France!

The upside of the Dutch football team getting kicked out of the WorldCup pretty soon is that now I get the chance to watch the football matches as an impartial viewer. Watched France-Portugal this night, good match!

OK Computer

Spent night at girlfriend's place repairing her computer. Note to self:Next time girlfriend asks:"Can't you install Ubuntu on my pc?" Reply:"Yes! Of course!" Instead of:"You probably want to install that besides windows, at least for the first part.

The second answer may be the safe one, but you're really not fond of doing the:"Install Windows"-part, not even when girlfriend has already done most of it.

Meet Thingo and Baba

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Got my hair cut before I ended up at home, taking photos of thingo (the purple doll that girlfriend made for me during a DIY-kick) and Baba, possibly the first love of my life. In all honesty, this is the second Baba which my mum made after she promised me to make a new sweater for the old Baba, the old one resides somewhere at mum and dad's place. I slept with this doll and his predecessor during at least the first 12 years of my life.

Metropolis

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Spent half the afternoon walking around the Metropolis festival, looking at bands all alone. And then the other half doing more or less the same with Nicktor. It being a terribly sunny day this was enjoyable even with Nicktor ;-)

Picked up girlfriend and Annemarie at night. She hasn't grown any tentacles or extra limbs during the week she was on holiday. She is however pretty tanned.

Bicycle Repairman

Biked to Ridderker because my bike was falling apart. Hang in there, I'll start making sense soon... The spokes of my rear wheel are a bit on the thin side so they keep breaking. Now my dad had some rear wheels lying around with better spokes and he's got a lot more tools than I have.

Spent 3 hours changing the wheels (some parts wouldn't fit, some parts had to be swapped, etc. etc.). Fortunately one of my father's colleagues was visiting and the both of them spent their afternoon shouting useless tips at me with big smiles on their faces. Bastards!

At night played golf in Arjan's backyard. Found out that golf is a daytime sport.

Typical

Out for dinner with Haidar and Arthur (2 colleagues) in the Hague. Showed up a bit early and found myself near the "Zuiderpark" in the Hague. This is a park I only visited during the Parkpop festivals and it looks a lot larger without the 300.000 people in it :-) Already almost no signs left of last week's festival.

Sunny days are back gain.

Lamp
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Sat on balcony, drank wine and read a book. Weather is really nice at the moment. Me like!

Skate around the world

Went rollerskating in the evening, took a wrong turn, kind of got lost. Eventually found the way back and realised that "de Esch" is a pretty cool neighbourhood. Should put it on the:"May move there sometime"-list. Still that won't happen for at least the next 5 years.

Chatted with Crissy till late. (Or at least late if you have to wake up at 6:45 the next morning)

Sunny days are back again.

Ate pizza, rode bicycle, enjoyed. Wondered how McR's watch ended up under a stack of dirty underwear.

Baptism

Filled one of my 1/3 bottle of wine wine-glasses, put it down next to my mouse and then managed to spill all of it, while hitting both a wall as well as the power extension chord. May now need to re-paint wall.

Parkpop till you drop

Decided with McR and Nicktor that the weather alert wouldn't hurt us and that we should be able to survie a little tropical storm while on a free festival. So took the train to Parkpop and actually watched bands for a change. (It was raining so we couldn't lay down on the grass).

Really impressed by Babylon Circus and Infadels. All go out and see.

At night I watched football but let's not go there.

Moving...

Helped Annemarie move in the afternoon. Moving a student is great, finished in no time at all. I dread the next wave of people moving, if McR ever gets round to buying a house we'll have a lot more to carry.

Afterwards did some shopping and somehow managed to decide that I needed to only buy stuff starting with a 'K' in the supermarket. (Girlfriend asked me for dinner with cheese, (Kaas in dutch, which sounds like k's). Girlfriend amazed at my determination.

Rainier's party at night. Cool place. Nice to see Arnold again! Rainier drunk.

Weekend again!

Girlfriend's father visited Rotterdam to take a look at my new place. Girlfriend finished thesis. I missed the final in the Worldcup lingerie because of this. (For the foreigners, one of our tv-channels has got girls in their bra's and panties taking penalty kicks during half time, they suck at football but nobody's complaining ).

A fun night. Still... can anybody tell me who won ?? ;-)

Yay!

