Halloween

Couple hours after I got home, Kelly, Sylva, and Pricilla came over with my costume. I was Dark Lily… whatever that is. And Sylva and Kelly had something similar to mine which was cool. We then went over to Anton and Yosh’s for Halloween/Hector’s B-day party. It was a good time, although there needs to be more creativity with costumes here. There was a lot of food, and Hector was dancing away as usual. At end of the night, Kelly got sick and we went home.

Going Home

Sasha gave me a ride to the train station where Lukasz was waiting for me to help me with my luggage. He already had train tickets for me, and we hopped on the 0930 train to Schipol. We piled my luggage at the back of the car, and sat in the back row facing the center. 3 minutes later, I turned around and my fucking backpack was gone!!! The train hadn’t left yet so Lukasz ran out looking, but I think it was long gone. We got off the train to make a police report, but there was no police to report to at Central Station. We ended up catching the next train to Schipol and filing a report there. Unlike Mimi, who missed her plane last Sunday, we got there a good 2.5 hrs early. But, because I had to get through security, I had to go in early. I was doing so well when we had to part… smiling and all. Soon as I lost sight of him tho, I lost it and started crying. I am going to miss him….

The flight was painless. Decent food and decent movies (I watched Batman Begins and Fantastic 4). The flight even arrived like 30 minutes early. I was also able to get a standby flight on an earlier connection back to Norfolk so I got home like an hour early. But my luggage stayed on the original flight so I had absolutely no luggage with me when I got home (I didn’t feel like waiting around for it at the airport).

Last Night

At 3, I had everyone down in the comput bar for drinks. Most people only stayed a bit, but Lukasz and Theo was around for a while. In the end, Joe came back, and Lillian also showed up. Just when I thought about wrapping up, Dario showed up. Theo and I left work around 7, or bit after. He walked me to the bus station. I went home, ate dinner, watched TV, fiddle around, and packed.

Basketball

Lukasz usually plays basketball couple times a week. This week, there was an inter-agency tournament so I went to go watch him play. The games were held at European Space Agency. They had a really nice facility and everything there was cheap. Why can’t we have a facility like that?!? Anyways, I watched Lukasz play. He was better than most people on his team, which didn't say much. His team really sucked, and lost the first two games. They one the last one though, so I was happy for them.

Crazy Pianos

Lukasz, Gorik, and I went over to Cedric and Isabelle’s tonight for dinner, and then we went to Crazy Pianos. Cedric, Isabelle, and Gorik had never been there. Also I wanted to buy people from work drinks. But I did not expect anyone to show up at 10 on a Tuesday night. Joe, Thomas, and Ronald did stop by for a bit though. Crazy Pianos was also not as crazy tonight. But I still had fun. Also, poor Cedric had broken up with his girlfriend the day before, so he was in need of some attention.

Hanging Out

Surprisingly, I got up at 10ish despite having another late night yesterday. When I got up, Mimi was actually up packing, which was good since she is supposed to leave any minute now. She didn’t end up leaving the house until 11:30 tho, and she had a 1:30 flight. And it’s about a 45 minute drive there. I hope she made it. Since I haven’t heard from her yet, I assume she did. I didn’t have any real plans today. Lukasz is going to be hanging out with his Polish friends today. I first went for a run, and then gave Cedric a shout. I was supposed to meet up with them in centrum for late lunch, but turns out Marco had locked himself out of his house so they could not get there for lunch. I ended up eating by myself at KFC and then stopped by Gorik’s place to see how he was doing. I brought him some food, and he seemed to be doing alright. By then, I guess Marco solved his problem and was at the Buddha Bar with Cedric so we went to go meet up with them. The place had nice décor, but no hot chocolate. We wanted to play pool so we went to Fiddler’s, but they had some other things going on there so we could not play. We walked around a while looking for a place to play but couldn’t find one, so we just called it a night.

