darko

I’ve had a good week full of good news and the upcoming weekend should be fun as well! Per is coming for a visit! Yay! He was just here last month, but I missed him and am soooo excited about him being here again. So, what good news did I receive? Only that two of my favorite people will be in Europe within weeks! My friend Jim will be flying into Prague at the end of the month for work related stuff. I requested 2 days off so I can join him there. Can’t wait. Especially, since I stood him up last time he was here. Sorry JIM! >.< When I get back ,Jeremy and Nick will be visiting Amsterdam! Jeremy of course has been here tons of time and even brought me along on a trip(which is when I fell ion love with this city!). Nick is a noob. But that’s the beautiful part. Exploring and seeing things new for the first time. You can only have that feeling once.

The fun doesn’t stop there folks. That weekend I’ll be off to Denmark/Sweden to see Per and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin. Haven’t heard of them? They’re indie pop and constantly played on my itunes. Check them out and let me know what you think!

www.myspace.com/boris

I have been warcraft free for 12 days. That’s right folks. I did actually quit cold turkey. I know in my last post I said I was going to play the Euro version, but I didn’t. Surprisingly enough I am taking it well. No shakes yet. My one complaint is now I have far too much free time. (wait…what? who complains about that?) I don’t even know what to do with it. I’ve been on a movie watching rampage. I watched “Bangkok Dangerous” a few nights ago with Aaron(via skype…bwahaha lame) and it was terrible. I just “acquired” Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Thumbsucker. Hoping one of the two will be good. I’ve only heard terrible things about Thumbsucker. BUT I’m giving it a chance. Suggest some movies. K? THNX!

Oh! back to WoW. The date of the expansion has been released! November 14th. I will be back for the expansion. I want to hit level 80 before all of my friends

what?

at the bar

Last night was the most random night I’ve had in Amsterdam in a long time. I was going to type ever, but sheesh…I’ve had some random nights here. It started off with me telling Devynn over and over that I wouldn’t be going out. A few beers later and the added company of Devynn’s friend, American Annie who is new to Amsterdam, changed my mind. We had a few beers at our place before heading out to hit the town! We walked around the Red Light District. Hahaha. Sounds like I go there a lot. I don’t! Well, I do, but only to show people who haven’t been. Anywho, while debating over whether to spend money on a sex show we saw a boat of boys….errr, men going down the canal. Not something out of the ordinary, but what was out of the ordinary is that we waved, they waved, and they seriously put the boat in reverse and invited us in. And who are we to turn a boat ride down? So, we jumped off the side of the canal and into the boat with about 9 men.

boat

Turns out they were a group of German/Canadian business men in Amsterdam on business. The guy leading the tour was some awkward Dutch guy who was completely Dutch. Maybe THE definition of a Dutch guy. I mean…when Dev and I told him, “You are REALLY Dutch” he responded, “I am, but most Dutch people cannot afford a coat like my jacket. This is REALLY expensive jacket”. bwahahahha, proving his Dutch-ness even more. I should write a blog about what I consider to be “Completely Dutch”. Anywho, he led our “tour” which was basically drinking the business guys’ beers and talking. I honestly thought that our boat was going to sink. The weight was unbalanced and there was water at the bottom! Throughout the ride, Captain Dutchie kept making us switch sides to even it out. After 45 minutes of boating through canals, we arrived at our destination/their suite of their hotel which was right in the red light district. I failed to mention that during this entire boat ride I had to pee. So badly! As soon as we docked I ran to the nearest available bathroom. Which happened to be in a sex shop. I ran in, got permission to use the bathroom and pulled up my dress and fell INTO the toilet soaking my purple leggings! Arghh! Typical soph. The dress I was wearing was far too short to go leggings-less so I was forced to buy a 15 euro pair of skanky thigh highs from the sex shop. A sight to see We ended up hanging out at the business guy’s suite for a while. They were pretty nice, the suite was…sweet (muahahaha, I had to), I got to play DJ Pinkie and there was free booze and food. Eventually, we left with Captain Dutchie and went to another bar which was way crowded. We left there, biked(no drunken falls) to Leidseplein where we got snacks, peed, and continued our way back to our place to pass the hell out. Random, right?

busy apartment

It’s been pretty busy at the apartment lately. On Sunday, Tony and his friend, Yulia from Siberia, came to spend the night. They wanted to spend one last day in Amsterdam before Yulia departed again for Siberia. When Tony comes to town it’s like Christmas! He works for a company on an American military base that has an American store. He always brings goodies with him! Including poptarts! Which are my favorites and unavailable in The Netherlands.

