Two wheels on my wagon

Public service announcement

2007-09-14T19:54:00.000+02:00

I've discovered Wordpress. I feel like I've been drinking alcopops for years and have all of a sudden been introduced to neat vodka. Have drunkenly stumbled over here:

http://backpedalbrakes.wordpress.com

See you there...

Bad choice of title

2007-09-14T17:26:00.000+02:00

Not this post, the previous one. It turns out "gastro" was unfortunately accurate as one of my sisters came down with full blown gastroenteritis after the whole sorry affair. The local (who are still remaining nameless!) have been very communicative, phoning every day, but have yet to come up with a final resolution/offer/apology. We should know more this evening.

In the meantime, I'm gearing up for a full, but fish-free, weekend. An old friend from college recently got engaged (it begins!) and herself and the affianced are having a party to celebrate. It's pretty telling of the last five years that I haven't even met the guy yet - I've only seen photos and the suspense is killing me.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm having my first Irish haircut in years. This is making me quite nervous because I'd only just found a hairdresser I trusted in Amsterdam before I left, and now it's back to square one and I am very picky. And paranoid that I'll end up with a mullet.

And tomorrow evening, I will be yelling at the TV along with half the country as Ireland face Georgia in the rugby world cup. There are eight rugby pitches (eight!) in the whole of Georgia, so we have no excuse this time round. Here's hoping the team can forget they're Irish, with all the self-doubt and self-devaluation that comes with the territory, and manage to kick ass for a full 80 minutes...

Gastro disaster

2007-09-12T13:27:00.000+02:00

I'm sorely tempted to name names in this post, but I won't just yet as it's a story that has yet to reach its ending...

Last night two of the sisters were about town so we decided to have a bite to eat near my apartment. I booked a table for three at Place A for 8pm and we sauntered up at around ten to eight. I was really looking forward to going back as the menu was varied and the food delicious on my last visit about two months ago. Anyway, we walked in and were seated straight away as the place was pretty quiet. We opened our menus and realised straight away that our choices were going to be extremely limited unless we wanted giant hunks of red meat. None of us were that hungry so we opted for the lightest dishes on the menu - the girls chose the chicken dish and I picked a veggie tagine. Our waitress came over to take our order and, when the girls asked for chicken, she told them the kitchen was all out.

Now, I'm not a restaurateur or a chef, but this seemed pretty stupid, for a few reasons. a) Chicken dishes are always popular, b) it was a quiet night and c) it wasn't even 8pm! We were pretty peeved and ended up walking out. (It's not my first time walking out of a restaurant, but that's a story for another day.)

Onward and downward - well, down the hill - to my local. I've drunk there a few times since moving back (which makes it my local for reasons of pure frequency!) and had heard good things about the bar food. We got settled in one of the snugs straight away and ordered - I went for caesar salad and the girls opted for seafood chowder. The food arrived fairly quickly (dinner! finally!) and we dug in. My salad was delicious and the girls were wolfing down their chowder at a rate of knots - Helen declared it just as good as any she's ever had in Dingle. Result, we thought - lovely food, lovely bar, less than a tenner a head.

That was until 1am when both girls (one of whom was staying with me) woke in a delirious nauseous sweat. They were both up for most of the night and are still feeling dodgy. We won't find out what said local has to say for itself until later this evening... at which point I'll decide whether or not to reveal its identity. Either way, I'm pretty wary of ordering anything there again, and Place A has definitely earned a spot on the blacklist. What a disaster of an evening.

Back back back

2007-09-11T12:25:00.000+02:00

Bristol does funny things to people. Well, it did to us at any rate. After two hours of wandering in and out of pretty little shops around Clifton on Friday in scorching sun, we headed to a lovely beer garden overlooking the Avon Gorge and a suspension bridge for lunch. We may have been sunstroked at this stage (and I was certainly sunburned in some funny places... photographic evidence to come) but all of a sudden there were plans to move to the area and have our boyfriends/fiances go into business together and have babies and work four day weeks and meet in this very beer garden every sunny Friday (for it would always be sunny) with our Quinny strollers and have lunch and bask. Domestic fantasies aside though, it's a very lovely city and the locals are very friendly and have singsong almost-Welsh accents.

Most of what we saw of Bath was from this angle and it really did look that good on Saturday (yay more sun!) There's a lot to be said for lolling round in a huge towelling robe for a day, with massages and facials and steam rooms and stealthy naps thrown in for good measure. All the relaxation took its toll on us, though, and we were all in bed by 10:30 after a massive Indian dinner.

We were all quite amazed at how much we managed to squeeze in to the three day trip - largely due to very little alcohol consumption and lots of sleep. All in all, the perfect relaxing weekend. Photos on Flickr this evening, I hope, all this Flickr/Facebook double postage is becoming quite tiresome!

A work in progress

2007-09-06T14:43:00.000+02:00

So, I have the colour scheme I want sorted and I've decided I'd rather stay with this overall layout. Still trying to decide what will go over in yonder sidebar, though. I had meant to tinker with it yesterday evening, but got majorly distracted by all the Apple shenanigans. I am craving one of these so badly the wait for payday is nigh unbearable!

In the meantime, though, I'm headed off to the UK for a few days to meet up with my Amsterdam girlies for Julia's not-hen. Lots of eating, drinking, wandering and pampering in Bristol and Bath awaits...

Whoops

2007-09-04T22:51:00.000+02:00

Playing with Blogger. Thinking about changing my layout completely. But completely forgot to back up my existing template before I started messing. Boooooooo.

Dinner!

2007-09-03T21:22:00.000+02:00

We threw together a Spanish-y chorizo and chickpea stew for dinner this evening. I would've taken a photo, but it was consumed with some gusto before I had a chance!

Here's the recipe, as (mis)appropriated from the bible. Serves 2-3, or 2 for dinner and one for next-day lunch.

100g chorizo (the link sausage, not the pre-sliced stuff)
2 x 400g cans cherry tomatoes (pomodorini), drained
1 x 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
100g black olives, pitted
about 100g baby potatoes, chopped into quarters, pre-boiled and left to cool
3 or 4 sun dried tomatoes, finely chopped
1 large clove garlic, crushed

Slice the chorizo into small chunks and fry off for 2-3 mins on a medium heat in about a tablespoon of olive oil in a deepish saucepan or casserole pot.
Next add in the garlic and sun dried tomatoes and fry for about a minute.
While you're doing this heat up about another tablespoon of olive oil in a second pan. Pop in the potatoes and saute.
Add the tomatoes, chickpeas and olives to the first pan and muddle up a bit - you want to break up the tomatoes and let all the flavours combine. Season with salt and black pepper at this point too.
After about five mins turn the heat off on the potatoes and tip them in to the main pan. Turn the heat down and let the pot sit for a few minutes so the potatoes absorb the flavour.
And that's that! Serve with chopped flat leaf parsley on top.

Ten years

2007-09-03T17:24:00.000+02:00

Ha! So much for one entry a day. Lazy lazy lazy.

I am feeling old. The sisters and I went out on Saturday night to a bar whose doors I haven't darkened in ten years. Ten Years. As in, I couldn't drink legally the last time I was in there (not that that stopped me...) Back then, it was tiny and cramped and cold in winter and the old booths were rickety and ripped. The last time I drank there I owned ten-hole Doc Martens and a long tie-dyed skirt and drank Ritz and thought I was the bee's knees.

Was I ever in for a shock on Saturday evening.

The place is twice its former size now - it was completely gutted and refitted a couple of years back. The ceilings are still low but now slightly arched and from them hangs a couple of grand's worth of fancy lights and rigging. The booths have been replaced by snazzy dark wood tables and stools in a semi circle around a huge dancefloor/moshpit. Up and coming Irish bands play there week in, week out and the price of admission would have bought me five bottles of Ritz back in the day. The crowd is still young, but they seem much older than I did at their age. Gone are the tatty grunger outfits and in their place are skinny jeans, Chanel handbags and a casual cool I could never have dreamt of pulling off at sixteen.

I stood at the back sipping my gin and bitter and looking on as my feet started to ache from my too-high heels and my ears started to ring from the noisy pop-rockers thrashing about on stage. I left after half an hour to hobble home and drink tea and sleep for nine hours. Somehow, I don't think the distance between twenty-six and thirty-six will seem so vast.

Er... it's September

2007-09-01T13:17:00.000+02:00

It's nearly two months now since I came back to Dublin. So far I've shopped A LOT (four years without Topshop, Oasis and any pretty shoes whatsoever must be compensated for!), spent an inordinate amount of money on tarting up our apartment, met up with old friends, made some new friends (hi Paul!), and shown some Amsterdam friends around my old/new hometown. Between all of this, plus my growing addictions to Heroes, Flight Of The Conchords and Facebook/Facebook Scrabble, there hasn't been much activity round these here blogging parts.

However, in the interests of Getting Back Into The Habit, I am hereby vowing to blog every day for the month of September. Heaven knows what shite I'll be spouting after a week of this, but it's worth a shot...

A mixed bag

2007-08-04T22:33:00.000+02:00

Signs I am still part Amsterdammer:

- I ask for mayonnaise to go with my chips
- I look the wrong way when crossing the road
- I say 'gezondheid' when someone near me sneezes

Signs I am starting to settle back in:

- all the tea I am drinking, no more coffee, it's too watery here
- I've caught myself saying 'euros'
- I'm already grumbling about public transport

It's four weeks tomorrow since I moved. Still so many things to see and do and try, still so many things I miss. A friend told me on the phone earlier tonight that she's been back since October and is still struggling to settle - I am hoping it won't take me quite as long.

Televisual

2007-07-20T00:13:00.000+02:00

Amsterdam, 2003-2007: Bugger all on TV. Especially not Scrubs. Maybe three new episodes viewed "legally"; the rest acquired "by other means".

