Wonderfull days

Thursday – Feyenoord

Already over the half of the week, at least the working week, that’s always a nice feeling. Since my boss was not there, and also some more co-workers it was a lame day. No meeting this day which could break the day. When I got home, I did my natural routine, checking my mails, watching the news and waiting till Lara comes home, so we could discuss what we will eat :) This evening we did it simple. She ate the pasta of yesterday with some adds, and I made chicken soup. Since it was the week of the European soccer matches, we could watch again some nice soccer games. We watched together the game of Feyenoord. They were playing against Sofia, first we were 2-0 behind but in the end we played 2-2 which is quite ok, for the shape where Feyenoord is in now. And Lara could learn another word “strafschop”, which means penalty. After the game we discussed which movie we could go the other day, since one of my colleague’s gave me a AH filmweek card, which gives us the second ticket for free, so it would be a waste of not using it. We decided to go to the Da Vinci Code. But it would be the movie theatre on the south side, which is nor Lara nor my favourite place. But ok. :) I loved the book, and what I had seen from the trailers it could be a nice movie.

Friday – movie night

Almost weekend!!! Last working day of this week. Today I had a meeting which broke my day, that was good. It was hopefully one of the last meetings about the subject of the crises room. We have been working on this already for a year, so I really hope that we soon can close this ‘project’. It’s nice and not that nice to work on Friday’s. It’s nice because you’re not disturbed that much since many co-workers are having a free day. But on the other hand it’s not that nice, since not that many persons are working so less social contact. Like today out of the 5 persons around me, just one worked besides me. This evening Lara cooked, she made white beans with unions and broccoli. This was really nice. We went out at 20.20, which was smart, because when we wanted to take the tram to the movie theatre, the first two were with “don’t get in” on it. Finally the third 23 tram was allowed to use :) In the past if you had booked your ticket before you had to get it at least 30 minutes op front, that’s why I planned to be there 30 minutes before. But they have changed their policy, now the persons can get their tickets till the last minute, and since the movie we wanted to see was sold out, we could wait for another 30 minutes and try again. So we walked a bit around, went to the riverside, where we tried to make a photo with Lara’s digital camera, but we didn’t succeed. When we got in, we had to stand again in line, but it was worth it. We got two places, just on time and the movie the Da Vinci Code was very nice. We both liked it. The film ended before the last tram left, so we were lucky. But I didn’t had enough ‘strippen’ anymore. They didn’t came to check us, so I thought it would be ok. But then they came to us, so I talked us out of the problem, but we had to get off on the stop right after the bridge. Which for me was no problem, since it was a nice night walk next to the river. We got home after one in the night.


Saturday – walking in the center

Weekend! Since we had both a long week and needed some time, we got up late, and of course me later then Lara. We went by foot to the centre, we both bought a newspaper, me the NRC and she a German newspaper. Then we went to Swatch shop, since I need a new watch, because my watch is not looking that nice anymore. So I was looking what I could buy as birthday present, since that day is coming near. Then we walked around the centre, and we went also inside the city information centre, where there is a big Marquette of the city of Rotterdam. Also they have two big pictures, one with the centre before the bombing in the war and one afterwards. And this is impressive, that's why I almost always take foreigners to this place. While we were inside this information centre we met Jaap and Koen together with a friend of them.
We went walking further, we found by excident the hostel where Lara’s mother will stay when she will come to Rotterdam, to celebrate Lara’s birthday, which is one day after mine :)
We went back home, got the shopping bags and went to the AH. Where we bought the food, for the dinner. We cooked together. We ate potatoes with green stuff and smashed apples together with biological meat. It was a nice dinner. After dinner I went finally online and had a long chat with Aga, since she got back home that day from her seminar in Brussels. Lara went out in the evening for Salsa dancing, since she really loves that. I was a bit tired and I’m not that eager to go to a salsa bar, since I have been once in Budapest and didn’t liked it, so I stayed home. She left around 22.30. When Aga and me stopped chatting at 2, Lara came back, a bit frustrated. First of all the place didn’t open till 23.00, while on the door was written 22.00. Then she had to pay like 8 euros to get in, while there were hardly any people. So she also checked another place, which was at least free of charge. But also there were hardly persons. So, she went back to the first place, but even at 1.30 there were just around 30 people and 4 people dancing, so she came home frustrated. She explained her adventure to me, and then I went online to see where she could go. So, maybe next time she has more luck. At three we went sleeping.

Ad: Cultural Working Group

Look how cool!!!

