Czesc!

Big time for a proper update, i'd say.
Been very lazy...
Today's the last day that i'm officially au chomage, so i'm planning to do absolutely nothing at all, but i need to write down what i've been up to this week, before i start forgetting about it all...

So, Sunday i went to this 'Food and Faces' festival, in one of Amsterdams' parks, one that has been given the terribly un-original name of Oosterpark ('East Park'.... in comparison, for example, my park is called Westerpark (West Park), not very inspiring either). The festival was great, lots of faces to look at indeed. I think i like the look of Dutch people, especially of those who like to go to festivals on warm summer days. And i met up with some people i had not seen for quite a while, which was nice!
Once on the spot I found out that what I was dealing with was in fact a culinary festival, so lots of Italian, Spanish, Turkish delicacies, hence the happy faces! Had some really good Spanish cheese, a bite of the finest pizza margarita ever (except for a very special one i had in Brussels a while ago ;-) and lots, lots, lots of watermelon.
Me and my friend Ania decided to leave the crowds for a high quality conversation in the nearest café, accompanied by a few white beers, and so it was one of the finest nights in Amsterdam in a long time!

Monday... hmmm, i don't even remember...
Anyways, the rest of the weeks i spent mainly in my park (quote Ellen: 'who said people in Amsterdam don't have backyards?'), where i spent quite a few evenings with Laurens, listening to some really great 70's music played by a couple of men in their forties who are always hanging out there and whom Laurens likes to refer to as 'The Steppenwolf Boys', which i think is very funny, but I guess i'd have to know Laurens to agree that that's very funny), commenting at people walking by, discussing what it is that makes daddies with young children so incredibly, irresistably sexy, getting nauseous looking at all the sticky, soggy couples, discussing Life, the Universe and Everything.
That was nice, too.
One night (don't remember which one) we went to the new -architecturally interesting- part of the park for a picknick Mangel organized, lots of good company and good food :-)) played cards till it was too dark to see what we were doing and of course i screwed up badly cause the game was VERY complicated, and i mean seriously complicated, so i'll have to practice secretly at night otherwise i'll never be invited again.

In the meantime me and Ellen's cat disappeared. He's called Ludwig and we want him back right now! On the poster Ellen made he is quite accurately described as 'active'....... some of my friends refer to him as 'the killer cat' (but they're not really my friends of course) and i really miss him so much!! It's so nice to wake up in the morning and find him purring extremely loudly, warmly, friendly somewhere on my bed... and he's such a beautiful thing, too!
Fortunately yesterday night Ellen discovered him sitting behind the window of our ground floor neighbours' place... unfortunately they're not home and when i checked this morning i did not see him anywhere anymore...
I hope they did not take him to one of those depressing shelter places, and if they did they'd better get him out of there immediately...
To be continued... for sure!

So now i'm waiting for Erik to show up in Amsterdam, we're going to a party tonight at Mangel's (hai Mangel, gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag!!!!!)

More soon,
- Else