Best.Party.Ever.

And that is saying something since I have been to quite a few parties in the past 15 years.  Yesterday to celebrate my final weekend in Holland Conny and I hopped on the train to Antwerp to go to Laundry day; a massive outdoor party with 20 different stages.  It was amazing, the music, the people and the weather.  Antwerp is in Belgium and we have decided that living there would be the best option for me if London falls through. It is a lovely town, lots and lots of pubs and restaurants,  big music and art scene and did I mention the people: the Flemish people are so very lovely!!

We arrived at our hotel around 2 PM dropped our bags off and hopped on the tram to go to the party; while walking along Conny turns to me and says: Hey this is the Zillion ( a club long closed that we used to visit 10 yrs ago) I did not believe her until I saw the actual zillion sign on the door, to us Very Funny.

At the party there was soo much going on that we sat down with a few beers first and looked at the iphone application that I downloaded with the play lists and map of the area, not that it helped much we ended up just walking along listening to the music and then heading to the stage that at the time was playing the best sets.

They had laundry hanging every where, hence the name Launry Day.   We just danced from 3 PM until 12 AM, it really was the best party ever!!  And we will definitely be returning next year.  Today I am slowly packing  and reading some papers for France, I am so very excited to get started!!

How I

hate hunting for an apartment.  Probably on the same level as my hate for dentists!  I was under the impression that when I got to Tours the international office would help, they had requested all kinds of information from me regarding where I wanted to live, how many rooms etc. When Catherine and I got the office the lady was not at all helpful. Turns out all she really does is get other people to do her job and she gives you a folder from the Tourist office regarding things to do in Tours; a total JOKE.

So on Friday early morning Catherine and I went to get a paper that has all the privately listed apartments for rent. They are described very briefly and have a phone number that you can call to arrange for a viewing. This is where for my the nightmare starts.  Catherine made the calls (since my French is really to crappy) and we managed to get an appointment for the first place we called. A 1 bedroom apartment in Les Halles (the very old part of town). After that it went downhill with either no answer or when the people found out that Catherine was calling for me (she does not tell lies very well) the place was suddenly already gone.. Besides these private adds in the news paper there are about a million agencies that  rent out places so we started visiting them.

The first one only had one apartment that I was interested in (1 bedroom, near city centre). The agent had time to show me and it was AWFUL!  Such a depressing dirty shit hole on the 3rd floor of this house and it stank!  Immediately I turned around and said that it was not for me!  So on we went to the next agency, this girl said she had 3 apartments and that I could come on Saturday to visit them.  At 11 AM we had to go to Les Halles to visit the apartment from the paper, it was located in such a cute street that I was already very enthousiastic until I entered the place and saw that it basically had not changed since 1500. Once again very dirty and tiny and OLD! We visited about 7 other agencies none that had anything I was really interested in and I was getting a little upset. I really thought I would find an apartment very easily but it was turning into a little nightmare… In the afternoon I had another appointment with an agency that rented out furnished places. Catherine dropped me off and had to go to the lab. The place was completely furnished and really not that bad but it was soo expensive!! By this stage I was ready to just take it but decided to look around a bit more.  I walked into another agency armed with my dictionary and told the receptionist what I was looking for.  I then got to visit 3 more apartments but none were really what I was looking for! So I hopped on the bus to get back to the lab. My mood had improved since I was rather proud of myself for attempting to speak French and finding the way to the lab. Since Catherine had to leave for the weekend, Frederic offered to meet with me on Saturday to do some more apartment hunting. (All the people in the lab are really lovely).  I went home on Friday and had an early night. The next morning I hopped on the bus back to the city to visit more agencies! I must have entered 2376 places (or that is what it felt like) and visited 2 other apartments (CRAP). By 2 PM I was ready to give up, the only good thing was that I really got to walk around Tours and realise that it is a really lovely town!  When I met with Fredric I suggested we just go and have a beers and think about a plan…. I knew I had to go and see 3 more places at 4 PM and had already given up on the thought of really finding anything..The beers were good and by 4 PM we walked to the agency; the girl did not speak a word of English so Frederic came with me to the first place. It was MASSIVE, I could play soccer in the lounge room! It was the nicest place I had seen so far but just a little too big.  Frederic had to leave after that so the girl and I went together to the other 2 places.  And then I found it:  my new HOME!!! It was just perfect (except for the fact that I will have to buy everything; stove, fridge, washmachine) but it was exactly what I had been looking for. Floor boards, two small bedrooms a small lounge room a Kitchen and a tiny bathroom. Very light since it is south facing and very near to the centre!