Busy days

Monday – interesting dinner

Monday morning as usual is a working day. This morning was a crazy one, because I wasn’t there on Friday there was some work left from that day and also since Monday is the day of the stuff for the agenda for the city council, and it was a messy day. First I needed to sort out one agenda point from last Friday which was needed to put on the agenda on the coming Tuesday agenda. Normally you have to hand in these stuff one week before and not just 2 days before, so it was a lot arrangements to be made. Due to this messy morning my whole working day was strange. I went back home also a bit later then normal. I watched the news and some other stuff on the TV. At 7 o’clock Lara came home from work. She made some interesting dinner. Biological meat which was ok, but with some kind of salad made of chicory, unions and small tomatoes; and that was really interesting. We talked a bit and then she went out to call her boyfriend, and that took really a long time, she just came like 1¼ hour later home, I was just on the point to send an sms to ask her if she is ok. And then we went early to bed.

Tuesday – the Bowling King pin contest

This morning I managed to get a bit earlier outside my bed to say hi to Lara, but due to the fact that I needed some things in morning, I was not really earlier at work. This was a more normal day, nothing really interesting happened. After work I went directly to the snack bar to get some dinner, French fries and a “fricandel” ;) Some AEGEE members maybe knows how our dear Rotterdam member Roel eats them. LOL. Since Lara talked with a colleague after work time, she just came home at 19.50; and I really needed to leave at 20.05 to get the tram to the place where will be the bowling. So, we had a short chat, and I left to have a nice evening. It was a nice big group bowling, all together like 18 persons. I was on a bowling lane with Arjan, Pieter-Koen, a girl from Belgium, a guy from Lithuania, and a girl from Ukraine. We had a lots of fun. First the girl from Belgium either threw a strike or nothing at all. On the first lane, our dear mister president Koen won with 103 points, on the other lane Paul won with 101 points. The battle was interesting at our lane. Till the very last throw it was interesting, and everything could happen. Pieter-Koen had 110 points, and I had like 105 till turn 9, so if I would throw 6 pins or more I would win it….. and I threw even a spare and ended on 124 points, which is not bad at all. After this bowling we went to the café Pardoen, to have some nice drinks. Also AEGEE-Delft came on a visit with also some international students so it was a really busy evening at the social meeting of AEGEE-Rotterdam. At 0.30 I went back home with the last subway, since I didn’t felt like walking back. I got home at 0.50 and I was silent enough to not wake up my roommate. Normally I would check the latest news and look if I have some new mails, but this couldn’t be done this time, since I would woke up then my roommate. So, I go now more and more earlier to bed.

Wednesday – watching soccer

Since the evening before it was rather late than normal, and there is a difference between standing on the terrace or laying down on the couch, it was hard to get up, so no early good morning. Today at work I had a meeting about time writing. We are still struggling and also we as project team, we have doubts if this is what we do now also what the organization wants. So let’s see what the next board of directors meeting will say about our thoughts. For the rest a quite normal day. Before I left to home I wrote an sms to Lara if it would be ok, if I would make pasta for us. She wrote me back, but I didn’t received that sms at all. But ok, she got home just before 7 and we talked first about the last evening and what we had done during the day, and then I proposed to make the pasta. She was already thinking about having dinner outside the door, since she didn’t feel like cooking so she was very happy that I offered to cook pasta. Then we went together to the shopping market, where we did the shopping. Since she really likes to eat real food, she bought the meat, which means biological meat… I cooked the pasta and she really liked it. The meat was funny, it was a kind of though, and I remember from Monday when we ate the other meat that she said this meat is more though since it’s natural meat, so I really had to work on it to make it smaller :)
After the dinner we watched together the soccer game of Manchester and Celtic, she also loves to watch soccer. It was a nice game for sure the first half. During that I also learned her some Dutch words like “mooie” and “hoekschop” during the game. After the game watched still a bit TV and went to bed just after twelve.

The long weekend

Friday was the day that Aga would come to visit me in Rotterdam, the bus from Poland was suppose to be at 7.20 in Rotterdam near the train station. So my alarm was ringing at 5.30 in the night :) I got an sms from Aga, when she arrived in Amsterdam that she has like almost one hour delay. That was nice, since I was then already outside waiting for the tram, so I could go back home and do some dish cleaning :) When I received a new sms when she was in Utrecht the delay was something like 40 minutes, so I could leaved almost at the time I got that message, I was just ready with the dishes.
When I was waiting near the train station, I spotted the bus, and strangly enough the bus was not stopping, but driving through. So I went walking where the bus was going, till I lost it outside my eyesight. When the bus stopped at the Erasmus bridge, Aga sent me an sms where she was. So the first day started very nicely. It was the first time that they stopped that this place and the company didn’t told the passengers before, so a nice surprise early in the morning. By tram we went to my house.
Since Aga just slept around two hours in her bus trip of 18 hours, she went to bed to catch some more sleep, since that evening we would go to a party where I was the DJ :)
When she woke up, we went to the shopping mall to get stuff for the lunch and dinner, and we had a nice lunch. Finally we went for a nice walk in the sunshine through Rotterdam. I showed her some nice places of Rotterdam, like the famous cubic houses and Erasmus bridge. And we had a nice cup of tea and coffee at Hotel New York, while we watching some brides and brooms. We continued our walk through Rotterdam, back home. I made the dinner, potatoes, smashed apples with red cabbage and some meat. After that we had the great Dutch desert: Vla met slagroom! After dinner I needed to hurry to pack my DJ stuff, since at eight, we planned to go to the party place to install myself. When I finally put on the first song, the first party animal arrived, so right on time. Since I had some international music with me, I really made one Bulgarian girl happy since I played without knowing her favourite Bulgarian music, and also the Polish people I made happy since I got a nice CD from Aga with some cool Polish music. That was really nice, much better then some Dutchies whom were asking all the time terrible music. I asked Beti to come to the party, but she was to tired; so she had sent Jaap instead and he entertained us the whole time when he arrived, and giving us nice Bacardi coke. In the end it was more Bacardi with some coke, then the other way around. At 3 o’clock we were standing outside, after having sung some Dutch songs before leaving with the organisers, waiting for the taxi, since I didn’t want to walk all the way home with the DJ stuff. So we went to bed around 3.30 :)


