Empty nest

Tonight is our last night in the apartment. We've just spent two and a half hours hawking boxes and bags of my stuff up to my new place; Oran's belongings are now winging their way home bar the suitcase he'll live out of for the weekend. All that's left here is our bedding, the mosquito net, and the bits and pieces we'll need in the morning. It feels so empty - I'd post photos to show just how empty but my camera cable is now a ten minute cycle away.

The end of a chapter, in more ways than one.

I'll be back on Tuesday, if my ISP decides to play nice and transfer my connection on time. If they screw up, as I'm fully expecting them to, I'll have to bide my time on the sofa with a jumbo sized bar of Ritter Sport and Gilmore Girls reruns... oh wait, I'll be doing that anyway. Except this time with no-one to curl up beside - not until July 28th.

Phew

Well, Death Cab For Cutie beat out football/voetbal/soccer in the finish, and didn't disappoint. We managed to get standing right up the front, directly beneath Ben Gibbard's mic and mini-drum stand. They were even better than the last time I'd seen them and are coming back again in the autumn! Yay! We managed to fight our way through the coat queue relatively quickly afterwards and then pegged it to the Irish pub round the corner in time for the (insanely dramatic) last 20 minutes of the Dutch game. It would appear that I'm now an England supporter - I'll have to trade in my brand new orange t-shirt for a red one.

Four days to go now until we move out of the apartment - I still haven't started packing but am planning to clear out my wardrobe and throw out unnecessary paperwork crap this evening. Oran's flight is booked for July 3rd but as the weekend just gone was our last in the apartment, we figured we'd have a slightly early leaving/apartment-trashing party. And so Saturday night came to pass, complete with electrocutions, ice fights, matching feet, inflated rubber gloves, and actual swinging from the rafters. Lots of photos via the Flickr link over there in the sidebar. I think you could say we've sent him off in style.

Scheduling conflict

I am in a quandary about what to do about my Sunday evening.

In the red corner:

In the blue corner:
















What to do?! I bought the Death Cab tickets last weekend without even thinking to check the voetbal schedule. Then Holland and Argentina had to go and draw, thus setting up the Sunday evening match. I did see Death Cab three months ago, but it's Ben Gibbard! And cute mini drum kits! And sweet songs! On the other hand, it's Oranje voetbal! And knockout stages! And public drunkenness!

So, do I sacrifice musical bliss for adopted patriotism? Will I be fired out of the country on my ear if I don't? Watch this space...

Flickrified

I'm having such an unproductive morning I thought I might as well go all out and play with Blogger. Et voilà, check out the pretty Flickr badge on the sidebar. Now I just need to get used to carrying my teeny tiny camera everywhere with me - I'm still keeping it wrapped in cotton wool at home because it's so new and shiny and pretty. There's always something to photograph in this city.

Sometimes I really love my job

I've just been sent a list of 8,000 karaoke songs and told to recommend a selection of 100 or so for potential use in a new project.

So far, I've given the following the thumbs up (and I'm only as far as B):

10cc - I'm Not In Love
2Unlimited - No Limit
4 Non Blondes - What's Up?
ABBA - Dancing Queen
Ace Of Base - All That She Wants
A-Ha - Take On Me
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor (giggle)
B*Witched - Blame It On The Weatherman (hee)
B52s - Love Shack

I am now torn between selecting Everybody or I Want It That Way from the Backstreet Boys' illustrious back catalogue. Both would be overkill, no?

I don't think I'm going to mind working late this evening.

(Edit: Daniel O'Donnell and Foster & Allen both appear on this list! How's a girl to choose?!)

Tick tick tick tick boom

Start the clock...

Two weeks until I have to leave Oran to the airport with the remainder of his stuff crammed tight into his suitcase.

Thirteen days until I move into my small but perfectly formed room in my new apartment and get used to living with a girl again.