Dublin, tonight, 9pm: Four different episodes of Scrubs ON FOUR DIFFERENT CHANNELS.

a) I wish we had a PVR and
b) it's good to be home.

Details

2007-07-17T21:57:00.000+02:00

The rest of the apartment is still awash with boxes and tools and unhung pictures, but we're getting there... slowly.

Oh yes, I'm really this much of a nerd

2007-07-08T13:56:00.000+02:00

At gate. Using wireless that costs EUR6 for half an hour. Chatting with Amsterfriends online as if nothing has changed. But oh boy it has. See you on the other side!

36 hours to go

2007-07-07T02:54:00.000+02:00

Still to do:

- cancel gym membership
- hawk bags of clothes to charity bins
- attempt to cram a large suitcase's worth of clothes into a teeny tiny suitcase
- attend wedding of one of the first people I met here
- one last Sunday breakfast

It's happening!

Packing. Eugh.

2007-07-03T16:21:00.000+02:00

Only four boxes done so far and they already exceed my body weight. Where did all this stuff come from? And I haven't even started on the clothes and shoes yet...

Update: the final total weight = 135kg. That's two of me! Two of me!

Bad timing

2007-07-02T15:06:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I realised one of my worst Amsterdam fears and fell down half a flight of the very steep stairs that lead to my apartment. I was in a hurry to get out and was rocking out to my ipod when I misjudged one step and found myself careening down the remaining half flight from the 3rd to the 2nd floor. I managed to put my right arm out and grabbed the bannister, which brought me to a halt on the bottom step without having hit my head. Unfortunately I seem to have now pulled every muscle in my right arm (making even typing this tricky), which, considering the amount of lifting and hawking my next days will involve, is nothing short of crap timing. I've got about ten bags of rubbish ready for the weekly pickup tonight already, and I haven't even started on the top floor of the apartment yet. Two nurofen now and a hot bath later will help - I hope!

I quit

2007-06-29T17:47:00.000+02:00

I just cycled home from work for the last time, laden down with three bags full of presents (some so thoughtful! like the copy of Everything Worth Knowing from one guy who heard me talk about The Devil Wears Prada exactly once, and the stroopwafels! so many stroopwafels!) I'd finished up by about 3 and spent the rest of the afternoon surfing the internet and chatting. I've learned more about some of my colleagues in the past month than in the previous three and a half years - I think handing in my notice flipped an honesty switch somewhere, and now people feel they can say anything to me because I'm leaving anyway (and to be fair, vice versa, I've let rip on more than one occasion this past month).

I still think it hasn't quit hit me that I am now unemployed (albeit only for a week) - mainly because I have nothing to compare this whole job-quitting malarkey to. There is a huge difference between walking out the door at the end of a three week temp assignment and handing in one's security badge featuring an almost unrecognisable photo of oneself taken at the age of 22. I think it'll only really hit me on Monday morning when I wake up and realise that there is no job to go to, and moreover that I have two days to sort and pack my worldly belongings before Fedex arrive.

In the meantime, I have a weekend full o' fun ahead, with the highlight (hopefully) being my leaving do tomorrow night, where the theme will be Come Dressed As A Song Title. A full recap and photos will follow! In the meantime, tell me what you would come as...

Getting down to the nitty gritty

2007-06-22T22:04:00.001+02:00

I've been so busy enjoying myself over the past week I've done exactly no work on the really important stuff I need to sort before I move. Instead, I've been drinking in the park, swing dancing in public and staying up until 2am arsing about on the internet. I think I've hit a second wave of denial about leaving. My friend Franco, recently repatriated to Toronto, said this to me earlier:

"You are really, really, really going to miss amsterdam. after i came back i would lie in bed and i could feel myself riding my bike along the canals. never had a connection like that with any city before."

I've also spent a fair bit of this week talking all things Amsterdam with another friend, who had a potential offer of a transfer to San Francisco and was going through actual physical distress at the thought of leaving here. It's made me think about the effect Amsterdam has on people - it's a kind of Neverland playground for expats where real world rules don't apply. No mortgages, no rat race, no real responsibility, no fixed plans. Spontaneity, relaxation and ridiculously short bike commutes are the order of the day. It's all so easy - who wouldn't want to stay forever?

Except, it's dawned on me over the past few months that there's more to life than easy. Being in a second stint of long distance with Oran hasn't been easy. Missing my family hasn't been easy. Growing apart from friends through a pure lack of proper catch up time hasn't been easy. And as much as I've settled in here, and as much as I'm slightly scared of settling in somewhere new, somewhere less utopic, I think the payoff makes it all worthwhile. Come three weeks from now, I may be crammed on a tram during rush hour instead of sauntering through the park on my bike, but, when it comes down to it, I will be home.

Sob

2007-06-14T22:07:00.000+02:00

So much for the moussaka. The boyos are not moving in now after all. There is a third boyo so they have decided to go looking for three bedroom apartments.

Back to square one for me...

Baby steps

2007-06-10T20:40:00.000+02:00

One of my main worries about leaving here has been to find replacement tenants for my apartment. (I say "one of" because the main worry I've had here for the past week has been the nightmares, including The One Where The Strange Guy Grabs Me By The Neck and The One Where I Get Blown Up In A Car On The Family Farm). Anyway, I'd figured I would have to place an ad on some expat website to find people to take over my lease in July, but it now seems that two friends may be up for taking it on.

Anyway, one of said prospective new tenants is Greek Aussie and he decided he'd give my kitchen a trial run this afternoon by making moussaka from scratch. I, of course, couldn't say no, seeing as he was MAKING MOUSSAKA FROM SCRATCH (using his mother's recipe, bell book and candle, and I mean he was following detailed step by step instructions from an excel spreadsheet he had created the last time he watched his mammy make moussaka). Score on both fronts, it would seem, and I am hoping for confirmation from him and the other new tenant in the coming couple of days, which would be a Very Major Tick on the List Of Very Practical And Boring Things I Have To Do Before I Go, So Boring In Fact That I Haven't Blogged About It.

Photos of the moussaka and consumers thereof over in yonder sidebar - it was bloody gorgeous.

Little miss worst case scenario

2007-06-08T13:52:00.000+02:00

It turns out I had nothing to worry about! The apartment is no longer in the red light - the ladies of the night moved west when the tram lines went in on the street outside two years ago. So now all we're looking at is a great apartment on a lovely street well within our price range and with absolutely everything we could want including two big bedrooms and a south facing balcony.

So, we're taking it. Done deal! It feels like we've been on a wheel of good fortune for the past two weeks and turning this down in favour of shopping around would cause all sorts of karmic anger. Not that we could turn this down, mind. So hello Dublin 7!

Now to important things like finding a decent local and the nearest Tesco...

And so it begins

2007-06-07T23:29:00.000+02:00

Oran viewed our first potential apartment in Dublin this evening. It has some very firm pros - great decor, not too pricey, parking space, and most importantly owned by a friend of my sister's so we know we're not getting a bum deal. HowEVER, it's on a street best known for its late night kerb crawling activity and less than ideal for my commute to work. What to do...? We are both extremely inexperienced as far as renting in Dublin goes - the market has shifted completely since we last lived there five years ago. Part of me is reluctant to sign up with shady agencies (they're all somewhat shady, no denying it), but if it meant getting a place closer to work... Plus we're up against some pretty tough timelines - I start work on July 9th and am facing into a three hour round trip commute from a sofa bed at my parents' place if we don't have something sorted out by then. Right now we're keeping everything crossed, but as I type the one and only decent rental website is down and I am taking that as a sign.

In the meantime I am planning ticks for some of the boxes on the list below, the first being tomorrow when I embark on my last booze cruise round the canals. The weather is (hopefully) set to stay in its current tropical state, which should make for three hours of bliss. If it rains I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to reschedule - here's hoping the weather and apartment gods get together tonight for a pep talk.

The to-do list

2007-06-05T22:36:00.000+02:00

I should probably be spending more time on making more critical lists like Things I Need To Cancel and Things I Need To Ship Home, but this one is much more fun. I'm hoping to knock as much as possible off this list in the next four and a half weeks, with a little help from my friends.

Bars

( ) Wijnand Fockink (Best Bar Name Ever)
( ) Nemo roof terrace bar (one of the loveliest views over the city and, in my opinion, best experienced on a scorching hot sick day)
( ) Gollem and De Zotte (mmm Belgian beer)
( ) 't Arendsnest (mmm Dutch beer)

Restaurants

( ) Vooges
( ) Garlic Queen
( ) Nieuwmarkt fondue place
( ) Malaysian cafe place
( ) Gusto (purely for the pasta in the parmesan wheel)

Other

( ) BBQ on my balcony
( ) Karaoke night
( ) Disco bowling at Knijn
( ) Booze cruise (set for this Friday, everyone invited!)
( ) Games night
( ) Club Rascal

Four and a half weeks to go...!

Drumroll please

2007-05-31T17:58:00.000+02:00

So yes. Big news. Today I accepted an offer of a new job in Dublin and quit my job here. I finish up on June 29th and move home on July 8th.

It doesn't seem so big when it's laid out like that. But big it is! It's been some time coming but I am still shocked at how quickly things have progressed. Oran's been at home for a year now and I've said all along that I wanted to move home - just not without a job. Little did I know that I would get the very first one I applied for within two weeks of applying, and little did I know that it would be quite so amazingly brilliant as it sounds. In short, I couldn't have asked for more.

