OK, well, I've started my 20 page paper, and I'm ready to take my prelim thesis proposal to my promoter tomorrow. I have never had such a hard time getting to work. I'm such a procrastinator. However, in my defence, which is small, like my brain, I was sneezing for most of today, and my eyes have been going from tearing buckets to being so dry that I thought I could use them to sand down my desk in the Venus de Milo. Then I realized that I still needed desk to use my computer. And how would I give you the equivalent of Venus in pictures without a desk? I would need to use my coffee table or something. But it would have to stand on all the books on the coffee table, and I don't want to look at the books right now. The books make it hurt. So on to the pictures!
The Party
This is Sarah and her boyfriend Mike. I forget what they're examining, but we helped (sort of helped) Montseratt set up for her joint birthday party. It was fun! And colourful! =D Mike is visiting for about three weeks or something, and then he's going back to Canada. Very cool, and the party was very cool. Like, ICE cool. (I'm saying that so Montseratt doesn't freak out and think she had a bad party. I was nearly accosted three seperate times in which I had to assert the high quality of said party.)
This is Montseratt opening a gift. There was a funny moment where Montseratt tried to get everyone's attention for the opening of the gifts, and one of the birthday peeps was in the washroom. It was pretty anti-climactic. Especially after Montseratt went to all the trouble of popping a balloon right next to my ear.
This was some of the amazing food we had. Half of it I helped pick out to make! =D =D =D Um, except that we had olives. I keep trying to convince myself I liked olives, but I don't. And I shouldn't try and convince myself I like them. But really. They taste like feet. And people kept asking me where the Rice Krispie Squares were...it's a long story about how people have never ever had them for the most part and don't even know what they are and that Montseratt kept saying we were going to make them in the middle of the party. I said we should wait because everyone was eating the candied marshmallows we were going to use to make the snack. I miss North American style marshmallows.
The Dinner
This is Sarah and her boyfriend Mike who are cooking in MY STUDIO. WOHOO! They came over and cooked salmon in a white wine sauce and some awesome tasting potatoes. They learned the rather painful experience of trying to cook in studio. (aka. We ate at 8 pm or something) However, everything was amazing, and they are great cooks. I certainly don't measure up to them. Luckily, I make up for the lack of skill with inviting other people more often. =D
This is a picture of what we had. I only have one pea on my plate because I literally ate a bag's worth of peas while we ate for everything to cook. Those peas, uh, may or may not have been for everyone and not just me. I can't say for sure, though.
The Trip
Now, this is the real deal! This is my trip to Amsterdam, which was exhaustingly great fun. I went and visited friends of my grandparents, Henke and Nicole. This picture is me missing the train because I'm really dumb, and no matter what I do, I always mess up my train schedule. Instead of having seven minutes between trains, which I thought WAS TOO LITTLE, I instead went into Brussels versus going through a different route through Mechlen, and thus my train arrived from Leuven at 9:37, and my train direct for Amsterdam departed at 9:37. I ran for the train. I almost made it. The doors closed as I was about 10 feet away from getting on the train. Yeah.
Anyways, I phoned Nicole, and told her what happened, and it actually turned out to be a good thing, since it gave them more time to get organized, so I felt ok about that. But also guilty. Like BECAUSE I'M TOTALLY DUMB. On the bright side of things, this was my first time EVER travelling by myself in Europe (No, serious, I'm not even joking) especially all trans-country-like, so I'm proud of myself that I didn't end up in Hamburg or Nice or something. Other than this minor mix-up (Re: I can't put train schedules together properly) the rest of the trip went fairly smoothly. I even met some Canadians on the trip up! It was a good way to pass three hours while they told me about all the pot they were hoping to smoke that weekend. I told them funny jokes about Steak tartar. It was a good trade-off, I think.
This was me buying myself Hagen-Dazs ice cream to make me feel better about making a mess of things. It was MACAROON flavoured. Have you ever heard of anything so weird? Me neither, so I had to try it. I must say...it's certainly as weird as it sounds. However, macaroons are the bomb over here for people, quite the treat, so I suppose I could see it's popularity. It makes at least as much sense as coffee ice cream.
This is me and the fam getting ready to go on a BOAT TRIP around Amsterdam. Way fun. When they met me at the airport, Nicole and Henke were the most nicest people I have ever met in Europe, they were so nice to me. And, wow, the hospitality. Anyways, we went and had a quick lunch (mainly because I hadn't eaten anything) and they bought soup for me, and we went on the boat tour, which was awesome. I can't begin to tell you how nice these people are. They're amazing parents too.
This is one of the many Asian women on the boat tour who cuddled Nicole and Henke's kids. It was cute, but also hard for Nicole and Henke, since what is bad behaviour is soooo cute to everyone except the parents. The unbelievably cute kid on the lady's lap is Luik.