Had my 16 year old cousin Bo over for the evening, had food, ice cream, played airhockey and basically behaved like a 16 year old boy all night. Yep, nothing out of the ordinary :-)

New balls please

Watched football with Sabrina, Nictor and McR. A pretty dull match but still nice to have them all over.

Yep, me

Found out what I had been doing wrong yesterday morning. Apparently I had to hold my plastic card in front of the sign saying:"Hold plastic card here". For some reason yesterday morning I had decided that this sign meant:"Drive 3 meters, then hold plastic card to the structure with the microphone. It ain't easy being me.

Girlfriend at night. Still not wearing glasses (she ordered glasses which are supposed to show up somewhere over the next couple of days)

Dumb? Me?

Managed to fail to work out how to open the gate in Eindhoven with my plastic door-card. Had to park quite a walk away because of this. Booh! Hiss!

Found http://watchmyloss.blogspot.com a pretty inspirational website. Wonder how this one will work out over the next couple of months.

Father's day

Did some shopping in the afternoon, bought some shirts and that popped by parents' place for father's day and barbecue.

Big tits, big tits, bye!

I know, today's post and the title don' t have anything to do with eachother at all, it's just a quote that came back from my time in Sydney.

Spent the day at Trailerpop, which while not having any connection to trailer-parks definitely could have. Dusty and not a piece of grass to sit on. Still a fun day out.

Fly like an eagle

Spent the whole afternoon on the beach, kiting with colleagues. Recommended!

Watched footbal at the beach afterwards.

Both McR and girlfriend stormed in today. Had Chinese takeaway for dinner and played airhockey.

Huppie Huppie Huppie

Apparently my cousin Bo graduated from highschool. Spent evening at her place celebrating.

Sunny!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Still sunny weather in Holland. Me like. Unfortunately girlfriend no like. Had food and watched footbal on tv. Took loads of picures of girlfriend.

Summer in the City

Started work at a project in Eindhoven, while it's 110 kms away from home it's a lot easier to do than the 80 kms Amsterdam-wards I did until the end of January.

Biked through town in the evening, took a look at the Volvo Ocean race-boats that are currently docked in Rotterdam (they're a lot smaller than I'd expected them to be) and biked past plenty of other things. I really love this summer-thing!

Every day I love your hairy breasts

Cleanup day. Mopped the floor threw away loads of bottles and cleaned out the paper bin. Watched football in the afternoon and a film at night.

Housewarming

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

An action filled day. The day started weird, when my phone rang and McR told me:"Hi, I'm your personal agenda, in an hour and 15 minutes, you're supposed to be at home, I need to drop something off". This something turned out to be a pretty large pack which I needed to stow away in my cellar.

Then I managed to buy a table and two chairs for on my balcony. (Yep, I'm getting /that old/). We can now sit and enjoy breakfast and dinner on my little balcony.

Then I skated around Rotterdam for a bit (the weather is brilliant) before the housewarming preparations started. Actually, girlfriend had been making loads of food while I skated around Rotterdam (I know, shame on me... )

And then the housewarming started (all pictures can be found on my flickr-page)... fortunately loads of people showed up, Nicktor was mixing cocktails, until I eventually got to find out that the large cardboard package contained an airhockey table and that my "God only knows"-room needed to be transformed into an airhockey room. Brilliant! :-)

People played airhockey all night, drank Nicktor's cocktails and Rainier passed out near the end of the night (apparently 6 tequila's and other drinks do that to people). Left Rainier a bucket and a note to tell him where he was and went bed-wards my self. All in all a fun night :-)

Change of colour

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

For those of you who know my mum, she's decided that after 20+ years of dyeing her hair she's going back to her natural colour again. Seeing as this natural colour is currently white this takes quite a while.

This week mum apparently un-coloured her hair and now looks all set for the world cup football. (Don't worry, apparently she managed to get it a bit more blonde with another de-colouring session)

Did shopping for tomorrow's housewarming.

Rode my bicycle. Eventually got back home again. Fun!

Aunt

Had dinner at parents' place with my aunt Ria. Failed to make photos so no pretty picture to go with it. Still fun.

Bicycle

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Rode my bicycle around town in the evening. Took some photos, which you can find in my randomsnaps-section.

All comes to an end...