That said, I am gutted to be leaving Amsterdam. I had a minor meltdown in the middle of Nieuwmarkt yesterday evening as the enormity of it all hit me. I have been very lucky to have had the chance to live in such a beautiful city for most of my working life. I'm going to miss cycling to work with my ipod blaring, drinking and playing cards in the park on muggy summer evenings, deep fried bar snacks and a million and one other little things (I'm going to have to make a list, I think of something new every other minute). Most of all though, I've made some stellar friends here who've seen me through a lot and are going to be very hard to leave behind.

But, all good things must come to an end, and there are surely more good things to come. I can't wait to settle in to Dublin life again - it's a different city to the one I left five years ago. I can't wait to catch up properly with old friends I've been snatching snippets of conversation with on my all too short trips home. I can't wait to be close to family again and be able to pop up the road for a Sunday afternoon if the mood takes me. And most of all I can't wait to settle into all of this with Oran. I'm moving on up now... but first, I have a five week leaving party to plan. I'm going to make a list for that, too.

Ahem

2007-05-31T00:01:00.000+02:00

Major news alert. More tomorrow.

(And no, I'm not pregnant!)

Shiny

2007-05-22T23:17:00.001+02:00

I am writing this from my new MacBook. I may never leave the house again.

Big exciting thing number one

2007-05-22T15:41:00.001+02:00

I suppose I can talk about this now - it is happening in two weeks after all.

Flatmate Jenny is leaving. She's got a kickass job back in the UK and flies out on June 4th. I'm gutted to see her go, of course - she's become one of those friends I can't imagine not knowing, which is amazing considering I've only known her a year. Funny thing about living abroad, that - friendships seem to forge faster, which I suppose is because we're all in the same boat and a tiny bit desperate to meet new people. I imagine it's what dating feels like (having *cough cough* extremely limited knowledge in that particular area). On the other hand, in a place like Amsterdam, people come and go all the time, and it's an odd thing to have to adjust to. I didn't think it affected me much - we've had a spate of people leaving in the last year - but I think Jenny's probably the first really good friend I have here who's left. (I'm not counting Oran here, as I still get to see him regularly and we are actively planning to live in the same country again at some point in the future.)

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks between leaving parties and helping her pack and cooking a huge farewell dinner. The end of an all too short era, for sure. I'm still trying to sort out a replacement for her, but I'll probably be rattling around the apartment on my own for a couple of weeks after she goes, which hopefully won't push me over the edge...

Evolution

2007-05-10T21:06:00.000+02:00

Not only have I now mastered the Dutch art of cycling while holding an umbrella, I can now reach in my bag, root round for the umbrella, squirrel it out of its cover and put it up, all without stopping my bike. Handy.

Surprise, surprise

2007-05-09T18:36:00.000+02:00

The weekend went just as well as I'd hoped. Surprise 1: a guest from Amsterdam in the form of Ben. We didn't get quite the squealing reaction I'd hoped for, but that's partly because Oran's not really the squealing type and partly because he waited outside in the car so we had to knock on the window instead of bursting into the arrivals hall all jazz hands like. Anyway, good surprise, I had nothing to worry about, hurrah hurrah.

Surprise 2 turned out to be fun for all involved - we got in the car on Saturday morning and I told Oran to drive to Malahide marina. A bunch of his family and two of my sisters met us there for a Sea Safari around Dublin Bay. It was rip roaring fun - we were thrown around the waves in a giant rubber dinghy for an hour, taking in Ireland's Eye and Howth harbour along the way. We rounded off the day with a huge Thai meal in Malahide, and a beer tasting/beer drinking fest in Porterhouse North, where the two sets of parents met for the first time (oo-er) and much delicious fruity beer was consumed. Not too shabby.

It was weird having my own birthday bash this year - ours are so close we've had a joint night out for the past five years. This year, though, Julia booked a table for 10 at a really pretty restaurant, and we proceeded to eat rings round some delicious steak and frites and white chocolate mousse, among other things. Lots of lovely presents, too, including Yahtzee (yay!) and a very pretty summer dress (woo!) I completely forgot how wrecked I was from the red eye flight I took back here on Monday morning.

And now, I'm 26, and the week goes on. Lots of exciting things happening round these parts. All (well, some) will be revealed soon...

Blogger's block

2007-05-03T11:23:00.000+02:00

I've just posted a couple of hundred photos to Flickr of all the things I should have been blogging about over the past few weeks. There are also quite a few things I don't have photos of and wanted to blog about, and a few things I don't have photos of and don't want to blog about, and I suspect the latter has prevented me from writing about anything whatsoever. So in the interest of catching up, this was April:

- a very lazy Easter weekend (so lazy as to be completely unphotoworthy)
- The Shins (so so so so good, second favourite gig this year so far, Ben Folds just about hanging on to the top spot)
- CSS/Tilly & The Wall (crazy hulahooping tapdancing fun)
- a surprise last minute visit from Helen and a trip to Keukenhof (her first, my fourth)
- freakishly good weather, lots of time spent basking on my lovely balcony and even some gardening
- lots and lots of swing dancing. I can now charleston!
- Queen's Day, my fourth and the best by far. Less beer, more sun, less pushing through crowds and more orange.

And now, it's May. I'm heading home this weekend for Oran's 30th birthday party this Saturday. I have a couple of MAJOR surprises up my sleeve for him and I am feeling quite nervous - in over six years I don't think I've ever pulled a stunt like this. Hopefully all goes to plan... I feel a bit like Cilla Black and there'd better be a lorra lorra laughs or I'll be the one crying!

After the party it'll be a very quiet Sunday, then back here on the red eye on my birthday and straight into the annual embarrassing office cake ritual. Last year was the worst yet - I can't imagine this year will be much better but I'm buying cheaper cake this year in the vain hope that my discomfort might be proportionally reduced. We'll see how that goes...

Yo soy happy

2007-03-27T23:51:00.000+02:00

So, Madrid. What a lovely city. I wouldn't call it beautiful in the conventional sense - there are quite a few fading tacky remnants of the 1970s dotted around the city still - but it does have a quirky kind of vivacity to it and there are some gorgeous buildings in the old part of the city. We spent our four days there wandering round the various plazas near Sol and Santa Ana, taking in the city's galleries, riding a cable car through the main city park, eating plateful after plateful of tapas and paella and drinking some really great rioja. The Madrileans do seem a slightly strange bunch in some respects, though, and we encountered some rather unusual things along the way:

- Facial piercings. So, so many facial piercings. Nostrils, lips, labrets, eyebrows - every second person we encountered on the street had some kind of metal in their head.
- Chirpy street crossings. I don't mean disco lights instead of the flashing green man, I mean actual chirping - every street crossing made a starlinglike 'cheep cheep cheep' sound so realistic I wasn't sure where to look at first.
- Lots of hanging around in public. Oran (who's seen more of Spain than I have) tells me this is a generic Spanish habit but I found it amusing all the same. The idea seems to be that one suggests a meeting place (in Madrid's case, the overwhelmingly popular choice is the bear and strawberry tree statue on Puerta del Sol) and then proceeds to loiter in said place's general circumference for at least an hour or so with one's friends, engaging in animated discussion and possibly quaffing a can or two of beer in the process. Oran said he's visited one tiny village in Catalonia where, on pretty much any given night of the week, the entire population decamps to the fountain in the village square, drinks in hand, for chat and craic. Brilliant.

The best thing about Madrid, though, has to be how unbelievably cheap it is. Unless you were to go looking for every Michelin-starred place in town, it is nigh impossible to spend a fortune on food and drink. Even our last (decadent and unbelievably filling) meal on Friday came to way less per person than we would pay in either Amsterdam or Dublin, and we spent most of the preceding nights in various tapas bars where dinner cost less than a tenner each. We also did pretty well on the hotel and shopping fronts - although I maintain I would have spent much more in the shops had the shoe selection not been quite so tacky and PVC/patent leather-ridden. Definitely a place to visit in the next couple of years before it reaches Barcelonaesque popularity and price.

(Photos on Flickr soon, I promise!)

Post Paddy's day pleasantry

2007-03-19T22:48:00.000+01:00

Well, after the utter washout that was Paddy's day, it was lovely to get to Paradiso this evening for a decent dose of Irish music, thanks to the lovely Bell X1, who played out of their skins for an hour and a half in the kleine zaal. If the rumours are true and they have been dropped by their record label I'll be truly appalled - they're possibly the best Irish band on the go at the moment, with more stage presence than Snow Patrol and better songs than The Frames. Hopefully some A&R tosser somewhere will see sense and give them a new record deal - they deserve to be huge.

I'll certainly be listening to them tomorrow on my two hour plane journey to Madrid - don't think I'll be fit for much else at 9 in the morning (definitely not work, ha). Matt was kind enough to recommend The Incredible Adam Spark to me but sadly it seems that our local Waterstone's doesn't stretch to quality Scottish fiction so I went for Starter For Ten instead. Should keep me going until Oran arrives tomorrow evening!

Updates and photos next Sunday when I'm back in the country.

And, we lost

2007-03-17T21:50:00.000+01:00

Today is probably the closest Ireland have come to winning the SIx Nations in my rugby watching life... but, we still lost. Just about. A combination of rubbish Irish team decisions and an unbelievably controversial French finish means that we've lost on points difference and I am inconsolable. I'm currently attempting to cheer myself up with chocolate mini eggs and Bridget Jones's Diary 2, but I've still got a killer headache and am supposed to be heading out again in less than two hours and would really rather stay in and wallow and finish the mini eggs. Who knew rugby could make a girl so moody?

