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Delft Mama of the week: Fenia

It’s a sunny Friday morning when I park my bike in front of the tall, red EWI building at the TU Delft. She greets me by the entrance with a big smile on her face and an energetic spring in her step. She has been working as a post-doctoral software engineering researcher for about three years at the TU Delft. She knows an incredible list of languages: Greek, English, some Dutch, Java, C, C#, Scala, VB.net, PHP, ASP, Javascript and SQL. After this alphabetic exercise it doesn’t come as a surprise that she’s also one of the webmasters of Delft MaMa. And today she is our mom of the week, Fenia.

Help Delft MaMa help to keep our community as strong as always

“When I first set foot in Delft, second thing after visiting the real state agency to sign the contract for our apartment in the Market square, was visiting the midwifery practice.
Right there, pinned on the wall, among all the other leaflets in a language back then illegible for me, I found THE one in English. It was shining brighter than the others. Maybe because it was written in English? Maybe because it read: “Your community in Delft” and I so much needed a “community in Delft”? Whatever the reason, I was very grateful to find such welcoming and inviting piece of paper with a purple teddy on the front page.
Three years have passed since this initial experience, but I still treasure this moment.
After almost two years of involvement with Delft MaMa, I want nothing else for all the newcomers in town to come across one of the leaflets of our institution and make their hearts jump with joy. They, like us back in the day, deserve to be and feel truly welcomed, because this is the very reason why founder Lucie Cunningham created this community 9 years ago.
To me there is nothing as rewarding as helping back.”
Read More »Help Delft MaMa help to keep our community as strong as always

Lola’s Bedroom Tour

Hello MaMa’s! I am thrilled to be sharing some inspiration with you today. As an interior stylist, my own home is naturally my style playground and my little girl’s bedroom is no exception. Over the summer we completed her room and I shared the results over on my blog Avenue Lifestyle. For those of you looking for ideas for your own little ones’ rooms, I sincerely hope you find some here today. Let’s peek inside!Read More »Lola’s Bedroom Tour

The tao of running

One foot in front of the other. My thighs are burning a bit, my breathing is regular. My whole body feels like in some kind of a trance. I keep on going and I feel good. It seems there comes no end to this Indian summer, the colors are amazing, the sun is soft. I look ahead to see which turn I will take in Delftse Hout, and without much thinking I just follow my internal compass. Leaves, branches and acorns are cracking under the soles of my running shoes. I take another deep breath and I brace myself. Another 10 minutes to go. I can do this.

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Delft Mama of the week: Shadi

Having lived in Delft only for a few months makes our mom of the week, Shadi, one of our newest members. She’s a mother of two boys: Parsa who is 12 and a 6-year-old Samia. Funnily enough, having been a part of an expat family ever since he was only a few months old makes the youngest member of the family also the most experienced.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Shadi

How to film your child(ren)’s birthday and have an after movie ready the same evening

Tips & Tricks

Here are some quick tips in case you have your child(ren)’s birthday coming up, and you’d like to have a small memory of it. Maybe you want to share it with family far away, or simply for yourself to remember. You can film with practically anything: a phone, a digital compact, a DSLR, the Red Epic – you name it, just be prepared to shoot to edit 😉

Don’t worry, with a smartphone you are ready in a ‘mum’ of time! (pun well intended!)Read More »How to film your child(ren)’s birthday and have an after movie ready the same evening

Delft Mama of the week: Oriana

After the fall of the Berlin wall at the brink of her teenage years, Oriana and her parents moved to the Netherlands. Things weren’t changing in their native land of Romania as much as they had hoped and the family decided to look to the west for future. Before settling in Delft Oriana moved around the country from Drenthe to Limburg and from Nijmegen to Amsterdam. Now Oriana lives in the center with her husband Wim and their 12-year-old daughter Maud.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Oriana

Bicycles and traffic for the newly arrived

It’s the time of the year a lot of people working in sync with the academic school year have just found themselves relocated in the Netherlands. A new wave of people arrives every summer and face similar challenges every autumn after the sparkling, upsetting, amazing period of settling in. One of the things that fascinates and often intimidates most newbies in the Netherlands is the bicycle culture and the unique traffic in general.

I have met a number of newly arrived parents in the last couple of months. They have been equally curious about many things, but especially about things to do with traffic. Can you keep your foreign driver’s license and if so, for how long? How different is it cycling between the cars than on a sidewalk? Where do you get your bike and more importantly how do you lock and store it? What are the general traffic rules?

colorful-bike

You can always decorate your bike to make it easier to recognize when you need to spot it in a sea of bicycles.

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Delft Botanical Garden

Thanks to the inspiration via a photo shared on the Delft MaMa Facebook group, our group of 3 mamas and 7 little girls spent the afternoon at the Delft Botanical Garden last Saturday and highly recommend it.

Not far from the city centre, this hidden gem is situated on the corner of Julianalaan and Mijnbouwstraat, next to the Science Centre.

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Delft Mama of the week: Maya

Ten years ago our mom of the week, Maya, met her Dutch husband Erwin. Now they are parents of a six-year-old Naama and Boaz who just turned four. Maya grew up in Israel, studied and did the obligatory military service there before moving abroad. She was familiar with the Netherlands before meeting her husband, but never thought she’d be living in Holland – but as faith would often have it, it’s exactly where she ended up. Just like most expats, being far from extended family has taught Maya other ways of having a safety net around her, and she feels Delft MaMa is now her family, too. “For me Delft MaMa is one of the strongest attraction points of Delft. For all of us who don’t have a family here, this group of wonderful people is it”, Maya declares.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Maya

“Zuinig zijn” and other Dutch traits

Dutch traits

Many of you have younger children. Being a mom of a just turned 12 year old, it’s another story in the book of parenthood. That is not only because my now officially teenager is getting sometimes fussy and hormonal, but also because you start again seeing your life and surrounding through the eyes and comments of such a teenager. Kids these age not only see and analyse a lot, but they also verbalize their findings very well. Well, at least mine is. And they act also upon their findings, feelings and situations. Trying to find their way through and bled in. And sometimes the way they express themselves puts things into cultural perspectives that you were not very aware off until you have heard them said by your own child.Read More »“Zuinig zijn” and other Dutch traits