30 May 2006

Surprise surprise

I've just sat back on the couch all "awwww" and "ohhh" after another great episode of Grey's Anatomy, only to have the dreaded words "voorlopige aflevering" flash up on screen. Last episode?! It's the middle of bloody season 2! You can't introduce us to Magical Heart Patient Denny and then leave us in the lurch like that! Damn stupid Dutch TV channels for driving me to the recaps on TVWP and other more nefarious means of getting my Grey's fix. I suppose I do have an excuse to get up off my arse and do something useful on a Tuesday night now... unless they plan on bringing back Gilmore Girls, in which case I'll be burrowing even deeper into the sofa.

28 May 2006

Rolling stock

Long train journeys are so much better than long plane journeys. I tend to freak out somewhat on long haul flights - the combination of claustrophobia, dodgy food and my inability to get any sleep whatsoever usually has me reduced to a babbling wreck by wheels down. A long train ride, however, is much more of an opportunity to unwind and stretch out and eat homemade sandwiches while finishing books I've had on my nightstand for months and finally getting round to some sudoku. After fifteen and a half hours' train travel through three countries in the past five days, I'm really quite relaxed.

We had about five hours without rain throughout our whole stay in Germany, which made for less pottering than we'd hoped. We managed a few hours of soakage in Heidelberg on Friday, which was almost made worth it by the sight of all this (although we'd had lunch by the time we found it):



Saturday was spent wandering around Karlsruhe and buying various weird varieties of chocolate (green tea, pistachio, honey, bourbon vanilla, crepe suzette, strawberry & green pepper, fig & almond). We made a quick dash into MediaMarkt afterwards to see if they had the new MacBook in stock (no! still flogging iBooks at full price!) and left with a copy of a Boss Hoss album. The Hoss are a comedy yee-haw country band from Berlin who specialise in covers, including Hey Ya, Loser and, my personal favourite, Word Up. Germany would've won the Eurovision with these boys.

We also came across this on our travels, possibly the funniest of all the World Cup themed merchandise we saw (from football shaped cake tins to handbags made from inside out footballs):



The blurb on the back says it's powerful and fruity and the perfect accompaniment to that thrilling football match. I bet it's muck, but I'll keep you posted.

24 May 2006

Obst und Gemüse*

We're off to Germany tomorrow (and possibly also a teeny bit of France and Switzerland) for some other-half-family-visiting and hopefully also some beer drinking and sausage eating. It's a five hour train journey from here to there and as usual, I have spent this evening making sure we are stocked up on less useful things like multiple printouts of today's Irish Times crossword and sudoku puzzles, decent reading material and, most importantly, some new songs to listen to. I am trying to limit myself to one iTunes purchase per month and am currently torn between the new Gnarls Barkley and Guillemots albums, even though I could buy both from iTunes for the price of one of the actual CDs in our friendly local record shop. Damn internet, messing with my logic and reasoning and keeping me from packing.

Back on Sunday for a short stint and then home for five days! Hurrah!

* These are three of the six German words (fruit and vegetables) I remember from secondary school, the other three being "sprechen sie Englisch?" My pidgin Dutch does help a little noq, but mostly I just end up confused...

22 May 2006

Hypotheses, odds and good intentions

Theories tested over the weekend:

- It's Not A Good Night Unless There Are Bruises (true, last count four)
- Smaller People Make Better DJs (true)
- Wine Then Beer, You'll Feel Queer (true)

and last but not least
- The Hair Of The Dog (false, sadly)

Things I wish I'd put money on:

- Munster winning the European Cup final
- Finland winning the Eurovision
- my 20 euro shoes breaking at some stage on Saturday evening

Goals for this week:

- no beer
- at least one 5k run
- manage to keep my eyes open throughout the entire 5.5hr return journey to Brussels on Wednesday, and maybe even get some work done in my comfy first class seat

19 May 2006

A parallel universe

It's been one of those weeks where things are a shade or two off "just right", with the net result being feelings of disorientation and "huh?"

Cases in point: we had a different quizmaster than usual at pub quiz on Monday, who was unbelievably slow, not at all funny and miscalculated the rankings at the end so we thought we'd come fourth for five glorious minutes when we were, in fact, sixth and just out of the points. We're still tenth overall in our bar's league, but not sure how much longer the glory will last.

Tuesday's not-quite-rightness was all thanks to Net5, who are messing about with their schedules yet again, causing me to miss the first half of Grey's Anatomy. Cue a panicked dash for the computer to fill in the blanks with the help of TVWP and my new best friend BitTorrent.

