March 22, 2002 - Brussels, Belgium and Atyrau, Bautino, Kazakhstan

Hello everyone,

Can you believe it is almost Easter??? Things here in The Hague have been great. We have been busy traveling and working and are looking forward to our upcoming trip to Canada.

In the last 2 weekends we have been to Brussels, Belgium and Atyrau, Kazakhstan. Both places on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

We hadn't planned to go to Brussels, but a we thought why not. Brussels is a 2 hour trip on train, from where we live, so it was a easy place to get to. Well.... we loved it!! It is a very typical European city with lots of little cobblestone streets and restaurants and cafes for miles and miles. They also have a very impressive square with gold covered buildings and a most impressive city hall.  We enjoyed a great evening out with our friends James and Lisa and kids Cassandra and Ainsley.  We especially liked a great jazz bar we found which featured a live band and a good crowd.  Chocolate, waffles and beer were the staples of the weekend.  We plan to return to Belgium soon to explore Bruges.

Well now Kazakhstan....it was quite an experience.  We went there on a business trip as our company's other office is located there.  From there they support the rigs that are drilling for oil in the Caspian Sea.  So we left Friday and spent most of the day traveling to Atyrau (where the main office is).  Saturday morning we had to travel to another town called Bautino where the materials base is.   So another 1 hour plane ride and 2 hour drive got us to Bautino. The drive was extremely dull as the place looks like a lunar landscape - no trees and everything covered in dust. Apparently nothing grows because of the salt content in the earth but we suspect that all the nuclear testing the Russians did in Kazakhstan doesn't help either.

The hotel room we had was fantastic...with a kitchen and VCR and even movies. It was a busy trip but ended up being a better a place then we had anticipated.

So that is the latest.  We are now gearing up for a hard work week and then our Easter trip to Canada.  The plan is to spend the first 4 days with my mom and dad and then leave for Moncton for an east coast Canada holiday.

I hope everyone has a great Easter....and we'll write more soon.

Ana

March 6, 2002 - Athens, Greece

It's been a while since I've contributed to the journal so I suppose this better be a good one.  As Kris has said we are well settled into The Hague.  We are really enjoying our apartment, even though we seem to spend very little time here.  One of our goals for this year is to see Europe and we have already accomplished a little of that goal.  Our friend Nancy from work has got us hooked onto this "last minute" area on the KLM Airlines site called "Click and Go".  So every Thursday at 1:00 pm they publish cheap flights for going away that coming weekend.  So at promptly 1:01 pm Kris and I logged on and Athens, Greece was at the top of the list.  To be quite honest, we had never really thought about going to Greece.  There are many other spots on out list, but it was cheap and available....so off to Athens we went.

We really didn't know much about Greece, but after a little surfing on the web we found there were plenty  of things to see in Athens, such as historic monuments and the old city.  So we arrived late on Friday night, took a bus to the city centre then got ripped off by a taxi driver before reaching the hotel and checking in for a good night sleep.

The morning brought sun and warm weather, which we have been craving since our departure from the Caribbean.  So we spent the morning climbing Acropolis, which was beautiful, but as expected full of tourists.  We also went to the Temple of Zeus and saw from a distance Attica.  By that point we had reach our threshold of touristy spots so we headed to Plaka (the Old Town) for lunch.  We found a cozy spot and proceeded to get our suntan/burns back as we ate.  We spent the rest of the afternoon moving from outdoor cafe to outdoor cafe contemplating how to spend the rest of the weekend.

We both agreed that we would enjoy seeing more than just the city, so we thought we would inquire about a boat tour or country tour.  Much to our delight there was a boat tour the following day which stopped at 3 of the Greek islands.  So we spent our Sunday in Poros, Hydra and Aegina.  They were all quite beautiful, although Hydra was the nicest.  On board we met a couple from Lisbon, Portugal and I had some nice conversations with them, as Kris tried to fill in the blanks with his broken Portuguese (which is improving dramatically, I must say).  Soon the cruise was over and we came to the quick realization that work was only hours away.  But we loved it and now are considering doing this "Click and Go" thing more often.  The weeks are flying by and we are enjoying every moment.  Even the work is challenging and rewarding....10 hour days don't even bother us anymore.

So I guess that is all the news for now.  We'll update you on our future travels to Atyrau, Kazakhstan in a week and our Easter trip to the Borges Residence and the east coast of Canada.  

Much love,

Ana

February 17, 2002 - The Hague and Apeldorn, Netherlands

Greetings to all from Den Haag!

We are settled into our apartment which is a two bedroom unit with a beautiful view overlooking Scheveningen beach.  In fact, the view is quite similar to the view from our apartment in Puerto Rico.  The only difference being that the temperature is about 20 degrees lower...

