Akkerman Family

The last couple of days have been wonderful meeting my cousin Hans Peter, his wife Marilyna and their great kids Charlie, Jet and Nick. Hans Peter is the son of my mum’s brother Hans who lives in Hilversum and the hospitality they have shown us has been truly great. We had only met on one occasion as kids many years ago and it has been fantastic to re-establish that family connection.
The day started off with coffee and cake at their home and then Hans Peter, Marilyna together with Jet, treated us to a lovely sailing experience aboard Hans Peter’s boat the Wanderlust. We sailed for a few hours on a large man made lake that the Dutch are famous for making and it was a great time to talk about family connections and get to know each other much better. Marilyna did a fantastic job of playing the host by making us some great sandwiches for our lunch.
We made our way to the small port of Huizan and it was there we stretched our sea legs and had a few drinks in the ports pub. Later Trudi was given the honour of steering the boat back to home harbour and she did a great job, we did not run aground or hit any thing.
That night we met up with the rest of the kids, Nick and Charlie and had a great meal at wonderful restaurant. It was a really enjoyable night and one of the highlights for me was seeing Taylor and Dillon making friends with their second cousins who they just met for the first time that day. Marilyna is warm and friendly with a great sense of fun and humour and together with Jet we met up the next day in Amsterdam with the best intentions of further educating the kids by visiting the Anne Frank Museum but the que was very long and it would have been over a two hour wait so as shallow as it sounds we went shopping.
Later that evening we had dinner with my Uncle Hans in Hilversuem, his wife Beppe organised a wonderful Indonesian rice table banquet with many different dishes. The sate was grilled to perfection by my uncle and many of the dishes I had not tasted for such a long time. It brought back for me many happy memories of my Mum and Oma Jos as they were both great lovers and makers of Indonesian food.
We had a nice evening, reminiscing about old times and making acquaintances again and it is good to see that they both are in such good health. Hans keeps fit by playing Boulee and Beppe has a green thumb, her garden is big with many lovely plants bushes and trees.

Mina and Roya's Portrait

I was extremely happy to be available to shoot the portrait of two great sisters, Mina and Roya here in Amsterdam. It came about through coincedence as Mina was only in Amsterdam for a few hours after flying in from LA on route to Iran. They do not often get the opportunity to see each other because they live so far apart and so they were really excited that I could photograph them. Little Zeba wanted to be part of the action too and almost stole the show. It was a fantastic photo session in the made up photo studio and I was very pleased with the results.

The Nolle

The Nolle is an inspirational art park of sculptures and buildings created over the last 30 years by my late Uncle Rudi Van de Wint and his wife Reitje in Den Helder. Reitje gave us a wonderful and emotional tour. The site takes advantage of bunkers left over from the First World War and to me the whole site is large three dimensional and interactive canvas filled with elements that amaze, inspire and create mystery. Even the way the long grass is cut and cultivated adds to the element of the canvas and creates an ever-changing aspect. The forms and sculptures have an ever-changing quality about them as well, because of the way they have been designed and createdto interact with nature. Some of the structures interiors have had large mural style paintings created in hues of Blue, Orange and Yellows and as the light changes through out the day so does the feel and mood of the paintings. You also get the feel of imersersing yourself in the artwork because the whole of the interior room is painted and as you walk through the door you become part of the art.
Part of the landscape is very special and personal for me because a sculpture was created for my father called The Human Mind and it was the first time that I had a chance to see it personally. I like to call it Bompie.

Tinni's Birthday

Yesterday was my Aunty Tinni’s 73 rd birthday, she doesn’t look a day over 60 and she has the zest and energy for life as any 20 year old. We helped celebrate her birthday with a portrait shoot. When she was younger she was a successful model in Paris for many designers and she still has all the right moves and confidence in front of the camera, the camera really loves you baby. We chose an area in the house that had good light but also showed off some of her incredible artwork. The piece behind her is called Butter Flies. She has many artworks around the house that are very colourful and full of life. Most are hers but she also has some from Grandmother and Uncle Rudi. There is a long history of artist in my family and although I have chosen photography I think one day I will more seriously put my inspiration on to canvas.
Later in the day all of her lovely friends and family came to the party and we had a great time with beautiful food and a great BBQ. The food never seemed to end and we had sate with awesome peanut sauce. It was also a good day because it was the first time the four Van de Wint cousins were together in the same room at the same time. Paul Jan, Gijs, Rud and Darren.