And last night, I fell sound asleep on the sofa at the ungodly hour of 8pm, waking up at 9.45 only to peel out my contact lenses and crawl into bed. I completely missed the Eurovision semifinal and Brian Kennedy qualifying. I reckon that counts as two things.

Today has been relatively normal thus far. However, if I have in fact slipped into a parallel universe, I am hoping that a furnished one bed in de Pijp within my budget will fall into my lap at some point this afternoon. Back in the real world, I'll continue freaking out. Six weeks to moving day!

15 May 2006

Inversely proportional

Isn't it odd that when things are quiet I can ramble here for ages, but when there are actual Big Things going on it takes me five days to string a sentence together? No?

Alright, here goes.

Big Thing number one: I have a new job as of June 1st. Same company, different stuff, lots more responsibility, very exciting and not the kind of opportunity I could ever turn down. End of work talk.

Big Thing number two: I'm apartment hunting. This is a) because Oran is going home next month and b) because our lease is up and I can't afford to renew on my own.

Talk about bad timing.

In a nutshell, I can't leave and he can't really stay. It'll be tough, but we've managed time in different countries before and I'm sure we can do it again. In the meantime, I'm juggling two jobs, compulsively hitting 'refresh' on every expat rental site in the city and keeping every appendage crossed that the next six weeks go smoothly. After that, who knows...

11 May 2006

My b flat baby

It's... a clarinet!



I've been talking about taking up a new (and portable) instrument for months. This was most definitely one of those in the running. Thanks to my cooler than cooler than cool family, I can now get cracking. Best belated birthday present ever!

8 May 2006

Tradition schmadition

I have been quaking in my flip flops for the past few days in anticipation of the Dutch Office Birthday Ritual. I am not a huge fan of being the centre of attention for anything at work other than my mad co-ordinating skillz, so the thought of having to stand in the middle of a circle of people I mostly half-know and be repeatedly kissed (right cheek/left cheek/right cheek) and have songs sung about me in multiple languages makes me want to curl up in a small ball behind all the Madagascar soft toys under my desk. To make matters worse, some longstanding Dutch tradition dictates that the birthdayee buys his/her own cake, so I get to organise and pay for my annual mortification. Woohoo.

This year's ordeal finished minutes ago, and amazingly I only spent about half of it wanting to be magically transported out of the room and off to self-employment land where I can buy myself cake and sing Happy Birthday To Me every day of the week. The rest of the longest quarter of an hour ever was divided between wondering what's going on with my job as the guy who gave me my card isn't my boss yet but may be my boss but is he my boss? and shovelling large forkfuls of appelkruimelvlaai (that's apple crumble custard cake) into my mouth whilst maintaining an idiotic/appreciative grin. I really don't know what it is about these forced public displays that turns me into a gibbering wreck. I mean, it's not like I'm attention-shy outside of work!

Oh well. Roll on next year... in the meantime, it's time for another slice of cake.

The quarter century

How I Spent My Birthday Weekend, In No Particular Order:

- Had dinner at what used to be Blakes and is now the Dylan with Oran. Delicious food ("poncey food", says Oran) and some very tasty white wine
- Had my first outdoor rosé of the year, and enjoyed it thoroughly so had lots and lots more
- Pieced together quite a few more memories of Queen's day
- Shopped, and shopped and shopped and shopped some more and still didn't get the final component of Oran's present :(
- Proofread Susan's music thesis. My sister, she is brainy
- Was entertained by the world's coolest grandparents at Buena Vista Social Club on Saturday night. Some of them had trouble walking on and off stage, but boy can they still perform
- Saw Mission Impossible III, which marked the first time I've ever fallen asleep at the cinema. Yes, it's that bad
- Got up early yesterday morning to make triple chocolate brownies (they tasted fabulous but making them hurts my arteries. So much sugar/butter/chocolate!)
- Had birthday cake and birthday steak at a barbecue yesterday afternoon
- Got extremely sunburned at same barbecue... who knew early May sun could be so strong?
- Played with new toy (portable Creative speaker dock thing for my ipod, courtesy of Oran, I'm in love)
- Turned 25! Aah!

3 May 2006

Signs it's been a good weekend

- Every photo your mates upload to Flickr is enlightening, e.g. "I didn't know he fell asleep in the bath!" or "there were four of us in that hammock?"

- You're still finding empty Flugel bottles in your jacket pocket

- You're analysing the minutiae of last Saturday rather than counting down the minutes to this one

- You've been so busy reminiscing you've still not bought your boyfriend a birthday present and now it's tomorrow, which means he ain't getting one until the evening

(okay, that last one has less to do with the weekend and more to do with the week that's followed and my general crapness... sorry Oran!)