Eeeek!

Yes, I'm still alive, yes I know that I managed to fail to write for almost 2 months. I've apparently been too busy chasing kittens (more pics to be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/selmer). They're currently working on severe demolition of the house. But after 2 months they appear to be almost used to living here.

Besides that I've obviously been working, I'm using trains more and more to get to work seeing as autumn traffic jams are not the ones you want to be found dead in. And tomorrow my mum is getting herself a new knee. Yes, loads of other things must have happened in the past couple of weeks but if seeing as I failed to write about them, I already managed to forget. Booh! Will try to be a better boy from now on.

The kittens have landed

More news on the kitten front. Last Monday girlfriend and I picked up our new kittens. After spending most of the evening looking at kittens sleeping in their travel-box we eventually spotted some movement. Kissa (Maaike's kitten) even walked halfway across the kitchen before disappearing back into it's travel-cage again. Wodan (mine) didn't move an inch all night.

On Tuesday we both had to work but after returning from work hoping to be greeted by two happy kittens we found out that the thing they currently do best is "hide". Kittens apparently fit behind anything you can think of (behind the washing machine, behind the stove, look at any place in your house which has a behind and you can hide a kitten there).

Personality wise one thing has become clear, there's one kitten that hides and stays silent and the other one hides and shouts "meeeew!" continuously. This turns out to be useful functionality. Because of Wodan's meeeew-function we're able to retrace the position of the kittens most of the time. We hope functionality other than hiding develops sometime soon.

Kittens!

After giving girlfriend a kitten for her birthday, we still needed to pick kittens. (Somehow an 's' crept in to the whole equation) Fortunately Karlijn came up with somebody with kittens and tonight we chose the ones we wanted: Introducing: Kitten one and Kitten two (we're still deciding on names, we believe). Maaike picked the grey one, the red one is supposedly mine. They'll enter our residence in the first week of October.

Note to self...

When girlfriend is out and you decide it's more efficient to place the laundry rack in the kitchen, try remembering this when you try raiding the fridge at 3am. That way you won't nearly wet yourself when you spot a weird shape in the kitchen.

Ooops!

Had the nerve to check what the summer did to my account balance, have to say it could have been friendlier. Then realised there still is a credit card bill coming in containing a washing machine. Might need to get a job on the side and live on water and one minute noodles for a bit.

Fun

Apparently time flies when you're having fun. And if that's the case then ever since coming back from my roadtrip, fun I must have had. In the space of two weeks I saw girlfriend finish uni and get herself a proper job, I somehow managed to hit the Utrecht night-life dressed as a gnome and I managed to get away with giving girlfriend a voucher worth "once castration" for our 3 year anniversary. Oh and yes, I've still got both balls, thanks for asking.

There probably isn't too much to say about girlfriend getting her uni-degree, I fear that I didn't have too much to do with that one besides sit, applaud and give a present at the appropriate time (well, actually a couple of days late but let's forget about that). The same thing with the job-interview, girlfriend did three of them for the one job she really wanted and I basically just kept my fingers crossed that we wouldn't end up being a single income household for the next decade (I heard they never have the money to buy gadgets )

As for the gnome-thing, Ingrid threw a p-party at her place because Karen and some other foreigners were visiting. For the occasion, I decided to dress up as a gnome. Not that the Dutch word for gnome 'kabouter' starts with a g but we've got quite the tradition of gnomes starting with the letter 'p' in .nl. For the foreigners that are interested, there's 'piggelmee', 'pinkeltje', 'paulus' and ofcourse Plop.

The party turned out to be a big success, as did the gnome outfit... until somebody decided that we should all hit the streets and go clubbing, that is. Well... actually, that was a big success as well. If I had known how popular gnomes are with girls, I would have taken to dressing as a gnome for clubbing 15 years earlier. Apparently if they're up for it gnomes really do get all the action. After passing out in Ingrid's bedroom and waking up still dressed as a gnome, the Sunday was spent recovering.

And then last Tuesday girlfriend and I celebrated our third anniversary (eek!) after which on Wednesday it was girlfriend's birthday. For some reason I decided to swap the presents so that they wouldn't make sense to girlfriend anymore, due to which she received a voucher worth '1 castration' for our anniversary. Because of this girlfriend decided that her birthday present would be so horrible that she'd want to castrate me.

After getting her birthday present (a food bowl for the cat that somewhere in the next couple of weeks should be entering our place), she replied:"But this is a really nice gift, why would I want to castrate you for this??" After that I told girlfriend that I was hoping she'd be using the castration on our new kitten. There's still fear that she'll decide to use it against me somewhere in the next couple of months though.

More Holiday!

Just returned from 2 weeks of holidays, half of which was a roadtrip with McR, Nicktor, Karen and a Dutch girl called Ingrid, only Karen had met before. The other half was a meetup with the people mentioned in the previous sentence and lots of Australian people I had met during my days in Perth. Fortunately Ingrid turned out to be a lot of fun, so the first half was a big succes. My Australian friends were still fun, so that was quite successful too.

Obviously all the pics are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/selmer

So what did we do?
day 1: Rotterdam->Den Bosch->Vlotho (Germany)
Picked up Ingrid in Den Bosch, got to meet her mum (who was apparently a bit anxious when her 20 year old daughter shouted out:"Mum, I'm going on a 2 week holiday with 3 random 30 year old guys!") Then drove on Germany-wards. Nicktor almost managed to badly dent my door at the camp-site but fortunately I was paying attention. Found out pretty early in the trip that apparently I did bring my mp3-player but that I forgot to bring the cable to connect it to my stereo. Argh!

