Arrived in Gothenburg for the second time this year, for my friends’ wedding on Saturday.
In addition, my other friends here are moving house, so it looks like it’s gonna be a busy week.
Midsummer’s Day Dream
This is the maypole we decorated in the Swedish Church in Rotterdam today,
for the Swedish Midsummer celebration.
More details coming soon.
From Madagascar to Matsuki
PDI Dreamworks’ latest computer animated movie Madagascar is pretty good. Maybe not as good as both Shreks, but supposedly a lot better than Shark Tale (which I haven’t seen). The plot is about 4 wacky animals (+ a few mad penguins) who escape from a New York Zoo and somehow end up on Madagascar, where they have to survive in The Wild. Having lived in a zoo all their lives, this naturally leads to some hilarious scenes. While I wasn’t really impressed by the characters when I saw them on the above website, you grow fond of them quite quickly once you see them “alive” on the big screen.
Afterwards, we had a very nice dinner at “the best kept secret in Den Haag”, Japanese restaurant Matsuki. I finally know the difference between Sushi and Sashimi: the latter one has no rice (or seaweed wrapping). Me, I had a riskfree but very tasty (if a bit oily) Gyoza as a starter, and Fried Chicken Ramen for the main course. And as Japanese restaurants go, this one could be considered affordable…
Weekend
Had a nice weekend. On Saturday, I went to a barbecue with all (well most of) the colleagues work, their partners, and even 23 of the kids. About 80 people altogether. It was held on Scheveningen beach, in the Escubelle beach pavillion (?), about a km from the famous (?) Pier. It was nice to meet the colleagues’ partners and the food was pretty good, although some finicky people afterwards complained that it could have been better… I do agree that the hamburgers were a bit too floppy / soggy.
On Sunday, after the Indonesian mass, I followed a few friends to Rotterdam, to watch the Red Bull Air Race. This was basically a small airplane race with 9 contestants, centered around the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. Since I heard afterwards that around 400,000 people had come, it was no wonder that it was so busy that we couldn’t see that much, having come about two hours after it had started. The better views were actually from a tall building, and since we weren’t in the mood for climbing in trees, we stayed on the street level. Still we saw some some pilots make some impressive maneuvers in the air, including one that looked like he was gonna crash down on us… And the atmosphere was really nice (“gezellig”), almost like a fancy fair (“kermis”).
But when rain started to trickle down, we thought it was time to go home, to the friend’s house whose name also happens to be Ari 
- “Nice to meet you. I’m Ari”
- “I’m Ari too / two” (okay, in Indonesian it doesn’t sound the same…)
The day was closed with a Chinese takeaway dinner. I know, not very original on a Sunday night, but definitely tasty…
Like a Log
Hurray, my new bed arrived today! It took quite a while to assemble it, especially the slatted bed bases, consisting of 2 x 27 slats (four different types) with a famous Ikea pictures-only manual leaving a lot to be guessed. But now that it’s finished, it looks and feels great. I’m sooo going to sleep like a log tonight |-)
Router setup problems gone?
Anyone know how to configure an ADSL modem / router for use with XS4ALL ADSL Basic without the automagic KPN setup CD?
I ordered this “All-in-One” 3COM modem for my parents, because the KPN Speedtouch modem has been having startup issues for a month. The new device is an ADSL modem, a 4 port router, and a wireless access point in one. Great, huh?
However, yesterday I tried to set it up, but the first problem was it wouldn’t connect to ADSL. On this page, I found some settings, which turned out to work: VPI=8, VCI=48, Encapsulation: VC/MUX. No idea what they mean exactly, but entering these in the modem’s config screens solved the connection problem. Now the LED indicating a connection to the ADSL provider (XS4ALL) is on. Yay!
However, although the PCs can happily talk to each other, and see each other’s shared folders, the PCs to this see nothing of the outside world 
I can’t even PING to a numeric IP address…! I tried fiddling with the firewall and the DHCP server, but without any improvement. Anyone have any hints on what to do???
Update: this evening, after going thru some of the configuration screens again, the router suddenly worked! Both machines on the network can now see outside world. Of which this entry is proof. But what exactly did I do? And will it still work if I turn off all machines and restart???
Back from Sweden
Time flies when you’re busy, so now I’m back in Holland again.
But I can’t wait to go again in 3.5 weeks from now, for my other friends’ wedding (July 2nd).
Shopping in Gothenburg
Today saw my shopping round in Gothenburg. First, I picked up the present I had ordered for my friends who will have their wedding party tomorrow, at Duka Josephssons downtown (on Korsgatan, just behind the DomKyrka). I finally met Charlotte, the staff member who had helped me choose a present from the list, and who went out of her way to phone me, type in the entire list, and email me several times. Amazing service!
Then I wandered around in Nordstan, where I got a 3 CDs and 2 DVDs that were (sort of) on sale. Yes, ONLY 3, I curbed myself!
Arrived in Sweden
Hej hej! I arrived in Sweden this afternoon, where the weather isn’t that warm, but the reception by my friends definitely is!