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

And so did our long weekend in Paris. As you can see in the picture, our tent looks a bit wonky. I blame this on Kaz (whose tent this actually is). Apparently the last time she used it, she managed to lose half the tent-pegs while at the same time the bent the other half pretty badly. Girlfriend and I were both pretty glad that we didn't get any rain.

Managed to do the drive back home a lot quicker than the drive to Versailles. Unfortunately failed to make it home on 1 tank of diesel (I only get free fuel within the Netherlands), so I had to spend 10 euros to make it over the Dutch border :-)

Spent the evening watching tv and testing out my Fatboy.

Paris

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Went to Paris, walked around for quite a bit, not really planning on doing or seeing anything. This means that after visiting Paris twice, I still need to actually "do" both the Eiffeltower as well as the Louvre. Hmmm...


Plenty of parks, plenty of sun, nice!

Did many sausage related things in the evening. (Chorizo, what else?)

She salutes!!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Finally, after a year and a half, all the training I've put into girlfriend is starting to pay off. As you can see in the photo, she now salutes me when it's needed. I wonder what else I can make her do :-)

Woke up at a reasonable time and set out to explore the Versailles castle. (For those wanting to see all the photo's I took during our Versaille trip, check out my Flickr-page) The moment we walked into the castle square, we spotted a pretty large queue and a sign saying:"Wait from here is 90 minutes". Fortunately we were bright enough to go and check what everybody was waiting for, the reply:"Well... if you want a day pass, just walk over to the coach museum, nobody goes there". And owners of a day-pass could skip all the other queues as well. Now that's 20 euro's well spent :-)

Did loads of castelly-stuff before eventually walking back home again and eating.

Versailles, part 1.

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

I know, it's not the picture that should go with a Versailles-trip. But I still needed to show you all a shot of my back after Cuba. While on the boat trip, I quickly slapped some sunblock on my shoulders and then managed to burn the rest of my back. Apparently the sunblock did it's work :-)

Day consisted of a 5 hour drive Paris-wards, followed by at least an hour and a half being stuck on the Périphérique. Note to self:"Arriving at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon is not your brightest idea ever". Then mis understanding sattelite navigation and being forced to drive 3/4 around Paris instead of just 1/4 probably isn't exactly bright either.

Fortunately found a camping before we even started thinking of looking for one (the Versailles camping is really pretty great, a short walk away from both the station as well as the castle, it's one of the better campings I've stayed on in the past couple of years. Okay, festival campings aren't that hard to beat and nature campings in Australia are pretty easy to beat in the facility-department. But it did beat many Italian campings hands down :-)

Lots of Baguettes and cheese at night.

Fatboy! Yay!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Two things happened to me today, digital tv, which is still having some problems playing nice with my internet connection, and a Fatboy suddenly showed up in my livingroom.

Seeing as digital tv is basically just tv, only a tad sharper, I'll focus on the Fatboy, which is *Huge* (It looks a lot larger than in this picture) But at the same time it's the most comfortable thing I've ever sat in. And all thanks to mum and dad, who decided that they wanted to give me one. *Yay mum and dad*

Had a homeowners-meeting in the evening. Managed not to get elected into any committees.

Birthday girl...

My aunt's birthday. Fun with family was mainly themed about a screaming match between my sister, my uncle and me about why my aunt and uncle had our Bert and Ernie LP's stacked besides their couch. (They've been lost for the past 15 years) Most puzzled look was by my aunt

Back to normal

... and today was a normal workday again. Failed almost completely to do jetlag (except for feeling a tad sleepy in the afternoon). Still plenty of chat going on in the office about our holiday :-)

Back home

Slept for most of the plane-ride before arriving back at home and finding out that my parents had been working their behinds off at my place again. A window sill appeared out of nothing, a painting appeared I've now got 4 extra doormats and probably hundreds of other small things I'm just forgetting at the moment. *yay parents!*

After a bit of sleep, buying a concert ticket for the Lowlands festival this summer (yay! I'm going) and replying loads of e-mail, I spent the remainder of the night watching tv till 1 before I passed out in bed (there was an interesting progam on, I didn't dare to switch it off :-)

Queue

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

One of the downsides of free company holidays is that most companies don't like having all their staff stuck in foreign countries for weeks and weeks (actually, they were already really generous with the whole week) so today we're flying back.

