Going to town

I took the bus to work today so that I can enjoy some alcoholic substances tonight. That's planning ahead folks! ;-)

It's been raining a LOT lately.

Obviously there's still some sun in between the horrific showers.

I'm preparing for making a floor in my garage. I need some metal poles that the floor can rest on. So I investigated sizes and prices. I think I'll go with the square 70x70x3mm beams. It can handle 5 tonnes. Not sure if I should get 6 or 8...

So, after work I took the tram to my old place and walked into town from there. I've always enjoyed that walk a lot.

It gets you through the nices old parts of town. On a sunny afternoon like today's that's real nice!

When I got to Mulligans I immediately ordered a pint of Guinness. That's been a while!

Then my buddy Mic arrived and after we had one more pint we went out to get some Indian food. That had been a loooong while too!

And then back to Mulligans for a few whiskeys. Mmmmmmh.

Soon after the music started we left. We are old and get tired quick ;-)

That was a very nice evening!

Cake, castration and Mic

A colleague of mine treated us at birthday-cake. It was HUGE and delicious!

Back at home Silver was sad because he had to wear the collar again. This was because he got castrated today. He's doing great though and seems to have no clue about what happened and he has no pain or anything.

I met Mic for dinner and drinks in town and it was fun!

We helped make glasses dirty in Mulligans. We are very good at that :-)

The van

I rented a small van today. Mic helped me move my old washing machine to Ilse and we also picked up a moped from Simone's mom, which we are loading in this photo. Mic's beard just fitted in the car ;-)

Driving the van was fun. It was a brandnew Mercedes so I was driving carefully.

The terraces

Mic. On his phone.

Gerrit. Also on his phone. Even the guy behind him is on his phone.

Actually this was one of the few moments we used our phones ;-)

We hit a few terraces for dinner and drinks and we finished in Mulligans. I was tired by 10PM. Must be getting old...

Going out

It's now closed for cars behind Central Station. Great!

Construction is going strong in front of the HEMA.

There were a few birthdays at work. I really, really liked the cake at the front. It's Indonesian I believe and called "spekkoek" in Dutch, "layered cake" in English but I doubt it if that's the proper name.

After work I walked to Mulligans to meet Mic. Now there's construction at the Rokin. I believe there's going to be a park here...

And there's Mic! We had dinner at Wagamama's.

Then we went to Mulligans again and stood outside for a bit.

We used to take the little stolls out and hang outhere all afternoon in to the evening very often during the summer. But that all ended when I moved to Australia. Since then the rules have changed and you are actually not really allowed to have your drink outside at the front... Sad.

Plenty to see here :-)

Mic in front of the pub where we've been going for about 20 years.

The bench

The old ferry dock is now gone. Like it was never there.

The 2 girls on the right asked me to take a photo of them sitting on that bench. The bench you see, was used in the movie "The fault in our stars" and is now a little bit famous... The bench was already famous with me since about 5 years ago though because I got a fuckin' panic attack whilst on the phone with someone. After that I only walked on the other side of the canal for over a year. Just looking at the bench could make me cry at the time. Funny how the mind works sometimes.

Today I was gonna have dinner and a couple of beers with my best friend Mic. We decided we needed some quality time together.

Ain't that quality? ;-)

The new year's dinner

There was a beautiful moon hiding behind the smoke (which is actually steam...)

After work I went to Mulligans to meet up with friends. We were going to have a little new year's dinner and a wee drink :-)

There were Danny, Marjolein and Gerrit.

As well as me, Mic and Jos. Nice evening but you can tell we're getting old coz almost all of us left at 10PM ;-)

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I needed to do more shopping, beer as well. And I found a crate of Heineken with the superduper funky opener inside :-)

Also I needed to bake one more cake. It was the apple pie. And a very nice one it was indeed!

I got a lot of people over for my birthday today which was really, really nice! My house was nearly too small for all of them to fit. Early evening only Mic, Mickey, Noortje, Marjolein, Simone and Larissa were left.

This year's pressie-theme seemed to be "whisky and cars". Whisky because of all the booze I got and cars because most other pressies involved donations towards my little pony. I guess I better don't mix these two up ;-) I'm especially pleased with the little book on '76-ers coz it belonged to Simone's late father... I'll treat it well and I feel inspired to now collect other years as well.
I also got a photo of Simone, me and the kids which I like very much but for privacy reasons won't show here.

The "funniest present" award this year goes to Tanja and Patrick who gave me a puzzle of our new Dutch King and Queen. I will indeed finish this at some point and hang it up at work I think ;-)

I had a great birthday with all my family, in-laws, girlfriend and friends. Thanks guys!

Mic's handy work

I played squash with Mic tonight. he was proudly showing me his handy work of last weekend.

Also I found the bug I was hunting yesterdaay, thank Christ.

The chop sticks.

Ramadan has ended and some muslim colleagues of mine take nice sweet treats to work. This one was lovely. Basically it's a little dough ball marinated in honey :-)

Going back in to town where I was meeting Marjolein, Mic and Gerrit, I saw this ship. Nice!

After a few pints we went out for dinner. Everybody wanted to be in the stickies photo...

Mic and I. Very old friends.

The bench on the left was gone for a while. I don't remember what for but it was in the news somewhere. About 4 years ago I had a traumatic experience when phoning somebody while sitting on that bench. Those were shitty times, yes.

But right now it's all good and that's what counts :-)

Finishing my engine!

Selfie!

Simone's boy gave me an AZ poster. I think that was very nice of him so I hung it up at work :-)

When I walked home I saw guys dancing in underwear. Yesterday there was just 1 guy dancing in underwear. I fear for tomorrow...

I only went home to get the keys to my garage. I was just connecting the last 2 remaining hoses when Mic showed up. He assisted a bit and then I fired the engine. It took a few times but eventually it ran super. I was very pleased :-)

When I come back from vacation I can make an appointment to have my car registered again.

Then it was time to feed!

Mic feeding himself. It's kinda like going to the ZOO ;-)

And for desert we went to Mulligans. There was a pretty decent little bluegrass band from Sweden. Nice tunes. And I drank nice cider too.