Going Away Party

Since last night was a late night, I didn’t get up until like 1pm today. I had planned to go to watch Lukasz play soccer at 2:30, so I got ready, ate lunch, and rushed out a bit after 2. I ended up not being able to figure out the right bus stop and missed a bus or 2 so I got there quite late. I also had a hard time finding the entrance to the park but I bumped into Rune luckily, so he gave me a lift to the right field. They did not have an actual game today because they were short people, but I still got to watch Lukasz play. (Even if he missed 3 of 4 goals while I was there). Rune gave me a lift home afterwards, and I chilled for couple hours until it was time to go to our going away party at Trond’s. Lukasz came here first to pick me up, and then we walked over to Trond’s. Quite a few people showed up – Me, Lukasz, Mimi, Dario, Marc, Sunny, Trond, Lars, Loanna, Thomas, Christa, Joe, Theo, Gorik, Marco, Cedric, Isabelle, and Rune. Trond cooked for us, so we had a really nice meal with champagne, wine, the works. Afterwards, we ended up doing a bit of karaoke. I was awful as usual. Lukasz actually sang pretty well tho. The karaoke died down after a while, and people trickled out. Right about when Mimi and Dario was about to leave tho, Gorik apparently had gotten sick all over the corridors in the building. They gave him a lift home and Lukasz and Lars ended up cleaning the corridors. A few of us sat around chatting for a while after most people left. Maybe around 3 or so, I finally started getting tired and headed home.

Fiddler's and Clubbing

Tonight Mimi had plans to meet with people from PGS (soccer league) at Fiddler’s. I went first to meet up with Lukasz, Cedric, and Isabelle for dinner. Then we went to centrum where we picked up Marco and then went to Fiddler’s. We played pool mostly while there. The balls are smaller on this table tho, and they are red and yellow. I played like crap. At about 1, the bar closed, so we moved on to a club of sorts. The music sounded jazzy at first, but it turned out to be a good place to swing dance for a bit. I danced a lot with Cedric, and did a bit of swing dancing with Rune. Later on, other types of music came on so we all danced more. We ended up leaving the place at like 0330.

Dinner with Thomas & Christa

Since Mimi was leaving this weekend, Thomas and Christa took us out for dinner after work. They took us to a Chinese-Japanese restaurant. There was a buffet, and Mongolian style barbeque. It was a good dinner. Today was also the last day of exercise. All went well, and it looks like I will get to come back in January if the contract comes through.

French Party… sort of

Ay yay yay… what a mess last night was. I didn’t last too long, but I did have fun. Anyways, I was so weak this morning when I got up. Mimi had been put in bed next to me and she was probably feeling worse than me. We made it into the living room where Lukasz was sleeping and Marc was eating breakfast. I grabbed a shower, we ate breakfast, chatted a bit, and then went back to bed. Around 1245, Lukasz had to leave for a soccer game. I wanted to go watch, but I did not want to go so early. His game was at 1430. I was also feeling really weak still so I debated on going at all. Around 1430 tho, I finally woke up after another nap and wanted to go. Mimi got up too, and we tried to catch the second half of the game. But the 14 bus took forever to come, so we could not get home in time to get back out in time to catch much of the game. Instead, we went to centrum and ate KFC for lunch. And walked around a bit browsing some shops. Later on in the evening, there was supposed to be a party at Cedric’s – a housewarming party for him and Isabel. I met up with Lukasz before hand and we walked over to Cedric’s & Isabel’s. They lived on the beach, a bit past the Kurhaus. There, it was Cedric, his girlfriend Karin (flew in for the weekend), Isabelle, and Daniel (another dude from work). Not too long into the night tho, Cedric got news that his grandmother had just died, so he had taken off with Karin to go for a walk or something. Mimi also was not feeling well and never made it. So the rest of us chat around for a bit and then took off to go dancing in a club in centrum. It was hot as hell in that club, and lot of the music was technoish. It wasn’t until around we left that they started playing some fun music. I was also not in the greatest of moods today. I was actually home sick for the first time this past Thursday.