First night consisted of card-games, beer, wine and lots of fun.

day 2: Vlotho->Berlin
Woke up to McR and Ingrid going swimming at subzero temperatures. Eventually packed and drove Berlin-wards. Stayed at Ulli's place. Discovered gnome-juice (liquor with a picture of a gnome on it)

Went clubbing in a pretty cheesy club. They did play Ice Ice baby though and there were naked women dancing. May have had a bit too much to drink that night. Then we probably all did.

day 3: Berlin
Picked up Karen at the train-station. Walked through Berlin, had Indian food. Eventually ended up playing cardgames at night.

day 4: More Berlin.
Saw a museum, spent time in a RC-airplane shop, had a really good dinner in an African restaurant. Tried clubbing but somehow failed. Played cardgames instead.

day 5: Czech republic-wards.
Karen kept trying to convince us that driving through Poland was the smart choice. In the end Nicktor put his foot down claiming his car wouldn't be able to make it through the mountains. The hills in the Czech republic already showed us that he might have been right there.

Camped near Terezin and had a really good hunting session in a supermarket.

day 6: Towards lake Balaton.
Nice camp-site at the lake. Good restaurant. Probably a bit touristy. Lots of alcohol and cardgames.

day 7: Lake Balaton
Lazed at the lake, swam a bit, read a bit, walked around a bit. My life is hard.
See yesterday for the night entertainment.

day 8: Lake Balaton->Budapest.
After lazing for most of the day at the lake, McR and Nicktor told us they were bored and wanted to leave. We let them. Somehow managed to find the Budapest apparetment without sat-nav and/or a proper map. Yay Karen! Arriving there we found out we only knew the street name, not the house-number. Looked up phone-number of house-guy on the internet, he was kind enough to drop us another set of keys. Let ourselves in, mooned the camera, drank all the beers in the fridge and then had a big reunion when everybody walked in and shouted:"Weren't you arriving tomorrow?"

Went out for food with the 5 of us, had cocktails (hic!) and came back to a sleeping house. Played cardgames.

day 9: Budapest.
Looked around, saw red bull air-race preparations. This means planes but no people (yay!) and drank beer. (Yay! again) All the girls went to the baths and Ingrid managed to lose her contacts. Till Tuesday (the day Ingrid leaves) McR is nice enough to borrow her his glasses. Seeing as he's only got his prescription sunglasses and his normal glasses this renders him blind at night.

day 10: More Budapest. Walked around with Christy, Sar and Jess. Had a good laugh while looking at the twins taking identical pictures of all the sights.

day 11: Even more Budapest. A national holiday. Spent most of it sitting in a park playing cardgames with Kaz, Ingrid and Mike. Got shouted at by McR when we more or less left him standing in the rain getting wet.

day 12: The day Ingrid took off. Walked around castle hill with Mike and all the girls. Decided to do a self-guide wine tour, where we bumped into McR, who had already been wine-touring for an hour. Tried tasting all the wines and after that things got a bit hazy. Woke up at 10:30pm lying on the couch thinking:"Hmmm... let's get McDonald's" Did just that. Apparently there was chunderage at the wine-tour.

While I was passed out, Maz managed to sit on McR's glasses. So he's still blind at night.

day 13: Felt somewhat hungover (wonder why) Took a boat-trip on the Danube and looked around a bit in the end-village. Still felt somewhat hungover on the way back.

day 14: The last day in Budapest. Spent shopping and doing Mario Kart. Dinner at night. Sadly no big party because many of us had to drive.

day 15: Driving back. Fortunately Kaz had decided not to go to Greece but to come back with us so that we could drop her off in Gent. Stopped for the night near Nurnberg. Lots of beer, card-games, snuff tobacco and kangaroo impersonating Germans might have been all part of the night. Fun!

day 16: Nurnberg to home. Mainly lots of driving and me slagging off Belgians because Kaz thought they might be cute. Eventually made it back home, where I got to cuddle girlfriend. And look at the Polish girl she brought in.

Holiday!

Was far too busy playing with my DS to update the diary, then a copy of "Bit of a Blur" by Alex James showed up and there was even less an excuse to update the diary. Really love the book, now need to find a way to have good looking hair. (Apparently all you need as a bass player is good hair)

In another couple of days my second big holiday of the year should take place. This time it'll be a roadtrip with Nicktor, McR, Karen and a girl only Karen knows called Ingrid. It should be taking us to at least Berlin, Budapest and Vienna and it should be a blast. Willl try to have lots of fun while traveling.

Nintendo!

After last week's budget-chicken, where I told Nicktor that I'd get a Nintendo DS if he'd get one. There's now a new addition to the Selmer and Maaike househ0ld. I'm still trying to work out whether now having a DS means I won or I lost. Our collection of games is still limited to two (which might either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it) but both have received quite a bit of gameplay already.

Mario-kart DS just needs to be played so that hopefully eventually I'll be able to spank Lorraine's behind from one somewhere in the near future, while Mario & Luigi (partners in time) needs to be played because it's the other game in our household and because, while it started off dead boring for the first 3 hours, it's slowly starting to pick up its pace. Yes, there's also Sonic but that one's more a Maaike thing.

Owning a DS also makes for a great excuse to take the train into work. Somehow playing while driving is still not on my skills list. Now can Zelda and the new Lego Star wars please get released?

Still alive

Hi all, got told off by Ellen, Lorraine and girlfriend for considering ending this blog. So... that must mean that I do have readers ;-) I'd better get back into writing interesting stuff soon then. Sadly tonight I'm too busy to write because somehow I ended up buying a Nintendo DS. I blame Lorraine and Nicktor's eager-ness to join in.

