Amazing "Muffin-Diet" - Adventure

2007-05-12T19:58:00.000+02:00

Sometimes you just feel like eating a muffin; sometimes you just feel like eating a muffin all day long and if your name is Astrid NOTHING -BUT REALLY NOTHING- STOPS YOU FROM DOING SO!

So last Sunday started off with a Lemon Poppy Seed-muffin, continued with a Classic Blueberry-muffin, and finished off with a MOUTHWATERING Peanut Butter-Banana Muffin for Astrid!

The end? No! It is just the beginning of a MUFFIN-ERA!!!

Each of these muffins were purchased without a single Pence discount in Notting Hill. You might have heard about this place or seen it in the movies, but Astrid really goes there to eat muffins and to make new friends: "HI MIGHTY MAX! HI LUCKY LUKE!"

Astrid ran into these fellows when ordering a drink when she really needed to go to the loo:

Astrid (not thirsty at all) to waitress: "I'd like a carrot-wheatgrass -apple-orange-celery juice, please, but only if you have a loo?"

I say there is lots of conversation material in that one phrase!

More friends/enemies were made later that day when Astrid boarded the tube.

Some Australians who were a bit tipsy were convinced that Astrid with her surfer-look was Australian, since they were maybe really a bit too merry, Astrid decided that her momma would be really proud if she just ignored these people.

So she boarded the tube, found a seat on the other end from where the Aussies were sitting, and then ... then they started singing all these Australian national songs and demanded that the surfer-girl would tune in while pointing at Astrid on the other side of the tube.

Everyone looked at Astrid, hoping she would show off her singing skills!?!?! Well, bad luck, Astrid doesn't have these skills, and besides, she would need a sheet with the melody and the lyrics of these songs!

When Astrid did not tune in, the Australians started dancing in front of her. Boy, they sure had some funny dance moves, so Astrid could no longer put up with her serious-face and had to go for the tears-streaming-down-her-face-look! Then she reached her destination and hopped off like any muffin-queen would do!

Astrid & Her Amazing “From Bin-Liner to Space-Blanket”–Adventure

2007-04-26T22:58:00.001+02:00

Once upon a time in the land of tea and scones, they decided to set the clocks. This would result in one hour less weekend and one hour less sleep for all people in the UK.

“Huuray!!!” Astrid thought, “I might as well run a few extra miles then too, since a human being can never have enough torture! So how about running 13.1 extra miles on a supposedly-lazy Sunday? Sure, can do, but let’s drag housemate Miss Frivolous Fran with me in the torture!”

So it must have been 8:30am when Miss Frivolous Fran and Amazing Astrid showed up at the start of the run. Boy, it was sure early in the morning and freezing cold and they were requested to wear bin-liners to make sure no one would be disqualified from the run for showing up in the wrong running-attire or for being too much of a snowman and so unable to run at all.

Still, Astrid was convinced she saw Dorothy and the Scarecrow of the Wizard of Oz without a bin-liner running along and also Robin Hood showed off quite a few drops of sweat without having a bin-liner on to catch them and it clearly had been a while since either of them had been in the fashion-department in Cosmopolitan, but Astrid still adored their cute little outfits!

Astrid got a fair amount of support along the way too. People waved purple flags, since that is Astrid’s favourite color, and Astrid was also introduced to new boyfriends on the way, making a wonderful sweaty impression.

The finish-line showed up after less than two hours. It should have been more on time though, but apparently it got stuck going around and around in a washing-machine. It did award Astrid, not with flowers, but with a very cool silver shiny space- blanket! Astrid liked the space-blanket so much that she asked her fellow competitors whether she could have theirs as well and Astrid is now the proud owner of four space-blankets and can do tent-building and all when having her friends over.

Astrid & Her Amazing “I Just Don’t Like It” – Adventure

2007-03-23T21:58:00.000+01:00

You can ask Astrid anything and she does not mind.

Ask her about the time she let out a giant burp in a cave, the time she went out swimming and nearly lost her bottom-part, the time she ran into a fence with full body-weight, even though it was a very visible one, but NEVER EVER ask Astrid where she is from! Astrid might just not appreciate that.

When Astrid just moved to the UK, she loved it when people would ask her where she was from. She played all sorts of tricks and games with everyone; she would pretend to be a windmill, an Edam cheese, or a joint, it was all good. Now when people ask Astrid where she is from, she just answers the name of the town she lives in and then people go: “Really?” and then Astrid says: “No, not really.”

So when Astrid was out in the big city of London with her friends the other day and this lady came up to Astrid and her friends and completely ignored Astrid’s friends and just poked Astrid right into the face, Astrid’s friends feared the worst and were truly afraid “the question” might just come up. However, the opposite was true. The lady was a scout and argued Astrid should be on television. So she took her number and her picture.

Back in her home-town Astrid went to buy a jar of honey in an off-licence-shop. Astrid had her music on and was fully enjoying it when a man stood next to her and said: “Poland.” Astrid removed her head-phones and said: “Sorry?” The man then closely absorbed Astrid and said: “Czech Republic.” Astrid then ran to the counter, left the change, and took her jar of honey home.

Astrid & Her Amazing Puke Adventure

2007-02-24T20:45:00.000+01:00

In the UK, one can visit the doctor for free which is perfect for those who are short in friends, but even though Astrid is not one of them, she still has been visiting the doctor quite frequently, now that she lives in the UK.

Astrid does not fall ill easily, but when she does fall ill, it is always a weird case-scenario:

One day, Astrid was at work. She was sitting behind her desk when all of a sudden she realized she did not feel so well. So she said to her boss: “I think I must go home for I really don’t feel well.” Then when she had uttered these words, she started wondering on how to get home, coz would Astrid still be able to walk to the train-station?

Astrid’s face then turned green and the light was switched off in Astrid’s head. A few minutes later she was carried to the first aid room in her office. Half an hour later a cab was called and Astrid was taken to the hospital. In the waiting-room her stomach started to make the noisiest noises and Astrid had to run to the nearest bathroom, which happened to be for disabled people, where she could not stop vomiting.

The doctor diagnosed an infection in Astrid’s tummy and the cab then took Astrid to the train-station. Astrid then saw many work-colleagues who curiously asked her how she was doing. Astrid wanted to smile and answer, but only words of vomit came from her mouth. So back in the cab it was and the cab took her home, where she vomited some more.

After one day of vomiting and sweating in bed, Astrid was back at work, no longer vomiting nor sweating.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Beach of the Year 1992” – Adventure

2007-02-12T13:54:00.000+01:00

Last weekend, Amazing Astrid went to visit an old love. Boy, Astrid hardly recognized her old love anymore. No teeth, no hair, no legs, he had really gotten old... oh, -now wait- Astrid’s old love was standing next to the vending-machine at the train-station and did have teeth, hair, and legs after all.

The journey from London to the most Eastern part of the UK was by many described as a journey through time: “You leave in 2007 and arrive in 1995.” No wonder, Astrid was drawn to go on this trip. However, the little town must have done some quick renovation-work before Astrid’s arrival and there seemed to be no time-travelling involved this time.

Astrid and her ancient love did have lots of fun together. One aspect of her trip, Astrid even found worthwhile mentioning in a meeting at work:

“So if no one has anything left to say, we will close this meeting.”

Astrid then raised her hand up in the air and said: “I drove a tractor over the weekend.”

And then the intellectual crowd went wild and had wished Astrid had mentioned this fact earlier, so they would have had more time to discuss it.

Even though, the whole trip was lots of fun (LEGO was build, Astrid got to be silly in front of a camcorder, the existence of tremendous blue-and-white-striped-apartments was discussed, dancing-shoes were put on, and goals were scored), there was one major disappointment for Astrid, Astrid did not get her desired fish-and-chips for which she had placed an order nearly two weeks in advance! No good, so Astrid made a serious complaint and got an invitation to come back to get her fish-and-chips.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Amazing Mum” - Adventure

2007-02-05T22:32:00.000+01:00

Amazing Mum came over for a visit, so Amazing Astrid hung herself.

No, no, of course not, stop the funeral-refrain right now, you big silly, and stop throwing rotten eggs and tomatoes at Astrid as well. Amazing Astrid, Amazing Mum, now where-oh-where did Astrid get all her amazing-ness from? Oh-la-di-yay from Amazing Mum of course!!!

So Amazing Astrid & Amazing Mum started out watching sights in London, then moved to Oxford, then to Stratford-Upon-Avon, then to Warwick, and then back home (where Frivolous Fran listens to Justin Timberlake) again.

Coffee anyone?

Or would you rather go for the empty plate?

In London, Amazing Astrid & Amazing Mum watched a musical called “Blood-Brothers.” There was singing and dancing and Astrid bought 100ml pineapple-juice for only GBP 4.00! Luckily, she did not spill a single drop.

In Oxford, Amazing Astrid & Amazing Mum went to see Peter Pan skate on ice. Yes, we all knew he could fly, but did you know how well he can skate? And he can even fly on skates! Not bad, if you are only a little (frying) Pan with lots of happy thoughts!

In Stratford-upon-Avon, Amazing Astrid & Amazing Mum went to see Shakespeare’s play Richard the Third. Boy, can that man spit (on the people who paid the most to see the play) and girl, can that man use a lot of difficult words in his vocabulary. Next time, Amazing Astrid & Amazing Mum might have to bring less fantasy and more dictionaries on their trip.

In Warwick, there was a ghost-tower to be visited with artificial spider-webs and artificial candle-sticks. It was nearly spooky.

And the moral of this story is: There is fun in every corner.

Astrid & Her Amazing Russian New Year Adventure

2007-01-28T22:03:00.000+01:00

The burglary made you miss out on Astrid’s Amazing New Year Adventures, so when Astrid heard London was celebrating New Year again, Astrid was determined to go to London again, to celebrate New Year again, and to write you a full report on it this time. Story-telling rule number 1: NEVER disappoint your fans!

On the 7th of January 2006, Astrid send one of her friends a mystery-invitation to join her in the event:

“Dear friend, IF you can strike a pose like this:

you may join me and 60,000 other people who will all look-a-like on Saturday the 14th of January 2006. Yours sincerely, Astrid.”

When the friend, after a few days with lots of practice, got the pose right, Astrid told him to meet her at a certain time at a certain address in London and asked him to bring two silver spoons as well, leaving her friend clueless on what the plan of the day would be.

On the train to London, Astrid realized she had left the address at home, but, since she would be in the area early, thought she must be able to find the place before the time of the appointment. Sadly, she already bumped into her friend while looking for the place and sadly, he had forgotten to take the address with him as well! Not all of us are good contenders in the game of life. Two points deducted for Astrid and her friend.

So Astrid and her friend never found the place in the big city of London, but did find a pub with nice bartenders and … another authentic Italian ice-cream-shop and used the two shiny silver spoons to eat the most delicious ice-cream of the whole city of London and left the spoons behind all licked and dish-washer-ready. Two points earned by Astrid and her friend.

Then it was off to the Russian Winter Festival where New Year was celebrated the Russian way (with mulled wine and Vodka!). Bags were checked and books on Russian Spying Games were not(!) found.

Astrid and her friend did totally well on pretending to be Russian. They blurred out Russian words, had just as much fun in the cold as the others, and wore funky hats!

They were even happily waving their Russian flags around and wearing their Russian bracelets.

Now how many umbrellas do you need to look cool in the rain?

Astrid & Her Amazing “They Broke Into Our House and Stole My Bra” – Adventure

2007-01-06T14:08:00.000+01:00

A few days ago, Astrid was happily typing away on her computer about all the amazing adventures she had had during New Years, but something or rather someone got in the way of her publishing it:

On Wednesday-night, Astrid got home to find a really nice note of housemate Tom on the dining-table:

“Hey Amazing Asteroid,

Don’t worry about the dishes. I know it is a mess in the kitchen, but we will sort it out.

Miles of smiles,

Thomas the Tank-Engine.”

Now that was nice, Astrid thought. She then moved her little body upstairs to enter her room where her jewellery box (which contained mostly hair-clips and empty batteries) was scattered all over her bed. Astrid thought one of her housemates had been looking for something and had had to leave the house in a rush.

Then she moved her little body into the hallway and saw that housemate Tom’s bedroom-light was on, always willing to help the environment, Astrid walked over to switch it off, but to discover that housemate Tom’s room was a tremendous mess, so Astrid rang housemate Tom to check whether it was just a mess in the kitchen or also in his room.

…

Later on in the evening, the police came over.

Astrid & her housemates had quite a good laugh with them. Especially, when Astrid had to describe her missing bra in full detail to all the listening ears and when the miss of the DVD of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was mistaken for Astrid’s miss of her DVD with breakfast activities!

Yesterday-evening, Astrid and her housemates had a little post-burglary-party, insurance companies were called, mess was being cleaned up, lasagna was made, candles were lit, competitive board-games were being played, and beer, wine, and vodka was absorbed in the little bodies.

Astrid’s amazing stories can now only be told when Astrid does overtime-work from home, like this weekend when she even went for the deal of doing her overtime-work in a language she hardly speaks nor writes: German. Pictures one can no longer see here (from the next post and onwards).

However, it does take more than this to crush Astrid’s happiness-level which is guarded by a BIG dog and can only be touched by those who say the MAGIC words. Do you speak MAGIC?

Astrid & Her Amazing “Baby’s 1st X-Mas” – Adventure

2006-12-26T23:16:00.000+01:00

Baby Astrid celebrated her first Christmas in the UK this year. It all started with the Secret Santa-game at work.

Astrid’s Team-Meeting

Boss: "Okay people, let's pull the strings!"
Astrid: "Astrid wants to have socks for X-Mas."
Boss: "Okay, is everyone ready?"
Astrid: "No, wait, what do you do if you pull yourself? Do you buy socks?"
Boss: "Yes, you buy socks."

So Astrid pulled herself and bought herself five pairs of socks exactly to her taste and in the perfect size as well.

After that weeks of extremely hard work at LEGO followed. Some customers' bad tempers even made Astrid lose her smile for a little while, but then there were some customers who also managed to broaden Astrid’s smile, like this customer:

“Hey LEGO folks, it is with deepest sadness that I write you this email. We purchased a LEGO advent calendar because quite frankly chocolate, as fun as it is, can't beat the fun of opening up something to make every day! However, imagine our shock today to open number twelve only to find the same model as we had in number eight. So that’s it.... due to this trauma Christmas has now been cancelled and we're going to be spending some time in counseling to get over it. The turkey has been released back into the wild (slightly worried about its well being quite frankly as its only a breast joint). We've had to call Tiny Tim and let him know that there'll be no presents for him this year, and even the sprouts have been binned and won't get to fulfill their destiny...... I'm sure you can appreciate this is a very sad time for us. That said, I'm sure in time we can get over this and will only grow stronger in the process. Right, now I have to find a use for the stuffing balls! Kind regards, XXX”

And then Monday, it was finally X-Mas and as soon as Astrid was capable of getting out of bed, she ran towards the tree to open up all her X-Mas cards which she had placed underneath the tree in the weeks before X-Mas and felt immensely loved! Then she went over to Terrifying Tom’s family (who are less terrifying than Tom) to celebrate X-Mas the English way!

