Keeping busy...

So... about time for a new update!! How are you guys?? And how are you all coping with "the great loss" of Steve Irwin this week?? ;) If I have to believe the news report on it here, the whole country is in a state of absolute shock and mourning, but somehow I don't believe that's quite the case for most Aussies :) In Utrecht, there's this life-size Steve Irwin doll in some random shop used for advertising purposes, I wonder what's going to happen with that...

But anyway, it's been a month again since my last update, so I'm going to take you through rainy August into September :) First half of my August mainly consisted of working, working and more working!! And my Sundays off filled with spending time with friends. Good times had for sure :) And then, one rainy Tuesday in August, my working days were over... Kind of sad on one hand, because I just loved working as the fruit & veg girl, but also good to have some time off before uni starts again :) Besides, it was only a summer job anyway, so I knew it was temporary.

Well, I immediately took advantage of my freedom the next day, August 23rd, when I went to Utrecht for two days... Li-Shi, one of my roommates, was almost leaving on uni-exchange to Hong Kong for 4 months, so we had organised for that Wednesday to be our "Saying Goodbye to Li-Shi Day" :) Now because we were lucky enough that it was a sunny day in the otherwise rainy weeks before, and because we thought we should let Li-Shi leave with a true-blue Dutch experience, we hired two so-called canalbikes with the six of us and made our way on the "Oudegracht", the main canal running through the centre of Utrecht :) It was sooo much fun, seriously... Especially coz it took us a while to get used to the steering part of the canalbikes, so we were against the sides quite a few times before we got the hang of it :) We were laughing at ourselves so much, and so were the people sitting outside the little cafes right next to the Oudegracht watching us messing around, haha. But it was awesome and kind of touristy, but we didn't mind :)Anyway, after our canal bike adventure we went out for dinner at this cute tapas restaurant, which had really good food and that was fun too :) In the evening we had one of our movie nights and watched Prime together. Good way to end the day :)

So then the next day came, which was really the day to say goodbye to Li-Shi. Kind of sad :( Weird too, to be on the other side of the goodbyes for once, as in not the one going away for a long time... But we've got her younger sister living with us for the 4 months Li-Shi's gone, and four months is over before you know it anyway :)

That same day I made the mistake of walking on my newly bought shoes for too long, so I ended up having huge blisters on both my feet :( By the time I got back to Hengelo, I just took my shoes off at the busstop and walked home barefoot, because I simply couldn't walk on them anymore!! Funny how people were giving me weird looks as I was walking through the shopping centre to my house, and my former colleagues just laughed at me as I walked past the fruit & veg shop :) Obviously it's not considered normal to walk around barefoot in public places, haha. I was just worried about pain relief though.

What else?? Well, the Wednesday that followed was a day of celebration, as Paul, my sister's boyfriend, got his master's degree from uni that day :) So we went out to dinner for the happy occassion with his and my family after he did his final presentation, which was coowl.

Friday after was another fun day... I went shopping in Hengelo with my mum and sis, and we got our car locked up for the weekend :) My mum works at this school, so she parked the car at the school so it was free parking... but she forgot that the gates of the parking lot would actually close at 4 pm that day. So by the time she remembered, it was already some time past 4 and when we finally got to the parking lot, we indeed found our car behind closed gates, haha. It was kind of funny really :) But yeah, so we had to take the bus home and the look on my dad's face when he saw us come home without the car was just priceless :) All me and my mum did was laugh at the stupidity of it all :)

That Friday night there was this free concert in Hengelo as a publicity stunt for the opening of the new cultural season in Hengelo. They had this pretty coowl Dutch band called Racoon as the main act for the night and this pretty crappy Belgian band as the support act. Racoon was really awesome, I went there with my sis Renske, Paul and Lisette, one of Renske's friends and we were pretty close to the front of the stage :) Love live music!! It was great, despite the rain that fell down on us occassionally during the night :)

And that all brings me to this week. Or to be more precise, to last Monday, when I had to get up before dawn to get to Utrecht in time for my uni introduction. Yes, my two months of summer holidays are finally coming to an end... It was a total waste of time to be honest, the introduction was very badly organised and I'm glad I've already had a year at the uni, so I know my way around it already. We had this opening lecture, and the lecturer was just talking to us like we were little kids, and if there's one thing I hate it's that!! And half of the stuff we needed to get set up for the real start of uni next week, like email and rosters and stuff didn't work, so it was just one big mess. A very bad first impression. The only good thing I got out of it was a free lunch :) But apart from that, I'm still excited to start the new course, coz I got this book and it seemed a lot more interesting than last year already. We'll see what this new year at uni brings, kind of scary too :)

So that's basically what I've been up to this month :) Right now I'm just enjoying my last week of holidays before I have to get back into the whole studying thing again... Anyway, hopefully I didn't bore you all too much with my long update :) I hope you're all having a good time with whatever you're doing and would love to hear from you all some time :) -x- Love Carine