Had an end-of-project night out with all the Arinsonians who either work or have worked at my current project. Big fun night out, which started with dinner in Boom Chicago (a comedy club), which then continued in an Irish pub, followed by a club called "Surprise", followed by another pub, which I only hazily recall.

Needless to say it was all great fun. May have outdone myself in showing girlfriend my affection by sending her loads of text-messages to tell her that I still loved her. (Or to tell her the music was shit or whatever else popped up in my mind). Started having my suspicions on what kind of a working day tomorrow would be when after drunkenly fighting the alarm-clock function in my phone for a while, it told me that the time I had selected to wake up would appear 3 hours and 30 minutes later. yikes!

Any news on the leaking roof? Yeah right. Well, it's not leaking but that's not because somebody fixed it, that's because all the water is now floating through my livingroom. Actually it's not that bad, apparently there wasn't that much water to leak into my room this time. Guess I'll give the owner a call again tomorrow, guess they'll tell me again I'm an idiot for expecting somebody to actually come and look at my leaking roof straight away. *Sigh* Some things get predictable soon.

Had another day off because of the moving-thingo, which I had intended to use to at least get my parking permit. And after yesterdays leak also as a:"Get leak fixed"-day. Failed miserably at both attempts.

I can't get a parking permit until I've become a Rotterdam citizen (see last week's story on that one). Don't worry, the 5 minute walk to my car won't kill me, still it would have been nice to get this one off my list. As for the leak in the roof:"They're working on contacting a plumber", which appears to be a long and daunting task in a big city such as Rotterdam. Fortunately the leaking stopped again or I would have had to spend my nights listening to dripping water.

After breakfast, I noticed that my roof was leaking again. Gaah! Fortunately I noticed this before the few books I've already moved got wet and before my stereo managed to short-circuit. Still not too great. Buckets in your livingroom are never a great idea. And of course this means I get to call my rental company again. Why???

At night had easter-dinner at my parents place with my aunt, uncle, sister and her boyfriend. Found out that the reason I couldn't get my internet connection to work a yesterday and the day before was that my network cable sucked balls.

More work to be done on the house, for me this meant unpacking some more stuff, for my dad this meant building a huge desk from the bed I apparently was born and created in. The result:"It looks awesome and my house almost appears to be fit for living.

Girlfriend visited at night and I even managed to make her dinner. I'm getting good at this house-thing.

The big day. Woke up without feeling too hungover, which made me feel happy, managed to get 2 thirds of my moving crew at the right place at the right time without complaining about hangovers and managed to pack all my stuff into 3 cars and a little open trailer. Then decided to text the last third of my crew, the one who had drunkenly claimed the night before that he'd be late because he wanted to have sunday morning sex on Saturday because Nicktor had made him miss Sunday morning sex last week.

McR replied promptly claiming that he was not having sunday morning sex on a Saturday but that he just overslept and that if we were willing to pick him up he'd try to be of some help for the rest of the day. Fortunately he did help and together with Martijn and Nicktor we managed to move my stuff in pretty darn quick. The results, I've now moved completely and if the Rotterdam city council doesn't decide that I'll have to move back out in 6 weeks, I'll spend some time living here in happiness.

At night went out for dinner with Maaike's dad, her father, her sister and Walter before retiring to my own bedroom, where Martijn managed to fit in a double bed with less millimeters to spare on both sides.

Eeek! Apparently I' m moving tomorrow! Spent a big part of the day packing my stuff and buying a double bed. Okay, the bed-buying thing only took 30 minutes and the packing consisted of putting all my clothes in bin-bags and then realised all my other personal belongings would fit in 3 cardboard boxes. (With exception for a couple of larger items)

And because with a bit of luck it'll be the last night I spend at my parent's place without me having to ask permission first, I decided to "celebrate" this in "de Tijd" in Dordrecht with Belgian beers, McR and Nicktor. Possibly not the brightest idea ever to have 2 thirds of your moving crew drink strong Belgian beer till 3 in the morning, the night before you move. Opted for the somewhat lighter beers instead, and sadly enough spend the night playing a "Dungeons and Dragons" boardgame. Sad because earlier I had told McR not to bring in his laptop because that would make us look like geeks. (I fear that Dungeons and Dragons had the same effect for us)

Thought it was terribly funny that when I drunk-texted Lorraine in Siberia, she replied with:"Argh, hangover, alcohol sucks". This worked as a wake-up call for me to switch to lighter beers so that my move to Rotterdam would be a bit smoother. Thanks for that, lorraine!!!

A more or less standard day of work, followed by some packing at home in the evening. Spent the night at girlfriend's place.

