Spring?!

Last Friday, 21st March, was the first day of spring. And it felt like spring a week before.

So why has it been snowing almost non-stop since Friday afternoon? And why does the Netherlands stop working when it does?

Spring is in the air

I love this time of the year. You can feel it's getting warmer (despite the occasional storm), birds are singing and people are walking around the city with a big smile.

First time to wear open-heeled shoes.
First time to put away my wintercoat as it's too hot to wear it.

All that combined with strolling the market, buying fresh flowers, olives, yummy food. Planning an impromptu evening with friends, after still being on a slight high from a fun night in the pub the evening before.

*bliss*

What a week

This week included:

# long evenings with meetings, emailing, thinking out new concepts, networking etc - but all with pretty constructive results;

# being swept away by spring, but also coming back down to the real world as quickly and unexpectedly as it began;

# being confronted with more careerquestions (imagine a conversation starting at 9am, Fridaymorning, with my new boss: "So, machi, what is your vision of the future, say 10 years from now?" Uhm, can I have my coffee first?)

# being shocked about whatever happened to the Netherlands: how can it happen that a man is killed because someone takes offence to his appearance? This is just so shocking and sad.

Luckily tomorrow will be spent outside, chilling in the sun. Yay.

Spring is in the air...

... and I'm loving it!

I think the sun is supposed to leave tomorrow, but somehow I don't think it's going to matter.

A quick review of the weekend:

listened to - !!! and Zita Swoon on Friday (review in Dutch is here)
disappointed with - the workshops I attended on the Afrikadag on Saturday
very pleasantly surprised by - good food and company on Saturday night (to be continued hopefully)

And spent Sunday catching up with friends, getting some new energy from the sun, and celebrating a friend's birthday at the bowling center. The last bit was very geeky, but very fun.

Also, looking forward to - spending time in Antwerp and Leuven at the end of the month. Yay for international friends.

In more good news

A few cool things that I'm looking forward to in the next few weeks:

* in two weeks time I'm again going to Motel Mozaique with a friend, partly to see Zita Swoon again but also to have a good night out with more new bands. Wheee!

* spring! It's pretty much here already and it's making me feel so much better. I've resolved to take advantage of the weather and more free day time to start experimenting with my camera more. So hopefully this will result in a more visual blog aswell.

* more theater... one of my resolutions for this year was to see more live music. Luckily that has worked (yay) but it has also meant not seeing so many plays on stage anymore, something that I love as well (not to mention the fact that I haven't seen a dance performance for years. grrrr). Wednesday I'm seeing a new play by a local (but by now, famous) author Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer De eeuw van mijn dochter. It's supposed to be a critique on contemporary Dutch politics so am quite curious!