Thanks Tony!

I had a lot of fun while they were here. I didn’t plan on going out on a Sunday night, but Tony convinced me and Devynn to join him. We ended up walking through the Red Light District and hanging out at a bar for awhile. I was a bit sloshed. Mostly due to the jager (another gift from the American place) I consumed before leaving the house. Fortunately, we were able to catch the last tram home and I got 8 hours of sleep before working the next day. UNFORTUNATELY, that didn’t help my hangover at all. I was under the weather until around 3 that afternoon. Didn’t stop me from going out that night though! Manon invited me to a jazz/burlesque show at The Sugar Factory. I didn’t drink, but I had fun. It was an interesting show. The jazz was good and of course the girls were hot. At one point they brought a pole out and a really talented and flexible woman with the most perfect butt showed us her skills. It was…great.

On Tuesday, Devynn officially moved in to the apartment and Jenna from Minnesota came to stay for a few days! Jenna was just passing through on her way to Ghana/Liberia to do research. I had a good time while she was here. Exploring the city and discovering new things. I think I know a lot about t he city and then I turn down a wrong corner and find something I never knew about! I love it! I gave her a tour, by bike aroudn the city. She had one spill! Over the tram tracks. I was impressed.

The first few months I lived here I got my tires stuck in the tram tracks constantly. but then again I am a bit of a klutz. :/

quitting!

This e-mail is to alert you that, according to our records, the pre-paid game time on your World of Warcraft account PRINCESSPIAPANTS will expire in 3 days.

SO, I’m thinking about letting it expire. Ok, not thinking about it. I am doing it!

Really, I am! I haven’t played very much this week. Mostly due to the fact that I’m afraid I’ll get yelled at for missing 6 raids in the past week and a half. Whoops! My excuse?(the first time) There was a sunny day! Those are few and far between here. There was no way I was sitting on my ass to raid for four hours when I could sit on my ass in the park IN the sun. I missed the rest of the raids because…well, I just didn’t want to go. The raids are right smack dab in the middle of the day because of the time difference. So, I end up wasting a huge chunk of my day! I’m going to play on the European servers(requires buying a new game and account) and starting over.I’m sure some of you are saying, “I knew it!” Haha, You know me better than being able to just quit cold turkey! This will allow me to raid(if I want to ) at a time that’s normal and doesn’t cut out a huge part of my day.

So, let’s take a moment to say goodbye to my toons that I’ve been playing for the last 2 years

*moment*

an era

Today marked the end of an era. A 6 month era of Sophia and Manon living together.

She moved out today. It wasn’t an emotional goodbye. In fact, I was playing Warcraft when she left. And no, it’s not because I don’t care. It’s because I’ll still get to see her ALL the time. “Our kids” go to school together and she only lives a few blocks away. Thank goodness. BUT I’m sure going to miss dancing with her in our kitchen.

However, I do get to move into the bigger room. Score! *moving into the big room dance*

Ahem. So anywho, I cooked a nice dinner this evening. I was very proud of myself. Those of you that know me, know I’m a terrible cook. So, I’m sure this will surprise you. It was actually quite delicious! It was such an easy, “soph proof”, dish. I made pink and green pasta. Which is just zuchinni, creme fraiche, onions, shrimp, and farfalle. Easy peasy and yummy yummy!

It’s nearly 3 am and I am awake. Why? No idea! I didn’t have caffiene, I’m not playing WoW, and I’m definitely not excited about tomorrow. Ughhh. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. I barely even work on Mondays, but just the fact that it is a Monday depresses me. I hope the tradition of finding an unexpected postcard from Sweden (coincidentally, on my bad days) at my door continues! It’s always the perfect cure for a poop day.

Currently reading- “A Turn in the South”. So far, so good. It’s a non-fiction, travelogue about the American South. I’m also getting back into the Fables loop. If you don’t know about Fables, you fail. No need to fear! Pinkie is here to educate you on Fables. Fables was actually reccomended to me by Micheal. (If I never thanked you for introducing me to Fables, then I do now! ) It’s a comic series starring well known characters from fairy tales/fables, such as Snow White, The Big Bad Wolf, etc. “Fables” live in a small section of NYC after being kicked out of their homelands by an unidentified guy/thing/power called “the adversary”. Sounds scary, eh? The comic illustrates their struggles/battles/love/everything else. It’s pretty awesome and easy to get hooked to. Just ask my EX roomie about the time she, a non comic reader, sat down and read one of the volumes.

devynn fail

DEVYNN’S BLOG

Devynn moved her blog a DAY after I posted her link. So, here’s her updated link

linkage

So, my friend/future roomie, Devynn, has a blog! It’s about her life in, you guessed it, Europe. She’s a rad American girl who I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about in my entries. Especially, since she’s moving in with me in a matter of weeks. So check her blog out and leave her comments.
Devynn’s Blog!

