The return of girlfriend. Spent the morning cleaning up me and retrieving lots of things that girlfriend might want to have, then eventually picked up Annemarie, drove to Schiphol airport and picked up girlfriend. She still recognises me and wasn't wielding a Finnish boyfriend called Yari *yay!*.

Got blindsided by Annemarie when I had to drive past my place to pick up girlfriend's bedsheets, right before I closed my door, she apparently asked me:"Bring weed". Which, if not expected can apparently be a pretty puzzling sentence. Spent a whole car-ride trying to decide what she wanted me to bring. In the end decided that she probably did say weed, after a quick visit to a coffeeshop and a quick check at girlfriends' place it turned out that I had missed a whole conversation about smoking pot on NY-eve.

Did the first part of my NY-eve in Rotterdam and then took off for Leiden with Nicktor and McR. (Girlfriend didn't feel like coming and we had already decided that we were going). Great party, loads of drunk people, McR managing to spoil Nicktors chances with every girl (and guy) in the room and me sober for the whole evening. Still wondering how that happened, after all I had already arranged for my car to be taken back by McR. A phonecall around midnight to girlfriend taught me that all the weed had already been smoked (the phonecall consisted of 20 minutes of laughter from the other side).

Eventually drove back home, tried to drop off McR at his place, failed, then dropped him off at Nicktor's place and drove girlfriend-wards. Strangely enough she hadn't even passed out :-)

My last night as a single person, well okay, semi-single. At least... girlfriend returns tomorrow. What did I end up doing? Well... there was this weather alert with loads of snow and I already had loads of trouble making it back home through said snowstorm. (The closer to Rotterdam I got, the harder it became to drive in a straight line). Spent another night with my Playstation.

At the same time all the trains in the Netherlands stopped running, Kaz' friend Katherine (who was visiting from Paris) got stuck in Amsterdam with her boyfriend and had to pay 250 euro's for a night in a hotel. (Yes, that's somewhat steep)

Had Cindy over for food, drinks etc. Great fun.

Spent the whoe evening playing San Andreas.

Fabienne has been back in the Netherlands for a while and with all the roads people-less due to the Christmas holidays it even sounded like a feasible plan to pop by right out of work. (She's staying at her parents' place somewhere in the east of the Netherlands)

Nicktor (who works more or less around the corner) joined in for the fun as did McR who would be bringing Lorraine and Arjan. Eventually all made it to Fabienne's place (even though Lorraine looked a bit shaken from the car-ride). Had food, had fun and then drove back home again.

Christmas at aunt's place. More presents, loads of food and loads of fun. Did forget to bring back a grinder for my bike-lock though. Arse!

Christmas! Weird, it feels a lot less christmassy when you wake up all alone in a house without christmas decorations. Threw all the collected christmas presents in the back of my car and took off for parents' place to replace them with new gifts. Got lots of clothes a book with household tips ranging from the useful to the blindingly obvious to the almost surreal ("Do you unexpectedly find yourself without a leather maintenance product?") *Yay!* presents.

Also now the proud owner of 3 packages with girlfriends' name on them. One is cylinder shaped and feels soft-ish, one is square, flat and soft and one is box-shaped and by the feel of it contains a cardboard box. Girlfriend come home, there's presents for you here!

And then Kaz and Martin took off and I got a sympathy christmas dinner from my mum because I didn't have nowhere else to go :-)

And tonight somehow Ellen made me cook her dinner. Ellen always makes me do things I'm not particularly good at (from riding fun fair rides and almost puking afterwards to ordering me to make food for groups of 30+ people). Nicktor joined in for the fun and I managed to make a passable Thai-ish curry. Got joined by Lorraine, and Sabrina later on and celebrated an early new year's eve. (Especially early seeing as the champagne bottle already got opened at 11pm)

Seeing as both Ellen and Lorraine are in the country, we all descended on "Sorgh and Hoop" for food and drink. Even Ruben showed up, Nice to have everybody together again. We are all getting old though, before 1am Ellen, Nicktor and me were the only ones left, with Nicktor being half asleep.

Distressing news of the day: Lorraine hasn't forgotten about the bet I have with her boyfriend about being the fastest to ride a skippyball from her parents' place to mine. I should start training for this match but how does one train for a skippyball contest without receiving the laughter from everybody out on the streets?

Girlfriend is currently in Lapland, she can text me but she can't receive text messages from me. She's taking her time realising this herself, while texting more and more agitated text-messages on the way. Thought this was cute.

Then tonight girlfriend gave up and decided to give me a call to check whether I was dead yet. Failed to pick up the phone in time but got to tell her in the end that I was probably still alive.

Had a meeting in Rotterdam which ended at 7:30 and then I realised that all shops were open for Christmas and that there was nobody walking around. Completed my Christmas shopping in less than no-time, which means I won't have to fight people all day on Saturday in overcrowded shops. *yay!*

Game Time! Spent the whole evening killing dealers, shooting gang members and running over innocent bystanders. Playing San Andreas does make you wonder why everybody in the US started rioting when they heard there were pornographic images to be seen if you modded your game.

Got asked by Erwin to join his pub-quiz team in Leiden. I'm one of the guest players whenever the usuals can't make it. Failed to make a good impression this time though. I did suspect that the suez-channel didn't have any locks but couldn't back it up so got overruled and the only question I knew that none of the others did was the title of the Brian Adams greatest hits album. And let's just say that I wasn't too proud about knowing that one :-)

Didn't even have to work on Sunday *yay!* Unforunately did have to do Christmas-shopping. Managed to spot some of the gifts I needed to buy but then decided that the queues were far too long and left town again. Actually.... the only gift I did buy was a copy of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. But then that one was for me, and one can never have enough mindlessly violent games in ones gaming collection, right?

Popped by parents place and then failed to game all night because I ended up chatting with girlfriend. (Who was having her last day in Helsinki before taking off Lapland-wards for christmas)

Worked from 9 till 6:15, on a Saturday. Not the best idea ever, I have to say. Had food at Bianca's guest-parents place. Bianca is au-pairing in Rotterdam at the moment, lovely house, after which we hit the clubs in Rotterdam.

Had an interesting night trying to install cable internet at McR's place. Had loads of fun with McR and Arjan trying to get everything to work, at one point we even used a vibrator to check the network cable. (Arjan could work as McGyver) All brilliant ideas to get everything to work turned out to be useless in the end, Mcr had thrown away the letter with the internet-passwords.

Today and yesterday, two more days of business, followed by sleep. Really, there isn't anything else to say about it, I fear.

Good news, had my half yearly evaluation with my practice-manager. They still like me at work, they're letting me stay. Didn't do too bad in the pay-department either. All in all a happy camper. Celebrated by staying at work till 8. Note to self don't check something when you've almost left the place, it will turn out to be broken and you'll have to fix it before you leave.

Cocktail-parties suck, mixing drinks is stupid, hangovers end up somewhat massive. Urgh! Let's just say that I got out of bed at 14:30 and leave it at that.

Out for a team-dinner at night. All did a DIY cooking class, where we had to prepare food for eachother and then all eat it. Apparently the keyword was garlic. Glad that I didn't have to kiss anybody or anything when eventually I made my way back home :-)

The weekend should be for sleeping in... not tod though. Somebody had decided that it would be a funny idea to ask Nicktor whether he'd have food for us if we'd pop in at 7 (yes, that may have been my idea). And sacrifycing ourselves for a good joke, McR and I indeed showed up at Nicktor's place at 7 (am). Unfortunately the promised pizza and chinese food weren't there so we had to improvise him some breakfast. Nicktor looked a bit puzzled, I have to say.

Went back to bed afterwards, bought tickets for the Posies concert in Rotterdam on the 29th of januari. And eventually showed up at Nicktor's place for his birthday cocktail party. My little:"Hey, let's coordinate the alcohol everybody brings"-plan worked out great, many different cocktails were had by all. Amazed by Bianca's talent to think up weird:"Bianca special" cocktails. Also nice to see Oliver again after years and years. Stumbled back home late. Yay for cocktail parties.

Games night at McR's place, with Nicktor. Gamed till late.

Wednesday and thursday were very much alike, so lets put them in one entry. Work till late, home late, not much afterwards. Busy??? Why? :-)

Somebody at work decided that we should try out the stress thing. Interesting but I prefer life without. Home late, straight to bed.

Had the annual "cheese fondue on Sinterklaas"-day with parents, sister, Martin, aunt and uncle. Great fun, found out that 1 of the headlights of my car wasn't working. Have to get that fixed tomorrow.

The magic word of the day:"Sleep". (And trying to find back my bicycle-keys). Succeeded at the sleep part, failed miserably at finding my bicycle keys. I wonder where they are. May have to borrow the grinder again.

Left a chocolate letter in my neighbour's shoe at night (a Dutch tradition, chocolate letters, that is, not leaving them in neighbour's shoes). She'll be puzzled, I guess.

Still feeling far from super. Spent the morning looking at houses on the internet. Not that I'm in that big a rush to buy a place and move out of the current one still it doesn't hurt to keep informed. At the same time I wouldn't be terribly suprised if I were to buy myself a place before the end of this year. Obviously you'll be some of the first to know :-)

Bought a christmas present for my father in the afternoon, did some food shopping, had dinner and watched Madagascar. Not a big fan. Went to bed ridiculously early for a Saturday night. Seeing as Nicktor didn't pop by, I suspect he's out having plenty of drinks, while I feel like I a 29 year old. That's not fair! He's the 29 year old, I'm only 28! Guess I'll go to bed now.