Lunch!

Went bookshopping in the morning, then teamed up with Ruben and Wendy for lunch. They managed to make us eat all the things in the "what to eat in Singapore"-booklet, which we failed to cover yesterday.

Eventually left Ruben and Wendy behind and did the night safari in Singapore zoo. Recommended.

Back to Singapore!

Flew back to Singapore, got measurements made for a suit for lots of money (still a whole lot cheaper than at home though) and eventually teamed up with Ruben and Wendy for food, food and food.(Ruben is trying to get us to eat all foods of the "what to eat in Singapore" booklet within 48 hours. We're not complaining ;-) Walked around town for more food, tea, coffee and nice views. Got told off by a police officer for not sitting on a bench but on the handrail behind it.

Also bad news, they changed our flight back home from a 12 hour day stopover to a 14 hour night stopover. Because we already booked a flight with a 12 hour stopover we're not getting a free hotel.

Templed out.

After visiting 3 more temples in the morning, we ran out. No more temples to be seen in Angkor. Our tuctuc-driver advised us to take a boat-ride on the lake, which we did. An interesting boat-ride but for the $20 each the 1 hour trip was probably a bit expensive. The boat-trip only taking us to an overpriced restaurant made it feel even more of a scam. Still.. interesting to see how people live on boats.

More temples

Woke up really early to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Nice. At the same time this meant that we were finished looking at temples around noon. Slept most of the afternoon, then had dinner in Siem Reap. The city center looks like more fun to stay than our place. Still.. for $USD 12 the room is really nice.

Angkor

Day one of visiting temples. Slept in, booked ourself a tuctuc-driver for the next 3 days (USD $60), got access passes made for Angkor ($40 each) and set off to look at lots of temples. Really interesting, really hot and sweaty and every other step 10 childeren will jump you to try and sell you something. (Usually "only 1 dollar") Still definitely worth it.

Crossing Thailand.

Woke up in Bangkok, had a bit of trouble finding the place where we were supposed to be picked up for the next bus (arrived there at 6:50 while we were supposed to be there at 6:30) and spent an hour wondering whether we were still on time. Just as we started to consider whether we should book a place to sleep for the night, we got picked up for another bus which would take us to the Cambodian border.

After getting our visa we were told to follow a Cambodian guy, who'd take us to the other side and who first told us to get lots of Thai Baht out (which I failed to do) and then on the other side told us that we couldn't pay in Thai Baht and that we'd have to change all the Baht to Riel (the Cambodian currency) because all banks would be closed in Siem Reap for the weekend.. Fortunately we had been warned that nobody uses riel for anything so we skipped that part of the scam as well.

After a long, hot wait at the border, we got to spend 7 hours driving the last 150 kms. Eventually made it, booked into the hotel and found out that:"Yes, the non-existing ATMs in Siem Reap do actually hand out US-dollars."

Leaving Chiang Mai

In the evening our Bangkok bound bus would pick us up. Till that time we stocked up on books, fruit and other useful things. I'm now finally the proud owner of "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", Mangosteens and anti-diarrea medicine.

Managed to get picked up by the bus and spent the rest of the night bussing.

Cooking Class

Woke up and did the "chilli club cooking class". Mr. Visutt is still the brilliant teacher I remembered him to be and girlfriend and I got schooled in Thai cooking + food decoration. Still suck at the food decoration, still having trouble finishing all the food. Did survive though and eventually at dinner time set out for a look at the night market. Failed to buy anything useful.

Thailand it is.

Woke up early, crossed the border on a boat and after a little wait at a guesthouse on the Thai-side (why wake up early again?) we made our way to Chiang Mai. I spent quite a bit of time there 4 years ago but apparently most of it was spent drinking beer seeing as I can't remember seeing much of this town.

Walked a bit around town and tried booking a train out of town. Found out that that train would miss the connecting train Cambodia-wards and decided to opt for the hellish 24 hour bus-ride instead. We'll probably regret it later but at least we'll spend an extra day in Chiang Mai, which means we'll be able to do a cooking class there (which I already did 5 years ago but a bit of a brush up won't hurt, I guess.)

Spent most of the evening reading outside. Until girlfriend went to bed and I decided to walk a bit more to see if I could find more recognisable things. Really bad news... on this walk I finally found where all the hookers lived. If only I had known 5 years ago! :-(

The river continues.

Up early again, into the boat and then did basically the same as yesterday. Arrived late in the afternoon, found ourselves a guesthouse, had dinner and passed out.

Floating up the Mekong

Got up fairly early and set off for the boat-station. Here we hopped onto a slowboat, which took us slowly up the river to Pakbeng. Floating slowly upriver means staring out at scenery (mainly trees and bushes with the occasional cow, goat, fisherman and elephant.) Still good fun for the 10 hours it took to get to Pakbeng.

There our bags got dragged off the boat by a friendly local, who offered to carry them to our guesthouse. When I tried tipping him, he reacted offended by the size of the tip and demanded a tip, which was even more than the price of a room for the night. Eventually had to push him out of our bedroom and shut the door on him to get rid of him. Apart from food and a river there's not much to do in Pakbeng. Fortunately sitting in a boat for a whole day makes you sleepy.

Luang Prabang

Walked around Luang Prabang, looked at temples and got soaked in sweat. Looked at some more temples, had dinner and did some shopping at the night market.

Oh, we also managed to book the boat out towards PakBeng and Houayxai (sp?). Over the Mekong. That should take us most of the next two days.