A continuation of the:"Trying become a Rotterdam citizen"-saga. Today I set my goals a little less ambitious than actually becoming a full blown citizen. Instead I went for the "permit to become a citizen" and have to say that I'm pretty surprised that Rotterdam actually still gets new citizens.

I walked into the city hall (well, the district office), all info on wages I had earned in the past year (3 accumulated payslips for my 2 jobs and the 2 months of being unemployd), 3 payslips for this year, a copy of a bank-receipt showing that my current wage is actually being deposited in my bank-account, a form from my rental company showing that they don't have any problem with me living there and another form *gaaah!*

The result:"The lady behind the counter took all the forms from me, and told me that within a couple of weeks (6 according to the website) I'll get a letter with a phone-number in it. I can then call the phone number and make an appointment for somebody to pop by and see whether I'm not secretly 15 asylum seekers or whether my place is unfit to live in. So within 8 weeks I'm actually allowed to officially move in. (Did I say I can get kicked out if I do move in earlier). Needless to say that I'm moving in this weekend. Oh well, everything probably will work out eventually, right?

Dinner in Amsterdam with ING colleagues. Definitely need to work on my sense of direction. Somehow was dead-tired at night and almost fell asleep behind the steering wheel.

Cleaning up the house. Nothing too exciting.

More painting in the new house. Apparently the new paint looks near white when it? dry. Oh well... White should do.

Spent the afternoon painting my bedroom, unfortunately my first choice of paint looked horrible on my walls (far too dark) so I had to do a quick run to the shops to get a somewhat more useful color. Unfortunately it's now pretty close to white.

Karlijn popped by because she wanted to borrow my car but she fucked up in a major way when her car overheated on the way to my place and she took off the radiator cap to "release some of the steam". A huge steam-column and second degree burns to Karlijn were the result and rendered Karlijn incapable of driving any car. This meant I got to keep my car :-)

At night went to Fabiennes farewell party. Big fun.

Spent the evening reading a book at girlfriend's place, nothing too exciting, I fear.

Spent most of the evening trying to get the house to look the way it did when parents left. Surprising how bad a house can get when you barely spend any time in it. I fear I need to practise housekeeping a lot more. More or less succeeded eventually and passed out in bed.

Went to the cinema with girlfriend to see Ray. Pretty cool, even though the ending wasn't really the greatest ever. Home late.

A night trying to attach two of Myra's computers to the network (something which miserably failed a couple of months ago), failed again but now rediscovered why. Faulty network cables. Yes, I know, I should have found that one out earlier but I was sworn both cables were working and a double failure seemed unlikely.

Tried getting to work at 8 am by leaving at 6:25. Somehow failed miserably and arrived at 9.

Back home I spent my night reading books and cuddling the cat. (As I had been ordered to). Cat badly scratched my hand.

Didn't really do anything terribly exciting, besides reading books, I fear.

A day spent at IKEA, where I managed to buy myself loads of furniture within the space of 20 minutes. Spent a big part of the afternoon putting it together with a little help from my friends. McR proved himself to be a true master in putting together IKEA furniture. (We'll forget about the little dent in my nightstand)

Went out for Sushi and cinema (Constantine), followed by drinks and a quick dash to Cambrinus for more drinks with girlfriend, Annemarie, Nicktor and McR. To bed pretty early.

Bright idea of the day came when I found out a way to dodge my self-imposed "only spend money on useful stuff"-curfew. A playstation 2 doubles as a dvd-player. I still need a dvd-player. Woohoo!!!

Highlight of the day:"Girlfriend made me cookies!!!" This is a good development, she had been complaining about boredom so I suggested knitting and cookies to see if I could cash in on her boredom. Major success!!!

Watched Alice in Glamourland at night.

Had a pretty anticlimactic morning. Good, but still fairly anticlimactic. I paid the housing people a visit and the woman I had spoken to for the past 2 days wasn' t there, her replacement called through the number of a plumber 30 minutes after I had called and he took the forms from me because he said he didn' t recognise them (a bit in doubt whether this is a good thing from a pro but at least he said he' d do something about them. Fingers crossed.

Oh, even better, after a quick call with the plumber, he popped by at 2 in the afternoon. Note to self:"Parents are useful".

Watched Shaolin Soccer in the evening at girlfriend's place , which in its dubbed over version wasn't the greatest I've ever seen.

Gave house rental company a call to remind them that my roof was still leaking. Got asked:"Do you seriously believe that when you call us about something like that, something will happen the same day?" Apparently "errrm... yes" was the wrong answer here. Me pointing out:"Well, my roof is leaking, the livingroom floor is slowly flooding, my carpet is soaked, somehow I expected this to get some priority. " didn't really help either. Obviously somebody would contact me later in the day, right?? Yeah right! To be continued tomorrow morning, when I pay them a visit.

