MARRIED

Last Friday, Fedor and I got married in the beautiful town of Naarden. Don't be insulted if you weren't told in advance, because only our parents were. Here is one picture of the beautiful day, more will follow later!



Tschüßi,
OJ

DC Photos

So, here is just a small preview of the photos. It was such lovely weather (except for the first days I was there), so the pictures turned out very nice as well... For more photos, go HERE, to see the rest.

The flight back was fine, and we had a nice weekend with Fedor's little brother and his girlfriend (uhm, not Fedor's girlfriend, obviously...). And today we are celebrating Fedor's birthday. Where by "celebrating", I mean "giving a kiss and a prezzy, and maybe eat something nice today"...

Tschuessi!
OJ

Observation

Call me cynical, but it feels very wrong to discuss development/conflict issues, while sitting in a fancy expensive restaurant in Washington DC, sleeping in a 450$/night hotel, and hearing people complaining about this one time, when the business class was full, and, omg, they had to fly coach !!! I mean, i know this is what the development industry is like, but I had never seen it from up close. If this meeting yesterday had not taken place, the could have saved 20-30,000€ or so and helped poor people with it: what do you think would have been more effective?

Anyway, I have networked a lot, both yesterday and today and had a great time in general. But that is not really why i got into the topic in the first place though...

One more day of networking and going to meetings, and in the evening I am flying back to Europe.

Howdy,
OJ

photo post!!!

So, as promised, finally some pictures! So, here are pictures from the UK.
Matt and me in the Cotswolds:

The Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury

Then from our holidays in Italy:
The Cathedral of Orvieto:

Undrground in the catacombs of Perugia:

Elsewhere in Perugia (i think)

Assisi:

The Monti Sibillini National Park (view from our hotel window)

Sardegna:
One of the many beaches near the house!

Just to show how much fun we had!

Back in Berlin, Ellen and Kim visiting:

OMG, a giant!!! part of the clebrations for German Day of Unification

With a little young lady giantess as well

peeing all over the pavement by the side of the Brandenburger Tor...

Weekend after, Stephie!

And going out with her, and Nicole and Kristy

Right, that was just a smaaaaaaaaaaall summary...
Howdy,
OJ

News from DC

So, here is the news from DC!

Actually, there is also sort-of news from before-DC. We had my friend Stephie over for a visit during the weekend, and it was great to see her. The weather was nice in Berlin (at least for 1 day), and we saw lots of the city. Once again, I promise to upload pictures. Except that this time, I actually have time to do so immediately, and I will.

The week after Stephie's visit was quite busy. I had several important deadlines coming up and I fulfilled all of them. So that was quite delightful. Particularly the completion of a paper that had been commissioned by someone publishing an Oxford Handbook had been weighing on my shoulders for along time and I was happy to have completed it.

Anyways, this week I am in Washington DC. For events, but mainly for networking. It started off rather negatively-turned-positively. My Air France flights was overbooked and I got bumped off the flight. And given that this was a 6.45 flight, I obviously wasnt happy about about it. However, when it turned out they were able to put me on a different flight (through BMI Baby and British Airways) that got me to DC with only a 45 minute delay, that relieved my mood. particularly when finding out that I was eligible for the "getting-bumped" compensation anyway! Unfortunately I wasnt completely awake in the morning and chose the 300€ cash reward, instead of the 500€ Air France-KLM voucher, but it is still a nice bonus!!!

When I did get to DC, the weather turned out to be quite horrible, so I spent a few hours in the Washington Plaza hotel, before meeting with my cousin Megan who lives in Arlington. We had dinner together and talked a lot. On Sunday, I met with my friend Jorida for brunch and a bunch of her friends. This was a great networking opportunity (well, sort of). In the evening I had dinner with my friend Macha who works at the Dutch Embassy.

Yesterday (Monday), I had time for sightseeing, and the weather was absolutely amazing. So that was fantastic, and I saw many of the beautiful sights DC has to offer. The trees and their autumny colours are particularly impressive right now... Dinner in the evening with my colleague Kati who arrived as well. Today I moved hotels and I am now staying in the Mayflower Hotel in DC (and am I glad I dont have to pay the 450$ per night it costs). Tomorrow the Real work starts during the German Development Day at the World Bank. We will be presenting some things there, including what was my Job Market Paper. Very exciting! On Thursday there is a Policy Forum and gala dinner, here at the Mayflower, organised by IZA. Finally, on Friday, I will have meetings at World Bank, SAIS and Georgetown Uni, before taking the night flight back to Paris and then to Berlin. busy, busy busy!