Argh!

Today only a 200 km bus-ride from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang. That can't be too challenging, can it? Actually, our expensive bus turned out to be fully packed with foreigners and legroom was a bit of an issue. Also, apparently it is possible to take more than 6 hours to travel 200 kilometers. (Then there was a mountain in between)

Eventually did make it though, found a guesthouse, had dinner, looked around a bit at night and then passed out in bed.

Floating...

Had break-fast, jumped on a songthaew and got taken 15 kilometers up the road for some caving, some trekking and eventually some tubing back home. The caves were really cool, 1 with a big Buddha shrine, one with really sharp, slippery rocks and one which we swam into floating on inflated car tubes.

After lunch we trekked back to the main road, caught a car back a bit and then jumped into the river to float back to Vang Vieng. Floating on a river is quite relaxing, especially with all the beer-bars with flying foxes surrounding the river. Eventually made an arse off myself falling out of a flying fox and made my way back to Vang Vieng for food and internet.

Another day, another road

After seeing enough of Vientiane, we decided to move on to the next place. 150 kms of travel took about 6 hours. Eventually we made it though, checked into a guesthouse and walked around town (which consists of 2 streets), after which we had dinner in a restaurant showing simpsons-episodes (somehow it seemed a better choice than the place which was showing Friends). Tomorrow we're going trekking caving and tubing.

Vientiane

Spent the day walking through Vientiane, checking out temples, bookshops and other things to do. A nice, small city but also somewhat warm. Had food and beers on the riverside at night.

Another bus, Vientiane this time.

Seeing as Savannaket wasn't the most exciting place ever we took the first bus out in the morning. Actually, we skipped that one, it left at 6:40 but the 8:15 bus did the trick as well and seeing as Vientiane was only 400 kms further up the road, how long can it take?

The answer: Apparently 10 hours. Locals have to get on and off the bus all the time, the bus-driver needs a break every 2 hours, etc. A tuctuc-ride later we found our hotel in Vientiane then had a drink and some food at the river and passed out early.

Savannaket

Got up at 5:30, got in the bus and landed in Savannaket at 4 in the afternoon. This envolved several busses, and while at the first stop they told us:"No, you're not supposed to enter the bus to Savannaket all other tourists just entered", at the Lao border they made us enter that bus after all.

Not much happening in Savannaket, except for a torrential rainstorm for which we had to take shelter under some random person's house. Had dinner, sat outside, walked around for a bit and then went to bed.

Boat trip

Completely forgot to mention the boat-trip we booked on the Perfume river. Got thrown on the back of a motorbike in the morning, got put in a boat and boated up and down the perfume-river while looking at temples and perfume river-life here and there. Probably more exciting than I make it sound here. Managed to bump into Fiona, who was taking the same boat tour.

Probably not as much a surprise as it sounds, seeing as everybody in Vietnam is travelling in one direction. Dinner at night and then to bed early because we're leaving really early tomorrow moring, for Savannaket in Laos.

Yes we've only spent 7 days in Vietnam and we're missing loads so I guess we'll have to go back some day.

Hue

Woke up in the train and jumped out at the Hue train-station after a while. Apparently I'm pretty good at sleeping in trains. Apparently girlfriend had more problems.

Got jumped by 1000 people trying to sell us hotel-rooms, jumped in the back of one of their vans and got rushed to a beautiful hotel-room in Hue. A bit on the expensive side (if one is allowed to call USD $15 a night for a double expensive, thatis) but still nice.

Tried riding bicycles into town in the afternoon. Some oversights here.

1. The sun is shining pretty badly.
2. This makes it pretty fucking (sorry) hot.

Sweated like otters while biking through Hue and walking through the old citadel. Eventually back for dinner at a place where they more or less freaked out at the sight of foreigners:"Had to point at the plate of the people besides us to order" Still nice.

Leaving Hanoi

Spent most of the day getting back to Hanoi, then getting some more US-dollars, showering and eventually at 7pm the overnight train to Hue. Slept really well.

Cat-ba island

Woke up, got boated to Cat-Ba island and then set out to do some "light trekking". This did involve a pretty steep hill, which eventually turned into more of a rock-climb than a trek. Still made it to the top, sweating profusely.

After that checked into our hotel, had lunch and went for a Kayak-trip through the bay of Cat-Ba island. Nice! Got out on the other end of the bay and after some cursing and climbing (it wasn't the easiest climb to get there) all ended up swimming in a nice little salt water lake. May have cut my foot a bit on some rocks but I think I'll live.

At night ended up having some drinks with the tour-people, some ditzy Candian girls and some other people. We all ended up drinking some drinks too many, resulting in me doing 'Ice Ice Baby' during karaoke, before we all ended up in what might have been the quietest club I've ever been in. 2 security guards where guarding the dancefloor but they told us that they wouldn't turn up the music for some reason. Stumbled back to the hotel at midnight only to find out that all the doors were locked. Had to wake up some staff to let me stumble in.

Ha-Long Bay

In the morning a bus picked us up, drove us to Ha-Long city, found out that Vietnamese drivers are somewhat scary and that Vietnamese buses are not the funnest to sit in for long whiles.

Eventually got on a boat and set out into the bay. On board a kiwi-guy (Russell), an Australian girl (Amanda), 2 Irish girls (Fiona and Caroline) 3 Thai People and 4 Vietnamese. The Vietnamese had brought Vietnamese ginseng-moonshine, which proved itself to be extremely potent. Lunch and dinner on the boat and in between we visited a cave and a beach for a swim. In bed extremely early for some reason.

