There has been a sudden change of events, my friends - I am now working as an external for ABN AMRO's asset management department! I NEVER thought I'd walk through their halls as an employee. Funny things happen to all of us, I guess ;) I'll be on the exact same team as Aga, Oli and Steve - cool, huh? The spring of Corporate-Konichiwa-Bank-B*tch Sandy has officially begun. Watch out ABN, you won't know what hit you until it's too late!

On another exciting note, I got hit by a motorcycle this week (check box on the "life experiences" list.) A motorbike drove up too close and my handle bar got locked to it somehow. He dragged my bike over a few meters before I fell off, and the fool didn't even stop to see if everything was alright *shakes fist angrily* I'm just peachy - nothing serious, just some scrapes and bruises. DRIVE SAFELY PEOPLE!! And don't buy motorcycles, they're just death-machines!

WOOT!! After an exhausting 20 hour trip, I finally arrived back in Amsterdam last night. I'm totally nackered - I can't believe how much the jet lag is screwing me over! It's both weird and cool to be here, although I'm still wondering if I should be here or not... time'll tell I guess. The new apartment is AWESOME though, if I may say so myself! I had no idea how big it was until I got here! It also has a canal view which isn't too shabby. I bought a new-used bike today, and tomorrow I'm gonna visit the immigrations office.

Due to the jet lag, my waking hours are gonna be outta-wack for the next while. Everyone wants to go out to celebrate and catch up, but I might hafta make it a breakfast party so that I'll be awake. So let's do it - the Amsterdam version of "Wakie wakie eggs n'backie!"

Bleh, getting dumped sucks. I totally got served this morning. The worst thing is that he's overseas, and it's harder to deal with this shiz when you're not physically in the same place. I'm bummed and I dunno what to do about it. *meh*

good thing i'm a trooper.

thanks for letting me share.

 

cats n'crafts n'snacks n'drafts night tomorrow at chez-sandy! be there

today i decided that i'm a bit silly for wanting to go back to holland. that doesn't matter tho, cuz i signed the contract and that's that. bleh. might as well squeeze as much of the edmonton-y goodness that one can get while i'm here. i got to hang with jaz and denys today - they made everything alllllllll better. i wish that i can take them in my carry on. 

CATS AND CRAFTS NIGHT NEXT WEEK. YAY!

I haven't posted in eons. I know this won't make up for anything, but now that I have some time for myspace-ing I should update enough stuff to last for the next few eons (or whenever I make my next post.) I'm finding myself in a rare mini-crisis, so I'm gonna spaz-out now. YAY!

I'm BACK in Canada for Christmas, and life is too good! I'm both happy and depressed to be here at the same time. OK, I've been gone for a year and a half - so now I feel kinda outta place and weirdly different than everybody else here. That makes sense. But now I'm slowly warming up to everything/everybody again, and while that should be a good thing it's actually the worst thing that can ever happen! Like, I want to be with all of my old friends again, but I'm liking it too much and it's gonna be super-tough to go back to Amsterdam. Everything's so relaxed and fun here. The people are rediculously nice, and the music scene is a google-times better than what I know in Holland. So with that in mind, it's hard to have fun with everyone cuz I don't want to miss them when I leave. So now I'm bummed out. A part of me wants to stay, but a part of me wants to go. I'm stuck between two continents! - I guess that's somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic... It's irrational, but I'm crazy sometimes so whatever. *sigh* OK, that was fun. Enough self-indulgent gloominess for today! Time to eat cookies and make stuff outta duct tape!

Next week we're having Cats-and-Crafts Nite at my place! Not-coming is unacceptable. It's gonna be FUN to the power of 10 (with some imagination)

OK, so I'm done work and it's BACK TO BLOGGING!! I'm going to totally bore you guys today - I just know it. ANYWAYS -

to continue from yesterday:

Aug 5-7: Visit Peter in Cologne. One of my German friends from Copenhagen; Peter, had an internship in Cologne. Seeing as the city is only 2 hours away by train, I figured it'd be a shame not to hang out before he left for his exchange to South Korea. I didn't know what to expect from Cologne, but I had an amazingly amazing time there!! On Friday night, Peter and I went to his friend's apartment and inadvertently we all got completely drunk on vodka. When we finally left, we ran into some friendly strangers on the street, and somehow we ended up in a taxi with them. We totally didn't end up going to the club we planned to visit - we were dropped off infront of some place called "Diamonds." (Whenever I think of the Diamonds, I'm reminded of the strip joint at home... very classy.) We all totally got our dance on that night, and it was so refreshing to let loose in some place outside of Amsterdam! By the time Peter and I got home it was day. I was so pooped out, that for some reason I just sat and cried my eyes out cuz I was so exhausted from living in Amsterdam. Poor Peter had to put up with me (I couldn't make the tears stop) but the whole thing was so theraputic! Peter was completely hung over the day after, but he was a trooper for making an effort. When we got up, his girlfriend picked us up and we went walking around the city. Cologne is beautiful - I personally think that the Rhine's impressive, even tho my German friends found its dirtiness disgusting. We also visited the massive cathedral, for which the city is famous for. I also tried the local beer, which is called kolch (with the funny o with the dots on top.) It's so tasty! I wish that they sold it here - I would drink it endlessly! That night, we went out for dinner with my friend Anja, and went bar hopping. Cologne has a FANTASTIC night life! My favorite bar was actually in a laundrymat - you can do the laundry in the front, and you can lounge around in this super-hip bar that played super-catchy music. It made me laugh. It was so great to visit Peter and Anja again, and just talk about the good times in Copenhagen and catch up to the present.