I added a new page to my blog. It’s a to do list. Not of anything I need to do RIGHT now. Just things I’d like to do eventually. I’ll add to the list as I think of more and when I complete a “to do”, I’ll scratch it out and probably write a blog about it. To Do!

hey-oo

Wow, I promised to blog more and look what I did! Blogged even less! So, no more promises because I will just break them. :3

:3 <—-that smiley really weirds me out. My friend Jim says it’s meant to be a cat. I don’t see it. It just looks like…nothing! I’m not even sure where you’re supposed to use it. I apologize if I used it in the wrong content above.

ANYWHO!
Hi guys! Sorry I was away…not sure anyone cared. I’ve not even been that busy. Just haven’t opened wordpress to write a new blog. I’m feeling productive today so here ya go! I even felt so productive that I blogged in that lame music blog I write in. Bring Back Pluto, if you’re interested. I feel weird writing about music, because I’m not really eloquent with my descriptions and who am I to tell you what I think is good or bad!? But I do it, because even if I don’t like it, someone may. And if that someone usually listened to Coldplay/3 Doors Down/Fuel, I’d feel like I helped a little in the world.

So, what have I been up to? I went to Groningen, a city in the north of the Netherlands, a couple of weeks ago. It’s pretty big for Dutch standards, but with a population of 185,000, teeny by American ones! I loved it. It’s a college town so the atmosphere was very young and hip. I stayed there for a weekend with Rudolph. I had such a lovely time exploring the town and of course the night life. It’s pretty much a smaller Amsterdam without the snootiness, tourists, and much more “dutch”.

Another thing that has added to my absence is my acceptance to a raiding guild on my server! I applied to an Australian raiding guild on my server. Their raid times line up exactly with when I’m available to play. So, it works out perfectly. I was a little nervous about applying because even though my gear is fantastic(!), it’s a little bit behind the minimum to raid some of the end game raids. To you non World of Warcraft nerds out there, I’ll explain about raids and guilds. A guild is a group of people you do stuff with in the game. It’s usually about 30-150 people of all classes with some crappy name, such as [Rollin with the Gnomies], [PWNED], [Jesus had a soulstone] or [wait up yo, I'm fat] . Some guilds are a bit more serious than others and these guilds raid! Raids are(copied from wikipedia because I really can’t explain it as well as they could and helllooo! wiki is my bible) a type of mission in a video game, where the objective is to use a very large number of people, relative to a normal team size set by the game, to defeat a boss.. The raids my guild does are 25 and 40 man raids. SERIOUS BUSINESS! Hehe…anywho, I now raid 3 times a week for 4 hours at a time. Got some great gear. Check me out on the armory if you wish.–>AYDA!

My house has also been full with visitors. For the last few weeks my roomie and I have both had guests. First she had 2 of her mates from London, then I had my friend from Sweden, then she had another friend from Australia and I had 2 friends from Memphis! it’s been great having all of them here, some more than others. I always love when I have visitors. It gives me time to see Amsterdam in a different light. Last week I got to go on a canal tour and to the Amsterdam Historical Museum. Which was really boring. Don’t go…unless you’re into that kind of stuff.

So, that’s it. That’s some of what I’ve been up to. Sorry to all my friends who’ve had to suffer from my absence. Or maybe you didn’t even notice.

Sweden

That’s where I will be from today until Sunday! wheeeee! I may post while I’m away. Definitely when I get back! Doei!

goodbyes again

Today is the last day of my vacation home. Before coming here I had so many plans. Plans to travel, hang out with friends/relatives, shopping, and just relaxing. Unfortunately, sometimes things come up, both out of your control(death in my case) and under your control (dude, I play too much warcraft) that screw up your plans. I have SO much to do today. Last minute shopping, visits/goodbyes, and of course eating at American restaurants/fast food places that I won’t be able to for months and months!
Farewell America! It’s been radical.