Now, as I am in my hotel anyway, I certainly will have time to upload old pictures. And I will! The DC pictures will follow (I would promise next week, when i am back in Germany, but that is probably not too realistic, eh).

Howdy!
OJ

busy nights

So, Fedor is now going to fitness on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I work extra late on those days. Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to German course (which starts really early: 18.15!), and Fridays we have visitors, or Fedor is working late.

All I am trying to say: we only see each other 2 hours a day, and that kinda ruins my efforts to write anything here.

But, good news: I am still alive!

The Italy holiday was gorgeous, particularly our stay with friends on Sardegna. it was great to see our friends again, and to meet many new people. It was absolutely fantastic, and also to have a quick visit to Milano and say hi to my Bocconi mates. The weekend after was the weekend of my highschool reunion, which a lot of people actually think is kind of a lame concept. Even Fedor said he wouldnt go if there was one of his class! Anyway, I am different and I loooooooved it! So great to hear about so many people and to find out what everyone is doing now (and of course to see their baby pictures). I mean, 10 years after the final exam: it really is kind of a big thing!

Anyways, that was obviously in the Netherlands so I took a train ride there to visit and came back again on Sunday night. The weekend after was the Tag der Deutsche Einheit (National Reunification Day) and our friends Ellen and Kim from Rotterdam were visiting. We had a fantastic weekend, which much food and much enjoyment. I even managed to drag them to the local big gay monthly celebration at Kino International. Tomorrow, it will be my Groningen friend Stephie who lives in Duesseldorf now. Another weekend of partying will ensue!

Anyway, in the meantime I have also been quite busy with work, but I wont bore you with the details. Let me suffice it to say that I have had 2 DIW discussion papers published in the past weeks (nrs 921 and 927, if anyone is interested), and I have 3 important deadlines coming up within the next 7 days. Lovely! And oh, in 9 days, I will be flying to Washington DC to present work at the World Bank, and meet with many other people for "networking" and all that. Stress!!!

When I have time (and the desire to do so), I will post a picture post soon to show the things we have been up to recently!

Tschuessi!
OJ

Urlaub!!!

I had a neat little trip to England, I must say. I went to visit my old friend Matt in Coventry, which was absolutely lovely. Particularly our Sunday trip to the Cotswalds was grand!!! it is this gorgeous traditionally english-looking area. Simply stunning! For some photos, see facebook.

I then continued on to Canterbury for a conference. Conflict and Complexity. Let's put it this way: it was very, uhm, interdisciplinary. I turned out to be one of only two economists, and for the rest there was a total mishmash of random people. Varying from self-declared spies and linguists looking for expressions of empathy to people working with UK Airforce space as art objects and complexity theorists (don't ask me what complexity theory is. I have been trying to find out, but without success...). All in all, it was actually a very enjoyable and interesting conference.

On Wednesday I returned and enjoyed two days of rather stressful work (dont get me started, there are all these projects that seem to be running at the same time but not in the same direction). And now it is HOLIDAY!

We will fly to Roma tomorrow, and enjoy two days there. Then we rent a car and visit Umbria. On Friday we fly to Sardegna for a party weekend with friends and we finish off with one day of Milano! I cannot wait!!!

We will be back in 10 days!

Tschuessi,
OJ

So hungry

Another week with the hospital-prescribed diet that lacks all forms of substance, as well as vitamins. Now I really am very hungry... But I guess it is all for a greater good!

Well, that is what I thought anyway. Last Friday i was gonna hear the results, to see whether there really was any point to this diet. Unfortunately, after waiting for 3 hours, the doctor told me that he would not have any time for me that day. wtf?

Today, I did manage to see him and he informed me that, unfortunately, they didnt really find anything in particular, apart from the inflammation in the esophagus, for which they have no real explanation. Oh, and the diet: he doesnt really care, so "why dont you just continue the diet for another three or four WEEKS, and then start relaxing it a little". four weeks???? Are u insane? (oh yeah, those weeks would also include our holiday in Italy where I definitely will not be able to eat ANYTHING). I think I may have to have my own variation of the doctor's rules...