Still not feeling great, unfortunately I get 2 days off extra next year if I'm not ill this year so I'm not going to skip any days of work in December because of me being ill :-) On top of that... When I get up at 6:30 in the morning I'm usually too asleep to notice that I'm even feeling ill :-) Eventually made my way back home and stared at the tv all night.

Startef off pretty well, then at the same time I something which felt half as if I was getting a cold and half as if I had the flu came up. Obiously that's the moment things got hectic. Drove home on autopilot and fell asleep at 9.

While yesterday I got out of work at 8 and found out that the only thing I could have for dinner was a terribly basic pizza with onions, ham and piles of garlic stacked on top of it, today I didn't get out till 7 and had to do my shopping by the:"Dash through the supermarket-method". Yes, I know that getting out of work at 7 isn't that shocking, but once you combine it with the 1 hour absolute minimum commute, your working days do get kind of long.

Oh well, at least I didn't have to eat pizza tonight :-)

Brilliant! Had a local tv person visit me and shoot an item on my lock disappearing. This caused me not to appear at work till 11:30 but hey, fame for anything right? Then halfway through the day I noticed I had made the front-page of the local news-site with this article. (Which in Dutch tells the story of my lock being replaced). Had a good laugh about that one.

Halfway through the day somebody decided that a rape-case was more interesting than a stolen lock so I got moved off the frontpage but still, I've already been a headline and I'm only 28!! And then as the piece the resistance, I got an e-mail from SBS (country wide tv) that they wanted to film an item on me.

Gave them a call but unfortunately they could only be there in the morning and I didn't really feel like walking into work at 11:30 twice in a row. Got dumped! Booh! Hiss! Still, I believe I've already had 150 euro's worth of fun. After all tv-coverage is expensive :-)

Still as puzzled as ever about who opened my door. Then McR told me that his mother thought she had seen an item on something likewise on the local radio-station. Sent them an e-mail and got a reply that they had never done an item on people changing locks on people's doors, would I mind having a radio reporter over?

So this evening I had a radio reporter over, who asked me loads of questions and then took off again. Finally got round to popping by the police station, where I was told that there actually wasn't anything I could file a complaint about. It wasn't break and enter because I couldn't prove that anybody ever entered, and it wasn't a whole lot of other offenses either. In the end after pressing on a bit, the only thing punishable by law was apparently theft of my lock and police lady claimed that even this was a bit of a shady one.

At least with the radio people over I've already had my money's worth of fun. Did I mention that tomorrow morning at 9 am a tv crew will pop by to do an item? Seriously, apparently local tv and radio are dying for items :-)

Finally got round to visiting the police. A very helpful bunch, though possibly a bit clueless here and there. Then they did claim that they had not been around when my lock was replaced (apparently officially police has to be there, when you're not around personally). "Did you talk to your landlord yet, sir? He's allowed to make improvements to your place without your consent". Fortunately they didn't give the obvious reply when I asked:"How can me not being able to enter my house be an improvement???"

Watched DiG! to calm me down (it arrived in the mail yesterday). Thought it was brilliant.

Then somebody had the brilliant idea that maybe my neighbour downstairs at 15a had attempted to get his locks replaced but that they had thought:"15a or 15c", what's the difference. Unfortunately no, that's not it either. So tomorrow I get to call my landlord, I guess I'll keep you all posted. Or probably not, when I find out tomorrow night that my locks have been replaced again.

Woke up at 7 am because I was going to the Essen motorshow. Had decided earlier that last nights snow and ice-storms weren't going to affect us at all. May have been somewhat wrong in this department, seeing as the 2 hour drive to Essen ended up taking us about 4 and seeing as the last 30 kms where very icy, we may have been wrong there.

Saw shitloads of cars all day, with the 3 themes:"Cars, cars and cars". (Oldtimer, new and pimped). Amazing, but after a while you get the same feeling you get after watching 10 hours of porn videos (sensory overload). Not that I've ever watched 10 hours of porn, obviously. Eventually left home dead tired from stumbling through all the halls all day.

Went out for drinks with all the usuals at night and was supposed to hit the clubs afterwards. Decided after spending 45 minutes in a queue that

1. I was still dead tired from the night before.
2. I'm not cool enough to spend 45 minutes in a queue
3. That nobody in his right mind queues for more than 10 minutes when there's loads of other clubs around you can step into without problems.
4. No matter what Nicktor tells me, I'm not going to wait for another 20 minutes, screw you people, I'm going home.

Then missed the night-bus and found out that it's a 45 minute walk from the Rotterdam city centre to my place. Useful information! Bed, bye!

Oh, more news about my door, I knocked on some neighbour's doors at night (before going out to Rotterdam) and the neighbour nextdoor heard them replace a lock (they first knocked on her door), because she doesn't speak Dutch (her husband told me), she was afraid to open it though.

A most interesting day, because of major snow storms the whole Dutch road-network got jammed. 800 kms of traffic-jam (where 200 is usual on a Friday) and people stuck in traffic till after midnight. Strangely enough I wasn't affected at all and managed to drive home within the hour. Had dinner at my parents place then took off for home, turned the key....

And nothing happened. Checked whether I held the right key, spent half an hour trying everything possible to open my door and failed miserably. As it happens on days like these, I had forgotten my phone in the morning, so I made my way to the nearest phone-box, called my dad to drive up to my place and bring tools.

Waited half an hour in front of my door, let dad in, who decided that I wasn't necessarily stupid and that my lock had probably been tampered with and walked through the police-station to ask what to do and whether they knew the number of a locksmith. The good news was that they did, but they asked multiple times whether I knew that it would cost me loads of money. Wonder whether many people say:"Oh, didn't know that, forget about it, I'll sleep in my car".

Spent 45 minutes in a bar, having a drink, while waiting for the locksmith (who claimed he'd be there within the hour) and then spent 1.5 hours waiting in front of my front door before the locksmith arrived. Note to self:"leave games in car to play while waiting for locksmiths, without games life is pretty boring".

Eventually the locksmith arrived, he opened my door, replaced my lock and told me that the old lock had been replaced earlier that day. (And it did look completely different to me). Strangely nothing had been stolen (the what thief replaces the locks) and even more strangely, nobody had left me a note to tell me that he had replaced my locks and to tell me where to pick my my new set of keys. Typical!

The costs of a night spent with my father:"5 euros for 2 beers + tip" and 145 euros for lock replacement. Next time dad and me will hopefully just drink beer.

Drove to work in the morning, found an empty parking spot so close to work that I was actually shocked. ....Then somebody stormed up to me claiming that he'd deflate all four of my tires if I wouldn't move my car from this public parking spot in front of his home straight away. Wished him good luck and took off for work.

Major traffic jam at night, so bad even that me and my colleagua Arthur decided to go out and see Tim Burton's "the Corpse Bride" instead of traffic-jamming. Cool film, even though I found it a bit slow from time to time.

Any evening spent with pizza, girlfriend and Crissy on the internet is probably a good one. At the same time multitasking is hard :-)

Arinso meeting + drinks afterwards. Dead tired on the way back home, I wonder why.

Unpacked my bag, did laundry, switched my duvet for the winter one. One of those days Lorraine doesn't want me to tell you all about, I guess.

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.

Finally got the opportunity to make proper use of my navigation system, we had a work meeting at a place I couldn't even point out on a map, and I let my little PDA friend do all the thinking. ... it works. In the end I did take a bit of a detour, but that didn't occur until I got out of the car and
decided to try not to look like a prat walking around with stanav for the last 500 meters. Oh well, at least I got to see the church in Maarssen :-) Nice meeting, chatted with loads of people.

A whole day spent behind my Playstation, except for dinner at the parents' place. Still not feeling great.

Had big plans for the Saturday night, but noticed early in the day that for some reason my vision appeared to be lagging behind my head-movements. On top of that I felt dead tired as well. Slept for most of the afternoon before attempting to go clubbing in Rotterdam with all my friends.

Found out that all my friends consited of Nicktor, Shiwa and Cindy and decided at 1am that I was too tired/ill to make it.

Guys night in at my place, got joined by Ruben, Martijn, Nicktor and McR. Apparently Ruben will be leaving for Singapore at the beginning of next year. This probably means I've finally found my excuse to go and explore Laos! :-)

Ended the night with more beer than I started with, I only had half a case left so I decided to get me another case, then Martijn decided to bring a case of beer, just in case. I've now got just a bit under 48 bottles of beer (2 cases) left.

Have been starting around 9:30 ish all week, definitely a nice distraction from getting too early. Who would think there'd be a day where I'd claim 7:30 to be a humane time to get up :-)

Apparently girlfriend is back from Stockholm. Spent the night chatting with her.

Went to the dentist, no cavities!

Managed to spend 2.5 hours driving to Amsterdam, of which more than an hour was spent on a "short cut". Hey, it looks busy up ahead, let's try this road, followed by an hour of standing still in traffic. Argh!