Within no time, Astrid felt extremely high, as her diet of the day mostly existed of alcoholic beverages (champagne, ice-wine, vodka) and treats (mince pies, cookies of crazy Irish ladies, chocolates, Christmas-pudding). So it was nothing but giggles all day for Astrid, unlike her neighbor who got slightly frustrated by some innocent children:

And may I point out to you that Astrid’s neighbor is not a proud owner of a baby!

Tuesday was just a very lazy X-Mas day where baby Astrid went out for a stroll and discovered a shop where Miss Santa or Miss Santa Wanna-Bes should go on a shopping-spree:

Special price for special you!

So that was Astrid's X-Mas this year. I am curious to Astrid's next X-Mas which will be put on a hold until next year.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Can You Skate An Eight?” – Adventure

2006-12-23T00:35:00.000+01:00

Can you skate an eight? Astrid cannot.

She can do a one on a good day, possibly a seven on a day in March, but an eight? No Astrid cannot do an eight, even if she washes her knees with lavender-scented soap.

So how do you then wow the crowd? Good question.

Astrid does it by skating around and around and then unintentionally continuously keep on bumping into the same person; accidentally the one with the most hideous sweater on the ice, nearly forcing this person to draw a circle with a crayon around him to protect him from Astrid’s evil-doings on the ice.

A glass of mulled wine and a little mince pie won’t help the hideous sweater-man getting rid of bumper car Astrid, but housemate Richard says that a bagel without a hole (in his world known as a “bungle”) might just do the trick. Quite a few times Richard ate a bungle topped with an overload of honey and Astrid would just not get near him.

Astrid also had some issues with wowing the crowd at a service of carols and readings for Christmas which she attended quite recently. Why did the songs have to contain so many difficult words and why had no one ever informed Astrid on how to pronounce these words and why does Astrid have to be so loud? More mulled wine and little mince pies here, please.

Astrid & Her Amazing Other People's Adventures

2006-12-15T13:36:00.000+01:00

This week, Astrid’s house was packed with people and stories to tell, coz the house was inhabited by one housemate too many and was a visited by a fair amount of visitors as well.

Yes, Frivolous Fran had made her grande entrée at the home a few weeks earlier, but Restless Richard returned to the home for a few days as well. And our Thomas the Train-Engine and his good company should not be forgotten either.

Each of the housemates is always responsible for their own set of adventures. It is housemate Tom who leaves the television on when he goes to bed and nearly gave Astrid a heart-attack the following day when she opened her bedroom-door and for a little while imagined herself in a saloon with lots of shooting going on!

It is Frivolous Fran who knew to update Astrid on how the Northerners dance, but Astrid still needs a follow-up-course on that one! It has something to do with pulling up your right leg and then shaking your leg or something!

It is Restless Richard who went traveling through Africa for over a month and just lived nothing but the wildest adventures:

“I spent 2 days travelling and camping in the mountains of Tanzania to finally get here so I am pretty knackered. It is getting hotter and dryer and the midday sun is a killer. There are snakes and scorpions a plenty, but the worst thing is the gigantic sized bugs which look like they could eat you.. not to mention ants the size of elephants.”

“Last night we all got absolutely plastered on a hash cake that our driver bought. Apologies if this email isn’t the most inspiring...! The night before we had a punch party which was very messy. We had to buy an outfit from a local market for less than 500 Kwatcha so we all looked like absolute twats!”

“We attempted to get to Blantyre in Malawi but we got half way there to find
the roads were all washed out. We got bogged in some god awful village and it went down hill from there. We got out luckily and had to head for Lilongwe (the capital). Got there late at night and then headed for the Mozambique border at first light. There were more washed out roads and political interference which resulted in us being told to camp in 'no mans land' the lawless 1km between borders. We would have been dead meat. Somehow we bribed our way into Mozambique but had to do a bush camp (find a flat patch of land and set up tents.). Mozambique is riddled with land mines so this was very very scary. We couldn’t venture outside the circle of tents, and stress levels were very high. We got our asses out of Mozambique and into Zimbabwe pretty quick so it has meant a lot of time on the road with little sleep and digging a hole for a toilet.”

And those were just a few! Is anyone still interested in Astrid’s Adventures?

Well, the other day Astrid was in a train which was just as packed as Astrid’s house this week. All seats were taken. One was even taken by this massive big smelling dirty-looking drooling dog (cute in its own unique way!), so Astrid decided to not force herself on someone’s lap and to remain standing for a while. However, the owner of the dog insisted on Astrid squeezing herself next to her and the dog. Astrid politely waved and said it was okay and she was happy to remain standing, but no the message was clear, it was: “Sit, Astrid, sit.” So Astrid did.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Coolest Kid on the Block” - Adventure

2006-12-07T23:17:00.000+01:00

Astrid currently feels like the coolest kid on the block with her new totally smashing lights on her bike. They come in the colors red and white; not in red and green, as one would expect around this time of year.

Both lights were given to Astrid by Fran. Frivolous Fran, that is, or the BRAND-NEW housemate!!! Yes, that’s right, we have said our goodbyes to housemate Richard who has left the mansion to explore the world and welcomed Fran to the mansion with a good and spicy Indian meal, like any new housemate should receive if they contribute to the house by buying family-sized-packs of toilet-paper.

Luckily for Astrid, this meal did not fight with the food Astrid had eaten the night before. The plan had been to go to a Lebanese restaurant where Astrid and her friends had intended to quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack all night long in between duck-egg-blue-colored, and with a dash of lemon-yellow-colored, interior. However, plans were changed and eventually, Astrid and her friends winded up in an Italian restaurant where they were served free Italian Vodka which tasted like watermelon and which made Astrid and her friends burp all night long.

Then a pub was visited where the waitress at the end of the evening came over to check whether Astrid or her mates had not accidentally forgotten their signed Barry Marrilow-record. Before they could say either yes, no, MAYBE, or hallelujah, a girl came running in, nearly in tears over the loss of her precious record.

Then doorways were visited where one had to go to the door and inform the bouncer that Trisha had said that it would be okay if Astrid and her friends would join her party. Trisha winded up having invited way more people to her private party than her cellar could handle, so Astrid and her friends were forced to move over to a place named “Thirst,” which was even tinier than Alice (in Wonderland) in her tiniest version. It did not stop Astrid and her party of six to have an endless amount of fun though!

New words and phrases added to Astrid’s vocabulary during these merry times: Pizza Boscaiola, lush, Hot Toddy, to have a butcher’s, the join-me cult, …

Astrid & Her Amazing Sunday – Adventure

2006-11-29T22:37:00.000+01:00

Astrid & Her Amazing Sunday – Adventure. Pooh, that sounds dull, but no, Astrid’s Sunday wasn’t dull at all.

When Astrid woke up on Sunday-morning the wind and rain were playing tag around her house. Oh, how much fun they were having and they were giggling all the while!

So Astrid got out of bed, felt like having a little giggle at that time as well, but did not leave the house to join the merry spirits until hours later.

The hours in between waking up and leaving the house were used by Astrid to do some building, yes, it took her quite a few hours, but she did manage to build up quite an appetite and that without any building-instructions, not bad for a girl who loves taking photographs of random people.

So her next stop was the pancake-restaurant where everything could be ordered: pancakes with basmati rice and curry, pancakes with seafood: dead and/or alive, pancakes with ice-cream: vanilla and chocolate, pancakes with cheese: feta and old, pancakes with me and pancakes with you.

Then Astrid played the big tube-puzzle game in London, transferred and transferred from line to line without throwing a single dice on the board to eventually wind up at a place called the Bull and Gate to see Kid and Conundrum. A band that should most certainly not be underestimated and has Astrid as a big fan.

A little over midnight, Astrid found herself at London Paddington where she had quite a flattering conversation:

Man to Astrid:
“Are you a dancer?”

Astrid to man:
“I bet it are the shoes, huh?"

Man to Astrid:
“No, you just really look like one of those dancing stars of a famous London-musical. Did you just return from one of the shows?”

Astrid to man:
“Well, I hate to disappoint you there, but I cannot sing nor dance. I can only kick ass, as my skill is martial arts.”

Then a little over 2am, Astrid came home and her Sunday was over, but not before Astrid closed her tired eyes.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Lick Your Own Frozen Peanut-Butter Sandwich” – Adventure

2006-11-25T22:05:00.000+01:00

So many stories and just no clue where to start, so Astrid is just going to sit back on her comfortable talk-chair with over 202 fluffy pillows of which 137 have pillowcases with polka-dots in either purple or orange and just babble away.

And it is okay, you don’t have to count the total amount of dots on the pillowcases or be silent all the while, please do whatever you feel like doing instead, even if that means scratching your eyebrows or licking frozen peanut-butter sandwiches.

The last postcard Astrid send home from one of her journeys abroad read:

“Follow your own star!!!”

However, this was not the message, Astrid wanted to pass on to either housemate Tom or housemate Richard. Astrid rather bought the card out of pity for the card (do read on; don’t pull a confused face; it just doesn’t suit you), coz on which occasion would one go to the shop and buy this card?

Astrid also recently went over to a friend to play “Articulate” and drink quite of few glasses of Gluhwein! Lots of people, places, objects, and verbs where described and many were described with a positive outcome in the game, but when it was time to announce the winner of the game, Astrid had to rush to the bathroom and even managed to lock herself in! Now that takes special skills! Will the real loser please hide in shame! And people actually had to climb through windows and doors had to be removed in order to get Astrid out.

Miss Astrid also went to Oxford to celebrate Helen’s glorious birthday party. Who is Helen?

Well, Astrid did not know her either until the very last day of her 25th year, but she was a really nice and crazy girl who was even willing to share her bed and bedroom-floor with fifteen other people! Cozy business!

And Astrid thinks vodka is good and so are jelly bears, but together is something completely else! And who likes spooning jelly-vodka or jelly-wine, only the weird one, Astrid presumes!

Now on her way back from work today, Astrid passed a smoothie-shop and saw the following sign:

Does that mean bring your own empty cup, fill it up, and then live happily ever after? Logic is sometimes hard to find!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Lets Quickly Run Through It All” – Adventure

2006-11-14T21:50:00.000+01:00

This is your opportunity to show off your athletic abilities or maybe just your fancy sports-clothes, but at least to show off something. As Astrid lived a whole lot of adventures from the moment her computer was rushed into the hospital with severe injuries to the moment she welcomed it home again, after a very slow and very rough recovery, and will now take you by the hand and quickly run you through them all. Tie your laces tight and put some fresh deodorant on, preferably cranberry-scented, coz you can expect quite a work-out!!!!

Astrid did not suffer from severe injuries like her computer did (coz injuries tend to be not so very contagious!), but did fell severely ill. And where would Astrid have been if it was not for housemate Tom and housemate Richard who analyzed her disease and bought her medicine? Possibly in Heaven, which is not a bad resting place if you like sunshine and flying, like Astrid does.

Half ill, beaten and battered, torn and tattered, Astrid went on a 7-day business trip to LEGO-World and met up with the grandson of the founder of LEGO. Before meeting up with this respectful man, Astrid first visited a fair amount of airports. On one of them, she noticed an instrument which went by the name “face and hair-dryer.” Fingers in the air of people who have dried their face with a dryer? Okay, Astrid realizes that sometimes people would use it when they have just glued their nose back on and need to quickly leave the house to go tree-climbing, but besides from that event??? Who dries their face with a dryer?

Now how does Astrid get from this adventure into the adventure that took place in a Marks and Spencer right here in England. I say, we take a big leap! Come on be brave! Don’t be a chicken, we’ve got plenty of those walking around.

One day, Astrid was in the local Marks and Spencer and treated herself to a special roll, she described it as a walnut and twig roll and kept on being persistent about it, even though she got some weird faces. Yes, maybe walnut and fig would make a better combo, huh? Well, possibly that is something for tomorrow.

Now let’s treat ourselves to fried Mars-bars as people in Scotland do and continue our work-out some other time.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Laptop Gone For Repair” - Adventure

2006-11-09T16:02:00.000+01:00

Due to the fact that Astrid’s computer broke down on Friday the 13th of October and the fact that Hewlett Packard is not very willing to return it to Astrid at rapid speed, Astrid is unable to update you on her latest adventures!

Apologies go out to the impatient crowd.

Astrid & Her Amazing “When the Boys are Out”-Adventure

2006-10-12T13:21:00.000+02:00

Tom and Richard are the names of the housemates blessed to live with Astrid.

They get to remove her overload of trash from the garbage-bin every week, get to be awoken at 5:45am every morning when her alarm goes off and at 6:40am again when she drives her bike against the front-door (do not even bother asking for details!), are being tortured by all the weird things she does around the house, like putting the laundry-ball in the dish-washer, dirtying all the dishes who try really hard to become clean and usable again with washing-fluids meant only for smelly clothing, by lining up all the pans of the house on the hob after cleaning them, making it unusable for cooking unless some time-consuming and boring reorganization-work is done, and the tale goes on and on! Yes, so blessed they are!

Every once in a while, the house tends to be incomplete: Richard is out on a business trip, Tom is out clubbing, or Astrid is on another holiday, but what do we all do when the others are out?

Last week, Tom and Richard were away from Sunday-afternoon to Monday-Evening. Take the quiz and discover what happened in and around the house:

When the Boys are Out

Astrid & Her Amazing "So Busted" - Adventure

2006-10-02T17:12:00.000+02:00

Baby Roel has blue MC Hammer-pants.

And Astrid went to visit him for a week.

Children are just plain cool.

Astrid, her cousin Luusje, and neighborhood-friend Tori build a pop-corn stand:

Every opportunity was taken to promote the popcorn. People were being screamed at when they emptied their trash, when they were walking their dog, or when they just decided to use the street to reach a different destination. Hey, world’s finest slightly buttered popcorn was sold by the cutest kids on the block for only 50 cents! They were tested nearly every minute, so why wonder whether they could be less than perfect?

Cousin Madeline wants to be a devil for Halloween. Astrid wonders how much candy she will receive, since she is unsure about the amount of people brave enough to open their door for her, but then again she can always go out-of-season-trick-or-treating again like she did last year and still receive piles of candy:

Yeehaw!!!!