This is a picture of Luik, and his younger brother Niek. They're terrific kids, and they played me out by the end of the weekend. I forgot what it's like to be around really, really young children. It's so nice. This was them being cute and walking on and jumping off the bottom of a lift. It was less cute when we went up the flight of stairs and they tried to jump off the top of it.
This is me standing in front of a Castle. A CASTLE!!!!!! YES!!! CASTLE!!!!! We went on a children's tour in Dutch here. I understood 15-25% of it, which I consider to be really good for how my comprehension level is progressing. It was a really nice place, but because of the weather, we didn't look around a lot.
This is me trying to explain to Henke how to use my archaic digital camera. I kind of look like I'm swatting something. These photos were taken because Nicole said we should. She was right, as usual.
Now I kind of look like a tiger. Rawr.
This was me eating a liver pate sandwich for lunch. Nicole and Henke had me eating salmon and cream cheese bagels for breakfast and pate sandwiches for lunch. I kinda liked pate, even though I don't remember what's in it. That's also code for don't tell me what it actually is. I'm blissful this way.
Henke promised to let me try smoked eel next time I come. WOHOO!
This one of the best parts of my whole trip. I got to see a real, live, windmill! DAG, yo! It was, wow. Very cool. I had a super Dutch moment. I think Nicole and Henke were amused. Actually, I think Nicole fell asleep. This was on the way back to the train station, and I talked Henke's ear off. I like to think I was doing it to keep him awake, but I know it's because I didn't want to sleep and seem like I was really that tired from the weekend, but I think it wore everybody out. And I also think that because their kids had been sick lately they hadn't been getting a lot of sleep.
OK, well, that's it! Actually, there's a lot more, but I gave the slimmer version, mainly because it's two in the morning, and I need to sleep. Also, I need to save some for stories for later! Besides, like you've even read this far! Woo! OK, well, I should go, so there's an update, and there will be more this week. Wohoo!
I missed writing here.
13 comments:
It looks like a great time! I'm very jealous. It's great to see all the pictures.
I've always wanted to go to Amsterdam. Another time, another time.
"They [Olives] taste like feet."
I've always thought that. I don't mind Kalamata olives (the big Greek ones), but I don't really like black or green olives. A friend once told me that if I ate six olives, one at a time, without anything to drink, that by then end, I'd be an olive fanatic. I almost threw up in her toilet. We haven't spoken since.
Exactly. And that's why no one should ever say anything like, "If you eat three hundred of these, by time you're done, you'll LOVE them." They always seem to mysteriously forget the sub-clause of "Or you'll throw up."
Ha, so there you are Brennan, eating liver pate for lunch, somewhere between touring a castle and standing in front of a windmill. You've really gone European on us! Glad to hear you're enjoying your trip.
When you get back here you'll be in for some culture shock, where our chocolate (and other food) isn't the best and you can't go tour historical sites that are centuries old or other world-famous landmarks for an afternoon activity.
Stay away from the olives. In Greece they were once called the working-man's meat. That's because rich people could actually buy decent food, like meat. It's not like olives are anything special, they're really just the ancient Greek version of spam, just because something is imported doesn't make it good. Besides, you don't need to go Greek, what with where you're staying.
Wow. Looks very exciting. Now get back to work! :)
I remember that pizza. I ate almost a whole pizza because nobody else would eat it. Of course, I just picked the olives off. Guess that was too hard for some people.
That pizza still tasted like olives, and you know it, Will. ;)
And his name was Mysore. I've actually seen and talked with him since he left cadets because him and his brother were huge into debate.
Ugh. I'm heebie jeebie-ing just thinking about the olives! ACK!
Ok, back to work! =D
Yes, admittedly, it still tasted like green olives, but I just downed, like, twelve cokes to manage the taste. That was the same night as the dragon story.
WHAT IS SO WRONG WITH OLIVES? They're brilliant. On my scale, they're somewhere between Star Wars (Original Trilogy) and the HMS Victory for awesomeness.
Brennan, your not suposed to like olives, olives are only a vessle for salt..mmm salt maybe I;ll go have some right now.
Ugh, I totally remember the dragon story. I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS FORCED TO SIT THROUGH THAT. LOL.
And for the record, I thought it was wrong to take Mysore's pizza because he is a vegetarian, so I ate the olive pizza.
And, while I can see how you would like them Bee, I just can't do it. There's a level of wrong that my tongue just can't get over. 'I' can get over it, but I'm not sure my digestive system can.
Wait. Make that "I'm positive that there's no way for me to like olives without shock therapy, and possibly even with shock therapy."
And, no, I'm not volunteering myself for shock therapy. Unless there's a dollar sign attached.
pate is made from sheep rectums.
No, actually, it's made from liver. That's not so bad, is it?
You know, I seriously almost had my brain malfuction when you said sheep rectums. You know, those scenes in cartoons where someone says something, and then that person is officially broken until you can snap them out of it? I literally broke for about five seconds. And then I read the rest.
Har har.
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