Hello there

2007-03-14T23:16:00.000+01:00

Here are some things I have been doing lately instead of blogging:

- yelling at the cable company until they finally reconnected our cable
- working
- working some more
- not writing up the interview and gig reviews I've got to submit before the 29th
- reading lots
- learning how to lindyhop... in Dutch
- watching six nations rugby
- planning a trip to Madrid (six days to go)
- attempting to wean myself off chocolate

And still on my to-do list:

- deciding whether I should bite the bullet and go back to the gym or bin my membership, save the money and go running instead
- getting four days' worth of work done in the next three days so I can go to Madrid and not worry about people calling me on my non-work pay-as-you-go phone while I'm in the middle of the Prado
- buying some new books (recommendations, anyone?)
- blogging, now that I don't have to be sneaky about it at work

Mushy

2007-02-14T17:24:00.000+01:00

Happy V-day everyone! Yes, it's a day to celebrate love and all it offers, but please remember that there are 364 others where showing your appreciation for your other halves is most welcome, even by throwing your dirty laundry in the basket, putting the loo seat down, taking out the rubbish on a rainy evening or SMSing on an unexpectedly late night out to let them know you're not face down in a gutter somewhere.

This is the first Valentine's day in the six years I've been with Oran that we've not been together (aw!) We don't go all out to celebrate it or anything - our various V-days have ranged from low-key (home-made steak sandwiches and a DVD) to outright disastrous (a trip to the cinema in Stirling to see About Schmidt, easily one of the worst films I've ever seen). So I wasn't expecting much from today - maybe a phone call or a text message or an email, and likewise hadn't sent him a present. But... about five minutes ago I had a phonecall from reception and have just made my way back upstairs with a heeyyoooooge bunch of flowers. A dozen red roses and more besides - I could have hidden behind them on the walk back up if I'd wanted to. Cue lots of oohing and ahhing from my flowerless colleagues and complete mortification from me, although secretly (sh!) I am having a complete girly mushout. Dankjewel, schatje!

It's snowing!

2007-02-08T13:51:00.000+01:00

It's been bucketing down for about two hours now. My bike is already under about two inches of the stuff and people are already going home. I've never cycled in the snow before, but chickening out and getting the tram isn't really an option as I have a gazillion things to do in a short space of time this evening. Hopefully the bike paths into town will be gritted, otherwise it's very possible I'll end up going arse over elbow into a canal...

Normal service will resume... sometime?

2007-02-07T17:55:00.000+01:00

Any form of blog posting has been pretty much impossible for the past week, which is a shame because I had lots of lovely things to write about, including more on the Ben Folds concert, and the fact that I'm interviewing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (please don't call them The Clap) tomorrow, and our wonderfully relaxing but gluttonous girlie long weekend in London. But alas and alack, my marvellous phone/internet/TV provider decided to once again cut us off last Thursday, so a) no blogging and b) my first blog post in over a week is going to be a bilious rant about how unbelievably unhelpful and illogical and completely all over the place they are. I'm just off the phone with them, and to paraphrase:

Me: "Hi, I've been cut off, can you tell me why?"
Crappy Cable Company (CCC): "What's your address again?" (even though I'd already given it)
Me: "Okay, it's blahblahstraat blahblahnumber"
CCC: "Oh, it looks like we accidentally moved your service next door, sorry about that"
Me: "Er... okay..."
CCC: "We'll reconnect you asap at no charge"
Me: "Er... thanks?"
CCC: "No problem, Mrs. Javanowitz" (or a name to that effect, but NOT MINE!)
Me: "Eh? I am not Mrs. Javanowitz"
CCC: "Er... can you give me your full name and address before you moved?"
Me: "Sure... blahblah, blahblahstraat"
CCC: "Oh... per our records we never moved your products and there's a note on your file saying that we couldn't because there was a problem with the signal"
Me: "?!?!?!?! I've been able to use all three bits of the service since I moved!"
CCC: "Er... okay... we're not sure how that could have happened... oh and you owe us 71 euro"
Me: "I didn't receive a bill"
CCC: "Okay, but you have to pay it before we can reconnect you"
Me: "Fine, as long as you can guarantee you can reconnect me"
CCC: "We'll keep you posted, what's your mobile number?"
Me: "06-blahblah. Thank you, bye bye now"

Bad enough on its own, but thirty seconds after hanging up I had a head-meet-desk moment upon realising that I didn't have the payment code for the bill (duh, because I never got the bill). So I wearily phoned up again:

CCC: "At this time we can only handle general queries as our systems are down"
Me: "Well how long will they take to fix?!"
CCC: "About three hours"
Me: "What time do you close?"
CCC: "7pm"
Me: ".................."

At this rate it's going to be at least another five or six days at this stage before I'm reconnected. And maybe five or six gins (or half an hour with a punchbag, I can't decide which) before I've calmed down.

Not the same after that

2007-01-30T23:40:00.000+01:00

The very lovely and very music-geeky Nick Hornby maintains that, if you really truly love a song, it won't remind you of anything in particular when you hear it.

But if tonight is anything to go by, he's talking through his arse. Because every time I hear Not The Same from now on, I'll be picturing the Paradiso house lights illuminating the faces of a thousand people singing along in three part harmony.

Two hours of nostalgia and mind-boggling riffs and bowel-loosening (not really) synth chords and disturbing stories about Las Vegas hotel rooms and almost every song I wanted to hear in the two and a bit hours we were treated to. The standard's been set high for the rest of the gigs I'll go to this year.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go gargle with some Disprin before I lose my voice completely...

Rock this bitch

2007-01-30T18:33:00.000+01:00

So the past week has pretty much gone thus: work, work, stress, work, work, exhaustion, work, work, utter bewilderment, work, work, weekend!, shopping, gin, Belgian beer, steak frites, sleepsleepsleep. This week: far more promising. Work's not kicking my arse nearly as much as it has been and I'm finally feeling like I'm on top of things and being a decent boss. Plus I'm breaking in the killer knee high boots and leather bag I snaffled for a grand total of 40 euro on the weekend, and the Christmas poundage appears to be shifting (finally! maybe eating less does work...) But the cherry on the icing on the top of the triple chocolate cupcake that is my week has got to be Ben Folds tonight. I appear to have regressed to my 17 year old self, at least if my excitement level is anything to go by. I just had a full-on rockout on my bike ride home, much to the alarm of anyone cycling towards me, I'm sure. Just an hour to go until I'm lining up outside Paradiso in the freezing cold with the rest of the freaks and geeks... Photos galore later!

I'm my own brass section

2007-01-22T09:42:00.000+01:00

[First off: Oran made it, we had a lovely weekend, and he's now back at the airport. Sigh. Lebanese food was delish, cinema was a no-go, and we rounded the visit off with full on Sunday roast for 9 chez moi. Lots of fun, and not really hard work at all as I appear to be programmed to cook for large numbers of people.]

Anyway. I think I mentioned a couple of months back that I'd done an interview with the lovely Tapes 'n Tapes for an interweb publication. It's finally online as part of their January/February issue - check it out here. I think I'll have a couple of reviews in their next issue too, maybe including Ben Folds (next Tuesday! woo!), although Suse may have stolen a march on me there. Only eight days to go...

Brewing up a storm

2007-01-18T15:12:00.000+01:00

Oran's due in this evening for a blissfully long three day visit. I have all kinds of plans made - Lebanese food in my new neighbourhood, a VIP cinema trip complete with champagne and food and oversized armchair seats, Sunday roast dinner at home with friends, maybe even Club Rascal on Saturday night. Sounds like a close-to-perfect weekend, no? I thought so too.

Except there's just one teeny tiny miniscule little problem - Amsterdam is currently smack bang in the middle of a crane-toppling, roof-tile-lifting, small-child-flattening force 10 windstorm. There are gales howling round our building so loudly I can barely concentrate on my work, even with headphones in and the volume cranked up. Plus I have the added distractions of hitting refresh on the airline website every five minutes to check if his flight's still okay (so far so good, but a bunch of others have been cancelled) and getting local transport updates to make sure I have a way home, although if I were to attempt cycling I might be able to do it E.T. style and get there in record time. Or I might end up face down in a canal. I'm not taking that risk.

Fingers crossed he makes it...

Wondering

2007-01-17T21:53:00.000+01:00

1: How on earth was Gwyneth Paltrow persuaded to do Shallow Hal?

2: Why am I incapable of reaching over for the remote and switching it off?

Yet another post about food

2007-01-12T17:25:00.000+01:00

One track mind? I think so.

I keep leaving all my change at the pub. This is Good because tipping is nice, even if one is mates with the barman, but Bad because right now I am desperately craving chocolate (a green Balisto to be precise), and last time I asked the guy I sit next to to change a fiver for me he tortured me for about ten minutes before finally giving in, and then proceeded to refuse a share of the Milka bar I bought and laughed at me as I ate the entire thing and then moaned about having done so for the rest of the afternoon. Inconsistent? Moody? Me?

Anyway, it's finally the weekend (hurrah!) and I have decided to have nachos for dinner tonight, not only because they are delicious and moreish and perfect for munching while vegging out in front of season 1 of Father Ted, but also because I can make them with Doritos and use the coupon in the bag to enter this. I haven't a pup's chance of winning, but you never know. Baby needs a new MacBook...

Over the hump

2007-01-10T19:53:00.000+01:00

[Editor's note: This post is coming to you from only nine of my ten fingers. I just burned my right little finger on a match lighting the gas to griddle some salmon. The tip of the lit match touched my fingertip and it is BLOODY SORE. This isn't intended as an excuse for the quality of this post, I just wanted to point out how clumsy I am.]

I think I've finally managed to rout myself out of the post-Christmas, start-of-January slump. Ours was a very quiet apartment all of a sudden on new year's day after my sisters and Oran left, and I retreated into my shell almost straight away. I must have been a pleasure to deal with at work as I was nowhere near my usual stroppy self. Not that that helped my productivity - once I'd caught up on the email I spent the rest of the week surfing the web and staring into space. Friday couldn't have come quick enough - I'd booked myself in for a massage to try and improve my mood, but although it was lovely and I followed it with a scalding hot bath (we have a bath!), the apathy still refused to lift. It probably didn't help either that the last thing I saw before going to bed was a 30-minute "documentary" about Jordan and Peter Andre, surely enough to unsettle anyone.

