{"id":287,"date":"2004-07-25T18:05:33","date_gmt":"2004-07-25T18:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/archives\/287"},"modified":"2010-05-24T22:08:22","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T20:08:22","slug":"where-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/287","title":{"rendered":"Where I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a title=\"Photo Sharing\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/breigh\/178503887\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/52\/178503887_9db49404b9_m.jpg\" alt=\"Livingroom July 2004\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Ever wonder where I sit when I type this? Well this is it!  I took these pictures yesterday after Xander and I cleaned up.  The livingroom used to look different and I was getting tired of it.  We started out at like 9:30 moving the furniture around, throwing things away and figuring out what we wanted to do with it.  I don&#8217;t know how Xander didn&#8217;t strangle me though because I must have changed the room around at least 4-5 times. Anyway, that&#8217;s what we settled on and man, let me tell ya, yesterday I realized just what a CRAP housewife I am.  If you could see the dust that came off this little shelf I have my horse plates on, you&#8217;d die.  Either of shock or some kind of freaky asthma attack.  Oh well, now that I know for sure that I&#8217;m going to stay here, I can start painting and doing all the things I&#8217;ve been putting off for ages. Which is cool! Finally no more pink trim! It still looks way better than it did when we <a href=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/76\/178503899_24e38892ef_o.jpg\" target=\"blank\">first moved in<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The most painful part of the entire thing?  Yes, it&#8217;s true&#8230; my gaming days are over.  Yesterday in the process of changing around the livingroom, my gaming computer was dismantled and my desk is gone.  I would say I didn&#8217;t sulk and grumble a bit but that would be a lie.  I&#8217;m hoping I <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> get into the Euro Beta for WoW now, because I know damn well I&#8217;ll want to play it.  Part of my new beginning is staying away from gaming though, it&#8217;s evil and it makes me (more) evil too.  It just affected my mood way too much, even though it was soooooo fun. *sigh*  Maybe one day I will be able to game again.  At least now I have a 21 inch monitor in the bedroom to watch my Divx on, which is great. So much better than the crap little 15 inch one that was in there before.  Maybe we&#8217;ll get one of those TV cards in there too someday so we can watch some crappy Dutch TV in bed. haha<\/p>\n<div><a title=\"Photo Sharing\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/breigh\/151880340\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/52\/151880340_5f2e0f7db4_m.jpg\" alt=\"Laptop City\" width=\"240\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Xander likes the new setup though. Now that my desk is gone, his has moved into it&#8217;s spot.  He has his own little geeking corner where he can set up as many laptops as he wants and just geek out to his heart&#8217;s content.  Before it was sort of in the middle of the livingroom\/diningroom area and was the first thing you saw when you walked in, so I was constantly bitching at him about the mess of his desk.  Not that I won&#8217;t be still bitching at him for it, just maybe not as much as before.  We&#8217;ve become a totally laptop house, except for the divx computer in the bedroom. It&#8217;s strange.  With the laptops and the wireless network, life is just so much nicer.  I can just veg out on the sofa with the laptop in my lap, watching TV and doing whatever.  It&#8217;s awesome..<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Photo Sharing\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/breigh\/152484873\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/50\/152484873_06b4bfeb85_m.jpg\" alt=\"Flame\" width=\"206\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After tidying up I lit a load of candles around the livingroom and dropped on the sofa with a happy sigh.  There&#8217;s just something about the feeling of changing a room around and having it look different that I really love.  I was thinking, I haven&#8217;t lit any candles in ages. No idea why really, but I love them and used to have them on around the house all the time.  I absolutely love candle light, there&#8217;s nothing more soothing or relaxing on earth except maybe a hot bath by candlelight.  How can anyone ever be in a foul mood when they are surrounded by candles and everything looks soft and cozy?  Is it even possible?<\/p>\n<p>I called about my Dutch lessons.  I didn&#8217;t quite understand the girl who I was talking to, she basically said &#8220;Go here between this time and this time to make an appointment&#8221;. Why I can&#8217;t make an appointment over the phone I&#8217;m not sure, but whatever.  Tomorrow morning I will go to the place she told me and see about weasling my way into some Dutch classes five years late.  I also called about getting my Dutch Drivers License finally.  Apparently there is a different test for foreigners than there is for new Dutch drivers (THANK GOD!).  It&#8217;s more slack and they take into consideration that you are already a driver, they just check that you know the rules of the road in Holland  and can get along well in the traffic here.  It&#8217;s only a one time thing though.. if I fail I have to take the same test they give new drivers here which is hell, especially here in Rotterdam.   I have to take lessons to learn the rules of the road and get used to driving a stick shift again.  It&#8217;s 34 euros for each lesson, which takes 50 minutes and it&#8217;s 212 euros for the special test.  Good grief, I better pass!  Xander and I were having a look at the stats for people who pass the regular test the first time.  You can see it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rijschoolgegevens.nl\/index.asp?pageid=2&amp;examenplaats=41&amp;x=19&amp;y=6\" target=\"blank\">here<\/a> but I&#8217;ll tell you anyway. Only 36-40% of people pass the test the first time.  That&#8217;s <strong>INSANE<\/strong>.  Oh god, I&#8217;m panicking already&#8230;  I&#8217;ll be so nervous when I&#8217;m taking that special test, ugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever wonder where I sit when I type this? Well this is it! I took these pictures yesterday after Xander and I cleaned up. The livingroom used to look different and I was getting tired of it. We started out at like 9:30 moving the furniture around, throwing things away and figuring out what we &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[416,390,104,72,18,99,33],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-life-in-nl","tag-casa-soldaat","tag-drivers-license","tag-dutch-lessons","tag-gadgets","tag-gaming","tag-home-renovation","tag-netherlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4538,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/4538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}