air travel fun and X-mass break

I had already read the weather forecast for Funchal on December 17 predicting heavy thunderstorms and the NL weather forecast for extreme snowfall. To keep things short, I spent 12 hours at tiny Funchal airport before I could fly out to Lisbon. My original flight got cancelled after 4 hours so rebooked new flight which also got delayed but eventually did leave Funchal. Spent the short night in a hotel in Lisbon and early morning December 18 flew to A-dam where I arrived with a 18 hour delayed. Good thing my girlfriend's flight was not delayed and she was strolling through Schiphol airport for 5 or 6 hours window shopping waiting for me to finally arrive.

Fortunately the 2 weeks together were well worth the trouble. She had never seen snow and since a LOT of snow was falling in the NL the first week we walked around the first few days. Since she's not used to wearing (new) hiking shoes she got blisters on her ankles so we took it a bit easier.
We went to Thermae 2000 which was awesome since we could swim in the outdoor pool while the snow was falling on us. Well worth the money and due to the extreme winter weather it wasn't that crowded in the pools and the sauna.
Drove to Heerlen and Maastricht to show Asnida a bit of other Dutch cities (though all pale in comparison to A-dam) and we shopped a bit. Also visited the X-mass fun fare on the Vrijthof which wasn't as crowded as expected. On first X-mass day we went for a nice Greek dinner and on 2nd X-mass day Asnida met my grandmother as well as one of my uncles.
We went to visit some friends of mine last Wednesday which was a lot of fun. Throughout these last 2 weeks we watched a lot of movies, mostly DVDs but also went to see "Rapunzel/Tangled", "Burlesque" and the 3rd "Narnia" movie.
Many pics of our 2 weeks together can be found HERE.

And of course my travel back to Funchal also was done in dubious style. Since I had packed 2 suitcases I was expecting to pay some extra money for the excess baggage. What I wasn't counting on was that they decided that my carry on luggage was overweight and had to be checked in too. After paying 240 euro for excess baggage the only thing on me was my laptop. I had forgotten to take out my house keys and Portuguese cell phone from my original carry on luggage...
My flight from A-dam to Porto ended up having a 2 hour delay so since my connecting flight was only 55 min after the original landing time I assumed I missed it. Even checked with the flight crew on the first flight who said my connecting flight had left Porto. Imagine my surprise when I eventually found out that my connecting flight had a 2.5 hour delay and that I actually was on it haha.
When I got to Funchal airport it was a nice surprise to actually see all 3 baggage pieces made it too. Grabbed a cab from an insane cab driver who felt like he was racing in Formula 1. Eventually made it home around 5am local time, exhausted yet happy to have my own bed again.

Ugh, spent the last 4 days lying/sitting at home being bored beyond belief. Am at work today but still have a sore throat, coughing plenty and going through tissues fast.
I hope it will be fully gone before Friday when I fly back to the NL. And hopefully I won't get sick from the big temperature difference, it's still 21 Celsius here compared to freezing -2 Celsius in NL.
Good times... :-S

Got sick on Thursday evening, sore throat which now developed into full-blown flu. Rather be sick now then during the 2 weeks in the Netherlands with Asnida though.
Weather will also pose a nice challenge, overall a difference of about 20 Celsius between Funchal and Netherlands.
Back to dealing with snot haha.

stormy times

It's been storming a lot the past 4 or 5 days. The wind is blowing so hard the window panes of my bedroom crack and moan during the night. Also, one of my balcony chairs was blown all over the balcony a few times so I had to secure it to avoid the wind stealing it.
Good times in Funchal!

Flying back to NL next Friday (December 17), hoping the weather will calm down a bit so I'll make it out of here. I'll worry about the winter weather in NL once I catch the connection in Lisbon haha.

Yesterday was a holiday (Indepence Day) and I hooked up with some colleagues to do a bit of sightseeing on this island.
Turned out we were out and about for 7 hours. I didn't bring a jacket which I should have. We went to Caniçal for lunch, I had the swordfish with banana. Then we went to the eastern-most point of Madeira: Baia de Abra / Ponta de S. Lourenço. After that we went to Portela to have a view over the Penha de Aguia, and then further upwards to Ribeiro Frio.
I wasn't expecting us to do a levada walk but we did one (about 30min each way) called Balcões. After the levada walk we went for a drink, alcoholic drink called ponche (punch) which is made of lemon, rum and honey. It was ok, didn't warm me up though despite what they told me :-)

I got home shortly after 7pm, caught "Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban" on TV after which I hit the sack.

Next Wednesday is also a holiday to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. Obviously any Steelers fan will turn that into a celebration for the Immaculate Reception ;-)
Speaking of the Steelers, this Sunday at 1:30am local time they play against the Baltimore Ravens again. Should be a good game!

Apparently the exterminator found a bee hive on the 3rd floor balcony, 2 floors down from my balcony. He removed it but I still get some bees and wasps visits. Oh well, I'll keep spraying :-)

Time flies, only 4 weeks left until Christmas break!

Not much news. Had a problem with not getting hot water last week so had to get that fixed which was pretty quick and painless. Before the fix I had about 5 minutes of hot water so you can imagine how efficient I became at taking showers :-)
Now I have about 10 minutes so I can relax a bit more before I literally get a cold shower.

Did some more paperwork, changed the address of my fiscal number to my current one and registered as a citizen at the Camara Municipal de Funchal. Hopefully that settles all paperwork since I've been walking around the city center during office hours a lot to arrange things.

The weather is still great, it's about 22 Celsius/74 Fahrenheit now and pretty sunny. In mid-November!
I'm lovin' it!

Watched Johnnie To's "Vengeance" movie again with some colleagues on Saturday night, went to the Indian Taj Mahal restaurant afterwards for late dinner. I had mango lassi and the chicken bhuna. Good food, decent prices. This was already the 2nd time I've been there and I foresee many more visits.

I still have wasps and bees on my balcony but there's no nest/hive so my landlady said she got an exterminator to check out the entire apartment building since the nest/hive might be on someone else's balcony. I've been spraying/killing wasps and bees left and right, I guess I'll just keep doing that until either one of us leaves :-)

Watched 3 quarters of the Steelers game last night and at the 23-3 score in favor of the Patriots I went to bed. It was 4am so I figured sleep was more important than watching the Steelers take a beating. Turns out the 4th quarter was quite eventful with the Patriots winning by 39-26. Oh well, next week the Raiders at 6pm my time so not in the middle of the night. Steelers should also be able to beat the Raiders but last season's 5 game losing streak is still fresh in my memory...