Saturday & Sunday were spent cooking and baking and eating the results of both - Thai green curry and a huge stack of profiteroles. As if choux pastry and cream wasn't enough stodge, we used the profiteroles as dipping fodder for Jenny's brand new chocolate fountain (just as decadent as it sounds...) Between the food and the two seasons of Coupling and the twenty hours of sleep I got in between Saturday and Sunday nights, I was in much better shape heading to work on Monday.

I'm still a tad homesick, and still in comfort cooking/eating mode, but it's not taking me half an hour to work up the energy to get out of bed and I even managed to crack jokes with my boss today. At this rate I may even manage a gym session by the end of the week...

Start as you mean to go on

2007-01-02T17:44:00.000+01:00

A new year, new plans, and in my case, a new kitchen. Farewell to the student sparseness of our last place and hello to Spanish tiling, a fan oven, a HUGE fridge and freezer, and, best of all, a dishwasher. So maybe it's a natural consequence that many of my thoughts over the past couple of days have involved food.

My first thoughts on waking yesterday weren't "ouch" or "I'm never drinking again" or even "where am I?" but "I need to bake bread!" And so I bounced downstairs (perhaps I was still a little drunk?) and threw a tomato and herb quickbread mixture together to go with our mammoth new year's day fry. After that it was a swift retreat to the sofa where we spent the day alternately snoozing and snacking and generally feeling bloated. I woke this morning still feeling full and determined to use my new found cooking enthusiasm for good rather than grease-infused evil. So, this week I will be attempting some or all of the following feats:

- not eating junky ready meals
- batch cooking for the freezer (hello, Jamie Oliver vegetable curry)
- perusing my new Jamie O cookbook for quick and healthy dinner ideas
- actually cooking quick and healthy dinners
- appreciating quick and healthy dinners at our new dining table and not in front of the TV
- emptying my fridge of leftover rashers and sausages by giving said meat products to grateful hungry male friends
- making soup to bring to work so I don't have to endure a daily dose of double cream and mini meatballs in the canteen's

I figure doing even half of the above will save me some money and help me lose a few kilos, which would tie in nicely with two of my new year's resolutions: Become Cash-Savvy and Buy And Wear A Bikini. We'll see how it goes.

Lots of holly, lots of jolly

2006-12-24T00:09:00.000+01:00

So far, so zen. I've finished my shopping in record time with no hassle whatsoever and wished every shop assistant a merry Christmas. I even got chatting to the guy who served me in Waterstone's and it turns out he'd lived in Amsterdam for a year. I've listened to charity Christmas carols, watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing with pink champagne, drunk gluhwein at the German Christmas market in Dublin, danced non-stop for almost two hours at Snow Patrol's homecoming concert, and dispensed of most of the luggage under my eyes. Tomorrow: lunch with my oldest friends, two masses in one day, lots of present wrapping and some unwrapping, and the cutting of the Christmas cake.

Merry everything and I'll be back as soon as I can prise more than one hand away from boxes of chocolates, cups of tea and glasses of red wine.

Home time

2006-12-21T18:21:00.000+01:00

After an insanely busy couple of weeks which have included work work and more work, two friends leaving the country, my laptop dying (RIP), an engagement (not mine - congrats Tim & Julia!), a house move (that one's mine) and have I mentioned the work? it's time for me to pack up and go home. Proper home, not Amsterdam-home. This is the longest break I've had from work since last Christmas and I intend to spend it drinking good wine, eating my body weight in Cadbury's Roses, burning the backs of my legs standing too close to the fire and catching up with family and friends who haven't heard a whole lot from me lately and are about to get three months' worth of catching up in nine days.

I can't wait.

Two things

2006-12-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

Thing 1: I am most certainly not the only person blogging about this site as it's been featured just about everywhere in the last day or so, but oh how I giggled when I saw it.

Thing 2: I've just seen Casino Royale and, oh, what a long film. And oh, what a great Bond. Daniel Craig is the real deal. I'm not quite sure I followed the entire plot and its myriad subplots, but it was highly entertaining, even if chugging a mouthful of beer everytime a Sony product popped up on screen meant I'd run out completely after the first hour.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

2006-11-30T18:29:00.000+01:00

Okay, I know it's still November, but I'll be home for Christmas three weeks from today! I started listening to Christmas songs at the office yesterday evening in an attempt to cheer myself up and am now midway through compiling an "alternative" Christmas playlist to burn onto CD for whoever wants it (siblings - copies for your cars will be in the post next week! and I expect them to be playing full blast when you're chauffeuring me around!)

I'm also in festive mood because the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas next Tuesday. Kids leave their shoes out to be filled with sweets, and adults get drunk and make each other presents (a poem, a card, or in one friend's experience, a full sized papier maché turkey). The Sint has been the subject of quite a few news headlines this year as debate escalates about the political correctness of his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes). Tradition has it, though, that the Petes' faces are black due to the chimney soot, but I can't imagine them surviving this long in any other country.

Political debate aside, the streetlights are lit, the ice rinks are up, and Amsterdam looks prettier than it has all year. And not a single shop blaring cheesy Christmas songs - that generally doesn't kick in until the week before (if at all), by which time I will be winging my way home. All in all, the best of both worlds.

The cookery section, part 1 of ?

2006-11-28T17:55:00.000+01:00

I think I'm taking the whole "feed a cold, starve a fever" thing a bit too literally. It's not even a proper cold - I have the sniffles and a sore throat - but the old wives' tale dictates that I have carte blanche to eat lots if I'm feeling peaky, so I am. It's not like I've ever needed an excuse to break out the comfort food. Hangover? Bacon sandwich. PMS? Macaroni cheese with bacon bits (you can see where this is headed, can't you). Sort-of cold? Bacon & cabbage, 21st-century style i.e. not mushy and flavourless, oh no. This recipe was pieced together from various descriptions of my uncle's take on the dish and about five text messages from my family on Sunday afternoon.

(Unbelievably moreish) bacon & cabbage

Serves 4-6 "normal" portions or 2-3 gluttonous ones

1 green Savoy cabbage
1 onion
about 15 pieces streaky bacon (smoked if you can get it, I'm limited to Dutch breakfast bacon which isn't bad but the pieces are tiny)
a handful of pine nuts
salt & pepper
a knob of butter
quarter pint chicken stock

So. First to the cabbage. Rinse it in some icy cold water and then chop roughly.

Bring the chicken stock to the boil in a largeish pot and throw in the cabbage. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the cabbage is soft but you don't want it to fall apart completely. Make sure it doesn't boil dry & add a tiny bit of water if needed.

While the cabbage is simmering away, chop your onion finely & fry off in the butter until it's golden brown. Remove the onion from the pan but leave all the buttery oniony juices in - you'll need these for frying off the bacon.

Fry the bacon in the onion juices (yum!) and remove when done. Leave to cool for a few minutes then chop roughly or just grab a scissors and snip the bacon into bits.

Next toss the pine nuts in the still warm onion & bacon juices for a couple of seconds. Remove and put with the onion & bacon bits.

When the cabbage is done, drain all the water off. Return to the pot and chuck in the pine nuts, onion and bacon bits. Season generously and mix through. Serve immediately!

Delicious on its own, or with a pile of creamy mashed potato, and maybe some sausages. And if you're me in my current state, follow with a half packet of chocolate biscuits and two cups of tea while bawling through the Grey's Anatomy Season 2 finale even though you've seen it before.

Fashion victim?

2006-11-26T16:41:00.000+01:00

I swore I never would, but behold, the boots are out, and the jeans are in:

Okay, so not quite Kate Moss, but oh so comfy and warm.

They come in threes, you know

2006-11-21T23:06:00.000+01:00

Today did not start well.

It was my second as Bosslady, so I made a mad dash for the office in an effort to arrive before 9am, thus appearing Responsible and Professional. I made it in at around 8:58 but by 9:08, still no assistant... and then my phone rang. She called in sick. To my direct line (which no-one has). Who does that on day 2? I spent most of the morning in a fouler and most of the afternoon avoiding work.

Things started looking up at around 3pm when a mammoth chain of emails between myself, Sarah, Jenny and Julia kicked off. The end result? See below! We're headed to London in February to see The Sound Of Music. Hold on to your wimples...

Another downward turn followed at around 6:50 when Jenny & I left a beautiful 2 floor apartment in a great part of town after a viewing. Long story short, we're out of our current place on December 31st and had hoped to have somewhere to move into, but it's fallen through (and that's all I'm saying here, it was a horribly long, drawn out and stressful process). We loved this place but the couple renting it out had already shown it to some Irish girls and it looked like we were out of the running.

Onwards and upwards... another mad dash to Paradiso for a bit of a boogie to The Kooks, who were much improved since I last saw them in February and had the entire crowd screaming and stomping. Photos to follow over there once I've filtered out all the crap ones (of which there are many). So, good thing number 2 in the bag and it looked like my day was finally improving. The last thing I was expecting at 9pm, mid gig, was a phone number from the lady whose apartment we'd just viewed... when I got back to her half an hour later she said they'd had a bit of a think and reckoned we were a safer bet than three noisy Irish girls (ha!) So it looks like we have a place from 20th December, although I won't believe it til I'm hawking boxes up the three flights of steep windy stairs. We're signing the contract this Thursday and I will be taking gazillions of photos as soon as I can. It's got a balcony! And a bath! And central heating! And we won't have to brush our teeth in the kitchen sink!

I couldn't have been any more hyper leaving Paradiso to cycle home - so when I encountered the entire Kooks contingent crossing the road all I could think of to say to them was "howrya, great gig". What a waste!