Noticed on the way back home that my car does not entirely agree with gale force sidewinds. Oh well, at least it keeps me awake :-)

Surreal moment of the day: While on the phone with McR I manage to take the wrong turn on the way back home without even noticing, until I suddenly shout out:"What the fuck?" McR:"What's happening?" Me:"I'm driving back into Amsterdam and I haven't got a clue how I did it". Interesting detail, I actually spent 15 minutes in a traffic jam driving back into Amsterdam without ever realising it. That sucked! Did I already mention that I had my satnav-system switched on?

Games and food at night

Woke up with the consequences of loads of beer, but eventually managed to get up and running, visited my parents' place, where I somehow managed to install ADSL on a laptop for which I should have dug a whole in the ground to dump it in. The ADSL-installation cd kept crashing after showing the opening screen, I then managed to run all individual programs (by trial and error) and eventually had to struggle for ages to find how to set the modem-password. Not fun.

Saw Wallace and Gromit and the curse of the were rabbit at night. Brilliant. Found out that Nicktor sucks even more at navigating cities than I had ever expected.

Bought "Need for speed Underground 2" somewhat by accident, apparently I still needed a good racing-game for my PS2. Spent most of the afternoon playing games (except for a short IKEA-carrying stint over at Nicktor's place).

At night celebrated Marlies birthday with animated disscussion on the subject of strap-on dildo's and loads of beer.

Decided on a hermit-night in, then the internet failed so even the big plans for the night could not be fulfilled (buy ticket to girlfriend, update journal). Am noticing that while it's getting somewhat colder outside, I still can't bring myself to switching on the heater. Why use heating when wrapping a blanket around your shoulders works just as well, right? :-)

Brilliant news, apparently I'm going to spend most of februari, march and april doing a 36 day Java/Netweaver/Sap course in 's Hertogenbosch, with plenty of new opportunities afterwards. Not that I hate my current position but a change of scenery is always nice, right?

Managed to get myself stuck in a traffic jam on the way back home (more than usual, that is). Eva appeared confused for most of the way back home. Even so much that I started fearing I'd have to sleep alone at night.

Had Nicktor and McR pop in and managed to make Nicktor a dinner that didn't straight away kill him. (Always nice). Watched football on tv and then "the Dukes of Hazard". May have to ask girlfriend why it's in black and white. (She brought the dvd from St Petersburg)

Popped by Annemarie to finally deliver the present girlfriend made me drag away from Kopenhagen. Ended up chatting on MSN with girlfriend, using Annemarie's username. While girlfriend knew, Nicktor apparently didn't. With Annemarie standing besides me, shouting:"Hey, I would never say that!", nothing I said made Nicktor change his mind about Annemarie not being Annemarie. Cool!

Am noticing that while Eva may not be the brightest, she certainly is the most patient woman I've ever met. Whenever I take shortcuts around traffic jams, she keeps asking me to turn around at every intersection I arrive at for miles before she finally catches on. But she never sighs or complains. Then this does get on your nerves after a while.

Wouldn't it be much nicer if after ignoring advice for 5 times, it would throw a fit and show a screen:"Apparently you don't appreciate my advice, screw you! Want to make up? Yes/No".

Visited my old neighbour at night. Still intrigued by his comment:"In my days working at the same place for 40 years was nothing special". (he's 72). Nowadays that really sounds like an eternity!

Once you've got the PDA with sat-nav capabilities for all of Europe (Anybody wants to navigate to Rome??) You suddenly realise that your life is pretty dull and 99 out of 100 times you navigate to places you've already been 100 times before. Yesterday I already attempted to navigate to my parents' place, which ended in me arguing with sat-nav lady Eva because she was convinced that a certain road should be taken while they closed it down 5 years ago.

Today I decided to get diesel in Oud Beijerland just because it sounded like an interesting place to get your fuel. Found out that while I can't make it to my parents' place, reaching the petrol station in Oud Beijerland is not a problem at all. Maybe I can convince the parental unit to move to the Oud Beijerland petrol station :-)

Screw bicycles, gadgets are cool. One question:"What do I need it for again?? :-)

Spent most of the day biking around Rotterdam. Once again almost bought the Palm but once again did the sensible thing. Actually I'm a bit torn between buying a Palm or buying a hybrid bicycle on which I can bike around for a couple of hours without having to worry about it falling apart. Not that I could park it anywhere in town but just biking can be big fun too once in a while.

At night McR and I abducted Otto for his (somewhat late) stag-night. Because this being a post-wedding stag-night, we couldn't work with external strippers anymore. Gave his wife a cd with music to strip to and made her practise while we were out. Eventually got joined by Nicktor and basically just drank loads of beer before we went back home, blindfolded Otto and dropped him off at his own place for his own private strip show.

Even managed to play games on my PS2 with McR for a while after he dropped me off at home.

Seeing as my mum had the bags under her eyes removed on Monday and I still needed to visit them, I did just that. Mum looks a bit silly now with all the stitches and she refuses to leave the house. Apparently this wil wear off within the next couple of days. Did almost buy a PalmOne Tungsten E2 + nav-pack. They're on sale for "only" 396 euro's. Did the sensible thing and stayed clear.

Managed to get lost on the way back home (for a change). Amstelveen and surroundings looked interesting but it took me about an hour to get back to something I recognised.

Spent the night on the internet with girlfriend. Apparently she's still in Helsinki. Apparently I'm currently having some trouble making it to Helsinki. Apparently I'm not amused.

I need sleep! Had to work hard all day again and ended up going back home so tired that I managed to drive towards Almere instead of towards Alkmaar (the complete opposite way). Fortunately I drove straight into a traffic jam so it took me only 30 minutes to correct this.

Had Cindy pop by at night and managed to lose directions once again while dropping her off at her place. I definitely need sleep!

2 of my colleagues still suffering from food poisoning-migraine. Busy!!!

Crisis situation in the workplace, got back home dead-tired, and spent the night listening to music and reading a book.

Visted the snowboarding high-jump world chamionships event near the Erasmus-bridge in Rotterdam. Got ditched by all my friends so had to text kid sister:"Are you here?". Was more than surprised that she actually understood what I was texting about. Have to say that the snowboard-jumping was a bit repetitive. The motocross-jumping demo was pretty awesome though.

Had dinner at parents' place at night and kicked ass on McR's X-box at night. (At least he got through the GTA3-level he got stuck at)

Had Cindy over to make me dinner, fed her a whole bottle of wine and had Nicktor pop by. Last sight of the night was Cindy stumbling out the door :-)

Spent the past week being trained from 8:30 in the morning (except for tuesday) till 7:30 in the evening. Seeing as that's about the only thing that happened to me, I'll summarise it all in one pot. Training in the day time, brilliant food and lots of fun in the bar at night. As for the contents of the training? Anything from team-building to presentation skills to problem solving. Came back home on Friday dead tired.

Packed bags for the "Arinso Consultancy Skills"-training that will start tomorrow and last until Friday. I wonder what it'll be like.

Slept, read a book, saw:"Shrek 2" (bought the dvd in Kopenhagen with my last Danish kronen). Then got a phonecall by Nicktor that he wanted to make me dinner.

survived.

Out clubbing with Marlies and gang. Started off in Villa, and eventually ended up in Plan C. Music sucked somewhat. Thought it was pretty funny, when I asked Bianca (Sabrina's German friend who's currently au-pairing in Rotterdam), what will they play next, "Scooter?". Bianca replied with:"Huh?", after which the DJ started in "Always hardcore" (by Scooter) Fled the place when hearing Charly Lownoise and mental Theo. Still had loads of fun and ended up in bed late.

Went bowling with Haidar, Erwin and Arthur (some colleagues). Failed to suck completely and even managed to win a game of Fifa at my place. Then I did suck big time at playing pool afterwards. Note to self:"Bowling for an hour and a half is a bit long, you haven't got the strength"

Took the tube into town after work and teamed up with Erwin, 2 of his brothers in law, a friend and one of his sisters for dinner in a pizza place smelling a bit poo-ish. (For some reason we had made it our meeting point and by the time the last person arrived, we all decided:"We can hardly smell it anymore"). Eventually made it to Paradiso to hear the last notes being played by a pretty good sounding opening act.

Have to say that I thought that the Fun Loving Criminals had stopped performing and making albums ages ago (I could have sworn there was only 1 other album besides "Come and find yourself", but I got assured I was somewhat wrong here). Saw a pretty good show, though possibly somewhat lengthy here and there.

Chatted with girlfriend on the internet, she misses me :-) Am starting to notice that lately:"Living on your own and having to cook for your self" tends to translate into:"Nuke something in the microwave", after a 2 hour commute.

Received a phonecall from my colleague Erwin, apparently I'm going to see the Fun Loving Criminals tomorrow.

Watched the second part of the documentary today. At least as cool as the first part.

Still dead-tired from the weekend. Sleep-walked through my work-day and then had to stay awake till midnight because I really really really wanted to see the first part of the Martin Scorsese "No direction home" Bob Dylan-documentary. Cool!

Girlfriend did notice me being not entirely sober, apparently me asking her to marry me (thrice), claiming that we were going to have kids called (Sean-Paul and Marinette (I still kind of like the latter) and shouting that she has got great tits were the giveaways. Took notice not to do any of these next time I drink too much wine. Oh, for those wondering, Maaike told me she's not ready for a wedding yet (thrice)

Got Maaike on the train to the airport and spent the remainder of the afternoon bumping into severely hungover colleagues. Home and back to bed after a long and somewhat tiring journey (due trains not running I had to hitch a ride with a colleague and then catch a train)

Hit the city streets and walked for miles and miles. Obviously saw the mermaid, the Nyhaven and loads of other Copenhagen places. Realised that the oddest thing during these company holidays is that in at every sight you keep bumping into colleagues.