And why grow up ever? Astrid built a tent of her blanket when she flew to the States and slept really well in the tent. At first her neighbor-passenger on her plane back to the UK thought it was the silliest story, but when Astrid peeked out of her tent later on, she noticed that the 31-year-old business man next to her had built his own tent as well. Someone got BUSTED!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Random Events, Conversations, and Pictures” – Adventure

2006-09-20T23:22:00.000+02:00

A friend of the house, named Chris, came over for a visit. He was first sitting in the lounge, but then came over to the kitchen where Astrid was at that time. He started looking for “something” and Astrid offered to help him find that what he was looking for. So Chris started describing what he needed and Astrid thought she knew exactly what he needed. So Astrid opened one of the cupboards and, with pride for solving the little riddle, handed him a rolling-pin. She was slightly off though, coz what he was actually looking for was a washing-cloth!

Richard, Tom, and Astrid love to keep themselves occupied by playing little games around the house, so when Astrid went out shopping, Richard set her out on a mission: “Buy me a nice surprise which would cost you less than 50 Pence.” So Astrid was in the store looking around for the perfect gift when her eye caught a little jar of baby-food which argued it was a dessert containing blueberry and apple. Astrid then remembered Richard’s request to bake him a cranberry-apple-pie for his birthday, so Astrid thought this might just be the perfect surprise for him, as it was a dessert containing apples and berries as well. The surprise was well-received and placed in the refrigerator. Then housemate Tom came home and uttered the following phrase to Richard and Astrid: “I opened the door of the refrigerator, saw baby-food, and somehow I WASN'T even surprised!”

Astrid works for LEGO and helps people with all sorts of LEGO-related questions, from people wondering about the safety of building houses of LEGO for hamsters to the amount of bricks necessary to built a LEGO - tower to the moon! Astrid’s colleagues are daily challenged by the same sort of questions and one day Astrid’s colleague Kajsa was posed the following question:

“One of my DUPLO figures has loose arms, what can I do?”

So Kajsa turned to Astrid and asked her: “What do I tell this lady? To buy the DUPLO hospital as well?”

This weekend Astrid went out clubbing.

Expected conversation:

Bouncer: “Hello there, can I see your ID?”

Actual conversation:

Bouncer: “Hello there, where is your bike?”

Apparently, the bouncer sees Astrid passing by on her bike every morning when she goes to work.

When Astrid went to buy her ticket in, she raised her finger, meaning she wanted one ticket. The lady at the check-out then showed Astrid three fingers, and Astrid shaked her head, and again showed her one finger. Then the lady at the check-out shaked her head and again revealed three fingers. Apparently, the ticket price for one girly girl was three Pounds!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Where are the Whales in Wales?” – Adventure [Part 2]

2006-09-10T19:21:00.000+02:00

So Astrid was unlucky in finding whales in Wales on her first day there, so for the second day Astrid and her mates thought of a MASTER-PLAN:

“Why don’t we go to the beach and seek for whales over there?”

So off they went to the beach, two beach boys and one beach girl (with slightly hairy legs and the shorts and belt on of one of the guys, since you CANNOT be prepared for ALL weather-conditions during a weekend in Wales).

On the way to the beach, they happily sang about the fact that “everybody’s gone surfing, surfing USA” and also played the CHAPS game, not the ORIGINAL animal-edition, BUT the beach-edition (copyright Christophe, Sud, & Astrid 2006):

C = Chest-hair
H = Happiness
A = Astrid
P = Proud Parents
S = Sand

Maybe you already sensed it, but there was continuous clapping going on, as the beach was just PACKED with chest-hair, happiness, proud parents, sand, and okay, maybe not so many Astrids, but there was one so loud that she could be recognized from afar.

Still, there were no whales to be seen and Astrid and her mates got hooked on building (with the LEGO spirit in mind!):

“P – R- A – T,” the rock-formation said. How unfortunate for Sud to fall asleep on such a rare spot on the sandy beach:

After “the joy of building and the pride of creation” (copyright LEGO 2006), Astrid and her mates continued looking for whales. They found many objects on and around the beach covered with sand, salt, and drips of ice-cream, but none could satisfy them as much as the sight of a whale would or maybe Astrid and her friends would just settle for a cute looking dog then!

Then Astrid had to return home again, as work would start early again the following day. Five hours later, when the train-manager ran out of excuses for the delays, Astrid returned home, bewildered but pleased with the outcome of her quest:

Astrid & Her Amazing “Where are the Whales in Wales?” - Adventure

2006-09-02T11:03:00.000+02:00

“Where are the whales in Wales?,” Astrid wondered.

Extremely eager to find out she set herself on a true quest and in the weekend took the train to Wales.

Upon her arrival, she didn’t see any whales, but not giving up on her quest that easily, Astrid went to check out the country-side.

As a small-degree nutcase, she was drawn to all the nuts in the trees around her, especially those of the hazel-kind. So she started collecting and eating them, but soon stopped that practice when she realized she didn’t have a dentist in the UK yet.

Continuing her journey, she nearly tripped over a gold-mine. Signs told her where to go panning for gold and it was gold Astrid found, but who needs chunks of gold when you are actually looking for whales? Not Astrid, that is the obvious answer.

So Astrid continued her journey and her quest. Keeping her animal-observation skills alive started playing C H A P S (copyright Chris & Sud 200?):

Be on the lookout for a Chicken, Horse, Anteater, Pig, and Sheep. Once your eyes have fallen upon an animal of each kind and you have pointed every observation of these animals out to your mates, then clap your hands as loud as you can. Whoever claps first, will win the game. But be aware of the fact that if one of your mates sees an animal before you, you may NOT use it in your C H A P S-game. Yeah, so find your own horse or … be a chicken!

All sorts of animals now started crossing Astrid’s path, from dogs with boots on to sheep with tails, and slowly Astrid & her friends transformed into animals as well:

“Lechyd da,” these animals said as often as possible.

Would Astrid ever find her whales in Wales?

Check back and find out!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Number in the Crowd” - Adventure

2006-08-20T22:04:00.000+02:00

You have certain faces and they just don’t stand out in the crowd. A phrase that is too often heard by people possessing these faces is:

“I think we have met before.”

Well, Astrid has a telephone with a number that just does not stand out in the crowd. Dial a random-number and big chance you wind up twirling around like a twister on Astrid’s telephone-line.

From the moment Astrid became the legimate owner of the number, she, nearly every day, has been receiving the weirdest voice-messages.

1.) A flower-shop called to apologize that flowers had been delivered to the wrong address.
2.) A girl called, wondered what was up with the American accent, but wanted to inform Astrid that she had missed her ride, was currently standing out in the rain, but would come as soon as possible.
3.) A lady called to inform Astrid that she had received her application-form and was just calling to check up on a few details. She would try again.
4.) A man called for reasons unknown to Astrid (some people just keep on babbling!), but maybe Astrid could return him a call?

Astrid says her phone is haunted and messages from previous owners of her number will continue to inhabit Astrid’s phone, always appearing totally out of the blue and vanishing like thin air as well.

The last message Astrid has received on her phone was from Alice. Even though it was a mighty nice message, it scared Astrid a lot, and Alice didn’t even have to say "BOO."

Alice called Astrid a “sweetie” and just wanted to know how she was doing and jokingly wondered whether Astrid still remembered her. She was really sorry she couldn’t see Astrid before she left, but she just had to run. She will soon clarify why. Oh, and before Alice put her phone down she also proclaimed to love Astrid.

Astrid thinks the flannel pillows and the woolen underground on her line, should possibly be replaced by barb-wire or the smell of egg-farts.

Astrid & Her Amazing “NIGHT AT HEATHROW-AIRPORT”- Adventure [PART 2]

2006-08-10T09:09:00.000+02:00

So being nothing more and nothing less than a bundle of sweat ain’t a bad thing if your name is Astrid like the minority of mankind.

As a matter of fact, one can use their drops of sweat as a nice accessorize to go with an über-cool and important function at the airport.

Yes, Astrid was appointed the role of spokesperson at the arrival-gate of Heathrow.

Tons of people seemed to be waiting for hours and hours in hope their special passenger(s) would arrive, but were deprived of their joy. None of the impatient patients at the gate seem to have the faintest idea why their chosen human beings were not coming from the gate. Were they deducted by aliens on their way out? Had lions or alligators eaten them? Had they gone lost? Had they decided to start an addiction to TAX-FREE shopping? Or worst, were they simply not happy or possibly even afraid to see THEM?

Astrid was the only one able to provide them with the information necessary as her loyal friend was continuously updating her on the situation:

· Due to severe weather-conditions airplanes had not been allowed to land.
· When they did receive approval. They all landed randomly on the airport.
· Then people were caught in airplanes, as no doors were opened.
· Then luggage was lost.
· Then people were queuing.
· Then people were confused and were walking into walls (and talking to them as well!).
· Then …

… a little over midnight Astrid’s friend arrived as the LAST in line, being as nice and wonderful as she is!!!

No public transport, at that time, left from the terminal anymore, no rooms were available in any nearby hotels, cab-drivers only accepted 90 pounds and no LEGO money, Astrid’s housemates had enjoyed some nice beers in the sun (as weather can be pleasant and severe in one go in England) and were not allowed to take their cars out for a spin, so Astrid and her friend saw no other option than to spend the night at Heathrow with hundreds of others.

Astrid would have paid a million LEGO coins to have her camera with her this night.

Astrid spend all night observing people and eavesdropping on their conversations. Also, she tried on every outfit her friend had brought her from her closet in the Netherlands.

During the course of day of Astrid’s return home, Astrid’s amazing friend uttered the following phrase to Astrid’s housemates: “Yeah, and all Astrid kept on saying was: Isn’t this fun?”

[A TALE COME TO AN END]

Astrid & Her Amazing “NIGHT AT HEATHROW-AIRPORT”- Adventure [PART I]

2006-08-02T23:13:00.000+02:00

So Astrid went out to the airport to pick up her amazing friend Kim. Never could she have thought that she would just live the wildest adventure: A night at Heathrow-Airport!!!

Yes, so Astrid left her house at around 8pm, expecting to return within no time. She didn’t clean up her art-project and so left all of her 1001 crayons laying around on the ground being a total safety hazard for white sweaters:

So maybe Astrid wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box and maybe she’d rather be part of a box of tissues than of crayons anyhow, but that doesn’t make her unhappy bunny and besides, there are always other white sweaters to wear and there is always the option to substitute the white sweaters by either green or yellow ones, right?

Anyhow, back to the tale, coz after all that is what you here for. Astrid really never intended to sleep at the airport, coz otherwise she would for sure have brought her favorite granny with her:

Coz the lonely nights, the lonely nights without your favorite granny at the airport those are the worst. Unless, you have the Beauty and the Beast-Soundtrack on your head like Astrid had the night in question.

“Ma chere Mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents - your dinner!”

Things really didn’t go according to plan from the start. Astrid had aimed to be at the airport slightly early, so she could fix her hairdo with cherry-flavored lemonade:

But moved her little freckle-faced head to the airport a tiny bit late (she thought!), so when she arrived she was actually nothing more and nothing less than a bundle of sweat…

[A TALE TO BE CONTINUED]

Astrid & Her Amazing “Eight Burgers and More Grapes”-Adventure

2006-07-24T23:18:00.000+02:00

There are dishes and there are dishes.

According to Astrid’s philosophy, surprisingly satisfying burgers on a plate is a good dish, but so is a dirty dish. U-huh, that is right, Astrid likes doing the dishes. So when Astrid was in Greece and the waiter joked and asked Astrid, without knowing this useful fact, to wash her own dishes, Astrid gratefully accepted the offer and the waiter then told her that whenever there was a pile of dishes to be done, he would make sure to call Astrid. So Astrid waited near the telephone for days and days, but never did the phone ring. Then on Astrid’s last day in Greece, the phone did ring. Astrid picked it up and heard:

“HELLO!”

So Astrid nearly screamed through the telephone:

“Are you the man from the dishes?”

And then the man on the other side of the telephone-line said:

“No, I am here to pick up the rental car.”

That was some funny stuff!

Now that Astrid is back in the UK. It is nothing, but burgers and BBQs, so plates are only for decoration, as is cutlery.

Please list the names of people you know who eat burgers with cutlery.

Astrid & Her Amazing Holidays - Adventure

2006-07-12T12:35:00.000+02:00

SPECIAL NOTICE: Astrid is currently out of her head, but will be back sooner or later when there are no longer free desserts to be had when one asks for the bill in Greece, when the weather really cannot get any better in the Netherlands, and when Astrid’s house in the UK needs to be decorated and pies need to be baked for the birthdays of TOM and RICHARD.

Tom and Richard have to run fast though, coz Astrid seems to be catching up on them age-wise!!!

Reservations to meet up on the special day that Astrid’s moves back into her silly little freckle-faced head can be made at the bike-shop in the main-street of every city and village between 4:32 am and 4:48:15 am every day of the week except for Wednesday. Don’t forget to show the guard of the shop your FAVORITE bottle of booze or tomato-ketchup or he might not let you in.

Astrid & Her Amazing Red Beast-Adventure

2006-06-25T19:07:00.000+02:00

Astrid has received a company car, but she has not yet taken it out for a spin. The reason for this is the fact that she has not yet build it and Astrid is not a super swell mechanic, so the process is taking quite a while already. However, once the car is build, Astrid will proudly drive it around in her bedroom. No, Astrid does not currently live on the street, but her car might be of a different size than you imagined it to be. Are you curious enough to open the curtains and have a peek at it?

It’s a Red Beast! It’s a Red Beast! Not bad, not bad at all, huh?

The Red Beast’s first big outing will head to South Kensington Gardens (London, UK) where Astrid yesterday searched and searched and searched for the statue of Peter Pan, but the closest she got to him was his name on a map and a sign:

Even though Astrid knew he lived out there, she could not trace him down within her time-limits. Astrid even asked people whether they could give her directions, some people laughed, thought she was joking looking for someone who believed he never had to grow up, others asked her to play soccer with them, and others stated that for a long time they had also been trying to trace him down, but to no avail either. Could he have been out on a trip to Never-Never Land?

Luckily, there was tons of other good stuff to see in London on a day like yesterday:

So no sweat, only on the soccer-players. Today, Astrid is rooting for either England or Holland depending on the time of day.

Astrid & Her Amazing Our Big Gardening Adventure

2006-06-18T18:36:00.000+02:00

Main-characters:

Tom-Boy

Rickety Rick

Amazing Astrid

Astrid & Her Amazing Our Big Gardening Adventure

With a bucket, a shovel, and a watering-can, Richard, Tom, & Astrid attacked their backyard like soldiers did in the old days. They ran and ran with all their might and all the courage that could have ever been inside of them, leaving everything behind, like Big Brother-television-shows and rosemary-and-garlic-oven-grilled-potatoes-wíth-thick-and-delicious tomato-ketchup…

When Astrid had arrived at the Northumberland Mansion two months earlier. The garden had been perfectly trimmed. No Tarzans nor Janes could have ever hopped from tree to tree out there without being noticed, but nowadays, times have changed. Whole civilizations of dinosaurs could easily be living in the bush-bush of Tom, Richard, & Astrid. They could be playing badminton all-day-long without any clothes on, polluting the environment by making art-work in day-glo colors with graffiti-sticks, or dancing the Macarena with an outfit on that in our world is just considered to be absolutely un-cool. So yeah, something HAD to be done!

