House Weekend

Saturday

7:37 a.m. – I receive a sms from Anna telling me she’s awake. Must be one of the few persons in the Netherlands!! I try to go back to sleep, but a housewife consciousness takes over and makes me clear awake and in sudden need to clean up everything facing me!

8:00 a.m. – Sure a coffee would be good.. though I’d need to decalcify my coffee machine.. aaaarrgghh! I hate mornings!!

10:00 a.m. – I start cleaning up the kitchen – yey! The absolute statement this morning – everything needs to be brand-new shining.. as I carry on with scrubbing, puffing detergent, cleaning off and other nice verbs I avoided to use so far in my life.. I discover 1. this is going to take ages; 2. This is never going to be brand-new clean. And thát I hate!

10:38 a.m. – I figure it out that the yellow “thing” is not some weird mutant dirt, but real paint that goes off if you clean up the cupboards - a bit - more.. Damn!! They must have never cleaned up – the paint still stays on everywhere!! Aarrgghh!!

11:20 a.m. – Have you ever seen The Adams Family?! Tara-nah nah, ching ching! Tara-nah-nah! Well, the previous inhabitants of my house must have loved it! There were spider webs everywhere.. I guess it took them several months to grow them, but they finally succeeded – what a satisfaction! Well, I took up the horror task of bringing them down – I’m such an exorcist!!

11:25 a.m. – enough fun for me – I go back to scrubbing the kitchen! I’m so good with beauty treatments!

12:14 p.m. – One moore tiimmee! I hear my music – and I go – One moore tiiimee…

12:45 p.m. – I hurry up to the AH for super-fast shopping – I only pay for half, must be weekend discount

1:00 p.m. – I meet the building sort of administrator who gives me precious advice on how to sue the sellers for hidden damage of the house.. do I really need that?!

2:01 p.m. – Anna says she’s going to help me get an armchair, she’d be coming with an Ukrainian guy to look at the bedroom, maybe he can get it fixed.. I sure cannot! She says she’ll run a bit late..

2:30 p.m. – nice to have fun in the kitchen, now some fun with moving stuff to the attic.

2:45 p.m. – I’m thinking – is Anna still coming with the guys?! Am I going to be late again? I’m supposed to have my most expected moment of the month – appointment at the beauty saloon – so long ago that I could relax!

2:46 p.m. – As I have nothing else better to do, I check out the photo’s on my camera – all those memories.. make me dream awaaayy.. ah! I need some action!

3:00 p.m. – I realize the house is not clean enough, so I start rearranging stuff.. as if that made it better..

3:10 p.m. – The Russian speakers arrive.. I only get “material”, “davai” and I can say “spasiva”. So the Ukrainian guy asks me how come I haven’t studied Russian in school.. well I guess I was busy with French – excuse my French! We’re driving far off to the Villa ArenA on Chemical Bro rhythms and chatting in English, Dutch and Russian altogether..

3:45 p.m. – Lucky me I’m with strong men helping me!! I just need to smile and go on..

6:15 p.m. – Yvonne, the beauty treatment guru, breaks the news that I didn’t eat proper meals lately.. I was busy! She doesn’t accept it as an excuse, I need to work on it.. damn!! AND! I need to relax, don’t stress, hey, at least don’t do anything tonight! Just relax!! OK ok..

7:15 p.m. – I arrive home in a state of total relaxation. Man, I love beauty treatments!

8:15 p.m. – I’m shocked! I just got a letter saying if I buy a spot now to be buried, coffin etc., I get a discount! From Eur 4,500 to Eur 3,800 – just round about… Are people cheap when they’re having burials too?! Is buying your death a mean to say I lived rich or I lived poor?! Do you get a place in front? What do I need to pay to sit next to God? Can I buy some wings to fly around in Heaven or some good drinks and chicks to party in Hell?!

8:30 p.m. – I find some old magazine (Off the Record, no. 5, 2008) and read an article about Blof. What happened after Umoja!! How they were singing about the death of a dog and some neighbour came in while they were playing telling her dog just died. So this doesn’t only happen to me!! – Continuity, I mean! (it’s a principle, check it out – and my philosophical @ss ;) ) I don’t even have a dog!

9:10 p.m. – I read: “la scoperta della sessualità, la ricerca di un’identità, il paradossale desiderio di individualismo e il contempo, di appartenenza al gruppo, l’incomunicabilità, le passioni inconfessate, le aspirazioni rivendicate, i riti, le mode. Quella strana energia” – it’s all about teenagers, how they get to discover themselves.. every now and then I’m still going back to those questions. Does that mean I’m still a teenager?!

