The 2nd and 3rd lesson

Today we had 2x 2 hour lessons but with a different teacher. The lessons are going quite fast. I fell once pretty early on. No harm done. Yesterday we were practicing how to step up a mountain sideways and how to make a snowplow and how to break, today we are going down the piste. Yikes!

Look at my girlfriend coming down the slope!

That guy was our new instructor. He was actually nicer than the first one I think. Very patient and fun.

Simone quit a little bit early and went back to the hotel because her back started to hurt a bit. I continued and at the end of the day he let us ski back using a blue/red route. Red is not really suitable for beginners. Blue is just about doable enough as it is. I fell a second time but not very hard. I did nearly end up in the trees though ;-)

After a long skiing day we went back to the hotel, had a shower and then went downstairs for dinner. We joined Natilja and Sylvester. Very nice people. Sylvester is my colleague. He raced past me on the piste a few times yelling "Vinceeeeeeeeent" which made me laugh.

The food in this hotel is very good. This was my starter.

Simone's starter.

We are skiing in the middle somewhere. I had a fantastic day!

Nicole's farewell party

I setup my Christmas tree at work today.

Sylvester to the rescue! ;-)

Fini.

Close-up with twinkles.

Eva came over in the evening. I made us pancakes. This was the first one I baked. I must've been thinking about someone special...

After the pancakes we went to see Nicole in a pub close by where she had her farewell party. In this photo: Marjolein, Nicole, unknown dude, Suzanne and Jon.

Reading this pub's cash register's most left column made me happy ;-)

Buildings and people

As of now, every photo will be available in a larger version by default.

My colleague Sylvester celebrated his 10th anniversary with the company today. He bought face-cake!

While I was upstairs for some face-cake I took the opportunity to take a boat picture from my old room. I do kinda miss this view....

On my way home I took snapshots from the tram.

There are bits of orange in town.

For the european championships.

The Nieuwezijds voorburgwal is a very wide and busy street with lots of tourists and cheap hotels. It looks a bit scummy here and there but when you take a close look at some of the houses, you discover really nice old buildings sometimes.

This house is so easy to overlook, but it's a little gem!

This house was on the list of national monuments...

... until it burned down yesterday morning. Two people tragically died.

Decorated window on the side of the Magna Plaza building.

Pedestrians.

The tower of the Westerkerk through a dirty, stained tram window.

Cyclist.

Bird (I was actually aiming for the terrace behind her...)

Marnixstraat.

Flower kiosk.

Moped.

I went to my shed at the back and as I unlocked it I heard "Quack" above me. I looked up and saw this duck sitting on the edge of the house to my left. I started quacking back and took my camera. It flew away as i was taking the shot. Funny :-)

The bar

The last few floats. It's funny seeing them come in to existence and then they disappear again.

Sylvester hanging on our bar. Pardon me, I mean reception desk of course. I brought cakes with me as a thank you for Sylvester, Sam and Cees because they helped me move office last week :-) The cakes went down very well.

(Click to enlarge)
Ocean Orc is back for more work. It's a big ship. Yeah.

My new phonebook was gracefully delivered at my doorstep. I feel like starting a riot about this myself...

I DO NOT WANT MESSAGES, CHAT AND EMAIL ALL IN ONE PLACE F#$%&^G FACEBOOK!

It started raining when I went to work, but only softly.

No no no no no! No no no no no no no! No no no no no no no! NO! No! No! No no no no no no NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

:-(

This can ONLY be good for Facebook because NOBODY likes this feature...

Preparing boats for the gay pride parade this weekend.

I moved office today. I'm not on the ground floor. My old roomies Cees, Sam and Sylvester helped me carrying my stuff down for which I was so thankful I promised them cake. Maybe this Friday? ;-)

My new desk is a lot bigger but it doesn't have any drawers yet so I just piled everything up.

The real deal

The finished, new stairs to my work.

Sylvester scored a FREE sandwich! It barely fitted in his mouth but he managed well!

At 4PM the fire alarm went off. The funniest part was all the people trained to deal with emergencies and save all our lives jumped up from their chairs because for once they didn't see this one coming as it was for real! However, it appeared a few of our smart-ass sys-admins drilling a hole in the server room-wall about 40cm next the a smoke detector...

The rain-maker

Sun rise from the ferry. It was a nice start of a nice day.

Psycho cowboy on my way to work.

Crane porn.

My colleague Sylvester nearly wet himself over the new kettle he ordered for work.

In the evening I took the train to see Marjolein.

She showed me a really cool thing called a rain-maker. It's a hollow cactus with the needles taken off and stuck inwards. Then it's filled with rice (or something) and closed off. When you tip it, it makes a beautiful sound. I was marveled by it :-)