Astrid grabbed the bucket and started building sandcastles, coz she believed that only well-mannered princes and princesses could live in castles and they would make sure that their servants would only serve to those who would smell like lavender or roses and not sweaty from playing badminton in the sun all day long.

Richard grabbed the watering-can and quenched the thirst of two-thousand-and-twelve little bonsai-trees. Oh, if only they could spread the magical powers which they possess in the country of the Rising Sun and also guarantee that our garden would only be inhabited by pure souls who can hold their breath for over 10 minutes.

Tom grabbed the shovel and bravely started attacking the dinosaurs, but in the end just winded up cozily eating nachos and donuts with them.

When Richard’s watering-can was empty, he didn’t refill it, but joined Tom and the dinosaurs with a boom-box and a few bottles of beer with lime and once the castles were build, Astrid joined the crowd as well. She showed off some funky dance-moves and threw in a few weird words in the conversation, like chugalugging and purple cow.

So this story did not actually take place, but another story DID:

Tom’s parents came over and with a little bit of Tom, Richard, and Astrid’s help the garden turned into a combination of Sea World, Bush Gardens, Epcot Center, and Disneyworld.

And ... a big Father’s Day BBQ-Party is about to take place in this SECRET GARDEN!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing Silly Foreigners-Adventure

2006-06-11T11:00:00.000+02:00

So Astrid was once again sitting in a train. From the moment Astrid had stepped aboard an old lady had been moaning and Astrid had looked at her in sympathy. Astrid’s sympathetic look must have encouraged the old lady to speak up and tell Astrid all about the problems of her life.

Yes, the weather was hot, and yes, she had aches everywhere, but her main problem seemed to be the foreigners in the city. The old lady hadn’t been to London for quite a while and wow, times had changed! Clearly this old lady was severely frustrated by this fact, so no way Astrid was going to speak up and reveal to the old lady that she was foreign too. So there was a lot of nodding and a-ha-ing going on during the train-ride and when it was time to say their goodbyes Astrid just waved with high velocity, but kept her mouth safely shut and quickly moved home to safely fall in the loving arms of her hungry housemates:

Then Astrid went out again to blow some bubbles with the people you meet in the street:

Yes, Astrid went out on the street on posed all people the following question:

“I have a favor to ask you. Would you mind blowing bubbles for me and have your picture taken?”

Astrid just had the biggest fun! All the funny and not-so-funny-comments she received during, before, after, and outside the bubble-blowing-process! Hillarious stuff! And dome seople didn't want even to return the little bubble-blowing-thingy back to Astrid anymore!!!

Random Phrases Astrid Heard On Her Outing

“Just don’t have kids.”

“Well, if you give me your phone-number … Do you like what you see?”

“Go USA!!!” (but I am from Holland???)

“Sorry, I have to see my friend.”

“There is a pub at the end of the street, go there!”

“Not in my uniform.”

“jvndsiu yv984y5y hiewiyvrut kcnk.”

“I can get my friend out! Hold on!”

“So where are you from? … I used to have girlfriend in the Netherlands. She went to Amsterdam and went to this convent where they help homeless-people.”

“If my picture comes out horrible, can we do it again?”

“Happy Birthday to you!”

Was signed by Astrid & her professional league of bubble-blowers.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Confuse Me A Little Bite More”-Adventure

2006-06-03T11:18:00.000+02:00

“Are you alright?” that’s the question that was posed to Astrid when she moved her little body from the post-office to her bike.

Consequently, Astrid thought “Yes, don’t I look alright?” Apparently, it is the way people say “How are you?” out here. Life can be so confusing at times! Astrid also sometimes brilliantly knows how to confuse herself with little questions inside her head, like:

Could this sign be considered an ad? Is it promoting something in one way or another or not?

And what is today’s headline actually saying?

And where does the kid in the bus live?

Kid hops aboard on Astrid’s bus. Tells the busdriver: “Can I tell you where I live?” Starts babbling. The busdriver drives. Kid then says: “Wow, you drive really fast!” and then remains focused on the road without ever finishing her driving-instructions.

And which poem was the man at the train-station reciting when he, when the crowd was moving up the stairs, suddenly stopped to utter a wonderful line from the poem he was currently reading and everyone bumped into him and pulled really angry faces?

And do people actually use ear-cleaning-sticks, cotton-pads, cotton-balls, and tissues when they go to the bathroom in a local pub?

Astrid thinks being confused isn't a bad state of mind though!

Astrid & Her Amazing Miss Holmes- Adventure

2006-05-21T17:59:00.000+02:00

“Oh, no the roof is leaking,” that is what Astrid thought when she woke up one morning in her new home and since her housemates were off on a holiday to Turkey, Astrid knew that it was her turn to investigate the case, so she grabbed her pipe and her hat and took a close look at the situation:

After carefully investigating the leak and the water that came through it, Astrid drew the conclusion that the water came from the bathroom right above the kitchen where the leak was located. Apparently, either Tom, Richard, or Astrid, or possibly even all three of them took too long and too wild showers and the water-reservoir could just no longer keep up with their outrageous shower-habits. So no more showers for Astrid’s new family. They are just going to have to be a groovy pair of smelly socks.

To satisfy the needs of three pair of groovy socks, Astrid went to Camden Market, coz socks are just made for walking. There is nothing that pleases them more than to just walk, walk, and walk, and there is just tons of walking to be done at Camden Market. Here, tie your laces, take a few steps, and admire the beauty of this market:

Then in the evening, one pair of the smelly socks returned home again. The two other pair of smelly socks were still sitting in ovens in Turkey. Nothing to be jealous about.

But this was not the end of miss Astrid’s Sherlock Holmes-Adventure, coz now she must seek for a cat:

“MISSING: GINGER AND WHITE CAT

My shy neutered male cat Timothy has been missing from our avenue home last Saturday. He has never done this before and usually avoids roads. Please could you check any outbuildings in which he may have been shut since then. His face, bib, and front legs are white and he has a ginger moustache and chin. As he suffers from epilepsy and has missed his medication he may have died. If you find him dead or alive, please let me know.”

Please do call Astrid, if you have seen Timothy, Tymitho,Tomithy, Tymothi, and help her Astrid’s neighbor out. You'll be invited to their indoor-BBQ-party, I can guarantee you that!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Things To Do On A Rainy Day” – Adventure

2006-05-15T19:36:00.000+02:00

Astrid never lets her mood be affected by the weather, so once upon a time when rain poured from the sky, Astrid went to a theme-park in the London-area!

Astrid had received discount-cards when she bought wrapping-paper at a store. I guess wrapping-paper always goes together with receiving presents, even when you aim on only giving them, and so got two tickets for the price of one, and as the sign in the park said, “she saved money happily ever after.”

In the park, Astrid went on rides and observed people and things. She saw a guy with a shirt on saying “I am moving. Ask for details.” Astrid thought that asking might have been a scary ride on its own. One with loops where the ride stops in the middle and leaves you bangling upside down until they, after three hours, fix the ride.

And when Astrid got home in the evening, she and her housemate Richard thought that it was time to fix their faces again and to do some cleaning, some ear-cleaning, so they got their ear-candle-cleaning-sticks out of their boxes, lit them, and got their ears all cleaned out.

Now mirror, mirror, on the wall, tell me, who has got the cleanest ears of us all?

Astrid & Her Amazing Baking Aaaaaaastrid Pancakes–Adventures

2006-05-07T11:49:00.000+02:00

Astrid likes... COOKING. So yesterday-evening she cooked a good meal for a brand-new friend and her two fabulous housemates. She had bought the ingredients in a store here in England, but had taken the recipe along from a magazine from the glorious Albert Heijn. Remember those days?

The day before, Astrid and her housemates had grown a strong urge to have some pancake-baking-fun. To find a package similar to the type of pancakes Astrid was accustomed to was quite a task, but after a few stops at a few shops, Astrid found a shop with a mix that might just do the trick. So there the adventure took off.

Astrid learned how to personalize pancakes and how to make them the New Zealand-way:

Apparently, the ultimate combo in New Zealand is a pancake with lemon-juice and sugar? In Holland, most people prefer a pancake with apple and bacon or often at least something hearty. Also, Dutch folks get to have them as a whole meal for diner, while this doesn’t seem very normal to people who are living in other parts of the world, say Antarctica for example.

Next time, Astrid MUST tell you how she was totally hip and cool by cleaning out her ears with modern ear-cleaning-candle-sticks!

Astrid & Her Amazing “That Is Just Lovely”-Adventure

2006-04-29T22:50:00.000+02:00

Astrid cannot say she was ever fond of the (British) English language and would have never thought of pronouncing the words “rather” or “bath” different than the all-American-way. However, now that she is living in the UK, she is even growing a certain fondness of the language.

It is just lovely to throw in the word “lovely” whenever you want to express a positive reaction towards ANYTHING:

“Can I have your address, please?”
“Yes, you may, that is 32 Shakespeare Road.”
“Lovely, thanks.”

Also, British expressions are just hilarious!!! When Astrid’s friend who was wearing her hair beautifully loose over her shoulders told her that her boyfriend was not with her that night, because now and then she just wanted to wear her hair down. Astrid believed he just liked to see her best with a pony-tail.

When a news-channel wrote as a headline that the PM was sweating in his chair. Astrid couldn’t grasp why that could ever be a headline. Apparently, it was a polite way of describing that life was currently giving him a hard-time and that the use of a different deodorant would not solve the issue.

And to drive on a street with bumps on the road sounds quite inviting when a street-sign says: “Humps for the next 350 yards.” It sounds nearly as cute and grande as if you are about to go on a very bumpy entertaining ride in a colorful train with elephants and monkeys aboard!

And then comes the saying: “It is a sausage.” The story goes, you use it to say "it is nothing"??? Astrid really likes to use it all day long and as often as possible. Say if you are quite something, Astrid would easily utter: “You are more than a sausage.” Even though, this might be a bit out of context.

Yes, yes, yes, life remains most lovely out here for Astrid and is of a quality way more than a pepperoni-sausage!

Astrid & Her Amazing Eggscellent Adventure

2006-04-22T01:17:00.000+02:00

(note: Tom came up with this title.) Astrid thinks its great to have a few days off for the special occasion of Easter. It gave her the opportunity to do some extra partying and to visit some sights in London.

The clubbing on the evening before the overly famous Good Friday was fantastic until Astrid got stuck with her bracelet. She just could not remove herself from some fellow who introduced himself as Matt. Yeah, like Matt the pet. So after releasing herself and slightly recovering from this frightening moment in Astrid’s life, she returned to her friends who misunderstood her and believed she got stabbed.

The day after the day after, Astrid went to London and wanted to have her picture taken on the railing of the Tower Bridge and when Astrid jumped on the railing to have her picture taken, some girl was nearly traumatized, coz she believed Astrid was gonna jump. However, Astrid never goes swimming without her yellow rubber ducky, anyone should know that.

Astrid loved Covent Garden. All those impressive statues out there. Astrid wanted to have her picture taken with all of them and was even willing to pay money for it and possibly sacrifice her life for it.

Easter itself was a lot of fun too. Astrid played the Easter Bunny, hid the eggs around the house and it took her extremely hot and handsome housemates quite some time to discover the eggs in the garbage bin, sunken in a pot of salt, in the pocket of a pair of trousers on the laundry-line, and many other very clever places that only Easter Bunny Astrid could think of. Tom came out as the big winner:

And Richard came out as a good second:

Astrid is currently involved in a highly-praised project which encourages simply unique young men to speak up and reveal their soul to the rest of the world.

Richard thinks it is important to mention that:

“Astrid got her arse kicked on Sunday night by her housemate Richard. He made poor Astrid cry. As Astrid’s pride has been hurt, she has challenged Richard to a rematch. This time they will be using knives, guns, and spoons. The rematch will take place next Monday and Tom will decide the winner. Astrid is going to train all week as she doesn’t want to be beaten up again. If Astrid loses, she has to wash Richards car so it shines and shines and shines.”

Tom didn’t want to steal Richard’s thunder, so he will speak up next time.

Astrid & Her Amazing Miss-Adventure

2006-04-14T13:32:00.000+02:00

Miss Astrid has arrived in the UK and the UK is welcoming miss Astrid more than ever. Her brand-new housemates picked her up from the airport. Miss Astrid had thought about arriving and pretending she didn’t speak much English and slowly saying “How are you?” to them with an English-phrase book in her hand. Her housemates thought about having a sign saying “Astrid” on one side and “Jane” on the other, in case she would disappoint them. Neither of them went forward with their plan, but they are just bound to be a couple of funny folks together!!!

[Miss Astrid’s new family]

Lego welcomed miss Astrid with open arms too. Yes, they even had a sign up welcoming their newest employee. Miss Astrid is currently in training at Lego, learning all about how to lift boxes at the office without getting injured (check the box for sharp edges, put your left foot on the left side of the box and keep your right foot put, then bend your knees, put your chin on your chest, and lift the box), checking which race car is the fastest around, drinking champagne and eating chunks of chocolate cake for the special occasion of Easter, and building sold-out Spiderman 2-sets.

[Designed and build by Miss Astrid.]

Yes, life is currently very exciting for miss Astrid. More UK-tales are coming up! Pass it on …

Astrid & Her Amazing "Crossing the Pond" - Adventure

2006-04-02T19:52:00.000+02:00

Astrid is nearly moving from Holland to the UK and she is making the best use of her time here. She allows herself to do nearly anything she pleases from staying out late with friends on a school-night to eating exclusive deserts at restaurants.

Yes, life is good to Astrid. So why should Astrid sacrifice all the wonderfulness she has in her life right now?

Because she is just greedy. There you go, a nicely-wrapped gift from Astrid, revealing even Astrid has tremendous flaws. She just won’t settle for less in life and wants to gain as much from life as possible, coz imagine it is really true that we only live once and won’t return in a next life-time as a monkey, donkey, or someone extremely funky? So Astrid is just going to live her life to the max and will use her experiences to write movies. Yes, she has finally received her degree in screenwriting and is going to work hard to make -> you <- see her name on the credits of a movie in a theater near you. Have you yet decided on the snack you are going to eat with Astrid's first movie? The ice-cream looks good, huh?

She will need some time to answer all the riddles handed out on her last day of her current job, to fill her suitcase with more than just her favorite toys, to settle in, in a house where Astrid might possibly build a swimming-pool of colorful Lego-bricks with a waterslide and waves to surf on (bring your own towel!), to hide the Easter eggs up on the chimney of her fireplace (hush, don’t tell Astrid’s new housemates), and to adjust to her new job where she will be assigned a buttless buddy to answer all her questions, even her complicated ones, like my friend has joined the circus and says she is interested in becoming a funambulist, what should I, as a good friend, be worried about?

