//relax and relapse.

[musici the waiting line ]

at casa de bartlett this weekend. i've bee hanging out with my good buddy harry and the family. you can't really understand, but i haven't been in a proper home in a year and i kind of forgot how they feel. there's something undescribable about a family home. there's a certain warmth that doesn't exist in boarding houses and hostels.

the abundance of family photos helps.
we went and saw shrek 3 yesterday which was a barrel of laughs. it's really good. i'd say it's up there with the first one.

i now aspire to own my own donkey-dragon.

i was also fortunate enough to see Guilford's own bearded lady.

(i'm not talking about a little stubble here. full blown.)

and we went for a meadow and rain filled walk today with the family dog, gussy.

good weekend all in all i'd say.

now it's time for tacos. ole!

//what if the joke's on you?

[music something krump]

for the last year i've been subjected to sleeping in a single bed after many a year in a double. at first glance you'd think my bed was barely suitable for an 8-year-old (which was probably the last time i slept in a single!)

but between my bed in house and the couple dozen hostel beds (which on average are smaller than even the tiniest single - ha, amsterdam!) i think i could even comfortably do a night in a hammock. but now i'm thinking about when i go home to my supremely oversized double bed. i'm forseeing problems.

it's actually going to feel enormous. in greece kelly and i split a double and i could never sleep when she got up to go to the loo or to call her parents because i felt like i was drowning in the monstrosity that was our bed.

i'm so screwed.

i've also reached the point that i can get through an entire novel in a single day. nothing crazy, but a standard 300 pager. i fret that i have too much time on my hands.

and we're not talking that bullshit ' i read the fourth harry potter in 16 hours!' crap that some people do. i actually remember what i read, even stupid details that have no relevance to the story at all.

ask someone who read harry potter in 1 day some of the major events in the story and ten to one they wont remember half of it.

'i'm a quick reader' my ass.

anyhoo, that's todays observation.

i've been doing that a lot lately. noticing the little things.

i think it's all part of my going home panic.

i don't want to feel like i wished this year away, but i also don't want to go home and feel like i'm mourning a death.

... i think only kelly knows what the hell i'm talking about...

//...

here's my day in a handy alphabet list.

a) woke up to lizzie bringing me a cup of tea.

b) trugged off to the main school through saharah esque weather.

c) realized i was starving and had forgotten to eat breakfast.

d) spent the next 2 hours hauling large boxes of books from one room, down the stairs, into another room, and then cramming them into a cupboard.

e) on my last trip back to room 1, i dinged a 300-year-old table with my trolley. not to be undone, i left a large green crash mark.

f) had a 'mop up' meeting with Jayne. 20 minutes of, 'how was your year here, did everything go as expected, i know you had problems with alrun, i know you had problems with le roy, was everything alright here here and there?' ended up on a high note with me praising the school (not all lies).

g) covered the afternoon in high house. read, drink tea, check email, repeat.

h) worked in hillcroft with no issues other than the fact that one of our girls has gone home to seek help for drug and smoking issues. did i mention that she's 13?

i)had to miss seve's birthday madness due to work.

j) got called a kiss ass by my sister. :P

k) capped of the night by watching Britain's Got Talent with the girlies. i flipping love that show.

//it wont be soon before long.

back from the 'dam unscathed. it's actually a beautiful city. and despite rumours, no one approached us offering to sell hasha & cocana. only mifs about the city are that cyclists have the right of way (then cars, then pedestrians), and that the Heineken brewery was no where to be found. oh, and postcards cost more than the GDP of Sierra Leone. the weather was rubbish for the first couple of days, but cleared up and warmed up for the last. it's a beautiful city when you're not drowning in it.

our hostel was side by side with the Van Gogh Museum, so we went there first thing. unfortunatly, i wasn't able to fully appreciate it as i had just pulled an all-nighter on the coach from London Victoria to Amsterdam Amstel. i was more or less asleep on my feet, but i like to think i still took something out of it.

by 7pm that night kelly and i were out cold. we didn't rise from out slumber until about 10.30 the next morning, but tbh, i could have slept longer. (do the math on how many hours we slept.... ha.)

the next days was the anne frank house. absolutly amazing. although, it was larger than i imagined. still obsurdly cramped for eight people, but i was definatly expecting to walk into a cupboard, or be able to touch all four walls at once. you'd be suprised that an old canal side house would have such an enormous attic.

we hit up a couple more museums before we left. went to Vondel Park for a stroll and had a proper meal for once at the Hard Rock Cafe. (i have the shirt to prove it).

all in all, the 'dam was great. somewhere i would love to revisit.