9:27 p.m. – Despite Yvonne’s recommendations, I start reading some Financial accounting lovely book :P

Sunday

11: 25 a.m. – I discover the entrance door to my apartment is a bit open. Any cat would fit through it. Have I slept with the door open? For how long has it been open really?! Well, at least I feel very safe now. If a burglar, raper or killer was refusing such an invitation, this must be a safe neighbourhood! Look, mom, I’m ok! :)

2:33 p.m. – As a good neighbour, you’re supposed to clean up the stairs that lead to your apartment. I bet you lazy asses don’t do that. There are always cleaners for that. Well, in my building each does a stair case. So I let them see no dust, but super-housewife power!!

2:49 p.m. – As my computer is wasted, I’ll need to reinstall Windows. I start doing so at the same time with my warm-up exercises.

5:10 p.m. – Let it run, let it run.. computer check – installation failed, ok, once more! I’ll take a hair dying and a shower in the meanwhile..

5:30 p.m. – I finish up dying my hair.. the bloody computer is still running his stupid installations..

5:55 p.m. – I blow my hair dry, trying not to get angry about my computer.

11:30 p.m. – Imi bag p*_%*^$#@ in el de computer – I hear myself swearing in Romanian. Now where did that come from?! I give it up, I’m going to sleep!!

Chips & Champagne or The BIG Move-In

It’s a wonderful spring morning.. the house buzz in on – my housemate’s moving out to another place. I’m moving in my new house. We’re running up and down with luggage, boxes, clothes, food, ridiculous items, like candles, pots and wipers, umbrellas and shoes. Man, it’s going to be a long day!!

Stefan and Anna just arrived. She says if you’re eating pineapple in the morning you keep fit all day.. I should be eating that more often (?!) Anna’s van is going to accommodate all the big and small boxes, luggage, clothes-full garbage bags, shopping bags, installations and my huge make-up bag. I came to the Netherlands with 1 (as in ONE) suitcase. I now seem to have 20 little suitcases and boxes altogether.. Anna was shocked, she thought it was also

other’s people things.. oh no!! so coming down the stairs begins!!

If you’ve never been in Amsterdam, you need to know that the tight space conditions have prevented the Dutch to extend much in what houses are regarded. They have tiny steep staircases which are making you dizzy, if you’re not used to it.. After one month, you could walk drunk on them, nothing happens.. Anyhow, I lived on the first floor, but the entrance was on the second floor – so I needed to take everything up the stairs. First floor to second floor, just to get it down thereafter from the second floor to the car. Man, I’m so glad I don’t live at the 4th floor!! That is, especially since I packed everything but a pair of high-heal shoes which I needed to wear eventually. Very smart, I know! My girlfriend asks – hey, Oana, do you always wear high heals when you’re moving out?! Haha-funny!

After 3 hours of carrying around things, I tell you, it’s not funny!! It’s also unbelievable the grand Chevrolett cannot have all my junk; we need to make it in two-goes! My arms hurt, my feet hurt, this is more difficult than I thought it’d be.. but hey! I have my friends and family! They’re helping me out!

We finally brought all in! we’re having a champagne celebration and chips! I realize that’s all I’ve eaten that morning, I was way too excited about everything and I had already emptied my fridge… We’re enjoying the view, talking about how the house will look like when everything’s in place and fancy about everything in there.. so far I have the kitchen equipped, a big dressing and curtains that I’ve bought from the previous owners.

I have my own coffee machine, but all the plates and glasses, pans and cooking items, even forks and knives are from my sailorboy. My uncle brought me a mattress, so I’m all settled for sleeping and cooking. Later on I improvise a box-table and that’s my own private little house!!

What am I going to do with my books then?! Well I need something! So we go to Villa ArenA again and buy some shelves and a lamp that Anna fits as hair dryer. Cool! But now really, I’m fine! We finish up the champagne and have some more chips.. we need some decent celebration! We’re celebrating at the Ethiopian’s the Orthodox way!

And then - I’m in!

My Friends are in Da House

Oh well, some they leave, some they come. The house is getting bigger. Gigi’s in the house on Friday. The history of her luggage made it around the world. That is – on her flight from Bucharest to Amsterdam, Gigi had a stop in Paris. The flight company just messed around with it. The luggage travelled to some other city or place around the world, while she was waiting at the gates.. Not only her family in Romania found about it, but her colleagues in the Netherlands, friends in Kuwait, colleagues of her from Eastern Europe, Egypt, Germany and even the sailorboy in Australia. Every one was asking every day if she recovered any panties or make up or something…

So I finally pick her up at the Spui. She has a big smile on her face and she’s dragging a big luggage. Oh, then let the celebration begin!! We have a girl’s talk night, catching up on half of our lives and looking forward to more talks ;) Next day, Piu is in da house! She’s coming from Belgium and looking confused to where’s da house and Gigi proves her sense of orientation, direction and other true manly senses while wearing make-up. Oh make us proud! Walked around the city a bit, did some shopping, pretty good girl fun, again!