Exploring Hanoi.

Woke up late, had breakfast, booked a tour and explored Hanoi. My observations of yesterday still stand, add to this the insight that neither girlfriend nor me is succeeding at coming to grips with the Hanoi street-pattern. Still... a nice city to walk around in and look at stuff.

At our return Gregor appeared to have disappeared. Didn't find him back again. Good food at night.

Leaving Singapore

...argh! Had to wake up really early to clean up the place, before we all took off. Girlfriend and I had a flight out of Singapore to Hanoi at 4 PM so unfortunately we didn't get to do more stuff with the bride and the groom.

Made it to the airport, flew into Hanoi, got ushered into a cab, told the cab-driver where we wanted to go and got taken to a completely different place because 'our hotel was full'. Decided not to make a scene because the hotel looked nice enough. Possibly except for the huge cockroach in the bathroom, which neither girlfriend nor me dared to remove. So we decided to give it a name (Gregor, after Kafka's Gregor Samsa) and decided that it'd be a pet.

Did some Hanoi exploring at night and found out that it's overcrowded with mopeds, noisy (you're apparently supposed to honk your horn continuously) and that crossing a street takes a whole lot of faith in the moped-drivers-ability to avoid you. Eventually decided it was too hot for walking around and went back to bed.

the Wedding

Today's the big wedding day, at the mansion where all the internationals were staying (yes, there were a lot more of us than me or even Ruben had expected) , we all got put into a bus to have breakfast at the brides' mansion (food is a theme in Singapore). Eventually the groom arrived and all the men had to go out for the teasing of the groom, where they made Ruben do stuff to 'earn' his bride), think of stuff such as singing 'hoofd, schouders, knie en teen' (a dutch song), reading a letter in Chinese and doing other games.

Eventually Ruben earned Wendy, we all moved on to Ruben's place (nice!) for a few quick snaps and a quick tour for the internationals, before we left for 'the Great Shanghai'-restaurant. Table arrangements got Martijn and Roos at our table (made sense) and we got to go through an 8 course meal which also taught us to use chopsticks in more and more surprising ways (probably unintentional, but still....)

After dinner, we went back to our mansion, continued party-preparations, showered and then had a big dinner. I told you that food was a theme(!). After the dinner a big party started and eventually we all passed out in bed again...

Pre-wedding party

Checked out at the hotel, left our stuff inside and explored Chinatown, Little India and some other places in Singapore. Eventually took the tube and a cab to get to the place where we'd be staying for Ruben's wedding.

Found Ruben + family and got put to work straight away. Never thought that cutting ribbons could be so tiring (no aircon because it blew away the ribbons made me sweat all over). Eventually the party-preparations turned into a barbecue for the international guests and we all had meat, drinks and a good time.

Singapore

The last time I was in Singapore, I thought it was far too western and it didnt make much of an impression on me. At least now with me flying from Europe, instead of coming in from Malaysia, Singapore made a whole lot more sense to me. It's still not my favourite city but at least now I noticed that it was cheap where as coming in through Malaysia made me shout out:"Whoa! Expensive!" and at least I now noticed the asian influences.

Dropped off our stuff in Chinatown, went for a walk with girlfriend (got hopelessly lost), had some fruit-juices and dinner and eventually girlfriend went to bed. I realised that I had completely forgotten where we had to be tomorrow and at what time (for Rubens pre-wedding party) so I hopped on the internet, found out, mailed my mum to wish her a happy birthday and then went for a short walk through Chinatown (nice). I could get used to this travelling-thing :-)

CDG sucks!

Decided not to get to the airport too late (Charles de Gaulle airport, that is). I apparently completely forgot to tell you that the reason for us jetting off France-wards was that flying from CDG-airport was a whole lot cheaper than flying from Amsterdam airport straight away (even including train + hotel) Seeing as we had to check out before 10 and seeing as we were flying at 1, we decided to leave straight away, arrived at CDG at 10:30 and found out straight away that our arrival time would be 1, not our leaving time, that one would be 3 pm. Wise lesson for the interested, there's nothing to do at Charles de Gaulle before you go through customs (checkin only started at 1). Not that there's much to do after customs but at least there's some shops there.

Then did a long flight, where I mostly slept, exept for the stopover and girlfriend probably spent the flight poking me to get me to stay awake (at which I failed miserably)

Paris...

Yes, I'm slow on the updates. Fortunately time for adventure has started again and today girlfriend and I jet off Paris-wards for our 4.5 week holiday to Singapore, Vietnam and then God knows where else. We fly back from Singapore so we at least should get back there eventually.

Spent all of today in the Thalys and then walking through Paris for a bit (checked out the Sacre Coeur for a change). Had dinner, did some more walking and eventually went to bed.

Cruisin'

Okay, I should really update far more often but right now there's reason to update. Somehow I managed to become Arinso employee of the month last weekend and I spent all weekend cruising in a BMW Z4 because of it. Even more fun than I had imagined it to be.

And even better, in a week time I'll be on the plane Singapore-wards for a for week holiday. *yay!*

I live!

Yes, I'm still alive but girlfriend left me home alone for a couple of weeks (she's in Finland) and I'm celebrating by playing Resident Evil 4 on my PS2. This means killing zombies/aliens for most of my evening-time and not typing weblogs.

I do miss girlfriend tough, being home alone in a dark house while fighting zombies/aliens often makes me screan like a little girl when something jumps up in front of me. Girlfriend, come back!

Ernie's still alive.

