Hi! Welcome back to another full weekly diary. Last week was a bit short due to my holiday. In these weekly diaries I try to share my journey towards a sustainable lifestyle with positive impact. The past week I returned from my holiday, made my last exam for school and brought a lot of stuff to the thrift shop! Want to read along?
Thursday
Today my family and I went back home from our holiday on Ameland. And even though it takes 5 hours, I love it! Traveling by car is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love staring out the window and seeing the landscape change. I also love traveling by train but I usually see the same places because I mostly travel to Deventer by train. Today we even passed Ommen, a place where I used to go on holiday when I was really young, at the Beerze Bulten (a camping). It’s a walhalla for kids which I can really recommend. I didn’t feel done with the holiday yet. I could have stayed much longer! But tomorrow I have school again. Once back home I went to the gym and worked on a presentation I have tomorrow.
Friday
The last official day of school. If I didn’t have a resit I would be free after today and that sucks. At least we failed with 30 people (it’s a group project) and so I’m not alone in this. The resit will come later, today I had a presentation. It went very well and so it was time to celebrate. I went to Het Rutbeek in Enschede (it’s a lake) with friends since it’s 30 degrees Celsius. I took my own lunch with me and saved a lot of waste this way. Once back home I watched some episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale again. I am addicted to it but I have to wait for a new episode each week now. Maybe I should start watching something else too. With the friend group we decided to go out to eat sushi spontaneously at Blue Sakura. Sushi is my favorite food. I told the staff that I eat vegan but they couldn’t tell me which dishes were vegan. Last time I was there they could and so this is very strange. Some things tasted differently and so I think this time I didn’t eat 100% vegan. I think I should visit another restaurant next time. It sucks being ignored like this. After the sushi we also sat in a bar for a while. This a great start of the (almost) holiday haha.
Saturday
I am free from work again today because I’m going to Giethoorn with friends! It’s a touristic city in the Netherlands and we had never been there. It was a great day. We rented a boat (like everybody does), swam, laughed and enjoyed the day. We luckily had great weather. I can recommend Giethoorn for a day out in The Netherlands but is very busy because it is extremely touristic. I brought my own lunch again and I prevented a lot of waste this way. Eventually I did eat some chips that we bought with the friend group. Not waste free but I can’t resist it. After the trip we decided to go eat at MacDonalds. I had the vegan McVeggie and some sweet potato fries. I usually get that at MacDonalds since it’s vegan and plastic free. I then take the cardboard home with me to recycle because MacDonalds doesn’t recycle (another thing that sucks at MacDonalds. Anyway, it was an amazing day!
Sunday
This was a very quiet day. When I woke up I decided to go to the gym for a class of Barbell Strength. It was rough, my muscles hurt afterwards. For dinner we ate at a family member. They ordered Chinese but those companies never serve anything vegan (it’s Dutch-Chinese basically). I was sent out to eat get some vegan food myself. I didn’t want any waste but that’s nearly impossible when you’re not prepared. I decided to buy some fries at the snackbar. I thought that if I only ordered fries they would serve it in paper. But no, I got served plastic with paper. The staff member also wanted to put a plastic bag around that but I did manage to refuse that bag. At the snackbar where I usually go they serve fries in paper and so this is stupid. I also had to wait very long. Anyway, at night I watched The Imitation Game. Friends had recommended it to me. I thought it was a very good movie! A story about the Second World War but I never knew about this. I would definitely recommend it. Today I also finished the Aleppo soap bar I bought a while back. I used it as shampoo but I want to try the water-only method soon again. The Aleppo soap cost me 5,95 euros and lasted me 5 months. Pretty okay but it’s not plastic free and so I’m looking for alternatives.
Monday
Today I got up and went to the gym. I started the day with a good class of yoga. I had made a to-do list for afterwards and I was busy with that all day. One of the things I wanted to do was bring some stuff to a secondhand shop. A lot of things that I don’t need anymore and that feels good. You can see what I got rid of on the pictures below. It’s ridiculous how many sunglasses I had … For the clothing: if the secondhand shop doesn’t sell the clothes they will be recycled. At night when I was done with my to-do list I started a new series: Thirteen Reasons Why. I liked it from the first episode.
Tuesday
Whenever I wake up and am free from school, I check the schedule from the gym for fun group classes. I like starting the day this way. Today there was nothing fun to do and so I’m skipping the gym. I have other things to do. I did some groceries at the market in Enschede. I bought mushrooms, beans, leek and cauliflower, all from the Netherlands. It was not organic because the organic stand is only there on Saturdays. Today I did doubt myself. I could also go to the organic supermarket in Enschede, Ekoplaza. There they have organic and local food. However, it is not a small entrepreneur, it’s a big concern. It’s time we have a real farmers market in Enschede. There will be a local sunday market as they call it soon but I don’t think that’s for food. I also went to the Albert Heijn for some mayonnaise. They now have these check-outs where you can do everything yourself. I though it would be nice but you always get a receipt if you use those. If you go to the check-out where there is a cashier sitting you can choose if you want one. I’ll do that next time because receipts always go to landfill. I also went to the library to look for some magazines and relax a little. I don’t buy magazines because I think they’re a waste of paper. But since the library already has them it’s okay. Once back home someone came to pick up a speaker which I had sold on Marktplaats (an online platform used to sell and buy secondhand stuff). Another item less I own! For dinner I made some risotto for myself. It’s my favorite food besides sushi. You can find the recipe here.
Wednesday
Today was a very quiet day, not too exciting. I was up quite early because I went to bed at 10PM yesterday. And since I was up quite early I went to the gym. I did a class of shape, it’s my favorite. Then I worked from noon till 8PM. I’ve been free a lot the past couple of weeks and so I can use the hours.
Yours sincerely,
Romee