Recently in April '24

April is now in the past, albeit with some consequences for the future. In comparison with previous months, it wasn’t very eventful and that is maybe a consequence of how much I read this month. I didn’t really have a lot of time for other things. Let’s take a look.

🍄 Life

In the life department, there’s not a lot of things. A few weeks ago my partner and I went for a very nice bike trip, which prompted this small post I wrote about biking. In the meanwhile, he unfortunately broke his ankle, so I don’t think we’ll be doing nice long bike trips in the next few weeks, and maybe months.

Since last Friday, my parents have been visiting. They came on time for 👑 Koningsdag (King’s Day), which was last Saturday. It was nice to finally experience how the whole city transforms itself into a massive flea market on this day. I think last year I wasn’t in The Netherlands and the previous years, there was the pandemic.

My parents and I have visited a few places, including Den Bosch, de Keukenhof and also Maastricht. I’m happy I’ve communicated with everyone else I needed to in Dutch, whether it was in restaurants, shops, or somewhere else. Sometimes when my partner is with me, there’s this assurance that there’s someone else that understands it, but now it’s always been me, and it’s been fine!

📚 Reading

As I said in the beginning, I’ve probably read too much in April. I read all the books from Harry Potter, from the Goblet of Fire to the Deathly Hallows. That was 4 (four!) entire books in Dutch. In. A. Single. Month. I think I entered a bit of a addicted phase because I just wanted to read more and more.

🍿 Entertainment

On the entertainment category there are also quite a few things. When it comes to movies, I watched Kung Fu Panda 4 in the cinema and it was very nice. Before this, I had to watch 2 and 3 because I hadn’t watched those yet. I also want to highlight Wish, the new - for me - Disney movie.

We’ve also watched La Chimera, which was in so many languages at the same time that made it sometimes be hard to follow. Since it was in The Netherlands, it had Dutch subtitles, but sometimes I could understand words from Italian, and there were also parts in Portuguese and English. All this combined was… challenging.

In the series department, we watched the first season of Shōgun, where the Portuguese characters spoke English, but saying that it was Portuguese. Extremely confusing. They were literally saying they were speaking Portuguese while speaking English. In the meanwhile, the Japanese could just speak Japanese. I’m sure there’s more than enough Portuguese actors that could’ve filled these roles.

Another series that we’ve watched was 3 Body Problem. It was very nice. I will put it in the category of Dark, 1899 or Bodies. I just hope it doesn’t get canceled like some others.

Looking forward for March. There are some news I want to share with you, but I will do that in due course! Enjoy the sun, which - at least here - has started to shine more often!