So yesterday I managed to get most of the paperwork organised and on the 10th I will get the keys and can move in!!! I am so excited!! And since it has 2 bedrooms it will be easy to have you all come and stay there! Looking back I effectively only spent 1.5 day looking for a place but since I hate it so much spending more than 1 hr apartment hunting is already too much.

Goodbye’s Suck

I had my first REAL goodbye yesterday and it made me feel a little sad. Judith (pregnant friend) and Marcel will be leaving for their holiday just before I come back from Tours so I won’t be seeing them until December when I plan on catching the baby in the delivery room.   I hate saying goodbye and really prefer to pretend that I will seeing people in a week or so… Pretty LAME  I know but it helps me. So although my farewell tour has been a big success; Swiss was fantastic. I had a lovely dinner with an old high school friend and went to Utrecht with Joost and Femke from Maastricht uni. Yesterday was just a bit hard..Judith and I had a lovely dinner and reminisced about our very exciting partying years while we were still in high school. We were totally annoying at the time and only cared about ourselves and getting to the next party. And it was just weird that although this was like 15 yrs ago it sometimes feels like only yesterday and in only 15 yrs time her son or daughter might be the one going out all night.. I can get so nostalgic at times it is not even funny!!

Tonight I am going on a date, a friend of Conny whom I met when I was in Breda asked me out for dinner and of course I said yes; anything to not have to be at home in the evening!! And he is a really lovely and attractive guy not marriage material but a girl needs some fun now and then 🙂

I have yet to start my French for Dummies course; although when I see anything written in French I do try and translate it.

So after procrastinating for at least another hour, I will be start reading the first 2 chapters of my French book and of course listen to the CD.

Farewell tour

has started.  In two weeks time I will be going to Aracachon to see Aurelie and Jono for a few days, followed by a few days in Tours where I will be signing my contract and looking for a castle to live in.  So the next weeks I am visiting friends to say good bye once again!! On Monday I went to Scheveningen a rather famous beach in Holland; while the weather was not great, Kim and I did sit on the beach in our bikini’s until it started raining and we ran to a bar for some wine and heat.  Yesterday I took the train to Nijmegen to visit Linda for dinner and a brief sleepover. The last time I was there we ended up staying out all night but this time we were very civil and went to bed before midnight!

And now I have just returned from Switzerland where I visited Fleur and Henk-Jan and had a ball!!! The weather was great and we did heaps of fun things;  Via Ferrata; hiking; biking and swimming.

It was time for me to get out of Holland. After telling Glasses man that he was not the man of my dreams I felt a little bad about the whole situation since I told him via email (oh so very brave!!).

I got my train tickets to France yesterday and really can not wait to get started!!  Still not sure what exactly my plan is going to be. Mum and Dad are both pretty keen to drive down with my stuff as soon as I find a place to live.  For now though, I need to finish a paper, have more dinner and drinks with friends and start packing up my stuff!!

I had

another lovely weekend.

Friday was my final day, and as it turned out my boss decided to close the office at 2 PM so it was actually only a half day of work. We had a nice lunch a few beers and then I went to Glasses man. We were going to Antwerp, Belgium for a night.  After checking in at the hotel we walked towards the restaurants and bars for dinner and drinks, to celebrate my survival of my 3 weeks of work! After dinner we went to a little bar where surprisingly you could smoke inside (as it turned out you can smoke in all bars in Antwerp) and had a beer.   We then went to this Jazz bar; Muze. It is located in an old building and has all these little stairs leading to little balconies of course loads of different beers and a live band.   We left the bar around 1 AM and went to another place for our last beer before heading back to the hotel. (Glasses man took this picture from our hotel room)

On Saturday we walked around the city and I found the greatest shoes!!!  Shopping, like the food and beers in Antwerp is great and i can highly recommend spending a weekend there.

I am getting more and more excited about France, I am hoping to meet up with 2 Australian friends before going to Tours and then I will finally see where I will be spending the next year of my life! But before that I still have loads of things to do, finishing papers; reading up on neurogenesis and sorting out clothes to bring with me!

Beers during

work! Today I finally managed to convince my co-workers it would be a good idea to drink some beers in the afternoon. I have been nagging them since my second day, but it seems it just not done. Since today was a really long day;  all I had to do was type up reports and the Boss was out both Leo and Toine finally gave in and I bought us a few beers from the Supermarket. It was really nice and before we knew it, it was 5 PM.