Just when you think that the Ernie kidnappers will keep quiet from now on, a new sign of life occurs. A couple of weeks ago the kidnappers had me stand outside a toy shop for an hour wearing a yellow sweater and carrying a bag containing 139 euro's. Yesterday I received a letter with plenty of photos of me carrying 139 euro's and wearing a yellow sweater. The bastards had set up shop in the restaurant opposite the toy shop and had spent the afternoon taking photos of me. I'm really intrigued now!

Eeek!

After a succesful cocktail party at Nicktor's place yesterday. (note to self: You should have said "no" to that last Long Island Ice Tea) Today I had to drag myself to girlfriend's place to move all her stuff here-wards. McR, Sabrina, Nicktor, Annemarie and Martina popped by to help and now apparently girlfriend is living here. All wish me luck!

Also found out yesterday that Marlies is pregnant.

Arjan saves the day

The part of last weekend I didn't spend moving girlfriends' stuff, I spent pulling electricity cables with Arjan. After 100+ meters of cable chinese food and an RC airplane, power is back again. *Yay Arjan!*

Besides electricity problems, the person who abducted my Ernie doll has been contacting me again. He sent me another e-mail with a photo of Ernie earlier this week and today I found a letter in my mailbox telling me to stand in front of a toy-shop in the R'dam city center wielding a yellow plastic bag and a visible yellow t-shirt (and 139 euro's), tomorrow at 2pm. Wish me luck!

Electricity

Decided to swap the electrician for Arjan by promising him a RC plane if he manages to fix my electricity (at € 25 a plane they're a lot cheaper than electricians). Arjan did some poking, removed a ceiling lamp, removed the cover above it and found out that for some reasons two wires had shorted. Sadly this happened in a place where quite a few wires passed to quite a few power-outlets (read all of the kitchen outlets, a wire to the shower and some other wires to other places in my house. This means a whole lot of rewiring. Guess I'll have to buy Arjan a real plane now.

Still I'm very lucky that Arjan wants to take on the job, having to pay for a "proper electrician" would have been a whole lot more expensive.

Fun fun fun

As you probably already noticed, I switched from writing on a daily basis to writing whenever something interesting happens. Or at least... that was what I was planning on doing. Unfortunately whenever interesting stuff happens, there's no time to write it down.

The past week has been a mix of electricity problems (I'm currently without electricity in the kitchen) girlfriend attempting to move in, work, another fun holiday coming up and cocktails.

The electricity problems are the most annoying, this far it has cost me 100 euros to find out that my dishwasher is actually okay (whenever I switched it on, the breaker-switch would flip and we'd be without electricity). Unfortunately over the weekend the problem worsened a bit due to which when I now try to switch on electricity for the kitchen, I see sparks and then the breaker-switch flips back again. Yes, that shouldn't be the case. Guess we'll have to get an electrician in now, expect more money to be spent.

Girlfriends attempts to move are causing loads of stuff to pop up in my place. I'm now the proud owner of bras, books on feminism and even a couple of Brian Adams-cds. Whenever girlfriend's not around I'm now dancing around in her bra, while singing along to Brian Adams. Still need to think on how to fit in feminism in this ritual. Maybe I should try burning the bra.

The fun holiday will be Budapest in August with Sar, Jess, Kaz and plenty of others, which will be the main reason for the roadtrip Nicktor, McR and I are going to attempt. (Just driving up and down to Budapest sounds a bit silly) Really looking forward to this one.

And last night I started off at Nicktor's place for cocktails with Annemarie, girlfriend, McR and obviously Nicktor. Eventually McR and I took off to Rotown to see Belgian band Montevideo play (had never heard of them before but they sounded cool) Girlfriend appeared somewhat un-sober by the time she stumbled back in.

Slowly girlfriend is starting to move in here. Over the past couple of days books have been appearing in my bookcase that certainly aren't mine. Take for example the DIY-book for the handygirl. And occasionally girlfriend even uses the term:"Our house" when talking about my place. Apparently the deadline is set at the first of April, when all girlfriend's stuff should be in here. Girlfriend will follow a month later. (She's still got a month of Finland to do before returning for our SE-Asia-trip)

Expect lots of decorating my "God only knows"-room stories in this space while girlfriend takes over.

Celebrated McR's birthday yesterday. McR was drunk :-)

Money

Plenty of stuff happening around here (visiting my old neighbour, playing guitar, etc.). The story wich has been intriguing me all day is how the US managed to lose track of $12 billion dollars. How come people lose $12 billion in Iraq and why don't they leave me a million while they're at it?

Having fun

Doing stuff all week didn't leave me much time for writing here, I fear. After going to the cinema on Tuesday, the Blueman Group on Wednesday, dinner with colleagues on Thursday and the Theater on Friday (a birthday present from my sister), I fear I already had my annual dose of cultural stuff :-).

The verdicts: Rock n' Rol never dies (the film). Cool film though probably a tad on the long side. The Blueman Group (finally), generally cool, though there were one or two somewhat cheesy moments, not much to say about a team dinner other than:"Good food!", and the theatre was a play inspired by Lars von Trier's Dogville film. Definitely worth seeing.

Then went out for African food, drinks and clubbing yesterday evening with girlfriend's sister and her boyfriend. Talking about girlfriend, there's been talk about her moving in at the beginning of May. Keep watching this space!

Money!

Woohoo! The power company sent me a note to tell me they owed me 350 euros. I'm a happy camper! I still might be able to afford my own life :-) Don't know how it happens but whenever I think:"Whoa, spent too much!", somebody sends me lots of money. Please keep doing this, people.

Also, could the people who abducted my Ernie please contact me? I'd really like to know how to get him back!