Or actually, today we spend first doing origami with money for our room-maid (who had folded us a nice towel-swan), then sitting on a bus for hours and hours (Havana again), then queueing, queueing and more queueing before finally taking off homewards.

Proper Cuba

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Woke up early, drove to Havana (which turned out to be a 2+ hour drive) and spent a pretty large part of the day exploring the city. Guess I could live there for a couple of months. This would require me to become somewhat more heat resistant though, this would also require me to find a way to scare off all the street salesmen :-)

After loads of walking, girlfriend decided heat really wasn't her thing and we drove back home in 3- hours (wrong turn somewhere ) Strangely enough we had cocktails at night before going to bed :-)

Cars, cacti and Cardenas

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Decided to spend far too much money on renting a car and drive around for a couple of days (well, exactly two, because two days from now we'll be flying out of Cuba again). Sadly enough most really cool sites are a pretty far drive away from Varadero but tomorrow we'll make it to Havana and today we spent driving around exploring Varadero and popping by Cardenas.

Cardenas turned out to be pretty dirty and poor one of those times where you feel you're really out of place, instead of "just one of those tourist people". Back in Varadero we managed to do the cactus-walk, where we learnt both very interesting details about cacti and also that the cactus walk was pretty crappy. Still a pretty cool 500 year old cactus at the end of the walk.

Also visited a cave with plenty of bats before eventually making it back to the resort.

Exploring Varadero

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Didn't really have much planned for the day so we ended up exploring the premises of the resort we were staying in (large, swimming pools with bars) and walk into Varadero.

After finally seeing some of Cuba other than water or bedroom, the first thing that struck us as interesting were the Dutch buses riding around everywhere, even with Dutch city-names still showing on the signs. While girlfriend got mightily excited when she saw a bus displayin Almere (her home city), I'm still somewhat puzzled by the busses showing the:"Not in service"-signs, while transporting people :-)

After a very lengthy walk, we realised that Cuba is hot, humid and that we were sweating pretty badly. So took a Coco-taxi back resort-wards and after food and plenty of cocktails, I ended back in bed again.

Did I mention yet that all the other Cuba-photos reside over at my photo site??

Boat trip

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

What better way to start your holiday than a day long catamaran trip along Cuba's coast? Can't think of one either. Did the whole boat-thing for most of the day, with stops for swimming with dolphins, snorkeling and obviously food. Found out that while they aren't near, girlfriend is trying to take a firm stand on dolphins, she softens up quite a bit once they're near.

For those at home trying to get a cheap "swimming with dolphins"-experience:"Put on your rubber boots, sit in the bath-tub and then close your eyes and stroke your boots". Yes, dolphins have a pretty rubbery feel to them :-) Btw, make sure that you lock the door, your family/roommate/boyfriend/girlfriend my think you're a bit weird for sitting in the bathtub, stroking your rubber boots :-)

Eventually got overtaken by a thunderstorm and managed to get soaked in the 20 meter sprint (swim??) to the bus.

Big party at night, which due to the rain couldn't be held on the beach. Bummer! Still had a lot of fun in a silly club, where one of my colleagues actually took over the DJ booth. Found out the downside about the hectic travel schedule when eventually tried to find my way back to the hotel. Seeing as I hadn't yet been able to do any exploring of the surroundings, I was completely clueless about how to get back home from the club. After first finding myself standing on the beach, wondering:"Where on earth am I??", eventually I did manage to find back my bedroom.

Planes, trains and queues

After taking the train into Schiphol, checking in, waiting for quite a bit and then almost being stampeded by loads of colleagues trying to board the plane, we were on our way to Cuba. Main observation during the plane-trip: girlfriend is the most impatiant person I've ever sat beside in a plane. I may have to consider performing a B.A. Baracus on her next time we're flying.

Then after picking clearly the wrong queue at the Cuba customs and after a 1.5 hour wait, we were finally properly on Cuban soil. The wait could have been worse, apparently a colleague had the same 1.5 hour wait a couple of days earlier, only to see his queue changed in a VIP only queue once he made it to the end.

Busride, hotel, dinner, cocktail and then bed.

Holiday!

Holiday!
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

The last day of work before tomorrow girlfriend and I take off for Cuba. Took it fairly easy (a quick trip to the Hague, after which I worked from home for the rest of the day).