At night had a pretty luxurious dinner, followed by a somewhat cheesy DJ. May not have been entirely sober, I apparently still need to practise on the whole champagne, white wine, red wine, dessert wine, cognac, beer-thing. Hopefully girlfriend didn't notice.

Also found out that our next company holiday will apparently be for a whole week somewhere in May in a sunny place somewhere. Bets on location are on.

Took the train to Schiphol airport, where I pretty quickly bumped into some of my colleagues with who I spent weeks in training in September/October 2004. Swapped stories on jobs, cars and traffic, chatting about cars and traffic being for consultants what the weather-chat is for normal people in the Netherlands.

Found out that Maarten had already missed a plane, noticed that another colleague managed to miss the plane as well and then we all took off for Copenhagen, the city where the 2005 annual company-holiday was taking us. After hanging around Copenhagen airport for an hour and a half, I got re-united with girlfriend, hugged and made our way to our hotel. Managed to bump into loads of colleagues while walking there and got appointed a pretty cool room at the 25th floor.

After a welcome party in Tivoli, with even more colleagues, girlfriend and I tried out a roller-coaster (don't mix rollercoasters and alcohol, people) before ending up in an Indian restaurant. Already liking the place!

Spent the evening chatting with girlfriend on the internet while packing my suitcase and feeling somewhat ill. Managed to pack 10 times as much as I'd usually bring on a weekend away but I blame that on girlfriend.

Had my hair cut, and managed to give Kaz her birthday-present. For some reason she managed to act as if she liked getting a gigantic box stuffed with drill-bits. Yep, I apparently give my sister drill-bits for her birthday

My kid sister's birthday. Called sister, watched tv waiting for sis to pop by. She didn't.

This week may become dull, haven't thought of much more to do than "stay at home, read book"

Had to pop by Annemarie's place to pick up clothes girlfriend needs in Helsinki (only 5 more days!!). Also repaired Annemarie's tire while I was there. Drove back home and spent the rest of the day reading a book (actually re-reading Kerouac's "On the Road") chatting with girlfriend on the internet and missing her terribly (She asked me to put that in (Hmmm maybe I shouldn't put that in)).

Spent the afternoon strolling through Rotterdam. Bought "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield" for cheap, also bought "Connected" by the Stereo MC's (had been meaning to buy that ever since I saw them perform at the Lowlands festival a couple of years ago but never got round to it). Also spent some time in the new music shop in the city center wondering what other music instruments I need. I'm definitely in need of a bass guitar but then mandolines are pretty cheap. Oh, something drum-ish might be fun as well (those would have to be digital then though). Yep, I won't let lack of talent stop me here :-)

At night popped by Rijsoord for the 5-annual gondelvaart (where they decorate the riversides with lights boat around in decorated boats and have fireworks afterwards). Nothing too great but nice enough to have a look at once every 5 years. Got to shout abuse at a guy who kept riding his bike into my ankles.

Then drove back Rotterdam-wards, where I tried hooking up with Nicktor in "de Consul", then found out that Nicktor had meant "Villa" instead and drove there. Found Marlies and Annemarie there as well, had a beer and then everybody disappeared into the night again.

Spent the whole evening listening to music and playing with Python, I should have proper geek-nights more often. Even brushed up on my numerical mathematics-skills.

Stumbled out a bit puzzled:"Where did I leave my car?" Then everything connected upstairs and I took the tube into town to pick up my car.

At night went to see "het schip" with Kaz. Pretty brilliant show, even managed to bump into Sander in the process.

Erwin's farewell party (he's leaving Arinso). Had some drinks in "de Oude Haven", then realised it might be a good idea to leave the car there and took the tube back home.

Had really weird dreams about underwear all night. Woke up to find that I was wearing my boxers backwards. Right

Went to the funeral of my old neighbour, he died of pancreatic cancer last Thursday. Really sad. Definitely the shortest funeral service I've ever been to. It all turned out into a reunion of the street my parents used to live in.

Read more books, spent 2 hours trying to finish 1 level in Grand Theft Auto, Vice City (success!!!) Visited parents at night and combed the cat. Ain't life grand?

Geez, I'm dull. Finally managed to finish my book on European history, then Finished 'Rule no 5: 'No Sex on the bus' as well' Had Nicktor and McR pop by at night and entertained ourselves with my playstation.

Read a book all evening and eventually fell asleep. Apparently missed a whole thunderstorm.

Barbecue at Arjan's place. Decided to pick up Nicktor to avoid losing him somewhere in Hillegersberg again, managed to pick up Cindy in the process as well.

Had lots of barbecue, managed to play football with burning torches as goalpost does everybody know about "stop drop and roll over"? and eventually drove back home. Girlfriend apparently still drunk.

Read book, watched football, spent an hour and a half on the phone. Received drunk text-messages from girlfriend.

Good news, the microwave lives.

Started watching "girl with a pearl earring" then a fuse blew and all electrical appliances stopped working. Stumbled into my fusebox, wielding my phone as a flashlight and attempted to flick some switches to get the light working again. Found out that they'd flick right back so got to play the interesting game:"Pull all power-plugs from their sockets, once again restore power in the house and then start plugging in appliances one by one".

Eventually found out that the appliance at fault was my microwave, earlier in the night a cup of hot chocolate accidentally boiled over and for some reason shorted the microwave an hour and a half later. Decided to keep it unplugged and let it dry for the night. Aaaargh!

woTime flies... apparently today me and girlfriend have been together for a year. That almost sounds like an eternity! And before girlfriend smacks me over the head with a large trout or even something more painful:"At the same time the past year flew to past like a banana", a bit odd at times but great fun.

Still... "Girlfriend, you made your point, I miss you when you're not around, can you now please come back?" :-)

And to make things even more eternal, I popped by the first girl my age I ever thought of getting married with (Kirsten, when we were both 4 years old) to finally meet her newborn (well 2 months old already) son. It feels like only yesterday that we were playing hide and seek!!

Did not do too much all day (besides reading a book, eating a grapefruit and biking through the Rotterdam city-center). Got visited by the usual people (Nicktor, McR) at night. Watched "grind", which was okay-ish.

The day of the second wedding of the year, today Marlies and Otto got married. Witnessed everything, they're now married for law, church (yes, I managed to squeeze in the second church-visit in my life).

Found out that my friends manage to keep amazing me, while Lorraine manages to text me at times that may be used against her somewhere in the future, Nicktor somehow completed a 30 minute drive in 2 hours, basically by driving off in completely the wrong direction, then calling me and asking me:"We're at completely the wrong place, where do we go to now?" and then repeating that process a couple of times. (Please somebody send him a navigation-system)

Fun party at night, drank lots of beer (McR forced me), chatted with lots of people and still got home before 1 am.

Got asked to drop off a beamer at the company headquarters tomorrow. Spent the evening watching films and playing ps2-games on my beamer with my usual two partners in crime.

Oh, by the way, I linked my vanalten.net e-mail address to my gmail-account and found out that I'm up to my neck in gmail-invites, if anybody's interested drop me an e-mail at my usual address.

More book-reading, also watched:"How to start your own country" Brilliant!

Sat on balcony, read book. Exciting, n'est-ce pas?

Skated through Rotterdam (Maastunnel, city-center, maasboulevard, Willemabrug) bought an ice-cream and ended up drinking beer and chatting at Nicktor's place.

Paid the streetperformers-festival another visit. Realised that when you get to see loads of streetperforming acts, they all start to look alike after a while. (Pick somebody in audience, make fun of him, work towards grand finale, perform special trick, applause). Saw 2 more of these acts and bumped into kid-sister.

Then had an "oh, wow"-experience when I saw what later turned out the winner of the festival. If you ever manage to catch monsieur huit-huit doing his street-performance, then do. Really verry impressed.

Dinner at parents' place afterwards.

Marlies' bachelor party. Managed to lock myself out of the house on the way there (fortunately my front door-keys are attached to my car-keys so I couldn't move an inch) and had to ask Nicktor to drive back to let me into the house (he's got a set of spare keys).

Eventually managed to drive to Schiedam, get lost and then do a color-analysis workshop. (Note to self:"You are a bright spring-type. This means that certain colours look better on you than others, you forgot most of those colours and because you work in IT nobody probably cares. Oh, you're incapable of thinking of those colours while buying clothes anyways.)

After some drinks, food and an attempt at hitting the clubs at night (when you find yourself buying a round of water and a coke at 1 am, you know it won't be one of those nights where you have to call your friends the next morning to check what happened). Drove back home after dropping off Anna.

Impressed with Cindy, who knew that I had a bachelor party and still managed to call me at 4 am. Don't know what's more distressing, her expecting me to be sober or me actually being sober.

Read book, listened to music, chatted with girlfriend. Popped by the street-performers-festival in Rotterdam. Saw 1 pretty bad act and 1 which was okay.

