mette's quote of the day and germans

here's some quotes that mette accounted for recently:

* speen van allardje! die is voor zijn snavel/allard's pacifier. that's for his beak
* (out of the sudden) barack obama is heel lief. en ook heel intelligent/barack obama is very kind. and also very intelligent
* (about gandalf, the white bearded wizzard in lord of the rings) sinterklaas heeft honger/santaclaus is hungry (subsequently puts a spoonful of porridge on the book)
* barbeque neee/bbq nooo (don't even have one and never used one on the trip)
* niet zo grappig, daddy/not so funny, daddy!
* ik ben even bezig/i'm a bit busy right now (while wiping the table)
* (grabs mom's phone) mette belt allard. hallo allard! allard heeft tanden, mamma/mette is calling allard. hi allard! allard has teeth, mommie. (stop the press: allard in fact has grown one tooth! tom heard something ticking when he was giving him to drink from a tin can of apple.sauce instead of spoon feeding)

germans!

a bad joke after the herald of free enterprise capsized. why do the belgians think it's summer? because of all the english lying on the beach.
dutch have many issues with germans and one of them is a standing joke about germans digging holes in the sand on the beach so they can sit in it. supposedly to avoid the wind. cartoonist toon van driel always draws cartoons about this. one of them is a dog digging holes on the beach with his paws and a dog family watching. dog dad is saying to his dog children: look children, a german shepherd.

tom nocited very few germans in new zealand so far, compared to the large number of dutch. until today, the day that hot water beach was visited. hot water beach has already for 5.9 million years very hot stones, formerly lava,deep down inside and they heat up all the water from the sea that gets there with high tide. with low tide, the water boils up and if you dig in the sand, you find 65 degrees centrigrade water. 65 is way too hot, anything higher than 40 is unpleasant for the human body - as tom and laurians burning foot sooles still remind them. well, fortunately every now and then a wave mixes with this water and gives a great pleasant temperature.
now how do you get the waves and the hot water in the right place? you guessed it right. digging holes and canals. guess who were digging the holes? (laurian will put in a picture)

ps tom visited white island. yet another, but really THE other working vulcano. on the way there he was pointed out - yet more - dolphins but these were traveling at speed that the pilot had never seen before. (laurian will show the pictures) and the - privatly owned! - island/vulcano was all scary: steam, boiling mud pools and a bubbling crater lake that moved up 20 meters in level in one year. another 8 and it will overflow. last eruption was in july 2000.

pps hot water beach was in the afternoon, laurian wrote an article about the morning trip. non-dutchies, good luck practicing. it's well written dutch:
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Cathedral Cove. Dat is geen Nieuw Zeelands voor een Kerk Koor oid maar een strand op het schiereiland Coromandel waar je alleen te voet of te boot heen kan. Wij zouden lopen, vanaf de camping staat er anderhalf uur voor maar meestal lijken die tijden meer te gelden voor iemand die op krukken het parcours aflegt. Nou had Tom wel een flinke handicap: Allardje in de draagzak voorop en Mette in de rugzak achterop. Ik had nog wel (heel even) geprotesteerd dat ik Allard wel kon dragen maar Tom zei dat het makkelijk ging. En dat was ook zo: bergopwaarts kon ik hem nauwelijks bijhouden! Tom had veel aanspraak, vooral van ouderen die zich blijkbaar nog herinnerden hoe het was om ergens te komen met kinderen. Ze riepen Tom van alles toe: 'wow, carrying a double load', 'that's a good father!' en 'I thought I had it tough'. Na een krap uurtje waren we er; een prachtig wit strand met uitzicht op fantastisch mooie eilandjes. Wat een paradijs! Wat het nou met een kerk te maken had? Los van de doorgesleten rots waarvan het plafond op een kathedraal leek, vond ik het bijna een spirituele ervaring om eerst in glashelder water te zwemmen en me vervolgens af te spoelen onder een (zoet)waterval uit de rotsen op het strand.




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