This because they also still need to sign some papers for me, among which my application for a "living in a ghetto"-permit, the permit they failed to mention I needed. Also the permit that says in big letters "the owner is aware that it's forbidden to rent this place to somebody without a ghetto permit. (Which strangely enough they don't appear to be calling "ghetto permit") Oh and obviously I'll have to complain about my roof still leaking and I' ll have to inform about where I can claim any damages (a soggy carpet, a wet ceiling, wallpaper coming loose, drowning neighbours downstairs). Something is telling me that tomorrow could once again be interesting. All wish me luck.

Gave house rental-company a call to tell them that my roof was leaking. Was told they'd hand the message and that somebody would contacted me. Obviously this didn't happen.

Drove back home in half the time it took us to get to our hotel, had lunch at my parent's place, after which visited IKEA for a quick session, (where I managed to buy a table and some small stuff).

Arrived at my new appartment to find out that the roof appears to be leaking. And leaking pretty badly, I may have to add, a pretty large part of my carpet was soaked. Fortunately the downstairs neighbour hasn't been affected Obviously I can only contact the rental people between 9 and 12 so girlfriend and I strategically placed some buckets and bin-bags on the floor and left the place again. To be continued tomorrow. Booh!

Fortunately I for some reason moved my couch away from the spot where it's now leaking a couple of days ago.

Lastly, Crissy opened a blog a couple of days ago, I probably should plug her.

Let there be sun! After waking up girlfriend and I found sunny weather outside, which we used for a roadtrip to Ieper, where we visited the in flanders fields-museum on the first world war. All pretty impressive. Drove quite a bit more, doing loads of sightseeing along the way.

At night found ourselves to be what looked like the only people in the whole hotel. Freaky.

A day spent walking through Brugge. Somehow managed to pay 8 euros for a piece of applepie and 18 euros for the applepie, a tea and a coffee, after which girlfriend and I cursed loudly switched our tourist trap alert-thingo back on again. We managed to climb the Belfort, saw a museum and did loads of walking around (in a still snow covered Brugge)

Had Japanese food at night. Brilliant day, somewhat tiring though. Also discovered "Brugs tripel" (a beer), which turns out to be somewhat stronger than expected. *hic*

The first day of my long weekend away with girlfriend. Because I was told we wouldn't leave till after noon, I decided to register myself as a new inhabitant in Rotterdam first. Managed to fail miserably both at first and second attempt. At the first attempt I managed to forget my rental contract (durrr...) The second attempt got me into the queue at city hall... it even got me waiting there for an hour until it was my turn (woohoo!!!) and then I got told that a. My form was missing a stamp, that the house-owner should have put there (just a signature wasn't enough). *gaaaah!*

Oh and even better, apparently I live in the ghetto, nowadays in Rotterdam you need a permit for living in a ghetto. Okay, it's not that bad, but the Rotterdam city-council has appointed certain areas as "protected", to prevent the neighbourhoods from getting too bad, they demand a certain standard of living from their inhabitants. As in, you need to earn more than minimum wage. Yes, I do earn more than minimum wage but the rental company needs to fill out half the form. Gave them a quick call:"Guys, I'm on my way, it's quarter to twelve, can you please fill out this form for me when I arrive at 5 past 12?" Reply:"Nope, we close at 12" *Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! again" This meanst that it cost me two hours of my life to find out there's more waiting to do.

Then picked up girlfriend, who directed me and my car Belgium-wards. The objective of our weekend-trip turned out to be "Brugge" or "Bruges" as the French and English appear to be calling it. Please forgive me for sticking to the Flemish/Dutch spelling. This still for the weekend away girlfriend had given me as a birthday present. After a 2 hour trip, we arrived at Brugge, but unfortunately not on the road we were supposed to be on, according to the instructions girlfriend had printed out on the internet. Okay, now Brugge is a pretty small city, but as we found out trying to get to a 1x1 km map, which only has got one street on it can be somewhat of a challenge. Now try doing this when it starts snowing, with your car skidding at every corner. The time to beat:"About an hour and a half after first passing through the Brugge city gates, we made it to our hotel". (Which by the way was located in a Brugge suburb, 2 km away from Brugge)

Due to shitloads of snow, girlfriend and I did a quick trek into suburb to fetch a meal and opted to stay in at night.

Somehow I had only booked 2 days in a hotel this week. Obviously day 3 turns out to be the day where at least 30 centimeters of snow falls out of the air. Almost had to physically dig car out of the snow (well, only had to remove a 30 centimeter thick layer of snow from my car) and had one of the more adventurous rides back home.

Spent the evening working at my new place, with girlfriend staring at me awestruck.

Visited a hardware store at night with Haidar and had fastfood afterwards. Watched dogtown and z-boys in the evening. All go out and see it!