It's been a while.

But I promise to try and write some more!

Somebody just climbed through my window. I live on the fourth floor.

For anyone that has never been in my flat, the floor beneath us is inhabited by a group of people that make their living room look like a brothel for vampires. No wonder they scare me a bit. This evening, two of 'em came in explaining how one of the girls got locked out of her own room on her first night in the house, and whether they could climb through my window into hers, which is exactly below mine. Naturally, my first reaction was quite reserved, but one of the guys turned out to be a climb-expert, and he had tools and all that. After moving my brand new couch, the girl went down the window, dangling on professional mountain climber's wear. She got in and nobody died. Thank god.

The guy that was helping me move my furniture back helped me to remove the aweful brown curtain-thingie that was still stuck on my window since 1967. Which was very gallant of him. 

He did say my room was very messy for a girl's room.

I decided not to tell him his room looked like a brothel for vampires.

After that I played a fantastic drinking game with my housemates - we had a goodbye party because one of my housemates will be going to live in Preston for 3 months. I sucked at it naturally and that's why I am a bit drunk at the moment. There isn't even a Brit in sight, surprisingly.

This week I enjoyed invading Groningen together with Nicola. We had a lovely time with Rich, Alice and Laura, the latter being a really nice American girl with the slightly Belgian surname Lievense. I also loved to confuse people by talking in Dutch one minute and switching to English the other, which happened quite often. Our night out included a visit to a tapas bar for cocktails (I ordered a strawberry mojito because saying the word 'mojito' makes me a happy person - turned out to be a great choice too), paying a short visit to the busiest and most claustropobic bar I have ever been to - Rich did get quite exited when they played the Mega Mindy theme tune - and finally ending up in a hiphop bar. I had never felt that out of place before, but it was very funny to see everyone else hiphop dancing away. The place got me even more confused when a few proper mohawked punks decided to enter the club as well. The night ended with me, being as eloquent as ever, telling people about how I had 'toiled' after blowing up my airbed. People that have witnessed me after any encounter with alcohol know that I am easily affected by it; imagine the surprise for both me and the others for I was still  able to speak such words.

Next day the toiling wasn't over yet: sight seeing had to be done! It was quite enjoyable. Groningen is a lovely city! Highlight of the day was climbing the Martini Tower and enjoying the lovely view. Nic and I were quite tired at the end of the day and we enjoyed Nics comfy duvet during our 2 and a half hour train ride home. More eloquence from my side came in the words 'At the moment we don't have the car at our disposal'. Sadly I also managed to insult Scotland whilst playing the 'Name a country starting with the letter 'S''-game; Nic mentioned the land of the Scots as a country so I half shouted 'SCOTLAND ISN'T A COUNTRY', to which Nicola replied 'Ssssh that guy there is from Aberdeen!', which led to our Aberdeen-man turning around and telling me Scotland was a nation indeed. My claims for also being allowed to mention Friesland in 'Name a country starting with the letter 'F'' (the Frisians DO have their own language!) sadly got a smirk and a big 'no'.   

Rest of my week so far has been filled with reading thrillers, making homework and watching a lot of QI, my new addiction. I am looking forward to next week, which will include pancake day and looking at another flat to possibly live in. Sadly I also have an exam on communication coming up, but since my ability to throw in quite some difficult words in conversation in a foreign language, I bet I'll do ok. Everything will be alright. Eventually. Splendid.
 

And now I disvovered I messed up my cookies. Meh. But I am hoping for a yin yang situation: today - no cookies, no valentine card, tomorrow - new home, perhaps?

• A conversation between me and Melissa about a hair dryer:

• Arriving in Dublin, I found out Minstrels are also available in Ireland... People that know me, know how much Minstrels mean to me! I could live on Minstrels! My favourite food in the world... And I had quite a lot of them the entire weekend!
• When I got off the bus to the city centre I looked around to find the 'Spire', I couldn't find it... Until I turned around and saw this huge creation:

 

• On friday, we went to the signing of Snow Patrol in HMV. My conversation with Gary Lightbody (without the parts where I stumbled and forgot how to speak English the stupid nervous Dutchie that I am):

          'of course!'

And then, of course, a lovely hug...

• Going all touristy on saturday was quite a hoot (good word!) - we started off walking to Trinity College, a university campus in the middle of the city centre. It's really strange, because after almost not surviving this mayhem that is Dublin traffic full of chaos and noise, you enter this wonderful old campus with this quiet and soothing atmosphere. We went to see the book of Kells, a Midieval Irish book, which was very pretty. Made me compare it to the old Dutch Midieval book I wrote about last time. After that, we went to the Long Hall, a very long hall indeed, which was full of old books. I wanted to use the stairs hanging onto the book cabinets and swirl from one side to the other, just like Beauty from the Beast does in the Disney movie. They also had a collection of botanic books on display, including Dutch, German and French books. Me and Melissa boggled quite some retired American tourist minds by reading texts in 4 languages out loud. We also got to look at the age old harp which has become the symbol of Ireland. After all this at Trinity College, we went to Dublin Castle. From the outside, it looks like a silly cross between the castle of Disneyland, an old castle and a really really old tower. However, on the inside, it was very beautiful. We got toured around by this bloke we decided to call 'probably Nathan' (he looked like the Nathan type). Now I know a lot about O'Connelly (shot in the anckle during the Easter rising), St. Patrick (he brought Catholicism to the country), Dublin (which means Blackpool really! So confusing...) and the Spire (it absolutely doesn't have any function whatsoever and is just a very ugly yet recognisable and humongous part of the city). I felt very very sophisticated!
• Going out on saturday might even top the tourist part of the day. Our night started by buying ice cream in a snackbar that was just playing Take Back The City (Snow Patrol). After hivin and jivin and bringing the party with us on our way out, we went to this pub called Whelans. By night, they turned it into a club and they actually played good music. This was the only time I actually got to talk to proper people from Dublin. We stayed out until four and we had an awesome time.
• Reciting poems by H. Marsman whilst walking home after going out was funny! (DE NACHT SCHRIJDT VOORT, DE LAATSTE SLAG VERKLONK EN IN ZIJN HART WELT WEER DE DROEFENIS OM HET VERMINKT BESTAAN EN WAT HET WERD NADAT DE GODENBEELDEN ZIJN VERNIELD!!!!)
• These guys we talked to were called Ciáran and Danny and they taught me about Whelans (Snow Patrol actually played there when they were starting out!), St. Patrick (He apparently made snakes leave Ireland) and the importance of drinking Guinness in Ireland (stop ordering wine and get it over with).
• Ciáran asking me the following: 'say, have you by any chance, learned how to speak English in Liverpool?' This hilarious question led to a conversation about having been occupied by either Germans or the English and feelings one should have towards the 'occupyers'.
• Suday was Snow Patrol day! We got to go to the Gate Theatre, quite the small and old theatre in the middle of Dublin. The room where the band played was wonderful, with chandeleers and ornamented walls and ceilings. Onstage, there was still the background of the play that was on this week. We got a seat in the middle of the third row and then Patrollness ensued. It was simply beautiful. Both new and old songs, plus the Gary lightbody banter. I am so glad I eventually decided to go and be at this gig! Couple of my pictures (big ones are on my myspace):