Queen's Day

Now that I work at the Consulate General, I also had the opportunity to celebrate the queen's birthday again.  In Finland usually on the 30th of April, we have been partying because of Labour Day celebrations on the 1st of May and I haven't been celebrating Queen's Day for a while.

Queen's Day is a very patriotic festivity in the Netherlands, where everyone dresses in orange. To continue this tradition I wore an orange dress to our Queen's Day reception.

Me and my colleague Miranda

The Consul General and his wife had invited approximately 250 people from the Dutch and Canadian society. The reception was held at the prestige National Club in downtown Toronto.

We sung the Dutch and the Canadian anthem and we got to taste real Dutch 'bitterballen' and Gouda cheese.

Bitterballen and Gouda cheese

In previous years the Queen's birthday has been celebrated with huge parties, but because of financial savings, this is not possible anymore. Anyhow, it was nice to feel a bit Dutch again and to meet all these  Dutch-Canadian people.

Washington DC

I had the fortune to go for a few days to Washington DC, where the Dutch embassy and the Regional Support Office for North and South America are. Since I am responsible for all the financial administration in our office I am working closely with the RSO in Washington. They took over some tasks, which have been done before at the Consulate and therefore I am doing a lot of back office support with Washington. The purpose of my trip was a two day training on some programs we are using for the financial administration as well as training in all the rules the Foreign Ministry has.

I flew on Tuesday in the afternoon and had the whole afternoon time to explore DC. My hotel was downtown and since the city was surprisingly compact, I was able to walk everywhere. I saw the White House, numerous beautiful old buildings, the Washington Monument and the green parks with all their flowers. It was very warm, around 20 C and all the trees were already very green. I just missed the cherry blossoms, which DC is famous for as well. I had no idea that DC is such a beautiful city with so much green.

The Embassy is a little bit north of downtown in a very nice area where a lot of residences of Ambassadors are. Two other men from the Hague were there at the same time and were staying at the same hotel, so on Wednesday after work I went with them and some other colleagues out for dinner. They went to a basketball game afterwards and I decided to go to Georgetown to shop a little bit. Georgetown is known for its restaurants and shops and very popular among tourists.
When I walked back to my hotel, I passed a couple looking very familiar. I shouted the girls' name and she recognized me as well. The girl was my high school girlfriend, whom I haven't seen for more than 10 years. We were both so surprised by the fact that on all the places in the world we bump into each other in Washington. The world is really a small place!

I didn't have time to go to Capitol Hill or visit the National Mall, where all the museums are. At least, now I have a good reason to visit Washington again, cause I really liked the city.

The view from my office in Toronto

My huge hotel room 

Capitol Hill on the background

The Washington Monument

Georgetown

Happy Easter

We have spent Easter with friends. On Good Friday Juha's classmates came over for a bbq and on Saturday we went to Kevin's farm. Eileen's mom had her birthday on Saturday as well, so in the evening we went there and had delicious Chinese food. On Easter Sunday we had a Polish Easter brunch, with sour soup and home made bread. At the farm were a lot of newborn lambs and a few goats, very cute :)

Caroline's jello-shots :D