Dinner with Phoebe and Stephan

On our last night in London we had a lovely dinner with our friends Phoebe and Stephan in their flat in Wimbledon Park. Phoebe is the oldest daughter to our neighbours Bill and Belinda and it was great to see how well she has settled in to living in the UK. Stephan is an excellent cook and dinner was unreal. I swear a home cooked meal whilst on holiday is like gold so we really appreciate al his efforts. He works freelance for CNN as cameraman and editor and will be looking for work in Australia next year. So if you know of anything I can get his show reel sent to you. Wimbledon Park is a suburb about 30 minutes from London on the tube and reminds me of the movie Notting Hill with the quaint little shops and terrace style homes. They are close to the station and live on the first floor with a cute little garden balcony that gets the summer sun. Catching the tube was fun and Trudi only needed a moderate amount of coaxing to get over her fear of being underground and the kids had fun swinging on the handrails.

Harry Potter Tour

Wow – What a day!
It first started waking up to cue for the 7th and last ‘Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows’ book at 12.15 and cued for 40mins until I got it in my hands. It was great the bookstore where I bought it from was next to our hotel and darren and I where feeling we were stuck in a Monoploy board Game as we were standing in Trafalgar Square on The strand and the next corner was Pall Mall and close by is Piccadilly, Fleet Street – very sereal.
Of course I had to read the first chapter before bed and would have read more except I had booked in our 12 hour ‘Harry Potter Tour’, which the driver was picking us up at 7.30am in a London Black Taxi.
Our friend Phoebe came along with us and we had a great time talking along the way to our first destination which was ‘Stonehenge’. That was so unreal, we were lucky enough to view it with a terrific storm coming up behind it. Excellent stuff for photographers.
Next stop was Lacock Village where we got to see our first of the Harry Potter locations – I will just list them and tell you when I see you what it was like to walk in the footsteps of not only a movie set but history and not Hogwarts.
At Lacock we visited the house where Harry’s parents were killed and Harry got his scar, Lacock Abbey wre they filmed classrooms for movie 1&2, the cloisters where they wrote on the wall in ‘Chamber of Secrets’ and the doorway to the Mirror Room in ‘Philsophers Stone, ‘The Whomping Willow Tree’ and some grounds scenes and courtyard scenes. We had lunch here in an Old Stable that they had made into Tearooms – very yummy home made food.
Next stop was Oxford- what an alive place that was with past Uni students getting married in every available church plus bus loads of people plus the storm had followed us from Stonehenge and decided to let us have it, but nothing would stop me from my Harry Potter Tour. We all got soaked but saw Christchurch College, where the film movie 1&2 for the stairs to the Dining Room and The Dining Room, Divinity School , where the filmed the Hospital Wing and Yule Ball practise. The kids of course had to stop in the Uni Shop and by a Oxford Jumper, which I am sure you will see as they have not taken them off.
Next back to London where we saw Kings X station, scenes filmed here were the Flying Car, Platform 9 ¾ , The clock on crossing bridge in station. Then we moved onto The Leaky Cauldren and Diagon Alley and Gringotts Banks.
It was a very full and fun day but when we got back and changed from our wet clothes I still read another chapter of the new Harry Potter.

Harry Potter

It is 1 am and Trudi and I lined up for about an hour so she could buy the next Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the deadly Hallows. Luckily the book store was just up the road from the Hotel.