While Dutchies do like drinking it is nothing compared to the Australian culture and I must say that I prefer the latter. I really don’t see what is wrong with having a drink after work; especially on Fridays!

I also finally got round to picking up my credit card. I had left it at a friend’s house about 3 months ago and realised yesterday that I still had not picked it up! On the positive side I managed to control my spending but it does show how slack I can sometimes be…

There is not much else going on, I am gaining more respect for people who work a 40 hr office job; it really can SUCK.  I do everything to get out of the office a few times a day. I go to the post office at least twice a day  (I always forget to bring one thing so I can go back again). I go shopping once a day, while I bring my own sandwiches from home, my boss wants fresh food and therefore i get to go to the shop before lunch and pick up food for him. I really don’t care since it is a nice walk. And now I am really hoping that besides bread I will be able to buy beers on Friday!

I do realise I am sounding a little desperate with the alcohol situation and will work on it with my therapist 😉

I experienced

one of the nicest dates in a really long time yesterday.  Admittedly, dating is not one of the things I was really active in for the past well 10 years. But even if I had been, I am pretty sure that yesterday would have made my top 5.

I had asked glasses man if he wanted to come to an exhibition in Rotterdam (http://www.brazilcontemporary.nl/en/) on the weekend. Knowing that he is into art and photography I figured it would be hard to resist, whereas a “lets go shopping on the weekend.” would be a lot easier to say no to.   On sunday moring my mum dropped me off to his house which made me feel 15 again. At least this time I was not so nervous about seeing him since we had talked on phone and Skype nearly every day in the past week.

While the exhibition we went to see was nice, the museum it was held in (Boijmans en van Beuningen) was FANTASTIC.

There was a great mixture of contemporary and “old” art and I finally saw a real Rembrandt. After Boijmans we went to the photomuseum about a 15 minute walk away. By that stage we were both rather tired but still enjoyed the photographs and a really nice short movie.

The weather was great so when at 5 PM we really were done we went to a nice Italian restaurant in the city for some beers and some pasta and then hopped on the train to Roosendaal.

I am still amazed at how well we get along, I even invited him along to Switzerland for a short break after I finish work.  If we still get a long after a little holiday it will definitely be worth continuing to see each other while I am in France; if not then at least we know and not too much time will be wasted.  We still need to discuss dates, but he seemed pretty keen!

Work is still tedious but I am slowly getting the hang of everything + my blind typing is getting way better. I do still have trouble answering the phone but I guess you can’t have everything.

My new

job is a little harder than expected. Yesterday was my first ‘real’ day. And to be honest I am just not used to working 8 hrs. I was a little scared to check emails or browse the web so spend the hole day typing up a report.  I have to listen to a recording made by one of the dudes that work there while they walk through different houses. Basically they record the damage that is there, like cracks in walls etc.  It is not very challenging but unfortunately you have to also pay attention to what they are saying so there is no room to do other stuff in the mean time. The guys are all really lovely and since besides typing and answering phone calls, I also have to do shopping for lunch I do get the opportunity to leave my desk  and walk around Willemstad a little.

There is a really really cool windmill.  Contrary to popular belief there really are not that many windmills in Holland!  So this is actually quite a sight even for me.

Today work was a lot better than monday, my boss left before lunch so it was just me and Leo in the office and I could check my emails and browse the web. I also was asked to make up a final report (matching pictures to txt) nearly as frustrating as listing to a tape, but it is really a lot better than just typing + I could listen to my ipod! And we left a little earlier since the boss was out!

I realised that I only have a few more weeks left in Holland and while I am excited about starting a real job. I also feel a little sad about leaving.  Not sure if it is because of glasses man. Yep still seeing him and now that I am living a lot closer it is a lot easier to spend time with him. Or just because it is a little daunting to move to a new country where I know no one and I don’t really speak the language.  I am sure it will be fine and since glasses man and I hardly know each other I am just enjoying the time we do spend together and who knows what will happen in the next 4 weeks.

