Wild river news

For a long time, I thought my sister was crazy or at least tired of life because of her hobby: rafting, going down a wild river in a tube boat. But since yesterday, I know how it's like and... It's cool! Heavy but cool!

My sister's rafting team Rafting Revolution started last year and won the open Dutch Championships. Then, they went to South Korea and became 8th on the World Championships! A few weeks ago, they became Dutch Champion in France again and directly after, they became 2nd on the European Championship in Austria! And this is an even bigger effort since there's no natural wild water in the Netherlands, apart from the North Sea coast...

Those relatives and friends who sponsored the team had the chance to try rafting yesterday, in the wild water park in Zoetermeer. First, we had to swim downriver (about 50 m) in order to practice the experience of nearly drowning. Although you wear a life jacket, it's very hard to keep your head above water and stay on your track. But ok then you're used to the wild water and we started rafting. Although my team was not as fast as my sister's team (that showed their great skills afterwards), we did quite ok. The first run, I went over board so I had to swim another time, but the other runs went ok. It's a matter of not thinking and paddling in the team's rhythm! And it gives loads of adrenaline! The last run, I even was in the front of the boat, which was great!

I want to thank the Rafting Revolution Team for this nice experience and the good introduction and guidance (and my mom for the pictures)!

The Rafting Revolution Team:

Watch http://www.revolutionrafting.nl/

Back online after a while

A two day solo motorbike tour brought me back to my blog: yesterday and today, I drove a piece through North West Germany. I planned to go to the Teutoburg Forest but this was such small (like Dutch forests) that I went through it before I knew it. So I ended up on a camp site near Uslar in the Weserbergland. This is such a nice area! I visited it once before when I was about ten years old, so you can imagine that I did not know much about it anymore.

On the map, you can see where I've been. The motorcycle was my dad's Moto Guzzi 1100 California. This drives great, but after 850km in two days at 27 degrees, you can feel the big V-twin all over your body. I'm not far away from RSI now I think... But it can carry myself, my tent and everything, even with 150kmh, which is great!

I camped on a nice camping site, but there was a great trike-meeting going on: about 100 trike-bikers with tattoos and loads of leather where there drinking beer and having fun until late at night. I celebrated my own party while reading about Indonesia, where I will be going this summer.

Waiting to cross the river Weser by boat.

Then, I need to say that my sister's rafting team became Dutch champion in France last week - congratulations!

Furtheron, I've been working a lot since my last report of November, and I've been doing a lot of work for my scout's chairmanship. And apart from that, I became member of the commission of foreign affairs of the Royal Dutch Forestry Society, which is a nice job to do. So time's flying!

In November we had our Meinardi-family-meeting in Hemmen. This was very nice, because we don't see eachother that often!

Thanks to cousin Tjeerd for the pictures

In December, we went camping again with our hiking group. This time, we could start in my sister's back yard, which was great. We could make a big fire with old building wood and that was good because it was a cold evening. The other days, we hiked south west of Journal and had a great (but sometimes wet and cold) time.

At the end of January, we went on winter camping again with the scouts: about 40 people went to the area east of Houffalize. It was a very nice trip again.

Before Christmas, my cat Dame Noire came back to me after living with my parents for two months. She had damaged her leg before and it took that long to recover. I and Dame Noire thanked my parents for taking care, but it was great to have her back again, and you can hardly see that anything has happened now. Both cat's are growing well and the 2nd of May, they celebrated their first birthday with a nice meal of meat!

Dame Blanche likes to climb on my back just when I bend over, and Dame Noire likes to eat my cell phone when in rings...

Then I celebrated New Year with the Betuwe4Ever group at my place. We ended up at Vincent and Laurie's place, where you could hardly see anything of the fireworks because of the fog. It was a very nice evening.

Vincent cooked boerenkool (Farmer's cabbage?) for us at New Year

The Netherlands are hot news nowadays because of our right winged "politicians" Geert Wilders and Rita Verdonk. They have their very nationalist and right winged opinions about foreigners. And loads of people are supporting them! I don't like that and went to a meeting ont the Dam square to make a voice against these people during a demonstration. I hope it will help a bit...

Before, in November, we went to Belgium with Betuwe4Ever. You can see loads of pics about this trip on http://betuwe4ever.blogspot.com/ !

While my cats eat meat, I myself quitted to eat meat for lunch (except exceptions of course, I'm not a real vegetarian...) because of the whole environmental issue. So I started eating cheese after 30 years! It's quite ok!

In addition, Vincent and I have weekly "Keek op de week" meetings, in which we discuss the past week and other important or less important things, listen to music etc. I hope this will go on for a long time, because those are very nice, relaxed evenings!

The Keek op de Week-team has just installed a nice beer attribute which I got from Michiel

At the end of February, I drove to Freiburg, to meet Torsten, Ulli and Libby and loads of other people. And I hoped that I could ski, but there was hardly snow and storm coming up, so even Switserland was no option this year. But seeing everybody again was very nice!

The 29th of March was very special: with my sister and dad, I went to a concert of Anouk in Arnhem. This was really great! I had never been to such a big concert before (30,000 people) and Anouk was singing superb! I do have some pictures of it, but they're still in my cell phone, I still have to find the proper cable to upload them...

At the 20st of April, our scout's motorcycle club came together again and we had a great ride to Amsterdam-Volendam-IJsselmeer-Veluwe. This was a very nice day with good jokes, food and great weather. In the early autumn, we might go to Belgium or so. Watch http://www.scoutingzetten.nl/ for these and loads of other scout's pictures!

The 4th of May is WWII-Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. I was asked to play the Last Post tune in my village again, so I rehearsed and did it. I already play trumpet for 21 years now, but such performances are the hardest: you're playing alone, with an audience of about 200 people, there's the remembrance atmosphere and the tune is a signal, so you can't use your valves, only your lips and breath. So it's quite hard to play but it worked out again and that feels great!

But then one day after, the 5th of May is Freedom Day and then it's time to party. I went to Wageningen (where freedom was signed in 1945) and there always is a big party. I met Mark, Sanne and loads of other people and we had a great time with good music and beer!

My bands are going well. I hope we can perform again with our big band, but at the 1st of June, our jazz combo "His Master's Noice" will play in the Accordeon Museum in Heumen! http://www.accordeonmuseum.nl/

My bigband recorded a nice tune during a rehearsal lately and we were quite satisfied. So I mailed it to friends and family, and it even ended up at my niece Anneke's breakfast in New York! Listen http://www.bigbandhan.nl/ for more recordings.

So this is what I did during the last months in a nut shell. I hope everybody is doing fine as I am - hope to hear from all of you!

Bye! Jeroen