It is great to be living in Europe.  We took a trip to Paris last weekend, which was a very easy 3.5 hour train ride from here.  Saw a few of the tourist spots such as Arc du Triumph, Notre Dame, La Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.  We also did some shopping, much to Ana's delight.

The weekend before that we met our Danish friends Martin, Marianne, and their little boy Benjamin in a Dutch town called Apeldorn.  They were visiting their friends Roy and Anka, who are absolutely wonderful people.  They invited us to stay with them so we all had a very nice weekend together.  I was surprised to find that another Danish friend named Lars was visiting as well and I hadn't seen him for a long time.  Roy and Anka have a beautiful home and treated us just like family so we really enjoyed the weekend.  Little Benjamin is growing fast and already trying to steal the old man's beer!

More news soon,

Kris

January 12, 2002 - The Azores, Ottawa, Brantford

Welcome to the new year!  After more than three weeks of glorious vacation, Ana and I are leaving for Holland today to begin work on Monday.  We are both extremely excited about it and ready for what will surely be an interesting year.

For our Christmas holidays we spent two superb weeks in the Azores!  We were joined by Toddy Van Hees for the first ten days then by Ana's parents for the second week.  We stayed with Ana's aunt who is also named Ana and lives in a town called Santa Cruz which is in the Lagoa area of the island of San Miguel.  Ana, Toddy and I also traveled to the other islands of Faial and Pico and spent a few days exploring.  The weather was very rainy for the first part of the trip, but the temperature never fell below 15 C so it was actually very pleasant.

Some of the highlights include seeing the natural ocean pools in Pico and Lagoa, a scary plane ride from Ponta Delgado to Horta, the harbour in Horta, the view from Scrimshaw's house in Faial, the volcano blasted landscape on the west of Faial, the Furnas hot springs in San Miguel, a tea factory, the delicious red wine from Pico, fresh local bread and cheese with Tia Ana every morning, every meal we ate at Tia Ana's house, picking fresh bananas and oranges in the backyard, seeing a dog riding on top of a trotting horse, New Year's Eve on the Avenida, and the beautiful view from Lagua do Fogo!

I also had the chance to meet the rest of Ana's family who live in the Azores and they were all exceptionally nice people!  In fact, all the people living there were very friendly and helpful, making it a great place to visit!

After returning to Brantford from the Azores, we decided to take a trip to see Marty and Jen in Ottawa.  So we rented a PT Cruiser (groovy little car) and made the trip.  It was so nice to see where they were living and how things were going.  They are both doing very well in school and enjoying Carleton University.  They gave us a great tour of downtown Ottawa including the parliament buildings which were spectacular.

On the way back from Ottawa we stopped in at Mark & Linda's in Kingston where they treated us to a delicious lunch.  We had a good, but very short visit, before we were on our way to Toronto.  We stayed with Ana's brother Mark in Toronto and that night we met up with Carmen, Diane, and Lena and had a nice dinner out.

To finish off the vacation, we had a couple days in Brantford to sort things out and get all our things packed.

So now it is on to a brand new year and a brand new adventure!!  We really hope to see lots of you as visitors so don't be shy!

Kris

November 7, 2001 - Wedding, Las Terranas

We have just spent several minutes trying to figure out why all our journal entries since May 13 are gone.  It turn out that we haven't updated this page since then!  How embarrassing...

Our wedding has come and gone and here we are back at work and back in the Dominican Republic.  It is unbelievable how that long year of waiting, planning, and stressing finally paid off with a beautiful wedding day surrounded by all of our wonderful family and friends.  Have a look at the wedding page to see some pictures.

So what's new?  Since we returned back here we have been keeping a pretty low profile and doing lots of relaxing.  This past weekend was a long one so we made a trip up to the northern coastal town of Las Terrenas and met up with our Canadian friends Mark, Terri, and Carolyn Haugen.  Besides being eaten alive by mosquitoes we had a great time!  We found a superb little Vietnamese restaurant in the town which we visited a couple times.  On the Sunday we took a horseback ride to a waterfall called Salto de Limon.  The horses were quite good and the ride was very scenic.  By the time we returned three hours later we were filthy, tired, and extremely hungry so we devoured a delicious Dominican lunch of rice, beans, and chicken.

This coming weekend Ana's friend Julie, who lives in Puerto Plata, is planning to visit us here in Santo Domingo.  We haven't seen her for a while so that will be nice.

Not much else to report.  The Presidentes here are still icy cold!