Aug 13 - Dance Parade in Rotterdam. One of the consultants that works for my company was nice enough to actually invite the trainees that work here to hang out with him at the Dance Parade in Rotterdam. The other interns and I are used to being ignored by the other people here, so we found it impossible to say no! I was very impressed with myself for going actually - the night before I went out with my Hungarian friend, Robert, and some of his other Hungarian mates. I was amazingly hungover, but I still managed to haul myself on the train to Rotterdam at 11 in the morning! When we got to Rotterdam, we met up with Melvin (the consultant) and hung out on the main bridge, waiting for the parade to come. Just imagine - there were 40 floats, and over 56000 people there, so when the parade finally came we were totally swamped! The whole experience was indescribable - the streets were packed full of dancing people, and there was GREAT dance music playing all over. I saw things that you'd never see in Edmonton - there were girls wearing nothing but body paint shakin' their thang on the floats, one was even dressed up like that famous Italian porn star who became the head of the goverment! In the end, there were so many people dancing on the bridge that I literally felt it move beneath my feet. After the parade past, we went to an after party and danced until it was too painful to move. Melvin was amazingly amazing - he took us to this fancy hotel for dinner, and we sat there for hours talking about the coolest stuff! Melvin's been all over the world, and he's the sort of person who's life history will make you feel totally unaccomplished. Man - that was a sweet weekend.

Bleh, I gotta hit the road Jack. My German friend Philipp is making dinner tonight, and I'm a little worried about how it's going to turn out... he's not exactly a master chef. I'm thinking of bringing back-up food in case something happens. Oh well, I think it's awsome that he's trying! If we drink enough, nothing'll matter anyway. Smakelijk eten! (bon apetit)

I'm the worst blogger out there! I haven't typed anything in ages... I dunno, I just got busy, and then suddenly I had too many things to type about! I dunno where to begin, even. So yeah, here it is - after a long hiatus, I'm back to myspace.

First of all - thanks to Micha for reminding me to update this thing. Otherwise I'd be runnin' home right now after work.

Hmmm... needless to say the past few weeks have been jam-packed. I have a lotta ground to cover. I can't believe it, but I've actually just opened Outlook to help me remember what I did. How Dutch is that? (Dutch people are madly in love with their day planners - it's their pocket Bibles, I swear.)

July 28 - My friend Lindsey visited me from Edmonton. She studied in Cologne for the summer, so it was easy for her to pop by AMS. I met up with her after work, and she told me that she wanted to do three things: eat, drink, and smoke mj. Waddya know! You can do all three at the same time in Amsterdam! I took her and this other Brazilian guy to this coffeeshop, and for some reason we thought it'd be a hot idea to get hash brownies. I was an idiot, and ate a whole one for myself (baked goods look pretty innocent.) I'll NEVER EVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN!! I only remember 4 things from the whole rest of the night: eatting the most expensive falafel in my life (costed €5,) eatting the most delicious ice cream in my life, standing in front of The Doors coffeeshop wondering how I got there, and then riding home on the tram with Lindz. Man, I felt so happy to get home... I'm not sure how I did it. I'll NEVER do that again, but at least I can put a check beside another Amsterdam experience.

July 30 - Rotterdam Summer Carnival. I went to Rotterdam with Merel and some of her other Dutch friends. We also took a ton of Chinese trainees, but they took off after half an hour to do their own thing. The Carnival was so rad - it was like a cultural festival dedicated to the carribean and latin american countries. I tried Surinamian food, which I've never had before - totally delicious! We watched this big carnival parade go through the city, and all of the costumes were fantabulous. There was music on all of the streets, and there were people dancing everywhere! I wouldn't have changed the day for anything.

August 3 - Pancake party at my house. I've started having these semi-weekly pancake parties in my apartment. Chelsea and my other intern friends who work nearby all come over and we make pancakes together. K, it sounds kinda lame, but it's super-relaxing not to have to worry about leaving the apartment. Chelsea's pancakes are also damn-tastey (we do the Dutch version, only with Canadian maple syrup.) We don't call Wednesday nites "pancake parties" anymore, now we just call them "family dinners." Everyone sits around the table and eats together like one big happy disfunctional family. It couldn't get any better than that.

