A Week In Review

A brief overview of what I've been up to the past week:

Monday:

Notified my landlord of my increasingly unstable doorstep. He gave me a phone number of who to call on the matter. I didn't have much luck in reaching anyone at the number, but the problem did manage to get fixed on it's own a couple days later. Magic!

And yes, my auto-correct spelled orangutans wrong, but here's the email I had sent my landlord:

Tuesday:

Nearly got in a bike wreck when I saw this little beer store on my way to the book store after work. I was delighted to find a couple great west coast beers plus this long-time favorite delicious Imperial Stout from Colorado. 

 Stocked up on some books I've been meaning to read:

Wednesday:

After work I met some of Rachel's friends visiting from Chicago. After a couple rounds of drinks at the Dylan, we headed to de Kaas, a wonderful restaurant set in a greenhouse. The below shot is the greenhouse reflecting the sunset as we approached. Can you spot the heron?

Thursday:

I helped Rachel move into her new place. Luckily, her new place is only about 6 doors down from her old place; so it was just a matter of throwing things in bags and climbing down/up stairs. After 6 loads we had moved almost all of it. I forgot to take a picture of the day...sorry!

Friday:

Went to lunch at a new place...George. Enjoyed this little gut-bomb you see below:

After lunch, headed to see an Adam Fuss Exhibit. I didn't get any shots of the work, here's the amazing entrance hallway of the museum:

And my favorite sign in the museum:

(Photo Credit Andrew Koningen)

Friday evening I joined a bunch of ladies for a canal cruise.

Ilona pointing our way to petrol:

The ladies:

Sunset on the water:

Saturday:

We were fortunate enough to have a very nice day on Saturday. I would say it was the nicest day we've had since I've been here! It was sunny, and hot, and hot, and sunny...so...it was a day for the beach!

A crew of us grabbed our bikes and rode the train out to Beverwijk. From Beverwijk we rode about a half hour to get to the beach. I was afraid it might be a bit crowded at the beach, but since it is so massive, it wasn't crowded at all.

I failed to take many pictures during the day. I'm happy to say I was too busy swimming, laying about, throwing frisbees, and kicking soccer balls, to be on my phone snapping shots; but here are a couple from later in the day:

Ignasi delivering some refreshments:

Striking a pose:

(Photo Credit Neeza Adenan)

Watching the sun go down:

(Photo Credit Neeza Adenan)

Me & Ignasi:

(Photo Credit Neeza Adenan)

Dragon's eye:

An exhausted bunch on the train ride home:

We were expecting this train to be our straight shot back to Amsterdam. But we soon stopped short at a different station and were told the tracks were closed. So we were going to need to back-track to a different station, and then transfer to a new train to get to Amsterdam.

It was a very lovely evening out, and once discovering we were only 19km from Amsterdam, Nacho and I got the brilliant idea to jump-ship, and just enjoy a pleasant bike ride home rather than spending the evening on trains.

It was a pleasant ride indeed...and then I got a flat tire.

Luckily we had completed most of the journey home when the flat occurred, but we still were on the complete opposite side of Amsterdam just outside of Westerpark.

Take an exhausted person (Nacho)...then decide to do a 19km ride, then pile an additional person/backpack on their bike, and steer and extra bike the last 5km of the ride. How is that humanly possible?! I don't know. But he did it.

It was a pretty ridiculous predicament, and I wish I got a picture of it, but alas, I did not. The next day I drew him a thank-you note and dropped it in his mailbox:

Sunday:

Played catch-up.

Did dishes, did laundry, did food-shopping. Bought some flowers. Dropped my bike off to be repaired. Dropped off the thank-you. Read my book. Went to bed early :)