So, proof that good things come in threes. Now to deal with tomorrow...

One of my favourite things

2006-11-21T17:18:00.000+01:00

3rd of February, here we come!

It's week 47, apparently

2006-11-20T23:30:00.000+01:00

My dad just pointed the above out to me on the phone and I am now all a-panic. I know it's almost the end of November and the shops in this don't-really-do-Christmas country are starting to fill up with tinselly tat, but now I have it in numbers: there are five weeks of 2006 left. Which means that:

- Oran and I are almost half way through our long distance stint
- I have 23 working days left to tick all the boxes on my management objectives form (am developing alarming workaholic tendencies)
- Flatmate Jenny & I have about two weeks to find somewhere to live (more on that later)
- I fly home for Christmas in four weeks and three days!

In the meantime, I have a new assistant to train, four gigs to go to this week alone, my very first interview with the lovely Tapes n Tapes this Wednesday for a web zine (link to follow once it's published, I promise), and a gazillion other things to accomplish (losing three kilos, buying knockout party dress, oh and Christmas shopping!)

Looks like weeks 48-52 will fly by at this rate.

Musical interlude

2006-11-16T17:33:00.000+01:00

Oh my goodness. I've just found out that Ben Folds is playing here on January 30th. Cue much excitement.

I blame my ex-boyfriend for introducing me to Mr. Folds (then part of a Fivesome who were actually a threesome, but whatever). He lent me his signed copy of Whatever And Ever Amen back in 1998 and I was instantly hooked. We had a race with our friends at the time to see who could learn to play the most songs on piano by ear. I managed Evaporated, a little of Missing The War and the riff from Kate; our friend Conor had the whole thing down pat within about a week so he accompanied us on our tipsy evening singalongs around the chaplaincy piano. The next couple of months were universally soundtracked by these songs, so when we split up just after the Christmas break I had to give the album a rest for a while. (I considered keeping the signed copy, but I'm not that mean.)

Since then (seven years, has it been that long?) I've dipped in and out of Reinhold Messner and Ben's solo albums. I've also reacquainted myself with Whatever And Ever Amen, in the process proving Nick Hornby's theory that if you really love a song, it won't remind you of anything specific when you hear it. Now I just hear the songs. But I've never had the opportunity to hear them live... in a little over two months, I will. One to cross off my list of Acts To See Live Before I Die.

The Leg Endz return

2006-11-13T23:48:00.000+01:00

Fifth week back at pub quiz for the winter season and we came third! We're in the money, etc. etc. We would've been second if my teammates had believed me when I said Johnny Hates Jazz were a real band. Dammit! Still, the proceeds will pay for our entry fee next week, where we will aim for the dizzy heights of second but more likely fall flat on our arses.

Tidbits from the weekend

2006-11-13T17:16:00.000+01:00

It was meant to be a quiet one... whoops.

- Lily Allen concert: surprisingly good, backed by a kickass 9 piece band
- Gambling earnings: EUR30!
- Fussball skills: improving...still crap in defence but I can now score goals, whoo
- Real chocolate as substitute for cooking chocolate in rice krispie buns: heavenly
- Julia's nachos: I still want more
- Games played on games night: 3... 7-person Ligretto (loud), Celebrity (riotous), Asshole (neverending)
- Time I decided to go for frites after games night: 4.12am
- Frites: delicious
- Banana pancakes: perfect hangover cure
- Ugly Betty: new second favourite TV show after only 12 minutes
- Staff in American Book Center: amazingly helpful
- Bird Thai food: stellar
- Kenny vs. Spenny: unexpectedly hilarious
- Borat: meh

Now to a long and tiresome five-day week - but my last as a non-boss! I am quite terrified...

Vicious bears and running taps

2006-11-10T18:16:00.000+01:00

(Note: This one's probably not for the squeamish.)

Last night I had a dream - okay, a nightmare - in which I was mauled by a bear. I have no idea how I ended up in such a situation but all of a sudden there I was, on a mountain somewhere, looking on in horror as Mr. Bear chewed off first one, then both of my hands. Seriously. I was left with two bloody arm stumps... and then I woke up in a cold sweat.

I have absolutely no idea what would've led my subconscious to this gory little scenario. I'm not a fan of horror films and haven't seen anything blood-and-gutsy (unless you count Grey's Anatomy) in months, maybe years. It's been a stressful week, though, and I did have two cheese sandwiches for lunch yesterday - perhaps contributing factors? Or is a dream like that proof that I have, in fact, gone completely batshit?

My colleagues were pretty sympathetic when I told the story earlier this afternoon. One guy on my team told me about a Russian custom for dealing with bad dreams. Apparently the thing to do is to go into the bathroom, turn on the taps full blast and tell the dream to the running water, thus washing it down the plughole. Good to know, but I sincerely hope I don't have cause to try it out any time soon.

Don't mug(g) yourself

2006-11-10T12:05:00.000+01:00

Amsterdammers are notorious for their, er, unusual dress sense, and after three years here I've become pretty much oblivious to even the oddest get-ups. Stonewashed denim miniskirt, purple tights and cowboy boots? Just an average day at the office. Shorts, footless tights, leg warmers and sparkly flat shoes? Friday night down the pub. Blue shirt, red trousers, brown blazer? Saturday lunch. It seems that anything goes here, and whatever I might think of certain sartorial choices, a part of me has to applaud them - I'd certainly never have the confidence to dress like the natives.

However, nothing prepared me for what I encountered cycling down the Elandsgracht this morning: Fortysomething Man in Skinny Jeans and Ugg Boots. I just wish I'd had my camera.

Anything to take my mind off the fact that I'm working late... again

2006-11-08T18:23:00.000+01:00

Here is a list, in no particular order, of words I overuse, some when I write, and some when I speak (can you guess which are which?)

- seriously
- cool
- brilliant
- fab
- actually
- meng (okay, not a real word)
- hello
- timeline
- process
- issue
- encode
- tracker
- lekker (Dutch, but still)
- totally
- doei (again with the Dutch!)

And, to balance things out, here's a list of words I should really use more.

- gobshite
- blimp
- squishy
- muppetry
- pernicious
- no

What words do you over/underuse?

Completely rusty

2006-11-08T10:20:00.000+01:00

Since Oran moved back to Ireland, I've had to adjust to going solo on social occasions. It's been fine for the most part, but one interesting side effect has cropped up: with no boyfriend around, I occasionally get chatted up. Most of the time it's in indirect fashion so I usually manage to steer the conversation around to my lovely boyfriend, but I was completely thrown for a loop on Saturday night...

A bunch of us were at Foam in the midst of our Museumnacht rounds and had popped down to the bar for a couple of drinks. On my way back from the bathroom, I was all of a sudden accosted by a strapping English bloke, who didn't beat about the bush at all:

Him: "So, you have a lovely smile. I have a lovely number, would you like it?"

Me (floored, trying to channel Lily Allen and failing miserably): "Um... er... I don't have a phone" (what?!)

Him: "Yeah, right"

Me (mentally flailing): "I'm very, er, 19th century like that... I need to get back to my friends..."

At which point he walked off and I legged it back to the group to pass on the woeful chat up line I'd just been assaulted with and my even more woeful response. Except he didn't walk off, and about 30 seconds into my story I received a tap on the shoulder, and turned around to see the guy standing right behind me! Luckily he saw the funny side of it, but I'll be a little more discreet the next time I'm hit with a cheesy chat up line. And maybe more articulate when telling the guy where to go...

Never read the label

2006-10-17T13:11:00.000+02:00

I just bought a low fat peach yogurt from our canteen for lunch and, upon opening it, noticed that it looked quite well-set and, well, jellyish, for a yogurt. So I checked out the ingredients list... and sure enough, near the top, I see "beef gelatine". Cue freakout.

Now, I know gelatine gets used in lots of things and I know there are far worse ingredients out there, but something about the combination of the yogurt's consistency, its rather wishy-washy yellow colour and the knowledge that it contained beef gelatine led me to the unshakeable thought that I was eating pure melted down cow hoof. I had one more mouthful before consigning it to the bin and I'm now consoling myself with a giant mug of hot chocolate. It'll be full fat yogurt for me next time - it might be bad for me, but at least it's edible.

A blog about a dog

2006-10-14T23:21:00.000+02:00

The dog in question: Muffin, the funniest, coolest, cleverest, most human dog I've ever met and the greatest pet anyone could ever ask for, who was killed by a car last night. She gave my family and I countless laughs and paw-hugs during her short little life and we will miss her lots.

Rest in peace, little muppet.

Two wheels good... eventually

2006-10-13T17:30:00.000+02:00

Flatmate Jenny doesn't cycle in the city. She has a bike out in the suburb where she works and zips around there no problem, but she has yet to work up enough courage to tackle the streets of Amsterdam proper. I've managed to avoid talking to her about my early days as a city biker - or at least I had until last night, when, over a giant bowl of Haagen-Dazs, I filled her in. I think I may have scared her even more...

My first (and worst fall) was on my very first visit to see Oran after he'd moved here. It was a scorching Indian summer's day and we'd spent the afternoon lounging around the Vondelpark. (I may have had a touch of sunstroke, which can't have helped.) Oran had very kindly given me his girlie bike and rented one for himself and we zipped around town for a while in the early evening so I could find my balance. I hadn't cycled in about twelve years and was surprised by how confident I felt. We decided to bike home through the park to change before dinner, so I took advantage of the relatively clear bike paths and upped my speed. Trouble was, for all the fast pedalling, I was having a little trouble biking in a straight line, and so when Oran appeared right beside me all of a sudden, I swerved in his direction... and our handlebars locked together. There wasn't much either of us could do at this stage but somehow Oran managed to stay on his bike as I flew off, did a bit of a somersault and landed hard on my right side. The next few minutes after that are a bit hazy but I do remember Oran phoning my parents for my health insurance number (my poor father!). I was then bundled into an ambulance and carted off to casualty, where I was kept waiting for a while before being checked for concussion and given a tetanus shot to ward off any potentially nasty beasties (I'd cut my right leg pretty badly - I still have scars...). The following 36 hours or so were rather painful, but the psychological effects lasted much longer. It took me a year after I moved here (almost two years after the accident) to get back on a bike.