Bleh, I'm hungry. I'm going to put this whole blog thing on pause, and pick it up again tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to my Dutch friend's apartment for dinner at to watch girly TV shows *yessssssssssssss!* I don't have a TV, so I'm stoked for a lazy brainless estrogen-filled evening! That reminds me - I'd better pick up a thing of Ben & Jerry's on the way

Last night I went out for some drinks at a beautiful bar with some friends. One of them's new here, and he wanted to get a bike, so my other friend's like "let's get a junkie bike for you tonight!" So yeah, once we finished our drinks we wander down past the central square here, to this really dark and quiet bridge. There were like, 2 or 3 junkies on it at once! Ahhh, the 2 minute deal. You walk along slowly, and the junkie will bike slowly beside you as you wheel and deal quietly. Hahaha, my buddy didn't like any of the bikes we saw, but at least he knows where to go when he wants to get one. It's just another weird Amsterdam experience... but I guess it's just another part of the reality of living here

   Last week I bought a legal bike off of one of my co-workers. It's the UGLIEST bike in all of Europe, but it's legal and it only costed 10 Euros. For those of you who don't know, it's very easy to get an illegal junkie bike in the Red Light district in Amsterdam. Junkies will steal bikes, and then will sell them on the streets. If you get a legal second hand bike, it's usually around 60 Euros. ANYWAYS, it's funny cuz my locks (yes, multiple locks) cost three times the value of my bike. No one's gonna mess with my wheels!

The word for bike in Dutch is feits - sounds almost like fest, no? So yeah! It's a bike party! I still take the tram to get into the city, cuz my bike is such an eyesore I'm never guaranteed that it's actually going to make it there without falling apart... but whatever! My bike is also very noisey. People will always stare as I zoom past, but it's all good - I just have to plug in my MP3 player, and I can't hear anything! Nevermind the neighbors

I'll post some photos of my new/old bike sometime

Hi guys!

So yeah - Aisling phoned on the weekend, and Aruna e-mailed, so I guess I should spend a bit more time at work and write another update!! Dad and Barbera visited me this weekend, which was fun (even tho I missed a great roadtrip with some of the other trainees =( ) It was my first real chance to be a tourist in AMS, since the rest of the time I'm either working or travelling to another part of the country. We did a fun canal tour, and did a LOT of walking. We didn't do any museums, cuz my guests were museumed-out in France. Dad commented how happy he was that I gained weight. yay, that's EXACTLY what I want to hear.

Last weekend, I took a Macedonian AIESECer in, who was travelling across Europe for the summer. He didn't have a place to stay in Amsterdam, and his friend didn't want him to stay with her cuz they'd have to share a bed. I have a guest room, so I offered it up. He was super-fun, and I enjoyed his company. I've never met a Macedonian before! Now I wanna visit Macedonia. He was a good sport, and came out to Rotterdam for the big AIESEC international turnover party out there! That weekend, I checked out Den Haag and Rotterdam with some of the other trainees. Den Haag is pretty and quiet, and Rotterdam's full of crazy architecture since it was totally bombed out during the WWII. We came across a huge beach party, which was free with amazingly cheap beer. Perry Corsten (who's relatively famous) was djing too! It was a pretty fun weekend.

This weekend I was planning on visiting Cologne, since my friends Peter and Anja live there. Lindsey V. was also studying there, but I guess that she ends this week cuz she wants to visit me this weekend instead. Well, so much for my Cologne trip - I guess that I can go during the next weekend tho. Lindz is gonna stay from Thurs 'til Sat, and I guess I can just hop over to Cologne then for the rest of the weekend. Oh well.

I have a pathetic little crush on Eric, the German guy who lives down the street from me. He's nothing special, in fact, he's kind of boring. But whatever! I've made it a mission to harass him a lot. His idea of fun is getting together to play chess. Oh well, at least he finally came up with something on his own instead of me smsing him all the time. He probably hates me by now, but whatever - he's going back to Berlin in a few weeks anyway.

Aisling called me this weekend while my dad was visiting. He thought it was great - he even took a photo of me while I was on the phone with her! Thanks for the call Ash - the connection was horrible, but I  hope that it helped. You can feel free to move the cat dish wherever you want, as long as it doesn't get the carpet dirty. I feel sorry for the little kitties!! give them a big squishy hug for me, ok? I'm glad that they're treating you well otherwise... it's not fun when they take over the bed.

K - I have to pee really badly. The free coffee and tea machine's amazing. I'm gonna send some photos soon! (My dad burnt a whole bunch on a CD for me, which I have to pick up from his hotel tonight.)

Lots of luv,

Sandy