So just be a patient patient, Astrid will be back in some time with tales from across the pond.

Astrid & Her “All the Answers to my Questions” - Adventure

2006-03-27T21:24:00.000+02:00

Questions are there to be asked, right? But why does Astrid always come up with weird questions?

A while back, Astrid was in a shoe-store and saw a pair of shoes which she liked, so she decided to try them on. She didn’t ask for the right size, but just squeezed her little toes in the shoes of the store and how well they fitted Astrid. Then Astrid looked at the size of the shoe and noticed that it strongly differed from Astrid’s regular size. Then she overheard another lady in the store asking for the size of Astrid’s current shoe. So without hesitation Astrid went up to the lady and asked her: “Do you also have it that when you buy shoes in a different store than this one, you are four sizes bigger?” And the lady was like: “No?” Umz … oh, well, we all shrink and grow, right? Even Astrid.

Another while back, Astrid was in the train reading the script of “La Vita è Bella.” When finishing the script, she had to force herself not to break out in tears in the train, coz that would be slightly embarrassing. However, she was determined that she now had to see the movie. So she went to a video-store nearby to rent it, but they didn’t have the movie. Astrid was very disappointed, but this weekend she went to another video-store and after searching for a tremendous time and with the help of quite a few people, Astrid found the movie in the store. When she sat down to finally see the movie this weekend, it just wouldn’t start. Apparently, the DVD was too damaged to function. Astrid craved to see the movie now even more and when someone told Astrid that the movie was on sale in a certain store nearby, Astrid rushed to this store. Apparently, it wasn’t the only movie that was on sale. No, there were about 300 hundred others also on sale and they were all thrown on a big pile with no order whatsoever. Astrid, desperate to see the movie, looked and looked and looked, but didn’t see the movie. Then a middle-aged man started looking through the pile as well and Astrid quickly asked him: “Can I ask you a question? If you happen to locate “La Vita è Bella” in this pile, will you let me know?” and the middle-aged man then said: “Wow, is that one in here too?” Astrid now hoped he didn’t find the movie first, coz he might want to have it for himself then. Together they then looked for a while, but then the man left without a word and Astrid didn’t find the movie in the end either and STILL hasn’t seen it.

And before Astrid leaves the nation, she also is desperate to utter another question: “Where do all those people in the Netherlands get those bright orange gloves, that seem to be totally hip these days, from?” Last year, many people wore bright orange hats which people got for free when they bought a certain amount of sausages of a certain brand, but what’s up with these gloves? Astrid MUST know before she leaves Holland.

Astrid & Her Amazing "Heroic Escape from a Python"-Adventure

2006-03-23T21:03:00.000+01:00

Today, Astrid got her shots for the UK. Yes, this morning she went to the doctor and then her doctor asked her whether her fluffy scarf didn’t irritate her skin and by the time Astrid had convincingly argued that her scarf didn’t irritate her the slightest bit, but that she only loved it enormously since she could use it to jump ropes whenever she felt like it or had energy to spare or how she also loves to wrap it around her neck and pretend she is nearly being killed by a python and then to escape heroically and proudly tell everyone about it, it was already done.

So you might wonder what kind of shots Astrid needs for the UK? Well, I believe none, but Astrid just likes the tale. She actually just got a few shots to prolong the duration of the strength of the injections she got for her trip to incredible India.

Astrid & Her Amazing "Biggest Adventure of Them All"-Adventure

2006-03-16T22:39:00.000+01:00

Last night, Astrid was in a pub, she entered Murphy’s Quiznight and went home with the grandprize, but she did not actually win the quiz. Yes, there are those who are truly smart and there are those who walk out of an event and appear only smart. Astrid belongs to the latter, until she trips over objects on the street which should be surrounded by crime scene tape in the same color as the current band-aid on Astrid’s left knee.

Questions Astrid answered correctly:

· Which alchemist sold his soul to the devil in exchange for power and knowledge?
· What is the definition of etymology?
· In which country is the Algarve?

Sounds and images Astrid recognized:

· The Scooby Doo-movie outfits.
· A Justin Timberlake-song.

Questions Astrid answered incorrectly:

· In which year did Elvis Presley die?
· Which tribe discovered the value of the cocoa –bean?
· On the street-map of which city was the first Monopoly-game based?

Sounds and images Astrid did not recognize:

· A Hootie and the Blowfish-song.
· The Dukes of Hazard-movie outfits.

Thank you, generous winners next to Astrid! I am sorry to hear, you grown men, didn’t fit the children-sized t-shirt like Astrid does.

Yes, I truly think there are lots of advantages for never growing up like Peter Pan or Astrid.

Astrid entered Taj Mahal for free, coz people just wouldn’t believe she was older than fifteen years old. Yes, some people grow older every year, Astrid becomes younger. Also, Astrid is hired by the Lego Company for her playful character, her wild imagination, her curious mind, and her youthful spirit and will pack as much as she can in twenty kilograms to move to the UK at the beginning of next month.

One of her new housemates will be a Kiwi, the other one will contain less vitamins, but possibly more fibres?

Astrid & Her Amazing “Brave Young Boy in The Train”- Adventure

2006-03-13T13:17:00.000+01:00

So the other day, Astrid was once again sitting in the train. A sturdy looking man came in and sat down in the overly crowded train. Then at the next stop a young boy came in and sat next to him. Then Astrid heard a big sneeze and kinda grossed out. Then she noticed that the young boy had directed his face to the left side of him, avoiding face-to-face contact with the man on his right. Then the sniffing and sneezing went on and Astrid saw the boy moving his feet and legs to the left side of him as well. Astrid thought he was just the bravest boy for remaining to stay put all the while, while the sounds just already totally grossed Astrid out. I bet he saved up all his hard-earned money to pay for this seat and he was not going to give it up this easily.

Astrid & Her Amazing “One Day in the UK”-Adventure

2006-03-04T15:38:00.000+01:00

So you’all thought Astrid was going on a long trip to the UK, but no, beep, wrong, it was just a trip of a day. Yes, here in Europe we can do that! It must be something in the air.

So Astrid was at the airport at 7:30 am, two hours before the flight would leave. She drank some coffee and wandered around the shops.

Then a loud voice over the intercom told her that her flight would not leave until 11:00 am. However, when Astrid arrived at the gate, Astrid was told that the plane would not leave until 11:30 am.

So Astrid made a new friend and together they drank coffee and tea. His name was Bram. It would be Bram’s first flight. So Astrid told him all about the fun feeling you get in your stomach when the plane takes off and that if the plane has to land on water due to an emergency, you get a free ride on a yellow slide.

The plane eventually took off at 12:30 pm.

When Astrid arrived in London, there was no place for the pilot to park the plane, so Astrid and all people around her waited for nearly three quarters of an hour, but then at 1:00pm local time Astrid set her first steps in London. Yes, she could walk well-balanced without the help of anyone or anything!

On the way to customs, Astrid made another friend. This fellow had worked in the Netherlands for half a year. Felt a bit funny, coz he had a lot to drink on his farewell-party the evening before. He was now going home, but hoped to return to Holland pretty soon.

Then Astrid was in a tremendous queue for tickets for her bus. In England, they call it “coach” and Astrid wonders what sport she was playing that day?

Getting to a job-interview on time maybe?

Astrid clearly did not battle her obstacles very well, since the job-interview was supposed to take place at 1:00 pm, but didn’t take place until 3:15 pm. Maybe she should fire her coach and hire a new one or should she just practice more?

When the interview was over, Astrid had to rush back to the airport again. So much for sightseeing. Beep, wrong again! Who says you need to go far to see some sights or to blend in with the locals?

Astrid enjoyed asking directions for “Bath Road” and to pronounce this word in British, instead of in American-English. And Astrid truly loved the reply of one Englishman:

“Oh, I am sorry, I cannot help you out, darling, I am just here for business.”

Darling? Oh, that is nearly better than mademoiselle!

Then in Astrid’s bus to the airport, she sat next to a fellow who smelled awkward and was leaning over Astrid to hold his radio against the window, maybe he was receiving sounds from another planet? After a while, Astrid said: “Would you like to sit on this seat?” and then the fellow said: “No, but cheers.” Cheers! Astrid loves that word too!

Has anyone read “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime?” by Mark Haddon. It feels like this post is heading into that direction! Haha…

Then when Astrid rushed from the bus to the entrance of the airport, a person greeted her with so much enthusiasm that Astrid greeted back and thought, he must think I am someone that I am not. And she ran to the elevator. Then the elevator-doors didn’t close right away and the elevator filled up with people, including the enthusiastic greeter. He said he was lucky that day and asked Astrid whether she was from Germany? Astrid said that kinda hurt her feelings, but no. So he tried again and asked whether she was from Austria then. And then he tried to have a whole conversation with Astrid, but Astrid just ran (she was in a hurrying-kind-of-mood).

Then there was a long line at the security-check-in and Astrid thought it was just like Disneyland, “everyone wants to get on the ride.”. And then the security-guards started playing with the lines and made a maze out of the line and Astrid and all other travelers had to make choices to see who would get to the final destination the fastest! Astrid played together with two other participants and they faired quite well.

Then on her plane back she joked around with a wide variety of people as well and well, it was just a fun, fun, fun day in the UK!

Astrid & Her Amazing “London, Baby”-Adventure

2006-02-28T08:55:00.000+01:00

Astrid was watching the funniest TV-show on the BBC the other day. The fact that she cannot trace the name of the British TV-show makes it an only more special event.

So there was this group of people and they wanted to have their picture taken, so they asked some fellow whether he was willing to take their picture. Of course, he was. Then they said he had to count to five, so they could prepare themselves and their fake smiles. So he started counting and then on the count of five, they all ran! You should have seen the fellow’s face!

There was also this man in a suit who was getting his bike unlocked and then while he was doing this two bananas and a strawberry surrounded him and started singing out loud, embarrassing him majorly!. People from all over the place were watching him with open mouths. Then after a very long time, the two bananas and strawberry said: “Sharon wishes you a happy birthday, Graham.” And then the man in the suit said: “But I am not Graham?”

Then there was this girl who worked in a drug-store. First, she received a customer who said she had a ball that day and desired a tan. So she advised this lady a certain product. Then came a fellow who was slightly bold and she advised him a product as well. Then came another girl who wanted a pure skin like Astrid, so she advised this girl a certain mask. Then during the course of the day, they all returned. The lady with a way too much tan. The man with long hair grown all over his body and the young girl with a mask stuck to her face and a stomach growling for food which she couldn’t eat coz she couldn't move her lips! The girl of the drug-store nearly started to cry. It was sad, but also funny in its own way!

With all this fun stuff going on in the UK, Astrid thinks it is time to visit this nation. So she’ll be packing her bags and going to LONDON at the end of the week!

Must remember to drive on the other side of the road and to reply a question with a question:

“How do you do?”
“How do you do?”

Astrid wonders how you stop conversations with people in the UK, it can be ungoing until death do us part, right?

“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”
“How do I get to Queen?”

“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”
“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”
“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”
“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”
“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”
“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”
“Is that the Big Ben I hear?”

Astrid & Her Amazing “Walk to Work”-Adventure

2006-02-17T14:17:00.000+01:00

Every day, Astrid takes the same train to work. Sometimes she leaves her home early, sometimes she leaves her home late, but she is always on time for the train. This does not necessarily mean that the train is always on time for Astrid.

Apparently, many people have a certain scheme that they stick to every day, coz when Astrid walks from the train station to the building she works at, she bumps into many of the same people day in day out.

When Astrid turns around her first corner, she always bumps into this lady who is speedwalking with music on her head. Astrid and this lady always greet each other. The other day, the lady was text-messaging and Astrid thought she didn’t see her and so they passed each other and Astrid felt sad, but then the lady turned around and said: “Hi there, I am so sorry, I was just text-messaging.” And then Astrid felt happy again.

Within no time Astrid then reaches this area where a hen and two chickens always cross the road and upset the traffic. People honk their horns as rapidly as they can and pull annoying faces. Hey, we all must get to work on time even the animals, right?

Then Astrid comes into this area with a playground and there are four fairly old ladies and one man, who appears to be their instructor, stretching their legs and arms on a piece of equipment which people of other ages use for playful activities.

Then Astrid passes around her second corner and tons of barking dogs run towards Astrid, while their owners are busy talking to each other. Astrid pets them all and continues her journey. Then Astrid passes this windy road where many people always ask Astrid for driving-directions which Astrid can never give them.

Then she crosses this bridge which was one time used by a man to pee against and while this bridge is only occasionally used, two people were about to use this bridge while this man was in action (one of them being Astrid), but I guess once you’ve decided to unbutton your pants, you cannot just run like that, so passer-bys are just forced to look into another direction, I guess.

And then Astrid just needs to pass one more corner before she is at work, ready for an adventurous day with good coffee to start!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing “I Root with Solid Reasons”-Adventure

2006-02-09T21:41:00.000+01:00

Astrid is proud to say that the Pittsburgh Steelers have won the Superbowl last Sunday! And why does Astrid root for the Steelers? Well, for one, baby Roel lives in Pittsburgh. He’s Astrid’s cutest cousin.

Also, Heinz Tomato ketchup comes from Pittsburgh and the city has more than 700 bridges! Yes, so that is why Astrid roots for the Pittsburgh Steelers and is mighty happy with the outcome of the game.

Astrid & Her Amazing "Double Date"-Adventure

2006-02-06T09:51:00.000+01:00

So Astrid went out to celebrate the Chinese New Year at her Chinese friendthis weekend, even though it was already one week later. "Happy 4703," was the first thing Astrid said to her friend when she saw her. However, Astrid’s friend had no clue about the date in China. She did know it was the year of the dog though. Does this mean the price of hot dogs will rise this year? That Snoop Doggy Dog will jump to number one in the hit parades? That dogs are allowed to just poop everywhere? That dressing up as Scooby Doo with Halloween is just totally cool this fall? Or what? And how fearful should we be for next year; the year of the pig?

Astrid was not sure about whether to look forward to this weekend or not, since when Astrid had last spoken to her friend, her friend had said: “Astrid, you must come and stay with me, coz I have a special surprise for you, but I hope you won’t get mad.” So Astrid feared she would be send out on a blind date with a Doggy Dog or something. Nevertheless, in the past, contradicting messages had always been well-received by Astrid.

Astrid’s grandma: “Astrid, I have a gift for you and you just have to see whether you want to exchange it or not.” And then Astrid received a big and nicely wrapped package with a cute pajama and a silk nightie in it! That is like one of the presents that Astrid likes to receives best!!!

So this weekend, Astrid was not send on a blind date with a Doggy Dog, but her friend had made a double date, so Astrid was just meeting more of her friend’s friends over the weekend and how much fun was that! Now, Astrid is asked to go out camping with her friend and her friend’s friends at the end of May.