Got my hair cut in the evening and am now all set for Cuba. Will be back next Tuesday!

The invasion of the mother snatchers

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Worke up feeling lightly vague but nothing too bad, spent most of the morning playing with my Playstation (something which I found McR doing when I eventually woke up), all great fun. Then Nicktor called and for some reason made me throw up. Seriously, he called, I suddenly felt ill and threw up in my toiled while Nicktor was listening on the other end. Called back later to check if this was now my standard reaction to having Nicktor on the phone but fortunately no.

Eventually exchanged McR for girlfriend's mums (no more throwing up, fortunately), who popped in to admire my new place and to give me plants. (The total plant count has now gone up with 200%) Eventually had Mexican food for dinner *yay!*

Holiday!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

After Thursday's certification, I spent the day walking through Rotterdam, looking at stuff without really buying anything. Girlfriend hates doing this but it's actually one of my favourite pastimes. Eventually did buy two books to read on the plane to Cuba (T.C. Boyle's Drop City and Jared Diamond's collapse) before ending back at my place.

At night visited Sabrina's birthday party. Because McR kind of forgot about this happening and not being able to take the last train back home again, I ended up with McR sleeping on my floor. Also managed to get soaked by the rain and probably drank too much *hic!*

Film

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

A silly start of the day, after brushing my teeth and opening the tap, I suddenly realised that I had seen a note telling me there wouldn't be any water this morning due to maintenance. This left me with a mouth full of toothpaste looking for water everywhere (found some in my Senseo eventually)

In the evning Shiwa visited by because we still needed to take eachother out to the cinema for our birthdays. Saw:"The lucky number Slevin". Very cool film. Also ended up eating chicken from "the Kip Gallery". Definitely the best chicken in town. Had loads of fun.

Fully Certified

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Apparently I now know the contents of these binders by heart. Together they measure around a meter in information but today I finished the last certification of the 2 I needed to do . Fortunately I passed (80% score) because I really don't feel like doing any more studying for this summer. Combined with the uselessness of the questions, the whole exercise just feels pointless.

But hey, apparently I rule! It really feels like it's finally holiday-time again!

Yay!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Apologies for the bad photo-quality, it was a bit hard to find a more optimal angle. Still, as you can see, it's now upright!

Girlfriend, Help!

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Originally uploaded by selmerv.

If you're having trouble telling, it's called Expedit, it's made by IKEA, my sister helped me get it (she had a stationwagon with her, from work) IKEA tells you that you need two people to put it together. They're wrong. Being cooler than IKEA thinks I am, made my penis grow with at least two inches, while progressing with the assembly.

And then a problem occured... I needed to get it upright (the bookcase, not my penis), it's 90 kgs (once again, the bookcase) Apparently I can't do this by myself. So now I've been using my hallway to get from my livingroom to my kitchen (glad we broke through the kitchen wall). Now tomorrow I'll have to beg girlfriend to help me get it upright (hopefully the bookcase, penis optional)

For those wondering, my penis is half an inch smaller than usual now.

Sunset at my place

Sunset at my place
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Me with the sun in my back
Originally uploaded by selmerv.

Another work-week has started, only 8 days left before girlfriend and I fly to Cuba, only 3 days left till it's certification time. So I'm trying to do as much studying as possible. (unless I get distracted by sunsets, obviously )

Now can somebody tell me why Flickr can set subjects to my blog-posts and why I can't?

New couch

New couch

Yes, I should clean up before taking photos of my place but for those interested... This is a photo of my new couch in its new place. Yes, it's huge! :-)

Played with my camera and my washing machine in the afternoon.

Celebrated Mother's day at parents' place in the evening, took more pictures. Still need to figure out how to easily blog multiple pics.

Duisburg

Drove Duisburg-wards, with a car full of camping gear and was surprised once again by how accurate satellite navigation is. Arrived a bit on the early side, so did a bit of walking, then waited a bit in front of a closed bar before eventually teaming up up with girlfriend's friend Jennie and her boyfriend. If you noticed the camping gear in the back then you probably also realised that this was supposed to be a short camping-trip. Unfortunately the weather sucked so badly that we decided:"Screw the camping, we'll drive back home." Still had plenty of fun.

Girlfriend


Originally uploaded by selmerv.