I've had a couple of spills since I started cycling again two and a half years ago, but nothing as serious. I've learned the hard way that tram lines are the perfect width for a bike tyre and getting caught in one will result in a surefire fall. I've learned that there is a limit to my cycling abilities after a few drinks, but I've not yet fallen off while tipsy. But, most importantly, I've learned that, whatever the hazards, there is no better way to navigate and appreciate Amsterdam. Hopefully, in time, Jenny will arrive at the same conclusion.

New week, new start

2006-10-09T19:42:00.000+02:00

This past weekend has been extremely unhealthy in more ways than one. My liver took a hit on Friday (drinking, dancing, some more drinking, some more dancing), my wallet on Saturday (we have River Island now!), and my waistline on both Saturday and Sunday evenings (Indian takeaway and icecream on Saturday, Canadian Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday). Trouble is, everything I've just listed was extremely enjoyable - particularly the shopping and the icecream - and thoughts of treadmills and salads and various money-saving activities don't fire me up nearly as much. So I'm adopting a softly softly catchy monkey approach - nicoise salad for dinner tonight, gym tomorrow, a two-hour climbing session on Wednesday, and no booze at all until the weekend (this last ticks both the "healthy" and "money-saving" boxes). So, here's to losing a few pounds and maybe gaining (or at least not squandering) a few euro in the process...

Check out the timestamp

2006-10-05T19:44:00.000+02:00

Sure what else would I be doing on a rainy Thursday night but researching some weird and some wonderful kids' TV shows? Working late isn't bad. Sometimes. Although I have a funny feeling the next two months are going to feature a lot of cycling home in the dark and quickie reheated dinners. Roll on Christmas...

Random snippets

2006-10-05T10:07:00.000+02:00

1: It's getting cold here. The romance of living in a 260-year-old apartment is starting to wear off - no central heating, people, and warming one's hands on a pot of tea isn't quite cutting it. We had to rearrange the living room furniture last night so we can put on our gas stove and not melt. The rest of the apartment, however, is still icy cold. Mission for this weekend: Buy fleece blanket, buy mini bedroom heater.

2: I think I may be addicted to chocolate-covered kruidnoten. They're small round ginger biscuits of the type that Sinterklaas leaves in children's shoes every December 5th, but of course the shops are full of them already and I'm certainly not objecting. The dark chocolate variety is especially tasty.

3: I am in a major gym rut. Four weeks and counting now since my last visit. Trouble is, the more I think about going back now, the less likely I am to follow through. I almost made it on Tuesday but ended up with the stupidest (and most Amsterdamesque) excuse for skipping: I thought I'd left my bike lights at home. So I stayed in the office until my stomach started growling and then, upon packing up to go home and have dinner, discovered the offending lights in a tiny pocket in my new handbag (damn you, bag, with all your useful compartments). Too late, though, I was already ravenous and would probably have passed out on the treadmill. I've put together a new Gym Playlist and brought my gear to work today in the hope that I'll be newly motivated, but truth be told I'd rather go home and curl up beside the gas stove with a pot of tea and a bag of chocolate-covered kruidnoten.

Wave to me as you are falling

2006-09-24T17:56:00.000+02:00

Here's something I never thought I would be blogging about. Yesterday I paid a sizeable amount of money to be strapped out of a stranger and pushed out of a tiny doorless plane at 9,000 feet.

I'm not one of those adrenaline junkies who lives for their next buzz-inducing activity. Up until yesterday I'd never taken part in any kind of extreme sport, and, sad to say, my biggest rush came from finishing my master's thesis. But when Flatmate Jenny started talking about doing a skydive ahead of her upcoming 30th, I started thinking that maybe it'd be a cool thing to do. (I'm convinced that living in Amsterdam instils greater risk-taking, comfort-zone-leaving tendencies in people.) So, yesterday morning, she, Sarah, Angela and I, along with intrepid photographer Julia, headed to an airfield in the middle of the country to get our jump on.

Sarah & I elected to jump first and were promptly kitted out in some very form-fitting flight suits.

Then it was time for a very thorough briefing, after which we were hauled (literally) on to our tiny plane. Note the lack of a door of any kind in the back - also no seats inside, and there was just about room for us both plus tandem buddies plus cameraman.

After taxiing around a field for about five minutes, it was time for liftoff and the start of our climb to 9,000 feet. At this point I was starting to get pretty shaky, and kept having to remind myself to breathe in and out. Still, up and up we climbed and soon it was time to go.

Sarah was jumping alongside the cameraman so I had to go first. After being strapped firmly on to my jumping buddy, we inched over to the (now completely open) doorway on our arses and I assumed the exit position - hanging out of the plane with my weight completely supported by buddy and plane. He pushed off and that was it... freefall. From what I can remember we dove headlong for about five seconds until he tapped me on the shoulder and we got into freefall position - arms out, legs out, just like you see on those extreme sports programmes. I wasn't sure at this point if I was actually enjoying it - I remember thinking that my mouth had gone really dry (I'd had it wide open in shock) and that I could feel my ears flapping madly in the wind. After the shortest thirty seconds of my life, my buddy pulled the chute and we shot into a sitting position. I remember thinking that a) I was a bit disappointed because I was starting to really enjoy the freefall and b) that it was so so quiet all of a sudden.

Once my buddy had sorted out the chute he started pointing things out to me on the ground. We were over some farmland between Hilversum and Utrecht, so not a whole lot of note to see, but it was nice to look down on the long strips of polder below. After a couple of minutes Sarah dropped by (har, har) with her tandem buddy and our respective buddies manoeuvred the chutes close enough for us to be able to talk/yell to each other (although our conversation was made up of several oh-my-gods and isn't-this-mads). Apparently flying so close together is highly unusual, but it certainly made for a funnier descent. Before I knew it we were at treetop height and bracing for landing in one of the polder fields. My feet touched the ground for a split second before I was pushed onto my knees into a huge rockstar skid through the long grass. And that was it. My buddy unstrapped me and I stood up and at that point started laughing uncontrollably. Sarah was about ten feet away in a similar state - it took us about half an hour to collect ourselves.

We were still buzzing on the bus ride back to the airfield and, in our high spirits, decided to concoct a cunning plan. We would arrive back to the others completely down in the mouth and dejected and regretful of having paid for such an awful experience. Rehearsals did not go well - we kept looking at each other and dissolving back into laughter - but we eventually managed to hone our sad faces, and recruited the cameraman and our jump buddies as additional ammo. So when the girls came to meet us in the hangar, I looked sullen and pretended I'd been ill, and Sarah was loudly apologising to my jump buddy who was berating her for wasting their time. Jenny and Angela's faces were priceless - I think we'd put them off somewhat - and after about five minutes we fessed up. The relief was immense.

Jenny and Angela managed to recover themselves and before long it was their turn to head off.

They returned just as hyper as Sarah and I, Jenny particularly proud of having blown a kiss to camera during freefall. After a couple of celebratory beers we were treated to the gala screening of Sarah and Jenny's videos - it was only then that it really dawned on us what we'd just done. Sarah's featured footage of my jump out of the plane and it was unbelievable to see how quickly I became just a dot in the sky below. I only found out then that I'd fallen 4,000 feet in 30 seconds. And my ears were fine! I'm never stressing out about plane travel again. I'm a little disappointed that I don't have any "action shots", but the extra 80 euro didn't quite seem justifiable. Next time, perhaps?

So that was that. Jenny crossed another thing off her "Things To Do Before I'm 3o" and "Extreme Experiences" lists and I have decided I might make a couple of lists of my own. Any suggestions?

Words fail me

2006-09-15T15:34:00.000+02:00

Check this out.

Oh Johnny, Johnny, what have you done?!

Willoughby, will you not shake my hand?

2006-09-11T22:14:00.000+02:00

A sad fact: I can at this stage recite most of the dialogue from Sense And Sensibility. It's on Dutch TV right now and I think I am starting to scare Flatmate Jenny somewhat. It may be the least annoying film Hugh Grant has ever made (although that's probably down to his extremely limited screentime). And now Kate Winslet has lost it completely so I must return my full attention to d'telly!

We're all going on a summer blogiday

2006-09-07T09:57:00.000+02:00

Oh. It's been a couple of weeks. I've not given up on this thing - my absence is down to one part laziness, one part utter exhaustion and one part 'haven't found the time to get to the post office to pick up the replacement power cord for my laptop so I can blog from home and post the two memory cards full of photos I have to flickr'. So be prepared for a deluge of pics from a leaving party featuring customised pink t-shirts and edible necklaces, an utterly brilliant Beck concert (with puppets!), and our third booze cruise of the summer which ended up being the best by far, in spite of the lack of sparklers and not nearly enough cold beer.

Oh, and my cable works! And it is brilliant! I have all of the BBC channels (even BBC3 and BBC4) plus a rake of extra MTVs and, most importantly, the E! Channel. Quality hangover viewing at last.

Not in the dictionary

2006-08-22T12:31:00.000+02:00

I am stuck at home again today waiting for my trial cable/internet/phone installation. The installation guys have 32 minutes left in their allotted timeslot and if they cancel again or don't show I will get violent... Anywho, I decided to play some Boggle in order to stave off my growing boredom, but would you look what I got in my very first game.