In an attempt to up the fun, I watched Vanilla Sky and drank half a bottle of wine (it was standing in the fridge, it needed to be finished). Apparently fell asleep, woke up 2 hours later and went to bed. I'm really getting old.

Stayed in, read Harry Potter. Not the best score ever considering that I probably should have been kite-surfing. (Couldn't make it due to space-time constraints)

Watched the last Samurai want to become a warrior now.

Joined Erwin and his friend Ray during their weekly pub-quiz night. The 3 of us managed to come in second. I'd love to brag but they usually come in second. Helped out on 1 or 2 questions though.

Turned down the excitement even further. Sat on couch, read books, even slept in the daytime. I guess I just wasn't feeling too great. Fortunately eventually I ended up rollerskating through Rotterdam to pick up something at Sabrina's place. Guess I'm not entirely dull after all, just 99%

Went to bed and then received a phonecall from Arjan that he was popping by to drop off the new Harry Potter, which girlfriend decided to borrow him instead of me (grrr!). Eventually in bed around 1-ish.

Not the most exciting day ever, even though I did visit a gardening center, an IKEA store and a supermarket. Failed to buy stuff at the gardening center or the supermarket though.

Managed to call Kirsten to congratulate her on her baby (only 1.5 months late). Got told by Kirsten that my pink card stood out in between all the blue ones. Note to self:"Next time look up the gender of the baby before buying the card".

Watched "dodgeball" at night.

Tired... need sleep! Spent the evening finishing Danny Wallace's "yes man". Which was pretty funny but did not feel nowhere near as convincing as his "Join me"-book.

Drove to Utrecht and teamed up with Bart in the Plato-record store. The plan for the night:"See 'the Posies' perform". May have to define that goal a bit better seeing as the reason we met up at the record store was a Posies instore. So, the plan was apparently to see them perform twice.

Caught half of their instore, then drove on towards "de Helling", where the proper show was taking place. Brilliant show, all the old favourites, some new songs and a band swigging bourbon from the bottle and apparently having a great time. Back home late though.

Apparently had managed to do "the Bierloop" in moderation, there was a complete lack of a massive hangover. But then there was no reason to wonder:"Did we really finish?" either. Did get to experience the worst traffic jam I've seen this summer, I can't wait for autumn to kick in.

Went out for dinner with Annemarie at night. Apparently we both miss girlfriend.

For ages me and my friends have been taking part in the "VRiSBI bierloop", a sponsored pubcrawl that usually gets loads of people you vaguely know together in a pub and lets them stumble around drunkenly, through Rotterdam, wielding porcelain beer-mugs. Some of your uni-lecturers will be there as well (usually at least as drunk as you are), in every pub you'll meet people wielding the same mugs and and the next morning you'll wake up with a massive hangover and a porcelain mug to add to the collection (I've now got 6 or 7). After the clouds of the hangover pull up, you have to call all your friends to check whether everybody came back home safely, whether some things really happened, and usually also to check whether your team actually finished or not.

Many drunken stories start with:"Well, it was bierloop-time and..." and for ages this event was deemed to be un-fuckup-able for the organisation. You get loads of people together, you give them beer and everybody will have a good time no matter how badly you fuck up.

For some reason this year I was not going to take part, Lorraine had pissed off to a far, far away place where she'd probably be sitting in her living-room, clutching a half empty bottle of Vodka, retelling bierloop-tales, Nicktor was in Italy trying to impress friends with stories about the epic event he was missing, Ellen is in Dublin and McR decided that basketball was more important than beer.

Decided to pop by myself just to chat with drunk people, as I had decided that I had become old, responsible and that I'd finally act my age. (Actually this plan had been devised by Remco, who appears to be a lot better in responsible thinking than I am) Showed up an hour after the event was supposed to start and noticed that an essential element to the bierloop was missing, where were the people? The second Adriaan walked in, we decided against Remco's orders (something to do with him not wanting to appear hungover on his second day at his new job) that we just had to take part (mainly because there was nobody to talk with). Entered us (and Remco), got shouted at by Remco (for entering him) and promised that we'd only stop at the official bierloop bars.

Sadly something else was different (in the old days everything used to be better), where in the early days, bars used to be within crawling distance of eachother, there now was a pretty hefty hike between the two ones furthest apart, so we had to compensate for that by adding some extra bars. Also for some reason managed to pose as a first year student and almost became a member of RSG. At the end of the night apparently only 10 teams (that's 30 people) showed up, no first-year students at all, no uni-lecturers. And still we had fun, I fear. Note to the organisers:"Next year don't forget to bring in the people"

For some reason Cindy and I decided that we needed to go out for dinner in Scheveningen. Did just that. Since Lorraine disallowed me to mention that we had fun, I'll just point out that Cindy had her hair straightened and that I didn't get back home till around midnight :-)

Screw Lorraine, I like being dull, on with the daily postings :-) (Leaving out the dull days just seems wrong, then if people dig up my diary 1000 years from now they'll think I was this person who would continously stumble around drunk) I fear you readers will just have to skip lots of posts :-)

Obviously this is just me trying to act tough about Lorraine's departure. She will be severely missed, with girlfriend a zillion miles away and Lorraine back in Russia, now who am I going to fight with? :-)

Fortunately today was action packed. Laundry, McR visiting, us buying a bicycle pump, a bicycle lock and a clock. (I've now once again got a working clock in my living room) And us playing GTA vice City.

A quick trip to the shops got rugby tackled by McR, who demanded I'd pop by his place to play the X-Box. Obviously couldn't say "no" and spent the remainder of the day (and evening) playing games.

Got joined by Lorraine for a while and got told that half my readership (i.e. Lorraine herself) thinks that either my life is dull or that my diary is repetitive or probably both. Hey! We can't all be super-heroes who get to save the world every day :-) May have to admit that Lorraine knows me too well, yes, my life has got its dull moments and yes, my diary does get repetitive once in a while. May have to give up my daytime job and become a fulltime blogger :-)

Back home even before midnight due to me feeling somewhat sleepy-ish.

Went out for dinner with Shiwa and Cindy in Bazar to celebrate Shiwa's birthday (which was in April by the way) Appeared a bit on the late side because the thunderstorm that had been going on had knocked over a bottle of glassex (window-cleaner) and I had to clean my kitchen floor. Geez, there's loads of fluid in 1 bottle of glassex. Seeing as glass is spelled with only 1 's' in Dutch, this gave me the opportunity to text:"Will be a bit late, had sex on the kitchen floor."

After explaining that "no, there's nothing girlfriend should know immediately about this sex on the kitchen floor-thing", we had dinner, moved on to see "the Island", which I thought was pretty cool, even though the product placement stood out in a somewhat bad way.

Eventually teamed up with Femke and moved on to Rotown, where the DJ-ing wasn't exactly the best I've ever heard. Still had loads of fun. Back in bed by 4:30.

Sat at home, finished book, MSN-chatted with girlfriend. Yes, life can't always be exciting, I fear :-)

For some reason Lorraine decided to call for a "guys night out" on a schoolnight. Now my mum used to teach me that going out on schoolnights was a bad idea. And now schoolnights are a euphemism for:"The nights before you get up at 6:30 am, drag yourself to your car and drive to work", they're probably even less of a good idea. And then I haven't even mentioned that guys night out usually take place in a Belgian beer pub in Dordrecht, which is a 45 minute bike-ride away from my parents' place and probably an hour and a half from my own place (sober, that is). Oh and I have quite the liking for the stronger Belgian beers.

But seeing as Lorraine was bringing in her new boyfriend for a thorough inspection, I just had to be there just to decide whether this Richard guy deserved my seal of approval. Decided to sleep over at parents' place, asked my colleague if he could take the early shift and got all set for this guys night out. (Which meant finding my porn playing cards and poker-chips)

Biked to Dordrecht, drank beer, played silly games (as usual) and found out that old people probably aren't as scary as I supposed they'd be. Rolled into bed around 2-ish.

Guess I'm pretty good at this living on my own thing already. For some reason I own more alcohol than I own non-alcoholic drinks, I've got more chairs than there's ever people in my place and in the past couple of months I haven't nearly died from food poisoning once. Does this really mean I'm becoming a grown up? Eeeek!

Probably a bit sad but because it's the summer holidays and because there are no traffic jams, I completely didn't get round to do any shopping during all of last week. Usually just leave the road and find a supermarket whenever a traffic jam pops up (Though I only do this once every trip back home, doing it more would be somewhat silly).

But now without the traffic jams, I get back home, act surprised at the time I managed to arrive and rush out again to go and do fun stuff because I've still got a whole evening ahead of me. For example the last time I actually had a properis meal at my place was exactly a week ago, the last time I entered a supermarket was Saturday a week ago.

Because of this my house became pretty foodless. Yesterday I had to have three minute noodles for breakfast because that was the only breakfasty thing that was available (except for eating jam or chocolate sprinkles out of the jar/box). As for any of the other food-categories, my place was slowly running out of them as wel, no beer anymore, no quick snacks, no drinks, nothing.

Managed to stock up on food items and made myself dinner. Spent the remainder of the evening trying to finish the Baroque Cycle trilogy I've been reading ever since Italy (you try reading 3 800+ page volumes while at the same time having a working life, it apparently takes a while). Chatted a bit on MSN with girlfriend and went to sleep,

Somehow failed to leave the house the whole afternoon and missed the Formula 1 cars driving through Rotterdam as a result of this. Just lounged and read books instead. Teamed up with Remco, Marjoleine and Adriaan at night and managed to end up in yet another pub. I should get this blog pub-sponsored!