Oh well, on to happier topics: I did practically nothing at work last week, being mostly preoccupied with food. But during the weekend, on Saturday, we managed to go to Tristan und Isolde by Wagner, which was playing in the State Opera House. While it was enjoyable, I must admit it was also a little long: 5.5 hours of opera is a bit much... Afterwards, my friend Nicole who had joined us at the opera came to our place and we drank and chatted merrily until 4am. Well, lets put it this way: we chatted merrily and Fedor and Nicole drank merrily... *sigh*

On Sunday, then, we cycled to Spandau, which was supposed to be quite a pleasant suburb. While it was good to have seen it, we were not particularly impressed. The Citadel is not all that, the old town is kinda small (it really is only one street) and the medieval part of the city consists of one building and a piece of wall. And the way there is basically one big industrial zone, so it was not particularly impressive. But at least we have done it, on our last free Sunday before winter!

Oh wait, no, winter already started. At least that is what it seemd like last night, while I was sitting there in my warmest biggest jumper and still being cold... tomorrow's forecast says 31 degrees again though, so I guess Winter is on hold again!

Tschuessi!
OJ

PS Fedor had a job interview! And it went well...

German hospitals...

...are really not bad! Possibly tainted by my experience with an Italian hospital before (real story: I came out of surgery and was told: "it is very important to drink a lot of water, and you can buy water from the machine in the hallway"), but I must say that it was not too bad at all, overall. Of course I had the bad luck of being in the hospital on the hottest day of the year, so it was bloody hot, but you really cannot blame the hospital for that! The food was kinda crappy, but that was more due to the compulsory rice-potatoes-water diet than to anything else!

Oh yeah, regarding conclusions: we'll get back to you about that. They found a few other things, which they think may be correlated to the allergy/infection, but I have to wait until Friday to get the final results for that. Anyway, I will leave out the unpleasant details, I guess. One little interesting fact is that, at least until Friday, I will be on a rather strict diet. No fun things for me! Such as fruits, fish, nuts, alcohol, most dairy, sweets, spices, tomatoes, etc, etc, etc. Oh well, at least I am home!

During my 4 days in the hospital, Fedor was joined by his mother and her boyfriend, so he was not entirely lonely. I also saw them in the hospital on Wednesday, but on Thursday they returned to the Netherlands. I came home on Friday, in time for the arrival of Joost and Kim from the Netherlands in the evening. We had a great weekend together, although it probably would have been slightly more enjoyable had I been able to fully participate (very depressing to go to a Biergarten and drink water. Seriously. Or to go to a breakfast buffet with lots of lovely foods and only being able to eat bread, cucumbur and salt), and we had some lovely weather for it. Sunday afternoon, they left again (photos will follow later, I guess), and Fedor and I FINALLY managed to go and see the latest Harry Potter movie. It was pretty good!

Today, I was back at work again, going through administrative stuff that had piled up in my absence and designing a flyer for my work project. Our team assistant is totally convinced I should have gone into designing instead of economics... :-) Oh well, maybe I'll do that in my next life!!!

Tschüßi,
OJ

Hospital!

A week of relatively low-key visitors. That is, after my brother and family, fedor's father arrived with his girlfriend but they were staying on a camping ground in Potsdam, so we didnt see them too much... They did of course come to Berlin a few times, and we went to see them in Potsdam on Saturday (nice bike ride, but 35 kms at 10am, with a mild hangover is not fun!), which is an absolutely gorgeous city btw...

Tomorrow our next guests arrive: Fedors Mum and her boyfriend. They stay until Thursday, then from Friday to Sunday we have friends of mine and from Monday til Thursday we have friends of Fedor again. Hotel Fe&OJ is in business!

However, this is all slightly interrupted by the fact that I will be taken to hospital tomorrow. The allergy-thing is not going quite perfectly and I visited the emergency ward last week. Now I will be admitted tomorrow so they can start testing what is actually wrong. I should (hopefully) be out before the weekend, so dont worry about me! It will give me time to read some books that I have been wanting to read for a long time... That is worth something, no?

Tschüßi,
OJ

just a few pictures

Well, here are just a few pictures of things. This is our Friends wall in the hallway, with the pictures hanging of a Fishnet.

 

And here are some pictures of the awesome visit of my brother and the family!!!

