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This week started approximately 7 hours earlier than usual due to the time difference between Bali and Norway/Western Europe…I have to admit, I didn’t really notice; uhmm, I kinda had to run to make it in time for a spa, massage and scrub treatment at 1pm… 😉 I’m blaming it on the jetlag, hehe

Yeah, you can say life in Bali is all about relaxing!

The first day in the Nusa Dua resort in Bali, what can I say? It feels like paradise, and it IS! It seems the perfect honeymoon destination and even though we’re not celebrating that, we *do* have a special day to celebrate; it’s November 9 2008 and that means we’re together for 18 (!) years (a porcelain celebration apparently), still in love, still going strong!

We just went for traditional Balinese food at one of the best restaurants for local dishes, Bumbu Bali…yeah, we’re loving it!

All I want to say can be said in just one word; WOW!

The first day in Bali has been splendid, at least, on those few moments I wasn’t sleeping. 😉

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar was like a typical bus-ride; people running from the terminal to the airplane in order to get the best seats, indeed, it was free seating. 😉 The stewardess tried to make everyone feel comfortable by explaining the safety procedures both in Malaysian (or was it Indonesian?) as well as English…to be honest, I haven’t heard the difference…

We arrived in Bali and, getting through customs wasn’t hard, it wasn’t hard at all, it just took TIME…it started with obtaining the Visa on Arrival, no wait, first getting through customs (no questions asked) to get some money from the ATM outside, THEN getting back inside, into the queue, obtaining the Visa and stand in another queue for an hour orso, smiling at the customs officer who put on his serious face, just before placing some more stamps in my passport…getting into the country has never been easier, it just takes time… 😉

The first thing I noticed is that all people in Bali smile, and they smile, and then smile some more…being the person I am, I couldn’t resist smiling back, and after checking in at the hotel my smile decided to stick on my face; MY GOD, this truly is a luxurious place, the pictures on the hotel website didn’t lie, it’s amazing and totally upper-class (according to our standards)…exactly what we wanted it to be!

It won’t be hard to stay here for two weeks…an empty schedule and no obligations, yay!

Jeez, I’m not made to fly coach on longhaul flights…despite the fact that we were flying a BIG airplane (the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet), I literally had to fold myself into the chair; it seemed that leg-space was even less than on a European flight with the Boeing 737, aaahhhh!

Anyway, KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) is serving me free WiFi internet, silencing my nagging. 😉 (except for the heat…I’d love to have a shower right now).

The flight to Denpasar leaves in 45 minutes, it’s time to board…Bali, here we come!

I’ve been looking SO forward to this moment; the start of three weeks vacation! My bags have been waiting long enough to be picked up for this trip…;)

Hey hey, it’s time to leave for the airport now, we’ll be flying out from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, then on to Denpasar, Bali, and finally will be dropped off at the resort in Nusa Dua…yay!

Tennessee Williams: “Make voyages! – Attempt them! – there’s nothing else…”

I’ve never been a big believer in the ‘concept’ of global warming, at least, the idea that manmade CO2 is the bad guy.

Today, years after the IPCC report and Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, more and more information comes to surface that global warming ain’t what we were told it would be and it actually is more a political statement than a scientific proven fact…hey, there is a reason why it has been rebranded to ‘climate change’, warming up on global scale seems to have stopped.

I encourage everyone to check out the YouTube video below (thx Adam Curry for the pointer) in which John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel speaks out against global warming…share it and spread the word!

(the interview has been cut in four parts because of YouTube’s 10 minute upload limit)

Victor Borge: “A smile is the shortest distance between two people.”

It’s Monday night and…my bags are packed!

I’ve got everything I need to leave tomorrow for a week of work in NL, followed by three weeks of cocktails, sun, sea and beach in Bali (no bombs please!) and Jakarta, yay! The first two weeks will be pretty tough, we’re staying in the Hotel Novotel Nusa Dua Bali, check it out…oof, life ain’t easy, eh? 😉 Our friends Axel & Beike booked the same hotel for the last weekend and we’ll join them back to their home in Jakarta for the last days of our trip. 😉 I’m so excited to see them again!

It is quite special too; this will be the third time for us to follow Axel to an amazing place where he works. First there was Miami (groovy!), last year we went to Lybia (trippy!?!) and now Indonesia (funky, yay!)…hehe, I wonder where he will ‘take’ us to next time… 😉

Last Thursday the registration for the Birkebeinerrittet 2009, scheduled on Saturday August 29, started. Thousands of people were sitting behind their pc at exactly 09:00h and at 09:01,06 all 16,500 available places were taken!! OK, OK, some thousands were reserved and filled already for those who competed more than five time, but still, it *is* just 66 seconds…unbelievable! Despite my 25Mbps internetfeed, I wasn’t able to get in fast enough and as of now I ain’t in it… 🙁 yet I should say, since I do have another way in; as ‘foreigner’ by using by dutch address, hehe, good that I still have a house in NL. 😉

It’s November 1 and as per today I should have my winter tires on the family-car…unlike last year when the sun was out and the streets still black, it does make sense to have the sticky tires on this year; the sun’s still out, but the streets are white! 😉

There are more people in need of a tire change though (norwegians got nuts the first days the snow comes in!), that means big lines at the tire-shops (one guy told me to ‘come back in a week’!) and I haven’t been able to get mine done. Wish me luck Monday morning…

Hehe, I’m trying to find a place to change to winter tires and will then leave to sunny Bali coming Friday! Damn, ain’t that trippy?