London

The trip from Paris to London was in a word difficult. We started early about 7.30 when the shuttle bus arrived and it took about 1.30 hours to get to the airport.
Then Trudi gets an anxiety attack at the departures lounge, crying she tells us that she does not want to fly to the UK. But through the miracle of modern drugs and the thought of missing the Harry Potter tour she calms her self down and we start the agonising journey through the French chaotic system of catching a plane.
First we had to use the electronic check in machines, as they do not check in with an airline representatives and of course the boarding pass would not print so I had to find some one to fix that, it took 15 minutes. Then we joined the que to get past customs with our travel bags because they do customs before you check in. They only had two windows open and some stinky women and her friend who was not even travelling hold things up because they don’t have the right paper work and then some prick from the end of the que walks past everyone to give the customs officers a gob full about the delay and then both the officers are arguing with this gump in French and no one is getting past. Then we had to join the que to check in the baggage and the stupid bitch (mole) at that counter tells us to board at gate 24 so again we line up to get the hand luggage scanned and get to the gate where they frisk you and take your wallet and belt only to find that we have been told the wrong gate number, it is gate 32 not 24 and us and every other non French person about 60 of us has to go out and find the right gate. I am pretty sure if you spoke French you were given the right boarding gate, any way as we passed her I called her a Fu???ing Idiot. Which made me feel a bit better. Because the electronic check in did not print on our boarding pass which gate, it was confusing to check, anyway we now find the right gate do the strip body search routine and get to the waiting area where Trudi needs to pee and offcourse no toilets in this area. The plane starts to board like 1 minute after we get to the lounge and I said for Trudi to go ahead and pee on the plane. So the kids and I walk down the gangway a few minutes after Trudi to find her sitting in a bus that is going to take us to the plane. I thought something funny was happening as they wanted us to board but there was no plane. It was funny seeing the expressions of all the passengers when they saw they had to get on a bus.
So now we are settled on the plane and are flying from Paris 3o minutes late, the captain mentions that it will be a 40 minute flight and the cabin crew start drink service which is cool because it is now close to midday and we have not had anything to drink or eat because it was so hard to get through the French system. Now it starts to get very turbulent and the plane rocks from side to side and the cabin crew stop serving, our first piece of luck because it was everyone behind us who missed out.
The weather in London was bad and they closed the airport for departures so we first have to fly a holding pattern for 20 minutes circling the airport and when we finally land we have to wait on the tarmac because as no planes were departing there was no terminal space for us to dock. We wait for 40 minutes on the ground before we get to disembark. We organise a shuttle to drive us to the hotel, our driver is a nice guy named Herbert and we get out towards the expressway to find gridlock. The weather has created chaos and flooding on the motorway and has brought traffic to a crawl. Apparently a month of rain fell in a few hours so our 40-minute journey to the hotel takes just over two hours.
We finally to get to the Hotel and we are happy to have arrived and Peobe our neighbours, Bill and Belinda’s daughter who is living here with her friend Steven calls up and happens to be close so we arrange to have drinks in a pub next to the Hotel named the Sherlock Holmes.
It is all good now; we have had some food, a few beers and seen some friendly faces.

Paris

We travelled from Amsterdam to Paris yesterday by train and it was a wonderfully easy journey. It took about three hours and we were in the first class cabin so the seats were big and comfortable and we ate a nice lunch and drank some nice wine. The train takes about the same time as plane to travel to Paris if you take into account all the security measures and boarding procedures plus the train drops you off in the centre of Paris.
We arrive at Hotel, the Citidines, which is really nice with free expressor and Internet and the space, is modern and large about 2.30pm. Normally at most hotels the check in time is 2pm but they said we had to wait because the room is not ready. Well by 3.30pm we were still not in the room. Trudi had asked them about 3pm when will the room be ready and had got the cold shoulder and we will call when ready routine. So at 3.30pm I went up to the counter and asked again but this time I explained to them with my most intimidating and serious face that my wife was a diabetic (which she is not) that I unless they make the room available soon their beautiful lobby was going to be used as a shooting gallery for her insulin injections. Needless to say we were in our room by 3.35pm.
We took the opportunity of the long days here in Europe to see what was close to our hotel and found the Notre Dam Cathedral. Trudi has planned well as we are close to many attractions and our hotel is on the Seine River with many cafes and restaurants. Tonight we had dinner at a Canadian pub and had BBQ ribs washed down with large glasses of apple cider.
Today we got up early to take a tour of the Louvre Museum and it was a thrilling experience especially seeing the Mona Lisa by Da Vinci in person. It is amazing; the buzz in the room was electric.
After the museum we caught a cab to Montemarte an area in Paris where artist gather to paint and draw portraits of tourist. Trudi had Taylor and Dillon’s likeness commissioned by an artist who has a style inspired by Da Vinci’s drawings and so we keep the Da Vinci theme going. It was a jam-packed day as we also saw the Moulin Rouge from the outside and had lunch at a nice roadside café.
As if the day was not busy enough we then caught a cab to the Eiffel Tower and Dillon, Taylor and Myself ventured to the very top and saw an incredible view of the city. Trudi waited on the ground because of her anxieties but still got anxious because it took two hours for us to reach the top and then come down again.
We finished the night with a lovely meal of steak at the café of Paris.
Today we have a little sleep in and are going to see Picasso’s gallery and Champ de Ley see and maybe a bit of shopping.