 

 

Tschüßi,OJ

Okay, tired now

Well, well, well. As I wrote previously, the visitors' Circus has started. Fedor's Mum stazed with us for a few days. We drank a lot, we visited the Pergamon Museum (a first for me) and ate lots of good food (I have favourite dishes at all 10 restaurants within a 50 meter vicinity of our house now). Of course, I also had to work in the meantime, but at least during the weekend we were able to hang out with all of us together. She stayed until Tuesday afternoon, partly overlapping with Maartje, who arrived on Tuesday Morning.

 

With her we continued drinking more cocktails, and I went out for lunch with her on the day that Fedor had his first Job (well, he entertained an old guy for 2 hours, kind of practicing english with him). She only stayed til Thursday, when she left at an ungodly hour.
The next day, my friend Idil from arrived from Milano. It was great to see her and to catch up on all the gossip! We ate a lot (again), and enjoyed a lovely day out on Saturday at Schloss Charlottenburg.

 

 

It was another site I hadnt seen (well, at least not in the past 15 years), and it was great to be there. The gardens in particular, are AMAZING. On Monday and Tuesday, Idil had to kind of entertain herself, which was made easier by the fact taht Summer finally started in Berlin!!! The weather was simply stunning, and Idil had a good time seeing the city. Tuesday evening, she departed.
On Wednesday, my brother, his wife and their two daughters arrived. They were staying until this morning and it was absolutely great to have them over! The kiddos are absolutely gorgeous (hopefully there will be some photos later, once my sister-in-law has sent them to me), and good times were definitely had. Again, I didnt participate in the day programmes, but one of the highlights was apparently the fountain on Museeninsel, as it was actually visited twice! In the evenings, we drank. And ate. This was made more convenient by the IKEA visit we made on Thursday where we also bought a monitor (baby-alarm-system; babyfoon), so we could sit in a restaurant nearby (finally got to try the Chinese across the street) and still be in touch with the kids! we also played many games.
On Saturday, after a plentiful breakfast around the corner, the parents went into town and we had the kids for the afternoon. Afterwards, we went to the Berlin Beer Festival (with 2.2km of beergarten: the biggest in the world!) on Karl Marx Allee. It was fantastic, but of course we could not stay long because the kids had to go to bed. Next year, my brother and his wife are planning to come over again for the Festival, but without their children...
This morning, they managed (with difficulty) to pack everything back into the car and set off for the Netherlands. We then cleaned the whole house and finished constructing the last of the new IKEA furniture. Our hallway is finally finished!!! I am so happy... We have two little pieces of furniture with shelves, for footwear and bags etc, and a gorgeous courtain kind of construction in front of what we refer to as our basement. Very, very, VERY satisfied!

 

On the health front, doing pretty ok. The belly inspection found a small infection, but nothing a bunch of pills won't cure. The allergy (we still assume it is that) on the other hand shows no signs of abating. I have an appointment for an inspection at the Academic Hospital in November. However, my doctor says I cannot continue taking the current medication until then, so he has tried to arrange something for me at a different hospital. The solution of which is that, apparently, I will have to actually go to the Emergency Ward.... Strange, strange German system (what the heck are they doing with the 500€ a month that I am paying in!), but I guess that for hospitals, the saying holds: when in Berlin, act as the Berliners...

Tschüßi,OJ

New toilet!!!

The past weeks have flown by again. I have spent a lot of time finishing the toilet and now it looks absolutely amazing. Here are the pre- and post- pictures:

 

Doesnt it look absolutely amazing? I am so happy my brother was able to come and help a few weeks ago with the floors though, because I would so not have been able to do that myself....

Anyways, more pictures are available here

Last weekend, my highschool friend Bastiaan and his new girlfriend came to visit and we had an absolutely fabulous time! The weather could have been a bit better, but we managed to see some of Berlin and enjoy ourselves immensely with drinking, playing games and not getting enough sleep.

The visitors' season is now seriously starting, with Fedor's Mum arriving on Saturday and staying until Tuesday, after which another friend will be here from Tue until Thu and Idil will visit from Milan from Thu until Tue. After that, there are two days of rest and my oldest brother and his family will come over! I am really excited about having so many visitors, but it certainly is a good thing that Fedor still has not found a job yet!!!