Felt a bit hazy in the morning, but had apparently promised Ellen last night to drive her around the country. Picked up McR, picked up Ellen and Gary and drove all the way to Volendam, where we watched tourists and had our picture made in traditional Volendam dress. (It was Ellen's idea, McR and I were forced to do it!!!)




Decided that we had to counter all the cheesiness somehow and drove on towards Bloemendaal, still the place to be when it comes to beach-clubs in the Netherlands. Managed to somewhat blend in and had some drinks while lounging in the sun.

At night went out with most of the people that showed up last night, and got joined by Lorraine for a bit. She claimed old age and pissed off pretty early but I won't say anything bad about that seeing as she brought me "yes man" back from the UK. Yay Lorraine!!!!! Big fun to have the whole old gang together in one place again for a change, even managed to bump into Haas.

Ended the night in Calypso, where we stumbled into Kaz, Katherine and Kaz's friends. All had a brilliant night out. Back home far too late, fearing the stand-by phone I had been carrying with me all night.

Out for dinner and drinks with Ellen, Gary, Sabrina, Marlies, Nicktor, Arjan and McR. Loads of fun was had by all. Even more drinks were had by all. Hic! Great to see Ellen again.

Popped by my parents' place for a barbecue with Kaz and Katherine. Dad managed to tell Katherine that she had grown fatter since the last time he saw her. Us van Alten man can be so charming :-)

Attended another Wednesday Night Skate with Arjan. Managed to bump into Karlijn and Katherine (one of Karlijn's friends I met in Paris once) as well. Loads of skating, loads of fun and eventually applepie-icecream. Managed to bump into Ruben and Wendy afterwards and have drinks with them as well.

Because Arjan hadn't seen Star Wars 3 yet and because I hadn't either, went to see that. Thought the story was somewhat implausible from time to time.

Spent the night chatting away with girlfriend, while skype failed miserably.

Really advancing on the book-reading now. Until Nicktor gave me a call that he had moved into his place. Popped in to have a look, and eventually ended up back at my place, playing with my ps2. Woohoo!

Spent the day badly missing girlfriend, reading a book at the same time. Had dinner at parents' place at night, with Kaz & Martin. More book reading at night. Drank port.

Had McR pop by to take my mind of girlfriend being away. With my livingroom clock broken, we managed a gaming session till 2 am. Big fun, apparently :-)

Dropped off girlfriend at the airport, then took off for Rotterdam to pick up a new driver's licence copy. (Which in the Netherlands mean I've now had one for 10 years). Got a pasport photo made that sucked somewhat less that the previous copy (even though it's still not great, see below). And where usually you spend an hour and a half waiting in line, I managed to get mine within 10 minutes because I one can make appointments in Rotterdam *yay Rotterdam*

Spent the evening playing Tony Hawk's underground 2, which I had accidentally bought while walking through town.

Girlfriend's last day in the Netherlands. Popped by to hold hand and watch her shed 6 kilos from her suitcase after I borrowed her neighbour's scale and found out that it was a bit overweight. Girlfriend also made me cookies! Hope they'll last me till she gets back home.

Out for dinner with girlfriend, her father, her sister, her grandmother and Walter. This means I had indonesian food twice within one week without my mother cooking it. Typical!

With girlfriend visiting a friend in Alblasserdam, I visited the parental unit and then read a book at home.

A nice and easy day, some sitting in the sun, some reading a book, some time at the beach playing football, a trip back home. And then a bunch of birthdays at Paul and Myra's place.

I'm starting to doubt that Nicktor is male. Where most men tend to over-estimate the size of anything (I've read this in girly-mags), Nicktor apparently under-estimates. Found this out when he more or less managed to hit the garden-fence with his car (starting at the rear bumper, hitting the whole side of the car, the wing mirror and the front fender). *ouch!* Note to Nicktor:"Yours is wider than you think"

One bruised ego and some silenced giggles later (never over-bruise a friend's ego on the first day he substantially damages his car, there are still years of jokes left to make up for the ones missed on the first day), we spent the day walking the beach, eating pannekoeken, and having a barbecue before we all took off for Renesse for a night out in the town.

Renesse is more or less the Salou or Lloret of the North, for all my readers on the other side of the big pond (Hi Crissy), this means the place you go to on holiday when you're between 14 and 16, drink yourself silly and pass out in your little tent. I had been there 10 years ago (I know, that was at least 2 years late) and it was exactly the same. Drank loads of beer, had fun, failed to fit in the cab back home and got to walk for an hour, with McR and Arjan, while Nicktor apparently was talking sex with the female part of our group.

Girlfriend's photos of the whole weekend to be found here.

Woke up and noticed that my mouth tasted like I had eaten a whole kebab place. Lots of brushing teeth afterwards.

Spend the morning finding out that there was no reason on the planet that I had to wait 8 weeks for my parking permit (as I had been told on the phone). Quoting the parking permit person (yay alliteration) "waiting for 8 weeks? We hand out all our permits within 5 days". Gaaah! The PPP found out my permit had been sent to the wrong address, he printed out another one and everybody was happy. Oh, before getting to the parking permit people, somebody managed to nick my bike, boohoo!

Spent the afternoon driving towards Burgh-Haamstede (where Annemarie's parents live) and touch churches with Arjan and McR. According to Arjan I was still smelling of garlic. Food and drinks at night untill we all(Arjan, Nicktor, Annemarie, girlfriend, McR, Martina and Sabrina) passed out in Annemarie's parents garden shed. Pyjama party!!! :-)

The plan for the night was to meet up with Lorraine with all my friends. First got taken to "Look" by girlfriend. Look is a garlic themed restaurant, which will surprise you with garlic in most its dishes, varying from chicken with 15 cloves of garlic to garlic ice-cream. Managed to survive the "chicken with 15 cloves of garlic" Hmmm... garlic.

Noticed that all my friends stepped back in horror after we teamed up with them for some drinks at "Melief Bender". Fun!. At the same time McR and I appear to have promised to strip at Lorraine's wedding, which according to her diary appears to be next year.

Popped by the disabled kids-camp I helped out at last year to spend some time with Anna-Marie and her mum (they sounded like they needed the company of Nicktor, McR and me). Had fun (and Indonesian food). Nicktor needs to work out how to work the lights of his car.

Saw war of the worlds, it kind of sucked, I fear. Probably one of my last free movies (girlfriend quit her job at the cinema).

My bad... what could be more important than having Lorraine pop by to admire my new place and spend the evening catching up? Had fun, a beer and got given an Engrish t-shirt Lorraine found me in Japan. "Chance is made by the chair" :-)

I really did do something, honestly, I even really did something with girlfriend. But at the same time I kind of can't remember. Can somebody refresh my memory?

Visited girlfriends' mothers. Apparently they now want to get married. Girlfriend appears to be in shock.

Cuddled the cat, slept in till 1 in the afternoon and then took off for parents' place to cuddle the cat. Spent night once again in bars, saw girlfriend down loads of baileys and then zigzag back home.

Drinks with McR, Nicktor, girlfriend and others in "de Oude Haven", big fun.

The day that girfriend returned from her holidays. Picked up girlfriend and Annemarie and went out for dinner in Scheveningen. Lots of fun.

Somewhat worried about the 2 engine management lights blinking on my dashboard. Will my car explode any minute now or did the engine management sensor break?

It must be summer, seeing as they've started doing "wednesday night skates" again in Rotterdam. Seeing as none of my friends are capable of staying upright on a pair of rollerskates (well Arjan can but he decided to go skate in Dordrecht), I got to go all by myself. At least until I bumped into my kid sister, that is. 10.000 people, loads of fun.

Spent the remainder of the night chatting with Crissy.

Bought a laptop for girlfriend. Spent most of the night playing with the laptop.

For a change we were supposed to go kite-surfing tonight. For a change we didn't because of no wind. Popped by my parents' place to cuddle the cat instead. Cat still wraps all 4 legs around me when it sees me. Awwww...

Woke up at a pretty silly hour because for some reason Cindy and I had decided we wanted to go to what used to be Sixflags Holland. Picked up Femke (who also appeared to be suffering from waking up early) and drove on towards Cindy, where we teamed up with McR and Arjan.

After arriving at the park 1.5 hours later, we teamed up with McR, Nicktor and Jasper and had loads of fun. For some reason it was both brilliant weather and very quiet, which meant plenty of time to do all the rides multiple times. (Did consider throwing up once or twice). For the interested ones, check Arjan's photos. And if you plan on only watching 1 of his films, then opt for this brilliant one of me and McR in the X-press (which used to be called:"Superman, the ride")

All left the park somewhat dizzy and drove on towards Harderwijk for a brilliant outside dinner. Silly moment of the day:"Nicktor pouring his water bottle over my head when I mentioned that I wanted to do something envolving water."

Bought trousers, cuddled the cat, fixed a bicycle I had found in my basement. (I'm now the proud owner of 2 bicycles) and played more Jak II. I know, a bit of a dull Saturday but apparently I'm suffering from old age :-)

Bought Jak II for my dvd-player. Spent the rest of the night playing Jak II on my dvd-player. Platform games are cool!

