The good, the bad, the ugly

It has been a few eventfull weeks... some highs, some lows and something in between ;)
Since my last post I've had a nice and quiet week which ended in a lovely reunion with Iain, who was at the end of his walk for charity and stayed with me from Friday till Tuesday. So much fun to see him again, and ofcourse a good excuse to be the tourist in Amsterdam myself :) Friday night was just chilling out, catching up, eating and sleeping since we were both very tired. Saturday was a completely different story ofcourse.
First of all we went to the famous Amsterdam sexmuseum (Iains done most of them anywhere he went, so he definately had to see this one). It was funny and weird and after seeing so much nudity it was time to get his shot of KFC, which for me was a once in a lifetime event, since I didn't like anything I order there.
The weather wasn't too great unfortunately, but enough to do inside, so we stopped by the Amsterdam Dungeons, which was absolutely briljant. It was sort of a mixture of freaking people out in the dark, watching a play in the middle ages, and involuntarily be part of the experience as they picked me from the audience to be sentenced as a witch (thanks for that :P ) The picture is taken at the entrance, which will give you an idea how the inside was..... hehehe. Definately something you have to put on your to do list when you go to Amsterdam! Later on we had to have some famous Dutch poffertjes (see picture and yes they taste as good as they look) and go to the red light district ofcourse after which we had a few beers in a bar watching soccer. Iain and I had a quick glance at the Rembrand Square, where there is the 'night watch' in some sort of metal After all this I was exhausted, so at 11 I went off to dreamland, while Iain enjoyed his psp.
We had a very long sleep and chilled out all morning. Lovely! Maarten (who was a flatmate of mine in Groningen) was heading towards the UK and called to say he had a few hours in Amsterdam, so ofcourse we went off to the city centre to meet him! We walked through a nice part with lovely characteristic buildings after which we had earned a few white beers at Leidseplein. Soon Maarten joined us and it was lovely to see him again and catch up! At the same time there was some sort of charity event going on, with Marco Borsato (a Dutch singer, very famous in The Netherlands) singing and lots of girls doing awesome things on trampolines. All in all a lovely afternoon. Here a picture of one of the many many churches around here (with lots of thanks for Iain who took all the pictures, since I forgot my camera again)
To end the day festive I made us pancakes and had a short sleep to go to work again on monday, while Iain enjoyed my computer/internet and met up with a friend of his in the CBD. After work Monique visited us and we had a lovely dinner with the three of us.
Tuesday evening Antsje and I went to the mensa of the University of Amsterdam to try the food (not bad at all) and went to Improphechy, a Dutch improph group who perform every second Tuesday in Meander. Lots of fun (my jaw hurt afterwarts from all the laughing). Wednesday Dorry came over to celibrate her 20th birthday (such a puppy still). The rest of the week was nice and quiet. Saturday morning I cleaned the house and my room and did all the regular house chores, but there was time for some fun as well, so I went to the library :) In the afternoon I went to see my parents in Friesland. In the evening Antsje and her brother Piet picked me up and we went to Boazum, a little town where they have a HUGE party each year (the tent is 110 metres long and there are multiple bands playing). I hadn't been out in Friesland in 2 years or so, but it was lots of fun, so we should definately go again! Sunday afternoon we went to Minne and Marjan to celibrate Minne's birthday and see their new garage, which they built themselves (very impressive).
In the evening I went to the Koornbeurs (a theatre) to see Spirit of the Dance perform. So worth every euro! It was wonderfull to see. I was off on Monday (yeah!) and my dad dropped me off at the trainstation in the afternoon. Everything was going fine until my mom called on Tuesday evening to tell that my dad had been taken to hospital that morning because he was very sick.... luckily they found out what was wrong, gave him a blood transfusion and now he has to wait to be operated (it's something very uncommon, so the doctors are still deciding what to do exactly). Hopefully everything is going to be fine, it is just going to take a while.
Wednesday evening I went to have dinner with Antsje and Thursday Ronald (who also was a flatmate in Groningen) came by to have dinner and catch up. He showed me lots of pictures of his holiday (he walked the Inca trail, went white water rafting etc, yes I was very jealous ;) and we had a wonderful evening. Friday was a day of relaxing after work and Saturday was shopping day! Whoehoe I hadn't done that in ages! I bought a new jumper and some gifts for all the birthdays that are coming up soon. It ended with a quick walk over the Albert Cuyp market (a famous one here in Amsterdam), but I was so loaded up with all the gifts that I couldn't have a good browse. In the evening I had coffee with Ozge (one of my curent flatmates, she's from Istanbul, Turkey) and her parents, which was very nice. We talked about world politics a lot, which was refreshing (considering that the normal level of talk in this house concerns cleaning schedules etc). Her parents don't speak English, and my Turkish is non excisting, but Ozge translated very well :)
Sunday was very relaxing as well. I had a good night sleep, cleaned the house again, abrided (if that is the right word, ik heb mijn stoelen geschuurd) my chairs, because I want to paint them black instead of the current dark brown. My neighbour hearded me doing that and asked if I wanted to come to the do it yourself store to get some new supplies. I didn't need anything, but he has a cabriolet, so we went out cruising with the top down (have I told you how wonderful the weather has been the last couple of weekends, it's like spring instead of autumn. It has turned now though, it's raining and grey all day).

And all of this brings me to this week.... Monday and yesterday I worked and yesterday evening I had dinner with Antsje after which we went to see Stardust in the cinema. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT MOVIE. Go and see. Good actors, well played, well made, etc. Today and tomorrow I am off work (whoehoe), Marieke is coming at 2.30 pm and we're going to see Vienna Teng in concert this evening in the Bimhuis (Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ). More news about that after we went!