Seven Sleeps

There’s only a week left until December, seven days until I get to turn my flat into a christmasy wonderland! Which is how long I have left to finish my tree skirt, YIKES!   I get the feeling I might be putting the tree up and adding the skirt later as I don’t know if I can cram that much quilting into the next 7 days. Unless I do nothing else and go nowhere else. 

This isn’t possible though as I have plans for three of the next seven days.   That’s what I get for going and getting a social life.

Speaking of social life… lets get back to my day out with the girls on Wednesday.

As we were walking past the Bijenkorf shop we saw this in the window.  The four of us huddled together, squeeling and giggling like we were 13 years old.  So much so that a little old lady and her husband came over to see what was so funny.

It’s a pink monkey holding a candle holder… but I don’t know if it was our mood or that we are just twisted, but it totally looks like a giant pink penis holding a giant pink penis!  Don’t you think?  

After separating from the girls I walked around the city center for a while taking photos.  I felt so good, like truly happy!  The air was crisp and people were bustling about trying to get what they needed at the last minute before the shops closed.   

 

Each time I stopped to take a photo I just stood… for ages.  I’m not sure why but what I saw in these three photos made me feel really happy inside.  

Maybe it was that it gave me that excited feeling about Christmas coming or just brought about some sort of sudden appreciation for where I am, it felt nice.

People in the Netherlands often hate Rotterdam so much, comparing it with Amsterdam and some of the other more traditional cities in the Netherlands, but it really can be a beautiful too in its own way.   Many people come here and never even visit this city.  I mean, it can’t be as cool as Amsterdam, right?  At least that’s what they think…

So many times I’ve looked around Rotterdam in disgust.  Hating all the things about it that weren’t like home, hating how multicultural it is because I feel foreign in a hundred different ways and wishing it was cleaner.

Maybe it was the great feeling of spending an afternoon chatting with girlfriends or the thrill the x-mas lights gave me… but that evening I loved where I live and what I do and realized just how amazing it is and how lucky I am. 

I had one of those moments that hits me every few months… the one where I stop and look at all the things around me that I’ve seen a million times, only as if I’m seeing them for the first time.   Then I think…

Holy shit, I live in Europe… 

In the evening we went for dinner and a movie with some friends, which was also a really great time.  We saw BORAT!