Happy birthday to me!

Ciao tutti,

Guess what?! It's my birthday! Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy biiiiiiirthday dear Fedor! Happy birthday to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who'd like to wish me the same thing, please leave a comment. ;-) Well, as I'm not really celebrating today, there is really no reason to tell you how I'm spending it. Because I'm not doing anything, except for trying to get rid of my hangover. Wanna find out how I got it? Keep on reading or just skip to the end the text!

Life's going well. Not much to say really and I can imagine it gets boring to read the same things over and over again in every single post I publish. So, in order not to lose my precious audience - that is growing smaller and smaller as it is anyway - I won't bore you with phrases like 'I'm enjoying my work' and 'I've got interesting students'. The only interesting thing I have to tell about my job is that I'm in need of more work. Several of my courses are ending over the next few weeks and I suddenly realised I don't have any new ones to compensate for that. Need to work on that!

Moving on to happier topics, I finally managed to go swimming. I went at a time when they were actually open and I didn't have to wait at all, how amazing is that???? I'm not really happy about the time because it's at 9.30pm but at least I now know that there is at least one hour a week I can go swimming. It was really busy though, which I initially didn't really like because swimming with 12 people a lane in a 25 meter pool just isn't perfect. But on the other hand it forces you to get into a certain rhythm and makes sure you can't pause too long. So, in the end it didn't take me as long as I had calculated it would take and it was really good exercise. So, I guess we'll continue doing this.

Last weekend, my uni friend Fomsjk (Femke) and her boyfriend Ruud came over for a visit. They were the first visitors we had had in a long time, as the last ones were Bart and Tineke who visited us in August. We were definitely ready to open the hotel doors again, although I don't think we'll be as busy as last year. We had a lovely time, did the usual tour of Milan, ate a lot, drank well (but not too much) and played loads of games. I didn't win any of them, but I did enjoy original Cluedo, the Cluedo card game, Trivial Pursuit and Café International. Here are some pics:


On Thursday, Olaf left to go to a conference in Utrecht and my parents, my little brother and his girlfriend arrived to celebrate my birthday with me this weekend. My mother arrived early because she had been on holiday in Pisa before taking the train to Milan and this gave us a nice chance to catch up before meeting the others. Their plane arrived very late and we didn't have time to spend more time together than an hour of two because I had to go home relatively early in order to get enough sleep to be able to work the next day. They spent Friday sightseeing in the rain while I taught my last lessons and we went to La Padellaccia afterwards for some ginormous pizzas. I have to admit that - to my surprise and shame - I just wasn't able to finish my pizza. We finished that evening at the vineria and drank some really good wine.

Yesterday, we went to the city centre and my parents and I visited Cimitero Monumentale after that, while Ward and Machteld went shopping. Olaf came back that afternoon and we had dinner in a lovely restaurant where I had never been before. It was relatively cheap and the great thing about it was that drinks were included in the price and you could drink as much wine as you wanted!!! As we are proper Dutch people, I doubt they made a very big profit... We continued at our place for a lot more wine and I don't remember anymore at what time we went to bed, but it was a great night!! This is the reason I'm hung over today but at least I didn't have to do anything. My poor family had to catch their flight back home. I can only imagine how they must have felt...

And of course there were prezzies. Beautiful candle holders, Dutch St. Nicholas candy, a book and money to spend on a trip to a destination of our choice to visit another one of Hillman's wonders were much appreciated, but the most amazing gift of all was given to me by my beloved hubby. Olaf actually got me a vacuum cleaner, a proper Hoover! Hoove! Hoove! Hoove! (Yes, I know that I have to turn it on and not just make the sound, thanks Eddie...). I am such a housewife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XXX, Fe