30!

An eventful week this far, turning 30 meant presents, such as lots of clots from my mum, cds from Kaz and even girlfriend moving in from girlfriend.

Yes, I kind of requested the last present and am now somewhere halfway between:"Eeeek!" and "Weehee, I'm getting rich!". Yes, that's the territory where I actually believe it'll be fun to have girlfriend move in. Keep watching this space for more details (at the moment we still need to decide on dates, for example).

Also the week where girlfriend decided that we really needed to book the tickets for Singapore so we did just that. For some reason I doubt that flying from Paris through Sri-lanka to Singapore and taking 18 hours to do so is the fastest option but at least it'll prove to be interesting. Yay, I'm going back to Thailand.

Then yesterday I had my 16 year old cousin over, she dyed my hair, we ate apple-pie and visited a Mac Donald's. Basically the useful stuff.

And lastly I may need a wireless keyboard (or Guitar Hero for the PS2). Trying to prove that I'm not really that old, I discovered. Frets on Fire, which makes you look like an arse jumping up and down while holding your keyboard like it's a guitar. But it's a lot more fun than it should be. What do you recon, should I get guitar hero or a wireless keyboard? Or both?

Shell-shock

I guess that yesterday's paranoia was justified. I was already having suspicions that girlfriend might be up to something, with her acting suspicious all day. Even so suspicious that I made sure to lock my front door before falling asleep again, when she left my place in the afternoon to make sure nobody could barge in while I did my beauty-sleep.

No, I didn't need that one because I'm old I needed that one because Friday night I went to a "battle of the bands"-competition with McR and there may have been beer involved, as well us harassing Michelle by phone at 3am. I may have been somewhat hungover on Saturday morning.

Eventually I woke up again and got a phone call from Annemarie that girlfriend was having a panic attack at her place and that she really needed me because Annemarie couldn't quiet her down. Being the nice boyfriend I am, I thought:"Something smells fishy here", before jumping on my bike and barging in to mentally stabilize girlfriend.

The fishy part being that girlfriend was going to have dinner at Annemarie's place, and because I could think of no way end up at girlfriend's place when starting off at Annemarie's place. Found girlfriend's housemate (who I hadn't met up till now) somewhat shocked while I stormed in torn between:"Don't panic! Everything will be alright" and "they're up to something, don't be surprised by anything", ready to switch from one to the other-mood at the drop of a hat.

Fortunately for me there was no mental breakdown to be spotted but on girlfriend's bed there was a yellow t-shirt with a picture of a large "30" chiseled out in rock and the text:"Selmer pubcrawl 1977-2007". Besides it was a customised VRiSBI bierloop (the annual pubcrawl we participate in) beer-mug with on the back the text:"A McRonald's production". There was a stamp-card with place for 7 stamps of not-mentioned bars, there was an envelope lying on the bed, next to a note welcoming me to my own personal pub crawl and telling me to put on the shirt and open the envelope which I'd need to determine where to go.

Knowing the reply to the question:"How did you use to wake up in the morning" (Your mum wakes you up with the vacuum-cleaner) sent me towards "Het Bolwerk", where I found Remco, Ronald, Nicktor and Lorraine drinking beer and apparently having fun already. Everybody welcomed me, the bartender filled my beer-mug and Lorraine stepped forward as the quiz-master for the night, explaining that there'd be mathematical questions to earn my birthday presents and that there'd be questions on the past 29 years to determine which pub to go to next.

Still being in shock made it hard to straight away know the square-root of 841 (29), which earned me a backpack to carry my presents. The question which was supposed to bring me to the next bar was a hard one. Deciding what my favourite cuddly toy was could bring me in big trouble seeing as the options were 1. A sheep. 2. Baba (my favourite toy for many years) or 3. Girlfriend. Because the girlfriend-answer would get me to the other side of town, I decided that Baba would be the safest answer to go for.

This got me to Pardoen, where girlfriend and Annemarie were waiting for us. Lorraine, who kept trying to freak me out more and more asked me to convert 63,80 guilders to euros (29, I'm spotting a theme here which I failed to pick up last night) and I earned shot-glasses. (Eeek!) Obviously they made me drink a pint of beer.

A question on my girlfriend when I was 10 years old got me to Cambrinus where Martijn, Michelle, Arjan and Roos were waiting for me. Strangely enough there was more beer, I earned myself a beer-game by knowing that the day of my birthday + 96 hours was 29 (How did I miss this theme?) And my name even made the beer special-board, as "Selmer's pulletje" (Selmer's beer-mug)

Knowing that Nicky wouldn't call his dad in the middle of the night got me to the kebab-place, where Shiwa, Cindy and McR were waiting for me. Lots of food and pint of milk further, I was posed with the question which superhero'd climb a wall fastest. (Obviously superman), which got us to Villa Kakelbont.

Here Sabrina and Kevin were waiting for me, strangely enough I drank more beer *hic* and determining Nicktor's age minus one got me an apron with a pretty girl on it. Then knowing how not to lock a moped got me to Grand Cafe de Paris, where threats were issued of making me do karaoke but fortunately these never materialised. Another maths-question (to which the answer must have been 29 but which went missing got me my next present).

This present was a tiny skippyball, which was also my means of transportation to the next pub. There I was posed with the question what the first conversation was about that I heard in the morning of 2003, to this the answer was:"Shoes" and this got me to:"De Dijk". Or actually, it took a bit of effort to get there because I kept falling off the skippyball. (I blame the size, not the beer) In "de Dijk", I drank yet more beer and people started going home.