Eleven days until we move out of this apartment with its three metre ceilings and its amazing kitchen and the dishwasher, oh how I'll miss the dishwasher.

Eight days (give or take) until I finally start packing after thinking up every excuse in the book to avoid the clearing out and the boxing up of all the crap I've accumulated over the past year and a half.

Five days until our last house party, when we'll hopefully get rid of most of the booze in our kitchen, so I'll have a couple less things to hawk over to the new place.

Two days until Holland play Argentina for the opportunity to finish top of their group.

Two hours until I go to bed and make lists and lists and lists of things to do and pack and throw out in my mind until I fall asleep.

Yep, things are going full tilt around here.

If it's Wednesday, it must be raining

I was right. (Okay, the ten weather forecasts I've been obsessively checking since the heatwave started were right.) The heavens opened right on schedule in the early hours of this morning and it's been a murky, grey and mercifully cool day. In spite of my weather forecast overload, I still managed to dress weather-inappropriately this morning and got a soaking on the way from work to the gym. Holding a flimsy pink umbrella in one hand while steering my bike with the other only shields me from so many raindrops; my light summer trousers were soaked through in about 45 seconds. I'm slightly ashamed at not owning either a rain jacket or a pair of rain pants - both essential items of clothing for the hardened city cyclist here. I usually take the tram to work if it's raining in the morning, but there's no accounting for sneaky Dutch weather. And anyway, rain pants are hardly practical if one wants to wear a skirt, are they?

So, no more long lazy evenings in the park for now, although it's set to warm up again at the weekend. I'm just happy I can get a decent night's sleep with the fan off and the windows shut.

Where I'm hoping to spend a good part of this week

The Vondelpark at dusk on Thursday. Unlike Irish parks, this one is open all night, which means impromptu parties until 2am in weather like this.

Right, definitely off this time. Important things to do like liberally applying fake tan so people aren't blinded by the sight of my bare legs.

Roastin'

Too hot to blog. Normal service will resume when the grey and murk and rain does - I'm giving it until Wednesday.

A frightening shade of pink

I'm back, plus two pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, sunglasses, a halterneck top, a jumper, a belt, a brand new Canon Ixus 55 (woo!) and, less desirably, about four extra pounds, thanks to the temptations of Cadbury's and my mother's home cooking, and sunburned cleavage, thanks to the unexpectedly amazing weather. We had a scorcher of a weekend that looks set to continue through to Friday at least - given that it was eleven degrees and raining horizontally when I left Amsterdam on Thursday, packing sunglasses was the last thing on my mind. Hence the new purchase, although in fairness they were only a tenner.

Friday: Dublin and some lounging round St. Stephen's Green.















Saturday: back home and lots of lounging round in the back garden.















Sunday: delicious dinner and lounging round on the beach.
















Monday: mini-marathon, which was really 10k of lounging as I decided to walk it. Unfortunately no pictures as my brand new camera battery died and I didn't fancy Oran's suggested method of jamming the Dutch charger into an Irish socket ("I do it all the time...!") Suffice to say it was huge and colourful and there were lots of dodgy covers bands and many, many men in drag.

As for today: plane, sleep, laundry, bed, most of which counts as lounging. Then a three day work week (hurrah!) and apparently on Friday there's a small soccer tournament of sorts kicking off...

Proof that the internet is rotting my brain

Just before waking up this morning I had a dream that I had a myspace account (not so strange as I did set one up aaaaages ago but promptly forgot the password and really couldn't be bothered requesting a reminder). Anyway, in the dream I was a rabid myspacer, but also very lucky to count Sandra Bullock as one of my myspace friends. She friended me after meeting me in my home town while she and her hubby Keanu (I KNOW!) were filming in the area. She sent me a message to thank me for bringing me to quite possibly the scummiest bar in town, which I've never even been in. I'm very tempted to check it out this weekend though, just in case it's gone A-list all of a sudden. We do have Lisa Kudrow living in the area now, yah.