New camera

Kenny

With plenty of holidays up ahead, I ended up buying a camera (Powershot A530 + 512 MB of memory + plenty of accessories for those interested) Plenty of interesting functions like the:"Black and white except for 1 colour"-one. Shown here

Wedding in the evening, failed to take photos.

Spent the whole week studying in the evening and working in the daytime. Made an attempt at giving a course on wednesday and did pretty well (apart from technical problems).

The studying got made harder by blistering heat for most of the week. Only gave in once when McR kept pestering me to come out and have a beer with him. (I'm not coming, I'm not coming, I'm not coming. Okay, where are you??)

Got sent some old photos of my grandfather in Indonesia and my mum + siblings in the 1940's. The bald guy with the glasses is my grandfather, try working from there :-)

After going to bed at 3:30 am this morning, we woke up at 9 because Karlijn had decided that I needed to go and check out a couch in Den Helder (thanks, sis). For the foreigners among you:"Den Helder is a 1.5 hour drive away from my place" Fortunately sis was right about the couch."

On the way back home, girlfriend bought me a tv-cabinet. At night we all had drinks in "De Oude Haven". Apparently it's summer again :-)

Wedding-party day. All ended up on a boat, partied, probably the same disclaimer here as on the wedding-day (both picture as well as description wise). Parties on boats are fun! (Nightly drives back from Almere get old quick though)

And today was the big day where girlfriend's mums got married. Drove to Almere (for a change), saw both of them get married. Follow girlfriend's blog to see photos (which will probably show up over the next couple of days).

In the evening went out for dinner to celebrate. For details about the wedding also follow girlfriend's blog, I'm a bloke, I'm not too good in having opinions on dresses.

Spent a whole afternoon preparing for tomorrow's wedding. Actually, I didn't really. Still, there was a wedding tomorrow, I must at least have done some mental preparation

Visisted Bianca in Den Bosch (she's studying there), together with Nicktor. Had pancakes for dinner, hit some pubs and then Nicktor decided that he was old and tired Didn't go to bed before discovering some German-ness on her laptop. (For example more David Hasselhoff songs than I even knew he had recorded

For those who failed to notice: I took pictures of my place

Helped out at Marlies' new place. Managed to paint loads of stuff.

Queens-day. Failed to do any of the usual things and ended up at a Goa-trance party at night. Brilliant fun! Managed to set a date for the 2 week roadtrip I'm apparently taking with McR and Nicktor. The only thing we now know is that apparently we'll be ending at the Lowlands festival.

Parents' birthday at night. Failed to give my father his birthday present because it got lost in the mail. There may still be hope of getting a new one.

Visited a client in the day time, he appeared to be happy with what I've been doing lately. *yay!* Found it to be great weather at night, and got to study instead of enjoy the weather. Fortunately I should be able to finish everything tomorrow!

Studying, studying, studying. Certification apparently takes a lot of your time.

Worked in Rotterdam probably studied at night.

Biked to parent's place, got hair cut, noticed that trying to keep a steady 25 km/h and headwind don't necessarily match well. Sweated a lot because of this. Got beer recipe from girlfriend. Note to self:"Make beer"

With girlfriend doubting my mental health in public, I'm a lot more conscious of my public image and I'm trying to appear more sane from now on. Almost failed when I stepped into the shower, wearing my pyjamas, but with a bit of luck girlfriend missed that one. Then she was taking a shower at the time. Still there is a possibility that she failed to notice, right??

My father's birthday, because of both him and me being busy doing exciting other things, I didn't even get to pop by.

For me these exciting things consisted of an Arinso paintball event, together with Cindy and loads of colleagues. Spent plenty of time finding out that there were two paintball tracks in the park where we got lost (yes, while using my sat-nav). But eventually we did arrive at the right place, played several paintball games and found out that Cindy's got GI-Jane blood in her. Scary!

The fun suddenly ended when I somehow ended up wearing a rabbit suit, followed by 40 colleagues. I must have set a new record on the 100m sprint.

At night Shiwa's birthday, where due to Nicktor's cocktails, I now know more about the masturbation techniques my friends prefer than I ever wanted to know. Note to self: Don't be sober at birthday parties, it makes you remember stuff you'd rather forget.

Did Friday-stuff with girlfriend. Can't really recall doing anything that should be mentioned here.