After a meeting in Rotterdam, I popped by my parents' place to cuddle the cat. The little gigolo pretends I'm his no. 1 favourite person only whenever my parents are on holiday. Thought I'd make use of this.

Was once again supposed to go kite-surfing. Kite-surfing cancelled very last minute. Boooh! Hisss!

Popped by my aunt's place to look at her two new red kittens. The red part is apparently the essential part, seeing as my aunt's last 5 cats have been of that colour. Cute. Also returned the grinder.

Seeing as the parents are on holiday I'm now supposed to cuddle the cat once in a while. Popped by my parents' place to do just that. Dragged some books back home.

Spent most of the day at the Metropolis Festival (which is held almost in my backyard), together with McR. Managed to bump into Bart somewhere during the day and spent most of the day with McR, Bart and Anneke (one of Barts friends).

Great fun, too bad they're redecorating the park, which meant that the stages were a lot further apart than usual. Saw loads of bands I had never heard of (not too weird seeing as their tagline is:"The best you've never heard of"). Definitely highlight for me was:"Hayseed Dixie" (Any band playing blistering AC-DC, Aerosmith and others rock-band covers country music-style deserves a loud *yee haw*)

Spent the night playing games on my PS2.

Actually somehow ended up at work on a Saturday morning. Booh! Hiss!

Eventually appeared back home and spent most of the day either watching live-aid or sleeping. I'm getting old!

Had a "fun and games"-night at McR's place with Nicktor and Martina watching from the couch. X-boxes are cool!

Apparently 5 hours of sleep just isn't enough for me, spent most of the day in a somewhat zombie-ish state at work and popped by at girlfriend's place to say goodbye seeing as she's going on holiday tomorrow. May have appeared somewhat unresponsive.

Gave the house rental people a call, they sounded relieved that this time my ceiling wasn't leaking and somehow they managed to get a plumber to call me the same day. (They're getting better and better plumber wise)

At night girlfriend and I visited girlfriend's sister and looked at the puppy she just got. Also managed to got caught in a tropical rainstorm on the way back home (had to do do 50 km/h on a stretch of highway you usually do 120 or more)

Had girlfriend pop by and watched "welcome to the jungle" (which isn't too great). Also did laundry, after which my neighbour downstairs knocked on my door to tell me that while my leaking ceiling problem has been solved, I've now got a leaking floor problem. Water was pouring down the walls, into her bathroom at a pretty alarming rate.

Packed my boyhood, an extension cord and my uncle's grinder and hopped in the tube to my girlfriend's place to tackle the grinding-job. Dragged girlfriend downstairs to watch me perform this manly task and then found my bicycle keys hidden in a plastic bag on my luggage carrier. Apparently somebody had spotted the keys and had been friendly enough to hide them from view for everybody. Right!

For some reason I had registered for the free "vehicle control"-course Arinso offered us, which sadly enough was on the same day as the ParkPop festival. Apparently free expensive stuff rates above guaranteed fun in my book. Obviously I forgot to factor in that this course meant getting up at 6:45 and driving 130 km to Lelystad.

And while 6:45 am is early on weekdays (actually, usually I get up at 6:30), it feels somehow even worse on Sundays. Then commuting on Sundays is easier, I'd love to be able to blast my way to work at 140 km/h every day of the week. (Then this would probably get somewhat expensive traffic-fine wise).

Because of this I managed to appear in Lelystad in 1 hour and 10 minutes and be there half an hour early. *gaah!*. The training day turned out to be half fun and useful, the other half was fun as well but due to new cars nowadays having ABS not as useful IMHO. In the old days they'd teach you how to avoid crashing into a brick wall, by showing you that it's impossibly to brake and steer at the same time. So you'd have to brake, release the brake, avoid object, and brake again. Nowadays it's just "break hard and steer". Still, nice to have tried it once or twice in a controlled environment.

At night had a barbecue at my aunts place with father, mother and girlfriend. Borrowed a grinder to tackle the bicycle lock problem.

Somehow I only locked my bicycle with the new bicycle lock I bought yesterday. This because I had decided that the old lock was too easy to pick. Managed to forget to lock this old lock and leave the key in it yesterday night. Now somebody has been friendly enough to lock this one for me and now obviously I don't have a clue how to pick it. Guess I'll either have to rugby-tackle a homeless person to do it for me or think up some other brilliant plan.

Took girlfriend and the tube to my place and spent the evening watching videos (Stealing Harvard and Bubble Boy) before going to bed.

After Cindy called out for cocktails in Rotterdam, we did just that, together with girlfriend, Nicktor, Annemarie, McR and Martina and some of Cindy's friends. Had food, and may have had one cocktail too many.Still loads of fun.

Had an Arinso-meeting at night (combined with an indoor-climbing event). Decided that going indoor climbing while it's 40 degrees celsius in the climbing hall probably isn't the brightest idea ever. Spent evening chatting with colleagues.

While taking out the thrash, I accidentally kept on biking and ended up in "de Oude Haven" drinking beer with girlfriend. Not the worst choice ever, seeing as the weather is brilliant.

Got my hair cut. Instructed all my colleagues to tell me the next day that my hair looked different.

Also gave the parking permit people a call, they claimed that they had been a bit busy and that 8 weeks was currently the waiting time for handing out permits. Which probably explains why after 4 weeks I'm still without. I fear that this means it will take them 8 weeks to send back a letter telling me I forgot to tick a box somewhere on the form.

But... with a bit of luck I'll be completely settled in Rotterdam after only 4 or 5 months.

Hot! After work I drove straight to Rotterdam, where I put on my rollerskates and attempted to skate towards girlfriend. Managed to fall flat on my face in the process and hurt my elbow. Booh!

Girlfriend refused to comfort my pain but instead took me on a picnick in "het park" in Rotterdam. Yay girlfriend! Had apple-pie icecream afterwards. Wooh! My elbow still hurts though.

Father's day in the Netherlands. Rushed past the shops to buy dad a beard trimmer and then raced to Ridderkerk to pick up Nicktor, who somehow managed to miss the lunch-part in my:"Are you coming to Arjan's lunch-barbecue"-question. Eventually drove on to McR's place, where the "Find out where Arjan lives"-game started. (Both McR and I had only seen a photograph of the place and more or less knew where the house was supposed to be).

Eventually Nicktor and I managed to spot Arjan's place and 15 minutes later Martina called in to tell us that McR was willing to give up the search. Spent the afternoon playing football, tripping in Arjan's kiddie-pool and lighting up the barbecue.

Eventually had to take off before dinner even started for father's day celebrations at home. (And more barbecue). Weeee!

Got picked up by McR and set off for a walk in the forests. Managed to create a theme for the day by spotting: "de piramide van Austerlitz" on the roadmap. (A 35 meter high piramid built by Napoleon's soldiers in 1804 to commemmorate the battle of Austerlitz (which is in the Czech republic).

Staid in at night with girlfriend and watched groundhog day.

Teamed up with some colleagues in a beach-club in Rotterdam. Found out on my way there that it's not smart having 2 girls named Esther under the sameentry in your phone (don't ask). Got very puzzled replies to my:"Please order me a beer, I'm coming in"-text.

Nice to catch up with all the colleagues, at the same time I think I may have found one of Lorraine's new favourite hangout-spots in .nl. :-)

Had girlfriend pop by, lounged.

Stayed in Amsterdam and watched the Dutch premiere of "the Hithchhiker's guide to the galaxy". Had Thai food beforehand. *yay!*.

Managed to get into a 3 km traffic jam on the way back home, where did that one come from??

Did I do anything on Tuesday? Must have, but I fear there's nothing that really stands out. Note to self:"Update more often"

Visited girlfriend's grandparents for dinner. Lots of fun, fun.

Set off into town to watch the Red Bull Air Race in Rotterdam with Nicktor, Sabrina, Arjan and apparently McR and Martina, even though they didn't show up till the end, claiming that they had overslept (at 1 in the afternoon). Loads of planes, 700.000 people and lots of fun.

Finished off with drinks in Rotown and more Indian food at girlfriend's place (yesterday we had Indian food as well). All were very merry.

Girlfriend took off for Utrecht and left me to ermmm... play with my PS2. (And sleep a little) At night went out for dinner with girlfriend, Nicktor and Annemarie.

In the past couple of years, I've been (sometimes partly) responsible for some cool birthday-stunts for Lorraine or so I'd like to believe. She once got thrown a kiddies birthday party at my parents' place, we once did a photo session when she was in Australia and last year I got loads of cult members to hold up signs wishing her a happy birthday. Seeing as neither me or my friends has been able to think up something on par with these stunts this year, I'll just stick to this flashback to the good old days and a more minimal way to mark this happy day. *yay Lorraine!*

Celebrated Lorraine's birthday at night by taking part in a 2 hour go-kart race with my ING-colleague Ron and 2 of his friends. Got elected to be the starter-person and spent 15 minutes wondering:"Why the fuck does everybody appear to be going twice as fast as me?" Found out that when I swapped places that I was "only" 5 seconds a lap slower than the fastest person. Gaaah! Then found out that those jerks showing off with walkie talkies were actually no 1 in the current indoor go-kart competition. Right! And some of the others were pretty good as well.

Managed to take a second and a half of my fastest lap-time on the second stint and my team gloriously managed to finish 10 (out of 15).