Ronald, Remco, Marjoleine and Adriaan (even though Marjoleine and Adriaan weren't even present) presented gave me a nice bottle of whisky and the question:"What's the average of all the maths-questions + 1" earned me a pair of old men's indoor shoes. You don't want to know how long it too me to determine the reply to that question, I blame the beer. Wearing the slippers and the skippyball I ended up in "Broodje Snor" with McR and girlfriend.

At this stage (3.5 liters of beer later) I may have been not entirely sober but at least I managed not to spill my spicy chicken baguette all over me. Then I did the 200 meter stumble back home, where I somehow failed to get my key out of the cellar door (this took me at least 5 minutes). Walked back upstairs and passed out in bed.

All I can say is:"Very impressive, guys! Thanks a lot!" I fear that photos will start showing up in the next couple of days.

Oh, one more thing, my friends claim to know nothing about the theft of Ernie. Eeek!

Paranoia

Help! Girlfriend is smiling at me, I'm turning 30 on Thursday and there's still no news about Ernie. People must be up to something but what is it?

Am wondering now whether girlfriend is responsible for the storm that caused the Blue man-group to be cancelled for the second time.

For those in Europe, I guess there will be a big storm on the 31st, beware!

Still a geek!

Had fun all night with parents' old laptop, on which I spent the night attempting to install Linux. Last night I attempted an Ubuntu install (which anyone can do with his/her eyes closed) but it was lacking memory. So tonight I did it the oldschool way, just plain Debian, the lightweight XFCE4 window manager and it's a breeze to work with.

Note to self: Geek out more often!

Hmmmm....

Lorraine's complaining about being labeled "the villain" in my Ernie abduction story. But I'm a bit short on other suspicions. Nicktor was not really moving and the whole letter looks just a bit too neat to be a project done by McR. Maybe in co-operation with Martina then?

Haven't been contacted yet about a time and a place to make the money drop. Am constantly watching my mailbox now. I will catch the bastard!

Had passport photos made because I need a new passport. Because we're not allowed to laugh in passport photos anymore I now look like I'm taking a dump. Arse!

Forensics 101

Just visited my uncle's birthday party where we all contemplated the letter that came in the mail. Pretty quickly we decided that it had to be a girl because boys aren't that neat and tidy at cutting and pasting letters. Secondly we decided that it really needed to be somebody who's got quite a bit of spare time, because of all the searching, cutting and pasting envolved.

I think I know of a person who fits this description. Lorraine, can I have Ernie back? :-)

Turning 30?

Ever since the start of 2007 I've been watching out for weird things happening in my surroundings. With me turning 30 and with the possibility of a surprise party when you least expect it, I've been entering my place shouting:"Hi everybody, surprise!!!", I've been watching my back whenever possible and I even check most of my closets for hidden friends whenever I enter my place. Just the usual precautions for when you expect your friends to be up to something.

Come to think of it, I should probably start bolting down my front door just in case somebody decides that storming into my bedroom early in the morning is something that hasn't been done often enough. (Twice in the past 5 years).

But today (possibly earlier but I don't check my mail in my no.119 mailbox as often as I should) something happened which made me suspect that people are actually planning something for my birthday. As you can see in the images, somebody sent me a blackmail letter, asking me for 139 euros and claiming that they had kidnapped my ernie-figure. (Which indeed is missing). I'm very afraid!

Apparently I still haven't lost my touch for getting things cancelled that I own tickets for. Due to severe storms the Blueman-group show I was supposed to be going to on Thursday got cancelled. Girlfriend not happy, me not happy, booh!

Fortunately I had already been doing cultural stuff on Wednesday at Martina's art-event in Waterfront. Had fun with Lorraine, Sabrina, Nicktor and McR, drank beer. *yay!*

Oh and last night I had McR over, we drank beer, watched jackass and played with my helicopter. *Yay!* Sadly Lorraine decided that she'd rather drink alcohol than come over to my place and Nicktor was in a "I'm not picking up the phone"-phase but well, helicopters make up for a whole lot ;-)

Working for the weekend

Had a company weekend at CenterParcs de Vossemeren (a holiday-village in Belgium). Got to ride a Segway, star in a tv commercial dance at a really cool jungle party and drink loads of beers *hic!*. Oh and somehow I (and 3 others) managed to win an innovation award for our project. *Yay!*

Note to self...

5 cloves of garlic in an omelet is a bit much. Don't kiss people for the next couple of hours.

Happy New Year!

Somehow I completely managed to forget to mention a Malaysian colleague visiting in the previous post. I wonder what I'll forget in this one. 3 days of work, which I had planned on doing with my eyes closed but turned out to be more crisis-filled than expected, then a visit from Karen, my Australian friend, who currently lives in London and a pretty successful NY-eve party.

At the start of it all there was some worry that it might turn out duller than planned but when eventually everybody got together, there was plenty of party for all of us. Possibly even a bit too much party for some of us. Karen decided she couldn't handle Nicktor's cocktails and after midnight girlfriend decided that passing out and throwing up (in random order) would be a nice way to end a party. (Note to self, buy more sheet-covers) All NY-eve photos can be found at my flickr-site.

Massive hangover (for some people) and cleanup for others on monday, a walk through Rotterdam at night with Karen and that already gets us to today, where I dropped off Karen at the ferry to Harwich after a bike-ride through "het Kralingse Bos" and shoe shopping.

Oh and UPC digital tv sucks even more than I thought. I've been trying to get rid of it ever since October and I still haven't succeeded. My current problem:"They promised they'd come and pick up my digital receiver today but they kind of forgot" Argh!