All things go

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

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

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...

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

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

It's alive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew

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

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

Scheduling conflict

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

In the red corner:

In the blue corner:
















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

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

Flickrified

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

Sometimes I really love my job

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tick tick tick tick boom

Start the clock...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep, things are going full tilt around here.

If it's Wednesday, it must be raining

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

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

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

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

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

Roastin'

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

A frightening shade of pink

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

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















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















Sunday: delicious dinner and lounging round on the beach.
















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

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

Proof that the internet is rotting my brain

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