And so came also this wonderful weekend to an end. Why is it so much fun to be Astrid?

Is it because she loves her mom, brother, and her friends so much? Is it because she has seen the Taj Mahal? Is it because she will one day celebrate her 539th birthday? Is it because Astrid likes the word “belly button”? Is it because the salesman of the newspaper made by homeless people gave Astrid a high-five? Is it because Astrid’s shampoo smells like green apples? What could possibly be it?

Astrid & Her Amazing Schiphol-Adventure

2006-02-03T10:32:00.000+01:00

-supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-

One of Astrid’s favorite places to hang out at is Schiphol-airport. It is like one of the two airports where Dutch people fly from and which was the airport that stood model for the airport in the Tom Hanks-movie The Terminal (2004). Not entirely sure whether that is a good or a bad thing, but I guess there is no danger in it when you are not from Krakozhia. Anyhow, Astrid loves to hang out there and to listen to people talk.

No, she is not in for hearing the latest gossip: Did you hear … that our beloved neighbor Mick Tannenbaum is a ballroom dancing instructor who repeats to himself every waking moment "I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the best" and that it actually works and that all students at the school where he teaches want to take all lessons from him and that all the other teachers envy his flashy style and that the management even told him to tone it down a bit? No, not really, Astrid is just a sucker for accents! Even though many people disagree with her, Astrid thinks the American accent is just so soothing in the ear. She just loves to listen to it and is not afraid to admit that she puts the volume of her disc-man down whenever she discovers there is an American nearby. I know, I know, disc-man, Astrid is so old-fashioned!

So Astrid is mighty pleased that every day on her way to work she passes Schiphol- airport. It is hard for her to control herself in not getting out of the train and to wander around at the airport and pretending she is going on a trip as well, but luckily for her many American travelers get into her train and sit in Astrid’s environment!!! HOORAY! HOORAY! That’s like a trip to the Bahamas for Astrid's ears!

Yesterday, Astrid saw a fellow with a red suitcase in her train which was labeled “heavy” and reasoned that after lifting the suitcase out of the train, the fellow should be labeled “strong” and Astrid should be labeled “admirer.”

Astrid & Her Amazing Microphone-Adventure

2006-02-02T22:03:00.000+01:00

Astrid & Her Amazing Microphone-Adventure

Astrid & Her Amazing Diner Party – Adventure

2006-01-26T22:42:00.000+01:00

Last night, Astrid had the most splendid meal at the 23rd floor of Hotel Okura in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

She ate:

· 3 rolls of grilled eggplant and Comté cheese with fritters of Taggiasche olives and mayonnaise of raz el hanout
· Frothy cream soup of ceps with ravioli of chervil root
· Pearl barley with forgotten vegetables and spices of San Giacomo
· Tartlet of milk chocolate, roast banana and nougat with ice-cream of brown rum and hot froth of banana and toffee

And then, then she fetched a ride home in this car:

Some people have all the luck in the world, huh? And now how did Astrid winded up in this adventure? Well, while enthusiastically working as a cashier at the Albert Heijn, someone offered her a job at his ad-agency when he heard Astrid was passionate about writing. Astrid took the job and now she is occasionally allowed to live the life of a princess.

Still, the way to the top ain’t easy! In the lobby, Astrid had pressed the button for the elevator to come and take her to the 23rd floor. There were about seven people in the elevator already, but when Astrid got in, it started to scream and argue that the elevator was overloaded. The sign said the total amount of kilograms everyone in the shaft could weigh all together was approximately 1200 kilograms and none of the other people appeared to weigh over a 100 kilogram, so could Astrid have possibly gained the pounds already just by looking at the menu over and over again FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK?

And now put your dishwasher on and listen to the things Astrid has learned during the course of the evening:

* In Suriname, people believe that when you step over the legs of someone who is seated, you won’t grow much in life and the chances that you will always be dwarf-sized are tremendous.
* You can actually have a heating-system for your hands on a motorbike.
* More and more salamanders have been located in the Netherlands lately.
* Certain nights should definitely be repeated more than once in life.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Today, I Cleaned A Plant”-Adventure

2006-01-20T13:44:00.000+01:00

Of course you must understand that Astrid is a big and important person at her new job at the ad-agency. So of course she is allowed to do all the big and important tasks, like watering and dusting plants.

So that is what she did today.

She went out with a yellow cleaning towel, got rid of the dust on the leaves of the plant, watered them, sang a few of the most excellent songs for them, and WOW, never have the plants at Astrid’s office looked so good.

Yes, we know how to bedazzle our clients!

Astrid & Her Amazing Hero – Adventure

2006-01-12T15:51:00.000+01:00

Every day Astrid gets up a little over 6 am to travel to her job by train. It is like going on a long journey every day! So in the evening before, Astrid packs her entertainment-kit which always exists of a good book and a fine CD. Today, its Screenplay by Disney by Jason Surrell and In Between Dreams by Jack Johnson.

Usually traveling by train is quite okay, but now and then there are some complications. Not too long ago, the entire nation was send home from work because the weather would make it impossible to travel by train after 4 pm. So that was fun to have an extra afternoon off, but sometimes, it also means waiting on the station for hours and hours. Not too long ago, Astrid also experienced the latter. And there was this fat grumpy lady who was puffing when the train finally came and said out loud: “Boy, I sure hope I can sit down, I am not very willing to stand in the train.” So she rushed in when the train arrived and got a seat, while Astrid, who really didn’t care whether she could sit or not as long as she was in the train, had to stand. Then came the moment that the train-driver all of a sudden decided to use his brakes and Astrid stepped backwards to keep herself from falling and … stepped with her full weight right onto the foot of the moody lady! Of course, well mannered as she is, deeply apologized, and didn’t know where to look and then noticed that all people around her where holding their laughs. They must have felt that Astrid gave the fat grumpy lady that what she deserved; a blue foot.

Astrid & Her Amazing "Pool of Tears"-Adventure

2006-01-09T21:34:00.000+01:00

One day, Astrid was sick. Can you imagine Astrid being sick? I imagine her looking a very nasty color of green and with colorful stripes and polka-dots all over her body. Furthermore, I imagine her highly hallucinating and silently playing with her elephant-friends made out of cookie dough. Nevertheless, sometimes imagination is slightly different from reality.

The real Astrid who was sick looked rather pale (but not green at all), was lying in her bed all day long, and watched everything that moved on the television, except for cooking-shows with charming hosts. So the moment came that it was time for O-o-o-prah! Apparently, a couple of ladies watched the television-show “Desperate Housewives” together every week and Oprah had arranged that three of the leading male actors of the show would walk in, in the middle show, and surprise them. Boy, they sure were surprised and they frantically started screaming and crying. Somehow Astrid got infected by this special and curious virus as well and started crying too. Tears streamed down her face for the rest of the show and Astrid is still not able to explain why she lost so much liquid during that hour.

Astrid & Her Amazing "I Speak Astrid" - Adventure

2006-01-05T10:44:00.000+01:00

Astrid’s uncle lives in the United States and the longer he lives there, the funnier his Dutch language is getting. So when Astrid visits him, he watches her language closely to see whether he can learn something from her.

So one day, Astrid was driving around in his car and she was interestingly enough talking about the right turn signal of the car. In Dutch she always uses a certain word for it and he didn’t know that word, which he made known to her. Astrid then checked with her mom which word she used to refer to the right turn signal of the car. Indeed she used a different word. Then Astrid said: “My word for a right turn signal is a valid word too, right?” Then her mom told her that Astrid’s word did actually not exist. Astrid has been using this word since she was about five years old until now and no one (no friends, no driving-instructors, no family members, no, no one!) has ever told her that she made this word up, coz most people apparently just thought it was a funny word!

Astrid & Her Amazing "X-Mas Rap-Po"-Adventure

2006-01-05T10:43:00.000+01:00

If you eat at Astrid’s this Christmas, this is the napkin which you may find on your plate upon your arrival at the dining table. Someone closely related to Astrid posed Astrid the following question in reference to the curious image portrayed on this napkin:

“What is Santa doing?”

First, Astrid thought he was symbolizing the expression “Reach for the moon.” Then Astrid argued he could be dancing the Saturday Night Fever or maybe he was just feeling how fluffy the moon’s hat was? What do you think?

And yes, ho ho ho,
Merry X-Mas to you’all and please don’t say no,
When someone challenges you for a fight in the snow,
But be brave and give it a go,
Yo yo yo,
And that’s Astrid’s awesome X-mas gangsta-rap-po,
Now applaud loudly while she takes a deep bow,
Yo yo yo.

Astrid & Her Amazing "A Hard Knock Life"-Adventure

2006-01-05T10:42:00.000+01:00

[The following picture was taken in Pittsburgh, PA in November 2005 by Astrid. Astrid had kept her toes crossed in hope the traffic-light would be red so Astrid could make this shot and -u-huh- luckily, the traffic-light was indeed bright red!]

The other day, Astrid was meeting a friend. All of a sudden her friend said she was sorry to cut their outing short, but she HAD to go home! Why? Well, her boyfriend was going to buy an X-mas tree and she desperately wanted to go along with him, coz otherwise he would chose the most pathetic tree of them all (out of pity that it would be the last one to be sold or the one not to be sold at all), leaving Astrid's friend with a weird-looking X-mas tree in her home.

Astrid suggests we all follow the boyfriend's path and select an X-mas tree which is unique in its own way.

New Year, New Face, New Blog, New Adventures?

2006-01-01T13:24:00.000+01:00

YES! YES! YES! YES!!!!

Scream it off the roof-tops! Put in the local paper! Write it in the sky … but just gimme me a month of time and I, Astrid, will make something WONDERFUL out of my brand-new blog:

The Jabberwock with Eyes of Flame (which will be a sequel to the more than successful *The Amazing Adventures & Untold Stories of Astrid*)

Oh, yes, I am one those folks who strongly dislikes sequels too, but this one is one that you’ll grow to love.

It'll be creative.

It'll be funny.

It'll arouse your curiosity.

It'll make you eat more spinach.

It'll make you call your grandma more often.

It'll do wonders for your skin.

It'll make your head spin over a 1000 circles.

It'll make your face go purple, coz you forgot to breathe.

It'll be so Astrid and most importantly, it'll continue till YOU say, it is time to SHUT UP.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL MY COOL, CUTE, AND CRAZY CREATURES!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing Adventures - Quiz

2005-12-25T16:06:00.000+01:00

Have you been Astrid's BIGGEST fan? Take the test!!!

Take my Quiz on QuizYourFriends.com!

Who-ever does best, will receive a hand-written postcard from the Amazing Astrid herself at his/her doormat and if you don't have a doormat, I advice you to make, borrow, or buy one.

Astrid & Her Amazing Jabberwock - Adventure

2005-12-20T20:13:00.000+01:00

Sometimes one picture says more than a thousand words …

http://thejabberwockwitheyesofflame.blogspot.com

Astrid & Her Amazing “Now Bring In The Dress And Tissues”-Adventure

2005-12-09T14:23:00.000+01:00

Astrid has got a new job and yes, it makes her jump on benches, fly through the air, and … fall through beds!!!

Yep, that’s right. Has Astrid been dreaming too much? Hell, no. You can never dream too much. Fulfilling them is quite another challenge though and since Astrid has no place to dream away anymore, she MUST work HARDER on fulfilling them all.

Astrid says goodbye to the Blogging-world, gives everyone a big hug, and hopes she didn’t squeeze anyone! It has been a fun ride and Astrid especially enjoyed the wacky forest-sounds, the nauseous-making loops, the frog-jumps in the vegetable soups, and the little sparkling plastic golden stones that were thrown to her cheeks.

So long my friends. See you at the Oscars when the time is right and the perfect dress is made!!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing “Can’t believe I missed HIS arrival”-Adventure

2005-12-07T22:14:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago when Astrid was in the United States, someone of great importance arrived in the Netherlands. Yes, and Astrid missed HIS arrival. The name of this well-known figure in Holland is SINTERKLAAS. He doesn’t quite look like Brad Pitt, since he is nearly 1800 years older, but still, he looks young for his age and remains a charming fellow:

During most days of the year, Sinterklaas lives in Spain, where I presume the houses are cheaper and the weather is much more glamorous, but somewhere in the middle of November, he and his little helpers, the Zwarte Piets (black Pieters), travel to the Netherlands by steamboat. In Holland, he, upon his arrival, is greeted by millions and millions of screaming children and his arrival is also broadcasted on national television.

After his arrival, children put one of their shoes next to the chimney every night to await sweets and presents delivered by the Zwarte Piets, who climb down the chimney at night-time. Nowadays, children also put their shoes next to the radiator, because a Zwarte Piet apparently has no trouble crawling through them either.

In the shoe is usually a carrot or a few sugar lumps for Sinterklaas's horse, with which he traverses the roofs of the houses during the nights, even when it is snowing and very slippery. Speaking of bravery at an old age! Also, the children always sing songs for our beloved Sinterklaas when they leave their shoe behind for his helpers to find. Sinterklaas will listen to their songs when he and his Zwarte Piets travel over the roofs. In addition, drawings and wishing-lists are also made and placed in the shoes for the old man, coz on his birthday on the 5th of December the Zwarte Piets will come, knock on the door, throw in some candy, and leave A WHOLE BAG OF PRESENTS behind for the ENTIRE family to enjoy, young and old. The Zwarte Piets, of course, must know what they would like to receive.

Sadly, after bringing everyone in Holland so much happiness and joy, he leaves Holland again on December 6th to return again the following year. However, the story goes that if you have been a bad kid, he will take you along to Spain in a big bag. Astrid’s mom, as a child, never ate the special Sinterklaas-treat PEPERNOTEN (ginger-bread cookies), since someone at her school had told her that they were made of these children. This, however, is NOT true. They just learn how to behave when they are in Spain.

“Goodbye, my beloved Sinterklaas. Thank you for all the wonderful presents you gave me this year. Can’t wait for your visit next year. I’ll start working on my drawings right away, okay? Do you like the color pink? Much love, Astrid.”

Oh, and yes, Sinterklaas has been attacked for his involvement in racism. It is a highly debated topic in the Netherlands.

Astrid & Her Amazing Happy Thoughts & Fairy Dust - Adventure

2005-12-04T18:34:00.000+01:00

Astrid has no objections against flying and according to the famous Peter Pan (Astrid’s all time favorite hero for never growing up) anyone can fly with a little bit of fairy dust and a mind filled with happy thoughts. Astrid with her happy thoughts has gone on many shopping-sprees in her life, but has never come across a shop which sells fairy dust. Well, dust she has seen in many stores, but sadly, none of the fairy kind.

