Slept in till late, packed my bag and eventually got dropped off at the bus-stop in front of the train-station, where magically enough buses for the airport left from. Landing, train, subway, home. Boohoo!

Promised myself not to buy anything for the next couple of weeks to win back all the money I spent in Finland an promptly bought "DIG" on the internet. Guess that counts as a massive fail. In my defense:"I've been wanting to see this one ever since I first read about it 2 years ago"

And now my memory for Finish names deserts me. Woke up early(ish) and took the train somewhere, where girlfriend told me the had a castle. She was right! For those handy with google, they had an artillery museum as well. Visited the castle and found out that it probably is one of the best heated castles in all of the world. Walked around the town with the missing name for a while and eventually took the train back home for food and staying in.

Slept in till an irresponsibly late time. Holiday is great! Eventually made our way to Suomenlinna, a fortress 15 minutes off the coast of Helsinki. Also apparently a world heritage site. Had our limbs frozen off for the sake of world heritage for a couple of hours before taking the ferry back.

Got to see the latest Harry Potter at night and was promised a scene, just like Dawn of the dead, only with the zombies replaced by drunk Fins. Was a bit disappointed at this, yes, there were drunk Fins, but nowhere near as many as I had been promised. Apparently not a good night for drunk Fin spotting. Harry Potter was cool though.

Girlfriend is cute, she actually does a little bounce and moves closer to me whenever she introduces me as the boyfriend person. It must be a Finnish thing because I've never seen her do this at home.

Slept in till late and then did another tour of the city, that is, drinks in a bar somewhere up high, followed by lots of sights whose names I can't remember (Finnish doesn't match with my sense of letter-combinations, I fear), followed with me buying a belt and a sweater. Really needed the belt, seeing as I somehow managed to break one on monday by stepping on it, had been living in fear of having my pants drop ever since.

Wine and food at night at girlfriend's place.

Woke up far too early for a day off (6:30 am), took the train to the airport, managed to avoid a strip-search by not reacting to a customs-lady addressing me as if I was a 5 year old and eventually popped up in Helsinki.

There I got jumped by girlfriend, who confided in me that I'd be sleeping with South Korea for the next couple of days. Later I found out that this had to do with the mini UN-conference girlfriend will be taking part in in January. She's South Korea. Guess I'll be having the guilty pleasure of bragging to all my mates that I've slept with all of South Korea now :-)

Did a quick tour of the city at night and had dinner in a somewhat eclectic restaurant (food-wise, that is). Found out that Finland is cold

Stayed at home, packed bag, watched tv, I guess I'm all set for my trip Finland-wards!

Only 2 more days before I take off Helsinki-wards. Spent the evening chatting with girlfriend on what to bring. Had thoughts about packing my bag but decided against it in the end.

Took off Utrecht-wards with Sabrina, McR, Marlies, Nicktor, Bianca and myself to see the Frames play in Utrecht. Found out why navigation systems are brilliant when driving through Utrecht (which is a maze). Eventually had dinner, saw the show (pretty good, even the opening act (Tracy Bonham) was good) and drove back home again.

Out clubbing with Cindy, Shiwa, Janneke and the guys. Managed to club till late, I'm not old yet! Found out that it's just as fast to bike from the city center to my place as it is to take the car. Interesting :-)

Interesting situation at the petrol station, where for some reason they made the guy in front of me pay for my petrol, which caused them to panic slightly when I tried to pay for mine. "But the guy in front of you already paid for that one". Apparenly:"Cool, have a nice weekend" wasn't the proper answer. After waiting for 10 minutes while petrol-station lady was arguing with the Polish guy that was about to leave. Then for some reason she couldn't get the cash-register to accept my company-card to pay for my own petrol. Ended up getting billed for 35 euro's worth of oil instead. Typical.

Bought both a scarf as well as gloves. Now I'm all set for Finland next week. Starting to think more and more about buying a proper bicycle. (As in one that can be used for biking a bit further than the other side of the river without falling apart straight away) Need more cash!

Being one of those people that does 101 different things while chatting on MSN I'm kind of amazed that Skype has become so popular. How on earth do you vacuum the house while skyping??

Cindy lost a bet a couple of weeks ago and she still owed me dinner. Got together to eat said dinner at "de Smaak van Afrika" in Rotterdam. Had a brilliant meal and loads of fun at the same time. Thanx, Cindy! :-)

Spent the night chatting with Crissy. Long time ago that I got round to doing just that. Apparently we still get along. *yay!*. Got rudely disconnected by MSN in the end just when we were about to discuss Crissy's new logo. Now I still don't know whether 50's/early 60's feel was my fault or her intention.

Aaargh! Massive hangover. If I really did drink as much as today's hangover tried to signify then I couldn't even have picked up the phone to call girlfriend. Looked through my medicine cupboard for painkillers and found that the closest thing to a painkiller was a pack of Fisherman's Friends. Aaaargh. Spent most of the day either asleep in bed or half asleep on the couch, watching TMF summerbase (don't ask). Went to bed at 10.

Martina's birthday party. Came, saw, conquered some beers and had fun in between. Left the place with my trusty driver Nicktor and a severe case of the hiccups. Tried calling girlfriend to tell her this and to let her know I was thinking of her, unfortunately she appeared to be believing I was drunk. Obviously I deny this.

Main shock of the night was discovering that McR is even more house-trained than I expected him to be. The main point to prove this:"He switched off the porn when Martina told him to". Yes, that's right, there was porn playing on the tv and he switched it off and played a dvd with fish instead!!!

Stuck home alone. Apparently all you need to entertain yourself is a playstation and a book. Cleaning the living room? Will do so soon.

Last week I was all set on writing a piece on me, Crissy and us knowing eachother for exactly 8 years. Then in the morning I read her diary and noticed that according to her, that Thursday we had already been together for 8 years and 2 days. ... and then I completely forgot to do the "yay!" thing, and everything that comes with the territory. Let's just shout:"Happy late anniversary, Crissy!" :-)

Decided to start work early so that I could leave a bit earlier. Unfortunately somebody had decide to crash his car on the A13, which caused a 10 minute drive to take more than an hour, followed by another pretty lengthy traffic jam. Yep, it's fall again. At work at 9:30. Maybe I should stop whining about traffic, it'll only get worse from now on.

Got my hair cut at night.

Apparently there were no trains running, so I dropped off a colleague at his place, unfortunately that forced me to drive a direction with even more traffic jams than usual. Home slightly late-ish. I fear it's autumn again.