I am seriously

beginning to think I have a wee problem with alcohol.  After a lovely weekend with Conny and my first half a day at the office. I came back to Maastricht for my final week as a jobless person. Tuesday I met up with the Surgeon for dinner, what started out as a nice civilised dinner ended in him having to throw up and me stumbling home at 1 AM. We started with a lovely bottle of Australian wine that I had bought and ate a nice dinner and talked heaps! After finishing the nice wine, the surgeon opened one of his bottles and it was really disgusting, me being me decided that we had to finish it.  The next bottle was a bottle of Rose and then we started drinking whiskey  ( I don’t even like whiskey!). When the Surgeon said he had to vomit I realised I had to leave because I could barely stand!  He literally lives around the corner from where I live; however it took me 30 minutes to get home and open the door.   I was not too happy the next morning and the thought of having to go out with Linda that afternoon was not something I was looking forward to. While I was trying to focus on my work I received a really lovely email from Glasses man; and it made my day!  Feeling a lot better after a few coffees, a nice email and some brekky I was ready to pick up Linda from the station.  We walked from the station in the direction of my house and stopped at the first pub, the weather was beautiful so we sat outside on the water. After having some soft drinks we decided to order a bottle of Prosecco (this is now the thing to drink in Holland apparently).

The surgeon called saying he wanted to meet up for a drink. He knows Linda too, since we all studied in Maastricht together. By the time he arrived we had ordered the second bottle.  While Linda and the Surgeon discussed their careers, they are both doctors but specialised in different fields. I finally got the long awaited call from glasses man. Slightly tipsy we chatted for a while and agreed on our second date (WOOHOO).  After the call we were joined by Surgeon’s brother and friend and had a nice dinner and Linda and I decided to order another bottle… Surgeon and friends left after dinner to play poker and Linda and I staggered home for some coffee!  We were falling of to sleep and decided that we’d better leave and go for a wee dance.  At the bar the Surgeon called once again and joined us.  We were having a ball, but most other people found us slightly annoying with our crazy dance moves… Once again I suddenly decided that I HAD TO LEAVE NOW!!! Thinking I would go home alone I was rather surprised when both Surgeon and Linda decided to come with me. The three of us went to Surgeon’s house where I went straight to bed (OK I fell of to sleep on the floor first) while the two of them ate some pizza and got a bit further acquainted ;-). I woke up in bed with both Surgeon and Linda lying next to me, it was just too funny!! Linda was feeling really really bad and could barely move without having to throw up. We managed to get her dressed and had a lovely breakfast together on the balcony before going back to my house to pick up our stuff and leave Maastricht. Once home I was really not feeling to well at all but knew I had to pull myself together for my date!  Glasses man had invited me over to his house for dinner, by the time I got there I was so nervous it was not even funny. But like last time it was GREAT.  His apartment is really nice and I finally got to see a lot of  his art work.  He even cooked a really nice dinner and bought me some wine  (My 3rd night in a row of drinking). Still not sure what is going to happen, I mean I have already planned our whole future but do realise that I might be getting a bit carried away. I will definitely try and see him a bit more now that I am back with Mum and Dad and who knows.

Drove back to Maastricht this evening and will pack up my stuff tonight and leave tomorrow morning!

And I did it

this morning I went to my boss and told him to Suck it. Well not really, I told him that I got the French job and that I was quitting. It felt good when I said it, but once he started to get all frustrated I felt a little bad for leaving like that. On the other hand he left me hanging while I was trying to finish my honours degree. While that was the best thing that ever happened to me; I got a new supervisor who turned out to be the nicest and most supportive person ever, at the time it was rather frustrating…

After handing in my resignation I visited my nice supervisor, who as per usual was very supportive. We went and had a coffee (crappy coffee is all to be had here in the Netherlands) and had a very nice chat about science and our future plans.  I would really like to set up a collaboration with him once I have more experience in science.

Now I am listening to Edith Piaf and drinking red wine, figured I might as well get a bit used to the French life style. I had a lovely dinner with my flatmate Charlotte. And must admit that although quitting the job is the best thing I did, I will miss hanging out with my flatmates once I move. I am still unsure about my starting date in France, but figure it will be the 1st of September. Since I paid rent until the end of july I will stay here until then and move back home for a wee while.  Next week Linda is coming for a few days and I am having dinner with the Surgeon. I also spoke to the glasses man, which once again was lovely! Will see where that ends, he was definitely keen to come to France and see me…

My new haircut, figured I needed to look a bit smart for France! I also found a great clothing store; Designual (www.designual.com). It is a spanish brand and they make the best clothes!  Great colours and patterns, the clothes just seem to make you happy.  I bought a pair of shorts that jingle and ofcourse a new bag. Not that I have any cash but hey that is what credit cards are for!   Mum is coming to Maastricht tomorrow together with her best friend from primary school. I never really liked her friend, her husband on the other hand is really lovely.  But I am looking forward to showing them around. I think it is great that my mum is still best friends with the girl she met when she was 7!