Kris

May 13, 2001 - Barbados, Puerto Rico

This is a start of a new year for me (Kris) as I turned 29 years old yesterday!  We had a very relaxing day, and finished it off with dinner at a nice steak restaurant and a marvelous cigar.  We have been very bad recently at keeping our site updated so I thought today is a fine day to write another update.

Since last time, we have had visits from our friends Tom and Linda from Detroit, Mike and Nola from Chicago, and Martin and Marianne from Denmark.  As well, Ana has found herself a new job....at Shell!  In fact we are now working together on the same project and having a great time of it!  She has been involved mostly in the training and documentation side and has been doing a superb job.  We will be finishing the work in Dominican Republic within the next couple weeks then the plan is to move on to doing the rollout of our system to the other 17 countries in the region.  We don't exactly know what will happen yet, though we will likely be keeping a central base then just traveling out to the other countries periodically.  That will be nice for us as we don't have to pack up and change homes every month, we were not looking forward to that.

Of course, the wedding is fast approaching.  Ana is returning to Canada at the end of May for two weeks for her bridal shower and also to send out invitations and sort out the remaining tasks on our "Wedding To-Do List".  We will update the wedding page today with the latest so check that one out.

Ana and I recently took a long weekend trip to Barbados and Puerto Rico.  Part of the reason was to get a repair done to Ana's engagement ring, which I purchased in Barbados last year.  We had a very nice time and checked out some of our old favourite hangouts such as the almighty Mojos drinking hole where I imbibed in the frosty delight of many delicious Banks beers.  On the way back from Barbados we spent a full day in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Our friend Tico picked us from the airport and played the perfect host.  We had a great tour of old San Juan and spent a few hours there.  We also hit the malls (Plaza de las America) and did some damage to the credit card.  The majority of things were cheaper than in Santo Domingo so we stocked up on a lot of stuff.  We both really liked the city and would love to spend more time there exploring the country side.

I suppose that is all the news for now.  I'm also going to update the Dominican Republic page today with details of the new places we have visited so have a look at that one.

Oh yes, today is Mother's Day, have a wonderful one Mom!!!

Kris

February 5, 2001 - Puerto Plata, Cabarete

So much to tell and so little time to write it seems.  As Kris mentioned we went to Canada for Christmas (which already seems like a lifetime ago).  We had a fantastic time, but as always, too short.  

We spent Christmas with my parents and then New Years with Kris' family in Saskatoon.  We did all the Canadian winter activities like ice-fishing, tobogganing  and snowmobiling.  It was so nice to see everyone again.  We have some photos of the holidays on our Saskatoon page.  

Since returning to Santo Domingo I have quit my job and we've had Mark and Linda (Kris' aunt and uncle for a visit).  My job was as the production manager at an internet company.  I quickly found out that the Dominican way of doing business is a lot different from what I am used to.  It was a very good learning experience and I made many new friends, but it simply was not worth the money or the hours spent.  I have returned to making websites and also translating at home.  It seems to be going well and I'm much happier.   As well, it was nice to be home and spend some time with Mark and Linda during their visit.  We spent many nights on our balcony and a few afternoons by the pool sipping cervezas. It was a great visit.

A few weeks ago Kris and I went to the north coast to Puerto Plata for the  weekend.  It was fun, especially because we got to spend some time with my friend Julie from Toronto.  She has been living there for the past 2 years.  She gave us a great tour of the Puerto Plata area and we also had a great seafood dinner at a local restaurant owned by a Canadian couple.

On our way back to Santo Domingo we stopped at Caberete, which is a small town about 40 km east of Puerto Plata.  We think we have discovered our favorite place on the island.  After much searching for a place with some character and no all-inclusive resorts we finally found it.  There is not a resort in sight and it is said to be one of the best windsurfing locations in the world.  This little town is full of small hotels and restaurants and has one of the nicest beaches we've seen on the island.  We only spend the afternoon there, but our next trip will definitely be to Caberete!!

We are going to be quite busy with guests in the coming months...on February 17 both my friend Christina from Brantford and our friends Tom and Linda arrive.  Tom and Linda are staying at a resort a couple hours from here but we still hope to spend some time with them.  A week later our friends Mike and Nola arrive from Chicago.   Three weeks after that our Danish friends Martin and Marianne arrive for 2 weeks.  That's a full schedule!

The timing for all of our visitors has been perfect as Kris will begin doing some traveling with his job soon.  We aren't sure of where but we are both getting a bit of the traveling itch, so it will be nice to see some new spots.  Don't get us wrong, the past few months of living a somewhat normal lifestyle has been great!   Unpacking our suitcases for more than 3 weeks has been a real pleasure!!

Thanks for your patience in waiting for an update to our site.  Now that I'm working from home, I hope to dedicate some more time to it.  Hope to hear from you all soon.

Ana