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.