So to travel to distant lands, Astrid makes use of an airplane. Flying in airplanes is nothing to worry about for Astrid. She can keep herself perfectly occupied for hours and hours. Sometimes she just likes to babble a little bit in Japanese “Nyan-Nyan! Nyan-Nyan!” (Cat meowing! Cat meowing!), “Tai-kara denwa suru” (I’ll call you from Thailand), “Karaoke suki?” (Do you like karaoke?), sometimes she just likes to show off her hip-hop-dancing skills on French rap at the dance-floor on the aisles of the airplane, and sometimes she just likes to sit back and read Sky Mall Magazine on board of the plane. What a curious items they sell in there! Astrid wouldn’t be surprised if, one day, they would sell fairy dust in there as well.

Curious items sold in Sky Mall Magazine:

1.) THE LIGHTWEIGHT PET STROLLER
For walks, trips to the vet, or travel, this lightweight stroller is as easy to push as a baby carriage, and keeps pets safe, ventilated, and shaded. Designed for dogs and cats up to 25 lbs.. The pet enclosure detaches for using the stroller as a wagon to haul groceries or laundry. Includes safety brakes, carry strap, and washable 1/2"-thick pad.

2.) BALL CAP EARBAND
Split in the middle, this ear warmer fits around your hat's bill, keeping head, ears and forehead warm. Four-way polyester stretch fabric has a soft, microfleece lining and a jersey knit outer to repel wind and snow. One size fits most.

3.) AQUABELLS SET
Maintain your weight training in the privacy of your hotel room! This ingenious pair of dumbbells weighs no more that 2lbs. and collapses flat in your luggage or briefcase. Simply add tap water to expand the weights to 32 lbs. ( 16lbs.on each bar) and then empty them within seconds when it's time to pack for home. Set Includes eight "weights" (guaranteed not to leak) and two 13" long knurled bars with soft-cushioned grips, plus two 4lbs.capacity ankle weights. No metal parts.

But before one can go on a fun airplane ride, one has to go through extensive security checks. Questions are asked such as: “Do you carry fire-arms?” Yes, all the time of course and "Will you please put off your shoes and your belt too?" Never will Astrid wear baggy pants again while traveling, in fear she’ll unexpectedly be part of an unwanted strip-show. One of Astrid’s favorite artists Jason Mraz totally agrees with Astrid’s view on the silliness of this all:

"It seems the airlines are allowing lighters to pass through security again. I’ve had one in my bag for the last three flights and I’ve been given no trouble at all. My Converse brand canvas shoes however, need to be x-rayed thoroughly. I think it’s a smell check. I think they’re more afraid that once on board I might remove my shoes and knock everyone out with my foot odor. You know, Toe cheese can be compounded with other common ingredients to make explosives. All you need is the proper combination of peanut salt (provided by the airline), foil from the peanut wrapper, and alcohol (also provided by the airline) to make the perfect packaged boom boom scary airplane toy. That’s not true. But try it anyway on your next holiday flight and see how it goes over. You might get an upgrade. In my case, I prefer the upgrade that ejects you from the plane and leaves you behind. This assures that I’ll have a day off as well as a good story to tell. As far as the lighter in my backpack, I no longer smoke. I collect fireworks instead."

But oh, well, Astrid will do a LOT to go on these ENORMOUSLY FUN RIDES! And from the pop-corn maker at the movie-theater, Astrid salutes you and signs off ...

Astrid & Her Amazing Very First Thanksgiving-Adventure

2005-11-30T09:46:00.000+01:00

Instead of “Greetings from Pittsburgh,” Astrid send “Happy Thanksgiving”-cards to her friends in Holland. “I wish you more luck than this year’s turkey,” the cards said, but since Astrid is a vegetarian she did not actually eat any of the turkey, but there was a nameless artificial turkey with a real shawl, ear-warmers, a groovy yellow feather, and a colorful nest for her to admire!!!

And since Astrid did not eat any turkey, she just stuffed herself with a tremendous Sundae!!! Yes, that was LEGAL for Astrid and her uncle to do, since they had run the Turkey Trot that day!

Astrid’s uncle even made it onto the front-page of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

[Astrid’s uncle is the fellow on the left side of the American flag, Astrid is OBVIOUSLY the one holding the flag]

This is what the newspaper had to say on the Trot:

“A white Christmas is still anyone's guess, but Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania got a rare white Thanksgiving, with high winds, bitter cold and icy highways that made it a great day to be inside.

If the electricity didn't go out, that is, as happened in dozens of areas, interrupting dinner plans and preparations.

In addition, many people who hit the road ended up slip-sliding along at times or in accidents, at least one fatal and several others serious.

None of the adversity stopped several hundred hearty souls from arising early and running through the snowflakes in the 15th annual YMCA Turkey Trot on a course winding through Downtown and the North Shore. Sweats and stocking caps were almost mandatory.

"Actually, it wasn't so bad. It was above freezing, and I've got eight layers of clothing," said runner Bill Shapiro of Squirrel Hill.

Morning temperatures were in the 30s, but winds shooting off the Ohio River made the home stretch seem endless.

Lars Lange of Washington, Pa., a Turkey Trot regular, said this year's run was more taxing than usual. He said he withstood the discomfort for standard reasons: "It justifies the turkey and desserts."

Yes, with only two layers of clothing on, in contrast to the eight layers of Bill Shapiro who must have already looked like a snowman at the start of the race, the run was freezing cold and quite a torture, but A LOT OF FUN!!!

A phenomenon to which Astrid is not very much accustomed is the use of cellular-phones during a run.

Fellow next to Astrid: “Jack, why are you still in bed? You could have been running with us!!!”

Astrid’s aunt to her uncle: “Honey, are you already on your way home?”
Astrid’s uncle: “No, I am still up and running and in the middle of the race.”

Yes, life remains wonderful and Astrid is most certainly GRATEFUL to be alive.

Astrid & Her Amazing Sucking-Adventures

2005-11-28T22:19:00.000+01:00

When Astrid, on the 18th of November 2005, arrived in the United States, her eyes got hold of the following sign:

NO SKATEBOARDING and NO ROLLERBLADING as part of Astrid’s joyful activities in the States? Geez, what a bunch of joy-killers live over here in Pittsburgh, PA!

Luckily, there are also plenty of SYMPATHETIC BARTENDERS to wine to and indoor skating-rinks to have a large amount of fun at, even if it is at the cost of yourself!

Astrid is not a very good skater and that’s how one would nicely phrase it and when Astrid on her borrowed skates did her best to, at rapid speed, move gracefully around the skating-rink, a little boy, dressed up as a lean and mean Pittsburgh Penguin, came passing by. The little boy roughly touched Astrid on the shoulder and said to her: “I bet I can skate faster than you!,” to which Astrid, not very much impressed, replied: “ I bet you can!”

Also, there was this other little boyish creature who kept on bumping into Astrid, then bounced backwards, and time after time seemed to hit the ice HARD, making it nearly look as if Astrid was to blame for his fall.

It is okay to suck at things, right? Astrid’s adorable baby-cousin Roel sucks at everything too and people LOVE that?

Astrid & Her Amazing “Living From A Suitcase Ain’t Too Bad”- Adventure

2005-11-17T22:46:00.000+01:00

So much for Astrid’s long sleep in, coz this afternoon, while she was asleep, this weird looking creature came up to her, gave her a quick kiss on the lips, and said:

“Astrid, wake up, you lazy girl! You cannot just leave hundreds and hundreds of people in the world waiting for you to feel all rested. No, you have adventures to tell, young lady!”

Astrid was speechless and then came another weird fellow running in with a big suitcase. "Now pack your stuff, you are going to the States tomorrow to live some more of your famous amazing adventures," the first weird fellow now said to her.

Astrid was still in loss for words, but then … then … then came Thomas running in with a venti Starbucks cappuccino! Astrid quickly drank it, nearly burning her tongue, and then realized, there was nothing to do, but pack her stuff once again. Yes, its another month, it is time for Astrid to travel AGAIN. *Astrid blushes*
Don’t forget to wave when you see an airplane in the sky tomorrow for Astrid could very well be in it. Oh, and just so you know, we finally found your space-ship!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing Rosebud – Adventure

2005-11-14T08:43:00.000+01:00

When Astrid was in India, and saw this fellow (see below) working, she decided to offer him her helping hand:

Not very handy in sewing as she is, pricked her finger on the sewing-machine. A lady (see below) rushed off, to a nearby shop, to buy her some medicine, but unfortunately, to no avail:

Astrid had fallen into a deep sleep:

So I am sorry, it might take a little while, possibly a hundred years, before she is up on her shining feet again, living hundreds of wicked, crazy, and stunning adventures:

You might want to get a hair-cut or get your beard trimmed while you wait for Astrid's awakening.

Astrid & Her Amazing Celebrity-Adventure

2005-11-11T23:28:00.000+01:00

In India, Astrid was treated as a celebrity. From day one until the final day, everyone wanted their picture taken with Astrid. At first, when people with a camera in their hands uttered something which sounded like “photo,” Astrid figured she had to use her photography-skills and MAKE A PHOTO, but no, they wanted their picture taken with her:

And when Astrid was in a real Bollywood movie-theater and had to go to the bathroom, people’s mouths fell open when they saw her and she had to shake hands while waiting for her turn, which was rather repulsive since all hands felt a bit wet. Astrid hopes that the wetness of the hands had something to do with the thorough rinsing process of the hands.

Also, when Astrid walked around in villages, people screamed “Namasté (=hello)” from alleys, balconies, and even mountains. Yes, surely Astrid felt special in India. Isn’t it funny that while Astrid thinks the Indian people are an attraction to look at, they think the same of us simple Westerners?

Astrid & Her Amazing “And So It Must All Come To An End”- Adventure

2005-11-09T08:44:00.000+01:00

Astrid quit her job and people swam for their lives at Astrid’s Albert Heijn last Saturday. If the Albert Heijn would have sold life-jackets, they could have made a great profit and possibly could have saved a few customers from being overtaken by fear as well. Luckily, no one drowned in Astrid’s endless tears, some even found them quite enjoyable to test their new surfboard on, and everyone came out quite well, so the story goes.

It was out of pure necessity (Astrid needed money and jobs were scarce) that Astrid went to work at the Albert Heijn over three years ago. Never would she have believed that “Astrid heart the Albert Heijn” would become her life-slogan. Even her last days at the Albert Heijn were still so *Astrid stretches her arms as wide as she can* much fun:

Event 1.

Customer: “Do you still have those ghosts in the store?”
Astrid: “Ghosts? Do you mean the Cinderella hand-puppets?”
Customer: “YES, those I mean!!!”
Astrid: “Mmm.. I don’t think Cinderella would appreciate you calling her a ghost, but I am afraid they are no longer available.”

Yes, even if the Cinderellas still lived in Astrid’s store, no way he could have adopted her and taken her home! Ghosts, how dare he!!! Astrid likes to call them little angels.

Event 2.

Astrid was sitting in the canteen and all of a sudden her eye fell on a fellow with a bright yellow shirt standing on top of some very green grass just opposite of her lunchroom. He was making awkward moves with his feet and then Astrid understood:

He had stepped in dog-poo.

After doing some awkward versions of the moon-walk, he decided to walk to a tree and get a twig out to clean his shoes in that way. Then some old folks seemed to be giving him some advice. Most likely they must have had a few similar incidents. Consequently, he did some more moon-walking and then he decided to cross the street in the direction of the Albert Heijn, still walking awkwardly, and he then noticed that all of Astrid’s colleagues and Astrid herself were looking at him from their canteen with tears streaming down their cheeks.

Astrid and her colleagues were then joking that he would most likely enter their store within no time. Two hours later when Astrid had nearly forgotten all about him, he showed up right in front of Astrid’s cash-register. Yes, of course she recognized him by his bright yellow shirt and said: “You are the dog-poo-man.” He smiled and started explaining how his shoes were more like soccer-shoes, so yeah, the stuff was just really hard to get out. Apparently, he worked in Astrid’s store that day and was promoting lemon-flavored coke in a lemon-outfit, just to make matters slightly more funny!

Astrid cannot say she is very motivated to now try the lemon-flavored coke.

And now that Astrid is gone at the Albert Heijn, Astrid will use her communication and language-skills at an advertising-agency.

More Albert Heijn – tales:

* I GOT IT BACK!!!!
* What a beautiful shot ...
* Astrid & Her Amazing Kiddie–Ride–Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing Chinese Stalker – Adventure [Part 1]
* Astrid & Her Amazing Chinese Stalker - Adventure [Part 2]
* Astrid & Her Amazing "If Your Name is Astrid" – Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing Observation of the Week
* Astrid & Her Amazing "Mr. Hine, Come & Shop at the Albert Heijn" - Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing "Getting Jiggy With It" – Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing “Yes, I STILL love my job” – Adventure [Part 1]
* Astrid & Her Amazing “Yes, I STILL love my job” – Adventure [Part 2 + 3]
* Astrid & Her Amazing “Yes, I STILL love my job” – Adventure [Part 4]
* Astrid & Her Amazing “Yes, I STILL love my job” – Adventure [Part 5/Final Part]
* Astrid & Her Amazing Entrance Fee – Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing Name-Tag Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing “Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now?”-Adventure
* Astrid & Her Amazing [FILL IN YOUR NAME] the Comment-Adventure

Astrid & Her Amazing "Chai anyone?"-Adventure

2005-11-06T12:00:00.000+01:00

Astrid thinks that traveling to distant lands with Astrid as a tour-guide and without a good sip of excellent liquid will make everyone’s head spin around in circles and circles, so chai anyone?

In India, Astrid drank many glasses of chai while negotiating on the prices of her souvenirs, like her shawls, bangles, herbs, and her take-home version of the Taj Mahal, which is definitely less photogenetic than the Taj Mahal itself:

Chai, however, is just one of the many delicious items which any Indian will willfully serve you from their kitchen. Another drink from their kitchen which Astrid can highly recommend is Lassi. Lassi is a yoghurt-drink which comes in all sorts of flavors, like mango, lemon, strawberry, and so on, but Astrid still prefers it plain. And when Astrid was in a restaurant and saw “Special Lassi” on the menu, she was bouncing up and down of excitement and ordered it! Astrid truly does like the word SPECIAL in front of anything that is already special!!! And just out of EXTREME CURIOSITY, asked the waiter, before he went away, what was so special about the Lassi. Well, even though it was hard to understand what the waiter was telling her, she understood that the special-ness had something to with the SPECIAL INGREDIENT which was added to the Lassi called … MARIJUANA. Haha .. she cancelled her order and went for some more chai for the amount of elephants in a street should not rise above ten!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing Holy Cow – Adventure

2005-11-02T08:53:00.000+01:00

In India, it is HIGHLY FASHIONABLE to wear a safety-belt in traffic. So Astrid, not to stand out in the crowd, did what she saw around her, and when she was ordered to put her safety belt on, she slapped it around her neck and wore it as if it was her FINEST KASHMIR SHAWL! It was not like she could make it any more functional by attaching it to anything for there was nothing to attach it to. One thing can really be said though, a safety belt sure does look mighty good on ANYONE sitting in an automobile!!! Pass it on …

The streets in India are crowded with the earlier mentioned phenomenon which some people refer to as “traffic.” There are people walking, biking, and driving, but there also animals running around. There are dogs, monkeys, elephants, camels, donkeys, horses, and MILLIONS of HOLY COWS! Yes, even on the high-way! If you hit a cow, you may even be thrown into jail and you can expect that the rest of your life is doomed. However, there is some re-assuring news. Astrid’s tour-guide told her that they are now working on a law which would no longer permit cows on the landing-strip for safety reasons.