Was supposed to get my hair cut but failed miserably. Well... this wasn't my fault, my hairdresser cancelled our appointment. Read some magazines at parents' place instead and cuddled the cat.

Spent the remainder of the evening dancing through my living-room with headphones on my head, while listening to Guns n'Roses. Notes to self:

1. Don't
2. At least buy curtains so that you can close them while dancing to Guns n'Roses
3. Deny everything
   

An Arinso meeting in Utrecht. Apparenly we're doing great, apparently we're still going to Cuba and it's always great fun to chat with all the colleagues you haven't seen in a while. Great fun!

Rode my bike for a while. Definitely have to do this more often, fun!

After brunch in Almere and a visit to "Den Briel", the highlight of our day probably occured when we sat in front of the washing machine, trying to spot "the yellow sweater" for more than 30 minutes.

A plenty of fun and travel-day, followed by food at parents' place.

Studied all day, then watched a film at night.

Don't have a clue about what I did last thursday. Pretty sure that I went for a walk on Friday with girlfriend.

Watched l'Auberge Espagnole at night, probably required viewing for anybody who's ever spent a couple of months living abroad. Very recognisable.

Had another one of the far too regular IKEA-trips, this time to buy loads of curtains for in my house. Failed somewhat, but still managed to buy a bedroom curtain. This means that I can now sleep naked without somebody with a telescope in the appartment complex opposite me staring at me. (I bet there's one of those in that building)

Had Cindy pop by at night and made her food, she keeps texting me so I suspect she lives to tell the story.

Speaking of cooking, I've always been terribly at doing the dishes and now I have a confession to make, which probably shows that I'm growing into a boring materialistic old fart, but... I'm in love with my dishwasher.

It's definitely the invention since the robosuck 2000 vacuum-pump. Which I don't have too much experience with but still, it's one of the things every grown up man dreams of owning. Instead of slaving for an hour to clean all my dishes. (I tend to drop into this pattern of doing the dishes when there's nothing clean to be found anymore), I now just push the start-button before going to bed. The same actually goes for my dryer (I'm not too fond of hanging clothes to dry either). Now all I need is a machine to do my work for me (without my employer knowing about it) and my life should be perfect

Actually had my first outdoors-drink of the year today in "De Oude Haven", together with girlfriend. This while walking to the video store, past the marathon (which I once again failed to run).

Watched "Nobody Knows" at night, nice film, though a bit slow at times.

Still had power, had parents pop by to pick up loads of their stuff and to assist me in hanging up some lamps and doing some other little things. At night went to the Consul for some drinks. McR managed to confuse the bartender by asking for a "Consul Special".

Reaction: First the bartender spins around, reads the whole drinks-menu, then asks:"WTF is a Consul special". McR:"I don't care, surprise me". Still went to bed fairly early.

Started off the day calling the ENECO (water, gas electricity) company to make sure that they wouldn't disconnect me. Got into the interesting debate whether or not I had 2 water/electricity/gas meters. I was pretty much convinced that I only had one of each, ENECO-lady was pretty sure I had two. In the end she claimed that it was my fault for living on 2 house numbers and that I had to contact the city council to settle that.

City council then gave me the phone number people responsible for housenumbers in Rotterdam (Apparently we have those) , until 11:30 I got their answering machine, asking me to please call back between 8am and noon (???) and then I finally got somebody who told me that I'd need to get a building license, etc.

At this point the feeling that people might be steering me in the wrong direction crept up on me so I decided to make my problem somebody else's problem, I called the WBR (woningbedrijf Rotterdam, the people who sold me my place). They said:"This all sounds a bit improbable, we have other people living in units with shared water/electricity/gas and they never have any problems, you probably should go back to ENECO (Gaaah!)

Once again gave ENECO a call and after some more fighting, ENECO lady actually told me that it had all been their mistake. Woohoo. Still... too bad that I had to spend an hour and a half on the phone with numerous people before finding this out.

Had some people over at night for a:"We need to watch the DVD's Lorraine sent me"-session. (Johnny Safran vs. God). Funny.

Managed to both buy and lay the flooring for in my hall. Am now a happy camper. Only 99999 other things that still need finishing.