So then it’s got to be girl’s talk and girl’s night all the way. We celebrate a housefly Valentine’s day with no men even calling. That should be a first…we attempted a normal Saturday, so poured some Yellow Tale in our glasses, listened to Costash’s trance mix and retired late tired from all that chatting.

We spend some good days doing almost nothing. From time to time, I need to go write a project or just do something for the uni and we’re also up to breaking Lia’s record on facebook on some country-language-flag-city-recognition competition. It’s weird how catch the damn game is! Piu eventually gets back to Belgium, enough girl time and days off for her. Me and Gigi hit the Ethiopian resto for some meal in a pancake. Lekker! This also ends the series of girl’s nights out and files it to classics.

Alex is in da house. Well, we always said we’re going to see each other. One day. One fine nice day in Amsterdam or in Buchi. The day has come. And he booked a long weekend. So the last night Gigi’s in and the first night Alex’s in, we’re in the pizza and drinks mood. We have opinions on everything – politics, drugs, partying, social care, real estate, friends and we spice it up with some gossip time. That’s right!

Back to the streets, we take a long walk around the city; it’s a cold sunny day, just perfect for surfing around the city. Beautiful day, Vondelpark looks shiny, I get to have a look at some bed shops, nothing fancy comes along. I spot some shop on the internet, we’ll need to go somewhere south, I suppose. We were almost lost, til we see the greatest Heineken logo ever.

It must be the Heineken museum. Troubled by nothing else better to do, we step in. We travel on the brewery line, back to the old process; we drink some shitty hot product before them putting alcohol in it and get to pretend we’re happily brewing as well. The big old machines look brace shiny. Alex gets bored waiting in the line to be made a beer and skips to tasting it.

I get a feel for people cropping me, getting me into a big shaker, putting water on me, leaving me there to get done, getting me through other processes and then throwing me into bottles, aligning the bottles in crates and then bringing me to a beach to make people happy. I was truly made a beer! Brilliant!! We’re then getting a training on how to taste the beer, I get to help with skimming – hey, lady, why do you ask me help with the skimming, do I look Romanian or something?! Damn bitch! Oh, no, I enjoyed doing it for beer, actually. Went on with the show, sang along Tulpen uit Aaaamsterdaaamm!! Took some other pictures and decided at our second beer, an xtra cold one, that this is the best museum ever. Alex was wondering if they give you a hoe at the sex museum to have a try on. No, they don’t. So we tried to develop the concept of give-aways at museums..

We chill home til we need to get to this party. Nadia’s getting us organized for ‘80’s verantwoordelijk at Hotel Arena. We kind of get it wrong and after asking several people, we finally get there. Nadia’s train gets on hold for 30 minutes. By the time she gets there, we’re sipping on our 2nd beer. I’m quite tired and feel like fainting a couple of times, but we keep it going. The music’s kind’a weird, definitely not my type, but the party’s fun. We meet some other colleagues and dance together, after 3 hours Alex discovers we’re in what used to be a church. Good one! I’m about to collapse, so we go home. Nadia’s sleeping over, we move Alex to his own airbed. This time, no significant deflation.
I can actually get some sleep, but not really, ‘cause we also wake up for breakfast and country discussions. Alex proudly comes up with a presentation on why no one could live without Romania. Nadia pulls up some fantastic presentation on Peru that she simply finds on google.. Amazing country! Just wonderful!! … ah! The taste of humiliation.. well, I get you need to get used to that if you were born in Romania. I mean to say – humiliated for having no decent tourism/marketing campaign for your own country, of course. Very embarrassing. We hush Nadia home and we’re debating country marketing. Alex is going for another city recognition tour, while me and Costash we’re having a pick-up from a colleague of mine. It’s a company cultural night. We’re going to see “Jij verlaat mij voor dat ik jou verlaat”. After 30 minutes of the man and the woman singing in German, I quit thinking they’re ever going to speak Dutch. So I’m enjoying the emotion, the funky costumes, the expressivity and the overall plot and couple in-and-out love-and-hata-and-again, while Costash is wondering when it will end. Well, other people liked it too, so it wasn’t that bad. We come back from Amsterdam North, me and my colleague, after dropping the homegirl. Go to Leidseplein to a live music bar and enjoy the drinks. I go on the street to make an Alex pick-up. Later on we pick up Nadia. The team’s complete. We stay some more over there til it’s time to dance. We hit the Heinekenplein to the Cantindero, the Latin place to be. That is crazy, but amazing. We shake it and grove it til it’s too late to party for that night.

Next day, my friends are no more in the house.