On the health front, things are fluctuating a bit. I have several things, but it is an allergy that is bothering me most. When I first had it, the doctor gave me medication and I felt great again afterwards, but last week (culminating on Sunday night), it came back with a vengeance (in summary: completely swollen head, red spots everywhere, swollen limbs and terrible muscle aches). I have different medication now, but as we have no idea what I might be allergic to, these are also not working quite as well as they should. In addition to the allergy thing, I am having a belly inspection tomorrow for which I have been on a no-fiber or many other things diet for a week. Which is (1) inconvenient and (2) awfully depressing. Today is different though: today I am not allowed to eat anything at all...

Oh well, I am sure everything will be fine, and at least I am getting my money's worth out of the German Health System!

Tschüßi,OJ

Greece-visitors-cocktails, and all that...

Finally some time to write on the blog. In the past weeks, we have been further decorating the flat (not a lot of work on that account) and working (at least, I have been). I went to Thessaloniki, Greece, for a conference for some days, 2 weeks ago, together with my friend/colleague Cathérine. That was great: the weather was nice, the conference was interesting and the people were a lot of fun!

So that got me all charged up for returning to work with a vengeance afterwards. I have been trying to juggle a whole lot of things, research, proposals, etc etc. Unfortunately, my first proposal I wrote back in April was rejected :-(((( But hey, it was a learning experience!

In the meantime, we have also had our first real visitor coming to stay: our friend Tatiana. She wanted to visit the modern art museum, and therefore came to stay with us. It was nice to see her, but damned, I am NOT into modern art!!! It was pretty awful, in fact.... Oh well, it was a learning experience!

The last weekend, we went to see my brother and his family who are staying in a holidaypark about 75 km north of Berlin. It was nice to be out of the city and to play with the kids and all that. Two days ago, in return, they came to visit us in Berlin! This was great, because my brother, the Handyman he is, was able to help me with some flat reconstruction. in fact, the one thing that bothered me most about our flat was the toilet: it is small, dark and unpleasant. But thanks to my brother's efforts, it now has an absolutely amazing floor and a new toilet. Just wait until the weekend, when I will paint the walls etc, and it will be fantastic!!! I guess that is the positive part from the fact that our friends Jorryt and Lilian are not coming due to a medical emergency..... :´(((((((

Anyways, for the rest there isnt much to comment. Yesterday I taught a class on ethnolinguistic heterogeneity at the Humboldt University, which was actually quite enjoyable (yes, rather surprising indeed). And then we went to go to a Pub Quiz: I LOOOOOOVE pub quizzes!!! Unfortunately, and embarrassingly so, we actually were LAST! Oh well, shit happens. Today, I have been not so well, and have gone to see some doctors. Let's assume everything will be fine (I have 3 kinds of medication already!), I will inform you more about this, later.........

Tschüßi.OJ

photo post

As promised, here are some photos:
First, from our Housewarming party (it was a cocktail party: "Stock The Bar", which would have worked very well if we hadnt been drinking cocktails all night long!)

Then another thing, that I hadnt written about yet. I had a work retreat: we went to a hotel outside Berlin, where we listened to presentations, got quite drunk and went on this train thing (that was actually kinda cool!)

The day after the housewarming we went with Cathérine and Jean-Pierre to the sand sculpture festival near the Hauptbahnhof, called SANDsation. It was pretty interesting, although we were collectively hungover....

And finally, this week there was a big power outage at work, so no work could be done. Instead, we went to the Prater Biergarten and drank beers in the sun. Pas de problème!!!

Tschuessi!
Dr.OJ

You've got mail (well, a new post at least)

Oh my, so many things to tell, so little time to tell them. It has been absolutely ages since I posted and so much has happened in the meantime. Well, I guess I will stick to a summary of events. I will post pictures later, because many of the things that happened deserve a picture to be shown!
So, the most important thing that happened was my trip to Milan in order to defend my Dissertation. It went really well and I am now officially Dr. OJ! Obviously, this was very exciting and I am very happy about it. It was also my opportunity to see Fedor again for the first time in about a month, so happy feelings all around! To add to the feeling of excitement, it turned out that my driving licence was finished! So I am not only Dr OJ, but I am now Dr OJ with a patente di guida!
Over the next days, friends and family from the Netherlands started arriving (including my brother and his wife, my parents, and Fedor's mum and brother), in order to attend the GRADUATION PARTY.