(ps... anyone know if Blogger's photo utility is broken or if it just hates Safari?)

Culture shock

2006-08-22T10:04:00.000+02:00

Dublin is getting all cultured up!

We've had Museumnacht here for a couple of years now and it's always great craic. Last year we did origami, played with a giant camera and saw a great Annie Leibowitz exhibition; the year before that was heavenly beds at the Bible Museum and rocking out to MTV DJs at a photography gallery. Hopefully Dublin will get it right first time - although I'll be interested to see if they go the Amsterdam route and install bars in all the venues, and if they'll run it as late as they do here (wandering round a gallery at 1:30am, glass of vino in hand, is pretty funny). I'm already looking forward to our next Museumnacht in November.

The black dogs, sort of

2006-08-15T17:39:00.000+02:00

I'm not dead, just trying to haul myself out of a post-holiday slump and a crazy weekend. The last couple of weeks have been insane, what with Paris, Antwerp, sisterly visit, too much sushi, day trip to Brussels and two extremely late nights (okay, early mornings) out. Plus, I've been struggling with a ridiculous pile of work, a mysterious appetite-killing stomach bug, a phone connection that still doesn't work and a completely severed laptop power cord.

Things are set to look up in the next couple of weeks, though - starting with the installation of our new (and free!) phone/internet/digital TV plus Beck at Paradiso tomorrow. Then it's a mere eight days until my payrise and back pay finally come through and I can start making plans to spend (and save) it all. Shiny new MacBook, here I come!

Back "home"

2006-08-07T18:37:00.000+02:00

We're back from our travels, and there's so much to tell. I could write about my arrival in Gare du Nord, complete with huge homemade welcome sign, or about how we ate our way around the city, about the amazing view from Rebecca and Yucca's roof, or the steak frites, or the ridiculous opulence that is Versailles, or how strange French cinemas are, or the amazing red wine, or our lightning quick visit to the Eiffel Tower, or the fact that we missed our train to Antwerp by twelve hours, got another one to Brussels straight away and were bumped to first class, or the jumbo cocktails we downed in an Antwerp absinthe bar, or our recovery tactics the following day. I'm going to take the lazy option, though, and let the photos speak for themselves. Over here!

All things go

2006-07-28T14:54:00.000+02:00

Loads going on here this week.

We had a wee party at our apartment last night to celebrate the airing of Rocking Roommate Jenny's first ever TV ad.

After gorging ourselves on the product for a while we decided to take the party outside:

We sort of had a second reason to celebrate too. My promotion - i.e. the reason I stayed in Amsterdam - was finally made official yesterday. I am now an Operations Manager, yo. Just don't ask me what that actually involves.

And now, Oran is here! Yay! He's here til Monday, and then on Tuesday I leave for Paris, where I'm meeting two of my sisters for some sightseeing and some craic in our own inimitable style. I'm sure there'll be lots of photos and stories on my return...

We're in a state of happiness

2006-07-24T11:22:00.000+02:00

I'm proud to live anyplace that nurtures Irish musical genius. This ad is currently running on Dutch TV. Behold the boy Johnny in all his blonde-wigged glory...

Wouldn't it be good to be in your shoes

2006-07-22T01:37:00.000+02:00

I realised about three hours ago that I'd completely forgotten to include Nik Kershaw on my cheesy 80s playlist, but have now made up for it with the tacky music gods and now have Wouldn't It Be Good blaring in my headphones. It's a pity it's 1.34am or I'd have it on full blast - this may be an old building but sadly the walls aren't quite that thick.

In other news, the ridiculous heat continues. Tomorrow's hot weather activity: watching the lions at the zoo eat blood flavoured ice-cubes. No, really.

Children behave...

2006-07-21T13:54:00.000+02:00

It's Friday afternoon, but the minutes are crawling by and I have a huge pile of rather monotonous work to get through. So, I've put together a cheesy little 80s playlist to help me along (although it's probably taken longer to compile than it will to play from start to finish):

Toto - Africa
Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth
Billy Ocean - When The Going Gets Tough
T'pau - China In Your Hands
Eddie Cochran - Gimme Hope Joanna
Wet Wet Wet - Sweet Surrender
Queen - Radio Ga Ga
Los Lobos - La Bamba
The Cars - Drive
Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
Yazz & The Plastic Population - The Only Way Is Up
The Housemartins - Happy Hour
Kylie Minogue - The Locomotion

Quite a few of these songs/artists pop up on Now! 11, which is the first compilation tape I remember having at home (The Hits 6 came on vinyl). Actually, it may be the first pop music tape we had, full stop. My parents were avid tapers-off-the-radio (perhaps my illicit mp3 habit is genetic...) so there were always home-made mix tapes lying about. In fact, in a dusty corner of a drawer somewhere I believe there's still one marked "Catherine's tape" which has my favourite songs from the radio and MTUSA (the world's first music video show was Irish, people!) from when I was about three. I'm not sure if "favourite" means "made me dance and sing along" or "shut me up for three full minutes". Next time I'm home, I'll have to track it down.

For now, I'm checking Amazon for secondhand CD copies of Now 11 and marvelling at the tracklisting. I can't believe I was into Coldcut when I was seven... talk about full circle.

Bring me sunshine

2006-07-17T16:45:00.000+02:00

Bliss... it's shaping up to be the Netherlands' hottest summer ever. A great excuse to shop, too.

It's alive

2006-07-13T20:27:00.000+02:00

Okay, sort of. It looks like our upstairs neighbour has skipped the country, so short of phoning my landlord and telling him he was completely wrong about the phone wiring in his building and then begging him to lend us a spare key or open the door for the phone engineer himself, I'm not sure there's much I can do. So we are still sans phone and internet, but I finally snapped this evening and bought a wireless card so I can steal other people's internet. Sharing is caring, people. Anyway, I've uploaded some photos, downloaded some music and now I am feeling much more at ease.

Today seems to be a day of firsts. Earlier I experienced My First (and second) Scooter Ride - a colleague offered me a lift to a meeting on the back of his Vespa, and when have I ever said no to doing something new? It was very smooth and not at all scary, and my main worry throughout was how geeky I looked in my big black helmet. Definitely an experience worth repeating.

And this evening, I am finding myself alone in the apartment for the first time - just the bells from the church next door and Oran on IM for company. So far, so good. Next up, My First Bike Ride With A Handlebar In One Hand And A Hoover In The Other. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Edit: the Hoover Manoeuvre was a success! Although my left hand is shaking as I type this...]

More proof that my friends are cooler than me

2006-07-10T10:04:00.000+02:00

This is much more interesting than anything that happened to me over the weekend.

My friend Julia was featured on PerezHilton.com! She happened to be in the Noordermarkt area when she snapped this photo. Had I not been running round a hockey pitch 20 miles away I would've pegged it over to get a pic of my own... swoon!

Still here

2006-07-06T13:06:00.000+02:00

A shameful lack of blogging from me this week, and I'm sneaking this one in at work while my boss nips out for a cigarette. We still have no phone or internet in the apartment - an engineer came round this morning (he was booked for between 8 and 10am so of course showed up at 9.57) and after half an hour of fiddling about, he concluded that the external phone cable runs through the apartment upstairs, and of course there was no-one home. So it looks like we'll be incommunicado for another week or so, which will send me into full-on Bittorrent withdrawal (symptoms: cold sweat, fidgetiness, mumbling random bits of dialogue from Grey's Anatomy in one's sleep). My laptop is so old and clapped out that hijacking a neighbouring wireless connection is not an option. Worse still, I'll be missing out on all the gossip from home and long chats with Oran.

Even if we were all internetted up at home I'm not sure I would have squeezed in any blogging or even flickrification of photos from the weekend (crazy Canada Day festivities and sunny weather lazing). Since Oran left on Monday night my days have been a whirl of Ikea trips and barbecues and World Cup matches and fajitas and Haagen-Dazs and boat cruises (not to mention practical things like work and unpacking). It's been lovely to get out and about with friends I'm so happy and lucky to have, but I am starting to fret a little that not taking the time to settle into my new apartment and generally process all the changes of the past week in my head will eventually catch up with me and hit me all at once. I know that sitting in every night on my own is hardly healthy either, but there's a line between wallowing in misery and just stopping to think, and spending a bit of time on the latter side mightn't be a bad idea. Trouble is, I'm not quite sure when I'll get the chance.

All moved

2006-07-03T10:37:00.000+02:00

Time for a lightning quick post (using a hijacked wireless connection) from my brand new apartment. Well, I'm the new bit, the building's 300 years old. I am still surrounded by boxes and bin bags and I honestly have no idea where I'm going to fit everything, but sure that's half the fun, right? New Roommate Jenny and I will have some craic tonight rearranging furniture and such. It's so hot out (I think 30 degrees already) it seems a shame to be stuck indoors all day. Time to head out and top up the sunburn I got from Canada Day festivities in the park on Saturday and three hours in Sarah's hammock yesterday (photos of both will follow when I manage to unearth my camera cable...)

Eight hours until I have to leave Oran to the airport. :(

Empty nest

2006-06-29T22:22:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-26T18:42:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-23T19:14:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-21T10:13:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-20T16:49:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-19T21:21:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-14T23:24:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-11T23:11:00.000+02:00

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'

2006-06-11T22:39:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-06T22:46:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-01T11:31:00.000+02:00

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.

Surprise surprise

2006-05-30T22:43:00.000+02:00

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.

Rolling stock

2006-05-28T21:59:00.000+02:00

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.

Obst und Gemüse*

2006-05-24T23:50:00.000+02:00

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...

Hypotheses, odds and good intentions

2006-05-22T12:50:00.000+02:00

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

A parallel universe

2006-05-19T12:55:00.000+02:00

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!