Astrid & Her Amazing Bird-Watching Adventure

2005-10-30T06:11:00.000+01:00

Astrid has never really been interested in birds, but when the opportunity came along to go bird-watching in India, she GLADLY went along:

Within no time, Astrid had fired off all her “intellectual” questions to her personal guide/biker:

“How many species live in this area?” “When do they have nesting season?” “Do most of them live in groups?” “When did this park open for public?” “How many visitors do you receive annually?” and so on.

So then it was time for Astrid’s creative mind to go for a run:

“What is your favorite bird (Astrid didn’t expect to receive the question back at all, but then she saw a green parrot fly by and decided it was a green parrot!?!?)? Do traffic-accidents occur because people are watching birds instead of the traffic on the road? Do you often get splashed by bird-dung? What is the Hindi word for white heron (you can never learn enough foreign words and the guy at the customs at the Delhi-airport was heavily impressed by the long list of Hindi words that Astrid had learned on her trip and so were the passengers standing in line behind Astrid)?” and so on.

And the longer the bike-ride through the park, the more pictures Astrid started to take of other things she met along her way, like sad and lonely abandoned bikes:

Astrid wonders who could be the proud owner of this bike? Could it be these chickens?

Or would it be part of this shop?

Who will tell? Will it be YOU?

Coming up next: Astrid & Her Amazing Holy Cow - Adventure

Astrid & Her Amazing “Mademoiselle” – Adventure

2005-10-27T19:56:00.000+02:00

When Astrid stepped aboard on her to plane to India a few weeks ago, Astrid was mighty happy, not because people on board called her “MADEMOISELLE” which she liked oh-so-much, but she felt happy and smiled as she had never smiled before, since her dream to travel around India would soon be fulfilled.

When this lady (see below), early in the morning, managed to collect an ENORMOUS amount of cow-poo from the city-streets, she also smiled as she had never smiled before. Yes, worlds differ.

And so do minds!!! While the Indians think it is important to mention on a bottle of Pepsi-Coke that it …

CONTAINS NO FRUIT. Dutch folks don’t.

While the Indians warn you not to smoke when lungs are at work. Dutch folks often smoke until their lungs STOP working:

And while 24 hours in Holland, last 24 hours, in India, they only last 18 hours:

It are the BIG differences between Holland and India that Astrid likes so much and which led to some of Astrid’s CRAZY adventures. Now get your binoculars out of your enchanted box, clean them, and get ready to go bird-watching in India with no one less than our amazing Astrid:

Coming up next: Astrid & Her Amazing Bird-Watching Adventure.

Astrid & Her Amazing "Just Say The Magic Word"-Adventure

2005-10-26T16:28:00.000+02:00

Astrid has returned TODAY from her journey to India. She has, of course, experienced a wide variety of adventures.

Just say the MAGIC word and they’ll be right up.

Astrid & Her Amazing [FILL IN YOUR NAME] the Comment-Adventure

2005-10-05T20:19:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone! I am glad to introduce someone new to you today. Meet Xuemei, Xuemei the Cow. She has been Astrid’s buddy for a little over two weeks now and has been given to Astrid by Xuemei. Xuemei is Astrid’s friend at the Albert Heijn who loves karaoke and learned Astrid to say ugly things in Chinese when little fellows with a big zit and a black hair sticking out come to pay at Astrid’s cash-register.

Yes, once you give something to Astrid your name will be attached to the item you give. So there is Karen the Singing Rose, Erica the Cook-Book, Rob the Torn-Ankle-Legiments, Sebastiaan the Birthday-Hat, Grandma the Skirt, Wind the Funny Hair-Do, Meg the Brownies, Hana the Diet Coke, and Mom the Trip to India … Yes, that’s right, now you’ve received the original Astrid the Mouth-Opener.

It most certainly has been a while since Astrid has been traveling (nearly a month!), so it is time to get her bags packed once again and to fly off to Paris, France where she will catch another plane to the city of Delhi, India.

She’ll be leaving in a few days and she’ll be back in a few weeks time. Now please, in the meantime, do not awaken the dead.

Astrid & Her Amazing “Today, I’ll Run Away”- Adventure

2005-10-02T22:11:00.000+02:00

Remember Astrid & Her Amazing Running Adventures? Well, she still runs and thinks it is fun to participate in matches now and then.

Most matches usually start with a warm-up round. Astrid REALLY doesn’t do warm-ups, since jumping around and making awkward moves in a tremendous crowd, already give Astrid injuries before a match even starts!!! Astrid’s lack of movement must have caught a photographer’s eye during one of her matches, coz when she came home after a run and went on-line to check her results, she was shocked to find a whole picture-slide of herself during the warm-up round, and also after, instead:

Observer: “Pleasure-prisoner number 1663 seems extremely fit and all ready to run!!!”

Astrid: “Let’s check, do I have everything? My box of good weather, check. My can of good mood, check. My bottle of good health, check. My bag of never-giving-up, check. Freshly-sprayed deodorant under my arm-pits, check. All 10 of my toes, check, or -now wait- let’s count them again just in case!!!”

Astrid: “I’ve made it to the finish-line again, now let’s pray and hope, I didn’t get a ticket for speeding!!!”

Astrid & Her Amazing “I went to a wedding and lost my ring”–Adventure

2005-09-27T08:59:00.000+02:00

In the Czech Republic, Astrid went to a wedding. The ceremony was sure lovely, but it was in Czech. Whenever the rest of the crowd stood up, Astrid stood up, whenever they sat down, Astrid remained standing. Yes, Astrid is never good at dance-routines as such. It was already good that she didn’t swing her left feet up in the air, moved her right arm above her head while no one else was doing it, or was wearing her aerobic-outfit to the wedding!!!

So the wedding continued. The old lady with the blue hair who I have mentioned earlier was part of the choir. Eventually, the “I do”-part came and the groom and bride kissed. Astrid then went outside, because she and her friend had been personally selected to be part of the rice-throwing crowd.

Now that was fun! Astrid thinks people should make that a habit at more occasions. How about when you just come home from a holiday? You don’t need to go shopping then, you just need to catch as much rice as possible to carry you through the first days, weeks, or in case of great talent, even months!!! Astrid hopes that her friends and family-members will sprinkle the colored rice when she gets back from India at the end of October, coz that is the one she likes best.

Then the Czech custom is that once the bride and groom are married, the bride gets kidnapped and is taken to the local pub to have a few drinks with her friends, the groom has to go look for her and has to pay the bill once he finds her!!! Some grooms might already run at this moment and it is a good thing the honeymoon is usually paid for in advance.

So when Astrid came home from her holiday to the Czech Republic, she took her ring off and it fell on the ground, the question is: where to? Yes, where did it go? Have you seen it by any chance? Astrid has been fearing the vacuum cleaner ever since this day and is making up excuses not to clean the house.

Astrid & Her Amazing Today’s Adventures

2005-09-25T18:43:00.000+02:00

Astrid is so busy that for today’s post, she will just be posting a set of images and a couple of words:

Yes, blow out all your birthday-cake-candles and before you know it, you are looking über-cool with no one less than everyone’s favorite pal, mister Tom Hanks!!!

Astrid wanted to be on the picture with the Spice Girls, but Mel B. said to Astrid: “If you don’t have a fancy dress on then NO, forget about it!!!” Astrid posed for the pic anyhow.

Astrid was mighty happy that she wore trousers today instead of her fancy dress, coz imagine what could have happened!!!

And if you don’t wash your hair once in a while, this truly is what happens!!!

Now back to Astrid's duties of the day. She will see you again when the time starts moving slower or the dinosaurs come alive again!

Astrid & Her Amazing "It's a beautiful baby boy!!!"– Adventure

2005-09-20T15:44:00.000+02:00

Don’t you ever get tired of reading all about Astrid? I know, I do. I sometimes don’t even drink hot milk with a spoon of honey before going to bed anymore, I just read a little bit of Astrid and I am off to Dreamland. So would you like to read a story about Astrid’s cousin Samantha for a change? This is what Astrid’s aunt Erica has to say on her:

“SAMANTHA will be twelve in August, hovering between child and teenager. She can play imaginatively, but also wonder about the adult world. She and I giggle together about small children pretending, and the next moment Jeroen [her father] and I are giggling about her youthful remark.

It’s been so much fun talking with her about a new baby; we tell her a lot of stories about herself as a baby. She wants to be a really great older sister, and asked me the other day if I was going to be one of those “overprotective mothers.” Worrying, I guess, that she wouldn’t get a chance to hold the new sister or brother.

One goal in her life this summer has been to convince me that she is old enough to wear MAKE-UP. She wouldn’t stop talking about skin, eyes, etc. Finally, I told her to write a REPORT about why I should allow her to wear it. I thought that would keep her quiet for a while. Before I knew it the report was in my hands, full of good arguments. My favorite is the summary:

“I have a fantastic attitude and have been very polite lately. I have been helping out with the cooking more often. Also, I put some flowers by your bedside. I am a sweetheart who deserves a treat.”

We went together to buy a book about TEENAGE BEAUTY (Although I feel she is expertly beautiful, I don’t know much about balms, creams, gels, concealing, and what taupe is right for who). We are following the book guidelines; only gloss and mascara at age 12. Now she just wants a new haircut and a manicure set. I’ve thought a lot about what makes a girl or woman feel beautiful, and I am really determined to be part of her own path to beauty. I am eager to see what is ahead for both of us!”

--> IT'S A BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY!!! <--

Roel Gerrit
Born on August 2nd 2005.

Astrid & Her Amazing Kiddie–Ride–Adventure

2005-09-18T18:19:00.000+02:00

At Astrid’s Albert Heijn there is a little ride to keep the children occupied, while their parents do groceries. It changes in appearance all the time, but today, the kiddie-ride comes in the form of a car.

Kiddo: “Dad, can I have two coins for the ride?”
Dad: “You can have one, but why do you need two?”
Kiddo: “Coz then I will go EXTRA fast!!!!”

Astrid & Her Amazing "Astrid masters the sword"- Adventure

2005-09-14T18:19:00.000+02:00

So Astrid went to a castle and paid for a tour. However, the tour would be held in Czech. Unfortunately, Astrid’s Czech was still a work in progress, but they agreed on handing her an English booklet. The booklet was called “Little Red Riding Hood.” So there was tiny Astrid with a red cape surrounding her in the big castle, following a fellow who she could not understand at all. Luckily, she had a secret weapon ...

... two knights and a real silver sword? No!!! Her booklet of course.

The booklet was not really a booklet which went by the name of “Little Red Riding Hood,” but it could have been. Coz even though the booklet was written in the finest English that exists, Astrid could not make any sense out of it. Clearly, she was in the library, but somehow her booklet said she was in the gentleman's bedroom. The story goes that Astrid at the end of the tour was told that she had received the wrong booklet.

Oh, Astrid was off again, wondering through the streets, bumping into signs like this:

What could the sign possibly mean? Watch out for big boys approaching little girls?

Astrid & Her Amazing "Is there a doctor in the room?"- Adventure

2005-09-10T21:34:00.000+02:00

“Astrid, you’ve got beautiful eyes,” now that’s a phrase Astrid has heard before. However, the phrase “Astrid, you’ve got beautiful eyes, I wanna kiss them and BITE THEM all over as often as I can” was rather new to her.

So Astrid was in the Czech Republic, where the people also sleep and snore at night, and one morning Astrid woke up and attempted to open both of her eyes, but sadly, she could only open one of them. A wild mosquito who went by the name of "Bramborová Polévka" [potato soup] had bitten her severely all around her favorite eye.

The result: Astrid sat in front of the telly with ice-cubes on her eye for the entire morning and then with a less swollen eye went to see a major amount of fire-fighters struggling in a competition!!! Yes, she still had a shortage of eyes.

Don’t think that was the only “injury,” Astrid experienced in the Czech Republic, no. She also managed to cut her finger severely...

The amazing Astrid just loved the electric bread-slicer. Oh, you want bread, can I PLEASE slice it for you? Slicing loafs of bread was a lot of fun for Astrid, and remained fun, even though it nearly resulted in the cut off of Astrid’s right index-finger. Anyone in for a finger-sandwich today? Did I mention it’s the SPECIALTY of the house!?!?!?

Astrid & Her Amazing Czech Biking Trip - Adventure

2005-09-06T10:07:00.000+02:00

One day, Astrid & Hana decided to go for a little bike-ride. Astrid, athletic and a skillful-biker as she is, figured it would be great fun! So up the hill they went …

Yes, Hana, that is. Astrid remained far behind. By the time, Hana reached the moon, Astrid was still under sea-level and sweating as if she was putting her deodorant to the ultimate test.

“Use the front-and-back-gears,” Hana screamed from far above. So that was what Astrid did and up she went now too. On her way up, she loved greeting all the villagers. “Dobré jitro” to the lady with the blue hair of which Astrid was too afraid to take a picture of. “Dobré jitro” to all the curious ladies at Hana’s granny’s house who just walked in to catch a glimpse of the Dutch girl. “Dobré jitro” to all of Astrid’s support-troops on her way to the top:

“Dobré jitro” to all the mice in the fields on top of the hill:

“Dobré jitro” to all of Astrid’s awesome readers who won’t tell a soul that she is only speaking about a torturing twenty-minute-bike-ride!

Astrid & Her Amazing "Exciting Stuff Is Coming Up" - Adventure

2005-09-06T00:30:00.000+02:00

Astrid is back from the Czech Republic with lots of amazing adventures!!!

They will be posted one by one.

Exciting stuff is coming up!!!

Astrid & Her Amazing "Gone For The Moment" - Adventure

2005-08-25T19:41:00.000+02:00

"Smiling is infectious,
You catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too,
I passed around the corner,
And someone saw my grin,
When he smiled I realized,
I had passed it onto him,
I thought about that smile,
Then I realized its worth,
A single smile like mine,
Could travel around the earth.
So, if you feel a smile begin,
Don't leave it undetected,
Let's start an epidemic quick,
And get the world infected."
-Anonymous.

So yes, Astrid is out, infecting people in the Czech Republic with her smile. She’ll be back when the time is right and the money gone. Now go and buy the big bottle of Tabasco!