Ever since arriving in Milano (well, after realising it was a possibility, I mean), I have been wanting to celebrate my graduation in a tram. In Milano it is possible to rent a party tram which drives around the city and in which you can just party!!! So we did. Of course, as always, there was some bureaucratic hassle involved (including the Transportation Agency calling a few days before asking whether it was okay to postpone the party by a week... Huh? NO!!!), but it was absolutely AWESOME. It was bloody hot, but we had lots of drinks to compensate for that and simpy had an amazing party, with all my friends there!!! Afterwards, we had a serious afterparty at our house (to the dismay of our neighbours of course) and went to bed drunk and happy...

Sundaynight after the party, it was time for me to return to Berlin and to our gorgeous flat there. After another week of work, my parents arrived to see the new Berlin house. They were as excited as I am, and I was happy to be able to show them the great neighbourhood. They also brought some of the presents I had received in Milan the week before (which they had brought to the Netherlands in the meantime). AND I got a really nice new painting that complements our living room very well. The next day, they left again (taking with them the presents for my niece and nephew who are both turning 4 these days). The next evening, the next GREAT event happened: Fedor arrived in Berlin! I was so happy to be able to show him our new house, which he had seen only shortly before. Of course our furniture had still not arrived, but at least the 2500€ spent on IKEA make it all look highly furnished already!

The next weeks were spent waiting for our furniture to arrive. But, Italians being Italians, many excuses were found why the furniture could not be delivered yet. My favourite one was the "Oh sorry, the truck with furniture was stopped at the Swiss border, which caused a 3-day delay". Really, 3 days? Anyway, I was getting very frustrated with them, but finally, last week, the furniture really did arrive. All 86 boxes were accounted for and the great unpacking could begin.

And a great unpacking it was indeed: bloody hell, I didnt remember we had this much stuff! It turns out we are going to have to buy more furniture to be able to put away everything! Oh well, IKEA, here we come. AGAIN...

But anyway, so far, it looks absolutely great, as you can see on these pictures:

Now that our furniture was finally here, it was also time for our HOUSEWARMING party! That happened last Saturday, with a "stock the bar" theme. Well, I can say that the bar was definitely stocked. Unfortunately (well, I guess it is also sign of a good party) most of the bar was unstocked again during the same night! Many, many cocktails were drunk, and lots of fun was had! It truly was a great party, and a great opportunity for Fedor to meet many of my friends here (and the completely random people that were there and that nobody seemed to know).

Sunday consisted of a serious cleaning effort and a hangover-reducing trip to the Sand Sculpture festival at Hauptbahnhof (and a few beers on the artificial beach.....).

What can I say: Life is good!!!!!

Tschüß,
Dr. OJ

PS More pictures will follow. For further pictures of the house, go here

From a bar...

I have no internet at home!!! I mean, not to make up an excuse or anything, but it really is kinda difficult to update one's blog when one has no internet at home. I am not quite sure whether my boss would agree that updating my blog is part of a regular work activity (then again, my boss is never there, so how would he find out?). Anyways, I am at the cafe across the street from our home right now, where there is free wireless.

I moved! Into our new house, that is. Our amazingly awesome new house, that is.... The first night was quite random (I had bought a mattress, but I didnt actually have anything else at all). But on Saturday (as in, last week), my friend Cathérine went to IKEA with me to help me buy some stuff for our house. About 2000 euros worth of stuff, that is.... After taking the furniture taxi home, I had another bunch of friends and colleagues helping me carry it up (fourth floor....) and even put it all together! It was fantastic! The biggest challenge, however, turned out to be already inside the flat. I bought the previous renter's wardrobe, but it was in the wrong room. However, it was too big to move, so I wanted to take it apart.

Easier said than done!

I finally managed to take the last pieces apart on Thursday and spent about 3 hours yesterday putting it back together in the right room. But I managed!!!

Today, I have been painting. All day. Well, that is, for about nine hours. Only the hallway needs painting (a horrible shade of blue on the woodwork), but it is surprisingly much work. Panelled doors are soooo not the way to go! Anyways, I have done about 3/4ths of the red, and done the first layer for all the white, so I just need to do the second layer. It is starting to look really well!!!

Anyways, there have been some non-house related things as well. The night before Queens's Day, I partied at the embassy (and got a rather drunk.....), last Sunday I went to my first Biergarten with my Milanese friend Gerry (he was visiting friends), etc. In conclusion: good times were had!

Tschuess,
OJ