On Saturday we went after a nice nap, to the supermarket to get fresh bread and milk for the lunch. After the lunch we went for another touristic walk in Rotterdam, we went inside the St. Laurenschurch for instance. We went also to the Festival which took place in the Witte de With street, which is our cultural street of Rotterdam, with a lot of galleries and museums. For this years edition, they had put on all the buildings on the street pink spots :) even on the church! After seeing so many interesting things we went to the old harbour to drink something and also to decide where to have dinner. We went to a restaurant to eat a nice pizza, near the movie theatre, so we could easy go afterwards to the movie theatre. While we were eating I was called by Lara whom is from Frankfurt and doing an internship at Atelier van Lieshout. She joined us, and then she told us about her first 9 days of her stay her in Rotterdam, and her adventure with her place to stay, since there has been some miscommunication. She was planning to stay in a hostel from Sunday on, and since I would have space from Sunday on, I offered her to stay at my place till she finally can stay at her new place. So, for some time I will have again a nice roommate :)
After the dinner we went to the cinema, to see the movie the Sentinel, it was an interesting movie, with Kiefer Sunderland and Michael Douglas. After the movie Lara went home by car, and Aga and me walked home next to the river. We even saw one of the famous Radio DJ’s in Holland Giel Beelen on our way home. We came home at one in the night.

Sunday we woke up pretty early, since we wanted to see still the windmills near my house. So, we went their to play Japanese tourist, going to the two windmills, and making some photo’s and leave! LOL
After this we went to the central station, since Aga went by train to Brussels. That was at 13.24; I would supposed to meet Lara at two, but since she had to give her key to somebody, which didn’t showed up on time, we met later; during the waiting, I went to the centre to see the Rotterdam on wheels, which is a nice yearly event. I watched for some time, before going back to the station, since I asked Lara to send me an sms when she thought she would be in 10 minutes at the central station. But due to this nice event, there were many unexpected traffic jams for Lara, but I didn’t mind since I was waiting in the sunshine, it was really wonderful weather, 23 degrees on the 10th of September!
Ok, we had also a nice time to drive home, with all there traffic jams around the centre, but we made it.
After we had put Lara’s stuff at my place, we went back walking to the centre to go for me again to the Festival. Where we have seen again some new interesting things. After this we went to the old harbour to have something to drink. And while we were sitting there, Arjan came there with his friend and they joined us for another drink. Then we all left together to go home to prepare some dinner. Since Lara had some potatoes left, we didn’t prepared soup as I thought, but potatoes with smashed apples and green beans. And even a bit desert. In the evening we watched the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, that was really an interesting movie. Already at 00.15 we went to bed…. which is pretty early for me.

Daily life 4

Here I am again, a bit later then I should write, but ok. Last Friday I didn't had a free day as the last two weeks :)

My week started on Monday you could say. Then I invited the SU committee over to my place to have some nice time. To talk about the SU and also some other stuff :) Besides this we watched the movies which was made during the SU. It was a nice evening.

This week was a more of TV week, I watched several nice serials like Stargate, CSI, NCIS, Prison break :) Besides this I had some chats with some international friends.

Tomorrow I will go to the center of Rotterdam, to see how the Harbour Days are :) Another weekend full of activities in the hart of Rotterdam. That's why I love this town, also that's the reason why our city is the events city of Holland :) Almost each weekend in the summer there is something to do in Rotterdam. In the evening I will go to the birthday of my cousin. Also I will see my parents after there vacation in Germany :)

Next week will be a cleaning week for sure :) Since Aga will come on friday morning to Rotterdam and will stay at my place. Today I started with some cleaning of clothes, since I also needed my DJ t-shirt for Friday :) But you all know about this, it will be cool.
Also I'm thinking where and when to spend my fall vacation. It seems that Italy will win in the end. There will be the fall agora in Napoli, but the main reason would be Rome. I really needs to see that city, it's very high on my list of cities I want to visit :)

So let's see how that will work out.