Did also find a letter to the previous inhabitant that they had dropped by to disconnect him from gas and electricity and that if he doesn't pay his energy bill before tomorrow, they'll disconnect him. Sucker! Errrm... Wait a second, Hey that means they'll disconnect me too! Eeep! Cursed loudly and will probably get to do a whole lot more cursing in the morning while trying to contact the proper people.

Girlfriend and me off to Almere for some birthdays. Eventually drove back home.

All kitchen appliances now more or less work, the stove is working, the oven works, the dishwasher works and even the dryer stopped leaking. Tried combining as many appliances as possible while making girlfriend dinner (anybody who knows how to cook using a dryer, send me an e-mail, it was the missing apliance)

Dinner at parents' place, followed by me buying some more bits and pieces at IKEA, followed by me bumping into my parents doing more work at my new place. At 8:45 my upstairs neighbour knocked on my door to complain that she couldn't hear her movie. Instead of "well boohoo!", my dad actually stopped drilling. Interesting.

A whole day spent "living". Being somewhat more awake, this meant me doing various things around the house, while girlfriend sat on the couch and read a book, besides a short trip to the old place to pick up some bits and pieces left behind.

And today we moved everything else... loads of people out to move not too many things so everything was moved within a reasonable timespace. Obviously then loads of things had to be screwed together, etc. and that took us the remainder of the day but at least girlfriend and I managed to spend the evening "living". Have to say living consisted of nothing more than sitting on a couch because we were both dead tired. Still.. I've now moved!

Moved all the heavy things with McR, Nicktor, my dad and my aunt's van. Found out that washing machines are kind of heavy. Still... now we'll only have light things to move tomorrow :-)

The parental unit has spent the past week making preparing the new place for me and they've done a great job at it. All floors are now in, all the holes in walls have been filled and many other things have been fixed as well... Yay! Parents!

A company-meeting, followed by drinks, followed by us taking off to a bar, eventually leaded to me running up and down my staircase 20 times because I realised when I got home that I still needed to move all carpets outside for them to be picked up in the morning. Not something you want to do at 1 am, I can assure you :-)

Had girlfriend over in the evening and spent most of that evening removing carpetting from my place and packing things. never thought that I could have so much stuff to fit into boxes ;-)

Still not feeling great in the morning but dragged myself to class anyways. Started feeling better and better through the day and had enough energy to start tearing up my old place after I got home.

I'm now living in a fish-bowl because I took down most of my curtains (except for the bedroom), hoping they'd fit a window somewhere at my new place. This turned out not to be the case when I eventually dropped them off there. Also made the mistake of taking over the case of beer on my balcony. Now WTF do I drink after a hard evening of work???

Also Landlady wants me to remove all carpetting before I move out so I tried doing this with all the furniture still in place by moving it all around. After a while I got the bright idea that this would probably work out better with girlfriend's assistance tomorow morning.

As for the new place, dad's got the week off and mum and him are working full time to whip the place into shape. 90% of the flooring is in, lots more painting got done, all give me a big *yay parents!* And stop the sarcastic giggling Lorraine, we can't all afford to actually pay the people decorating our house :-)

Woke up at 10:30, walked to my computer and wondered for about 20 minutes how it could take me an hour and 10 minutes to get there. Eventually I realised that I had missed all news on daylight saving time. Attempted to do some painting, then decided that I still felt ill. Still took apart some stuff in my old place before I passed out again.

Eventually girfriend's motherly instincts pulled her towards my place, where she did her best at Florence Nightingaling me back into shape. (Which is not a seedy comment, readers, shame!!!) Once again passed out at 9:30.

The keyword to the past couple of days?? House, I fear. It's almost starting to look like a house now. The hole in my wall now looks nice again, and when I walked in on Friday, I found out that dad had already had made plenty of progress on my new floor. And on Saturday he already managed to fix the livingroom, while Martin (Kaz' boyfriend) put an extra lock in my door (note to self:"Give girlfriend the other key") and Kaz and I fought to think of silly little jobs that needed doing.

Then made plans for at least hitting a pub on Saturday night but passed out ill instead around 10.

More time spent behind computer in underwear. Eventually moved to the office to pick up my new laptop (with wireless, *yay!*).

In the evening bought 500 kgs worth of flooring and stacked most of it in the back of Arjan's car (my boot appeared to be just a tad to smart to be of much use. Got to walk hundreds of stairs. Tiring!