Unbelievable, today, after more than a week and a half, the plumber called. He'll be visiting tomorrow. I still can't believe it! Will I live to see a dry livingroom? :-)

Felt dead tired for some reason. Somehow passed out in bed at 10pm. Booh!

Watched "Kill bill" with girlfriend. Still a cool film.

Attended an Arinso meeting at night, got to chat with loads of colleagues I hadn't seen for a while. Big fun.

Bought a keyboard stand at Feedback (a music store in Rotterdam which was having a sale). Unexpectedly managed not to buy any other exciting gadgets and had to cheer myself up by buying Grand theft auto-Vice City for my PS2.

Spent remainder of the day playing GTA, with a short stop for racing back home to fetch my keyboard.

Watched Sin City with girlfriend in the afternoon. Really cool. Found out that girlfriend dislikes 95% of my car. Or at least she doesn't like its colour, she doesn't like its looks and she doesn't like the colour of the interior (beige). The only things that appear to be passable are the driver and the stereo. Boo! Hiss! May have to consider finding a more car friendly girlfriend.

On the other hand, at least girlfriend aparently knows that stereos and drivers are at least as important as looks. And seeing as girlfriend and I are together for 9 months now (also the first anniversary (well, if anybody would dare to call 9 months an anniversary) I manage not to forget *grin*), I think I'll let this one go. But she'd better like the next pink and yellow hawaiian shirt I buy!

Set out to watch stand-up comedy at night with Nicktor but got joined by the rest of the gang and completely failed to leave "de Consul". Better luck next time.

Spent most of the day somewhat half asleep. Apparently I'm too old now for going to bed at 1:30 and waking up again at 7. Either that or I may be getting ill.

Completely forgot to mention that Crissy is publishing shot of her wedding now on an almost daily basis. I even show up on 2 of them.

Managed to pass out after getting back home and didn't wake up till girlfriend skipped in and wondered what on earth I was doing.

Went to see "Marilyn Manson" in Amsterdam with McR. Seeing as I was already working all day in Amsterdam, I just decided to stick around and wait till McR would show up. Got a pretty distressing phonecall after a while:"I'm coming in and I'm wearing make-up". Gave running away some thought but then decided that mates should remain mates even when they're covered in mascara, lipgloss and whatever else.

In the end the damage wasn't too bad, black nailpolish, some lipgloss, and some eyeliner on his face. At least my kid sister had made sure it was all done somewhat tastefully. Even better, this camouflage made him look almost normal with the rest of the concert visitors, varying from full on goths to 14 year old boys wearing:"I am the god of fuck" t-shirts, while waiting for their balls to drop. Much fun was had by all.

Gave the housing people another phone-call to tell them that my roof was still leaking. Didn't manage to get much more of a reaction than:"Well, we already called the people upstream, there's not much more we can do about it".

Mentioning they were clueless twits fucking up (possibly in a somewhat raised voice) did manage to get some sort of a reaction (if a lady screaming abuse at me on the other side of the phone counts). Roof is still leaking though. *sigh*

Voted for the European constitution.

Visited the Audi dealer in the morning to have my fuel pump checked. (Factory recall). Isn't life exciting.

Had girlfriend visit at night.

Hmmm... Lorraine pointed out that Liverpool won the finals, instead of Leeds. Doh! Apart from that a pretty uneventful day, well... somebody visited to check my place and apparently I'm now certified to officially live here. And the Eels cd I bought at the concert yesterday turns out to be brilliant. Oh and my roof started leaking again *gaaaaah!*.

The lady at the rental place appeared to be severely unimpressed with my roof leaking and even less so with me pointing out that last time it took them 3 weeks before somebody even contacted me. "We called the people that are supposed to fix your place within the day". My reply:"But after that it took 3 weeks" did give some reaction:"I'll make a note of this". Hmmmm... Have decided that this time I'll refuse to call any people other than my rental people. And I'll be calling them often this time. They're the ones supposed to fix my place, I don't own a house, why on earth should I be calling the home-owners?

Spent the night playing with my playstation. (And doing some useful things not really worth mentioning)

After a pretty unventful day, girlfriend and I went to see Eels play. For some reason they manage to stun me everytime I see them play (though one of that times they stunned me by making Jeroen Burgerhout faint, something I had never seen before in my life).

This this time E brought with him a string-quartet, a double-bass player and somebody dressed as a Scotsman the last two both being multi instrumentalists, playing instruments varying from steel guitars, double bass (duh), piano, organ, a drum kit consisting of a suitcase (bass drum as well as hi-hat) and a garbage can. All in all pretty awesome. Spent most of the evening staring at the stage, thinking:"Oh wow!' Even the pre-show little film was brilliant.

I fear I may need to go and see them more often.

Woke up early to help Karlijn move. Picked up McR and went Kaz-wards, where people were already busy packing her place (at 9:30 am). Found out that we were all just in time to move the heavy objects (among which a washing machine and what looked to be "the mother of all couches"). Fortunately Kaz's old place is only on the 2nd floor and forunately the washing machine lives on the 3rd in her new place.

Managed to pack her whole house in a trailer and 7 cars and did all the moving business within 3 hours. Then McR and I found that we had plenty of time on our hands and not the slightest clue what to do with it. Managed to fix this by Picking up Nicktor and heading for Breda for a few drinks, after which the brilliant idea was born to drag Nicktor through all the phone-shops in Breda so that he could make his new choice of mobile phone. Unfortunately Nicktor now claims information overload.

At night we (Nicktor, Marlies, girlfriend, Annemarie, Sabrina, McR and I) all teamed up in "de Consul" and ended up in the Off Corso, which was brilliant but possibly somewhat hot.

Managed to play a game of football in my lunch break. Managed not to suck completely, there may still be a career as a professional football player for me.

Seeing as I spend most of my time indoors nowadays, I attempted to do something outdoory at night. Ended up walking to "de Euromast", while dragging girlfriend along. De Euromast rules!!!

At night I popped by my old neighbour to help him with computer-troubles and just to spend some time chatting. Fun. As for the radio... I got it installed this morning. Only 1 little problem. Radio reception currently sucks. Somebody may have to look at this.

Started watching the UEFA Champions League final at home, decided to pop by parents to pick up a book I had ordered on Amazon and saw that Leeds were already 3-0 down. As for the second half of the game:"Whoa". For the foreigners, Leeds managed to win after penalty-kicks in the end.

Made an appointment to get my radio installed this Thursday. The sounds of silence are already driving me mad. Did another 1.5 hour stint at city hall with as a result that I'm now more or less living in Rotterdam. I may have cheated a bit as officially I should first be visited by somebody to check that my living conditions are the way I claim they are. Never suspected it would take this much effort before I officially live in Rotterdam.

Had girlfriend pop by at night. Didn't do anything special, I fear.

Got to swap my Peugeot 206 for an Audi A2. Woohoo! It's fast, it's cute, it's everything it's black, it's got climate control, I'm pretty happy with it. There's only one minor feature missing, the people in the western world nowadays like to call it radio. Arse!

Bought a radio on the way back home, which also lets me connect my mp3-player and made an install-attempt with my dad. Connect 3 cables, push power-button and... nothing. Oh well, who needs radio when he only spends about 3 hours a day in his car? :-(

Woke up somewhat hungover (strangely enough), managed to do grocery shopping (woohoo) and spent the evening somewhat catching up with my weblog and unpacking my backpack.

All good things come to an end. Woke up fairly early (8:30), packed everything up and after some tent-drying, made our way to the airport. Caught flight, got picked up by mum and dad and eventually made our way back home from Charleroi (with a slight detour due to me doing a 180 on the ring around Brussels and driving back towards Charleroi).

After dinner at home, made it to Remco's place, where loads of beers later, I eventually rolled out around 4:30. Woohoo!

And... we still had to drive back to Pisa. Tried just that but may have made the mistake to opt for the orange (non-autostrada)-road. 4 hours later, we arrived 150 further, in Lucca *gaah!* Where girlfriend and I did some walking.

Eventually made it to Pisa, pitched tent, looked at tower and went out for dinner.

Visited Parma with girlfriend, walked around for a bit, saw churches, had a drink, loads of fun. This holiday is getting me terribly well rested, darkness sets in early and because we don't have too many lighting sources on us, I've usually been in bed by 10 every since I started camping. Obviously I refuse to wake up before 9, so many nights I manage to get more than 10 hours of sleep. Woohoo!

The worst thing of a camping holiday is probably having to pack up while its pouring down with rain. Did just that dressed in shorts and my rain-coat (trying to keep all my other stuf dry in the car) Dealing with soggy tents is never fun and Bart's tent turned out to be no exception.

After packing up we headed for the hills on the theory:"It's probably dry on the other side of the mountain". Found out that taking a C-road to get over a mountain is very time-consuming. Loads of corners, loads of rain but eventually we made it to Parma, 4 hours later, where we found the local campsite (after some problems) and... got told that they only accepted caravans. Arse!!!

Drove 30 km more and pitched the tent on a large campsite, which looked like a ghost-town (hundreds of caravans placed there by their owners, who probably don't show up till the height of summer). After barbecue-ing dinner, a walk into town showed us that we were by far the youngest people in the whole village (the average age of the people on the street being 85). Looks like it's some sort of an old-people resort. Weird!