Shot Night

A girl from work, Melanie, had wanted to do a shot night tonight. The plan was to do a pre-party at Lukasz’s, and then go to Mambo’s at around 10. When Mimi & I arrived around 8:30, it was Trond, Lukasz, and Marc there. Melanie showed up around 9:30 or 10. We started off playing cards – asshole, bullshit, and shithead. Then we started playing Jenga. In the course of about 2 or 3 hours tho, I probably had like 5 shots, and I got really really drunk – after the last shot, the room kinda spun around once. I thought, “Oh shit, I’m done.” I should’ve known better than to drink so much. Anyways, I went to the bathroom, puked my guts out, and was probably there a good couple hours by the sounds of it. I remember I just kept puking and puking – into the sink and shower (thank god not the floor). Lukasz and Mimi came by to check on me but there wasn’t much they could do. Later, Mimi insisted on being let in, so I let her in. We talked a bit (i.e. “How are you feeling?”, “Like shit”, “It could be worse”, “How so?”, “It could be coming out of both ends.” She had a point.) Anyways, after a while, I think I had puked everything out. I wanted to just go to sleep right there but it was getting kinda cold. Mimi had already started puking by then (in the tub) so I asked her if she was alright. No response. So I walked out to the living room, told the guys Mimi needed help, and went on to the bedroom to sleep.

Vaal and Dinner at Sol Beach

Gorik and I headed out first thing in the morning. Our plan was to stop in Maastricht and then back home in time for dinner with everyone. We got to Maastricht tho, and found that it wasn’t a small quaint town that I expected. It was a city. So we left and went to Vaal, a place where Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg meets. There is also a labyrinth there so we went through it. Took us like 30 minutes to get through.

We got back fairly early (we were too tired to do much exploring today) so I went for a run before dinner. Gorik picked me, Mimi, and Martin up and we all went to dinner at Sol Beach at 8. Cedric also came, as did Lukasz, Theo, Joe, and Nadira (Joe’s ex-gf) who had just come back from Greece like an hour ago.

Beaufort, Luxembourg

I was supposed to take the train yesterday to Brussels to go to Gorik’s place, but there was a train strike in Belgium. I had to go to Roosendaal, last stop in Holland, and Gorik drove like an hour to pick me up. I stayed the night at his place, and in the morning we got up early and took off for Beaufort, Luxembourg. It was about a three hour drive, during which time I subjected the poor guy to my bad music and bad singing. To make matters worse, he was sick but I dragged him on a 6 hour hike (although it was more like a walk) once in Beaufort. As I said, it wasn’t so much of a hike as it was a walk through nature trails, but it was still nice.

During the hike, we kept getting lost because the sign postings were really bad and did not match up to our maps much. So what shoulda been a 4 hour walk turned into a 6 hour one. Once done, we checked into our hostel, showered, and went to a nearby town for dinner & desert. Luxembourg has a lot of cute towns.

Dinner... again

Martin came today for a few days to be with Mimi. We went to dinner after work with Thomas, Christa, and Sasha at a Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood. Good food, good conversation, good night. Work is going good. All’s well.

Tennis

It’s been pretty fucking boring since everyone took off for Greece. I didn’t do much all weekend. Got my haircut, worked out, and tried to shop. There were too many people out shopping, and everything is expensive here. I bought one sweater that I can wear over all my shirts and decided to make do with what I have for the rest. On Sunday, Mimi and I went over Gorik’s for dinner and internet. Not much went on Monday – just some running and hanging out at Gorik’s again. Today, I got to play a bit of tennis with Cedric. Quite expensive tho – 12 euros to rent a court for 45 minutes. Must find new place to play. I actually ended up getting back home quite early, so I did laundry and other chores around the house and called it a night.