The Air That I Breathe

Wow, these past two weeks have been insanely busy with work but I am glad to say that I am enjoying it! I like that although I am on holiday I have somewhere to be (on most days) and that the work is nice and my body is already adapting to the biking and changing from carrying around heavy things and walking all the time. It is nice to notice that change and I am very happy that my work and my colleagues are all so nice! I have had 8 work days now and have had some awesome and some less awesome costumers haha. Some people are very grumpy and do not realize that yes you did take their coffee order but you also took 70 other people's coffee orders that are also being made at that same moment so yes your coffee is coming but please realize that if I am walking on the terras I am not actually making your coffee so have no way of speeding up that order.... Anyway haha my respect for this field has increased insanely! Some men think everything is hilarious, which is completely understandable because they are all on holiday mode and that is actually wonderful because the majority of the customers is happy. I am noticing that my language skills are sometimes a bit lacking, my Dutch is not always good enough or at least natural enough to understand many of the jokes that people make and often think they are serious but my bosses laugh about this and the situations it brings. Also it is almost impossible to find the right timing of walking up to a newly seated table. Some people want a drink before they even sit down and others want to look at the menu first and get annoyed if you come straight away. How am I supposed to know which category people fall into?

My greatest moment happened two days ago when I was taking the order of two guys/boys who wanted two beers. As I took the order and looked up I realized they were probably not 18... And just this week I had checked with my bosses if we need to ask for ID if we think that customers are younger than 18 and are ordering an alcoholic beverage. So I went to my boss who sent me back to the table myself to ask for ID. So I, 19 years old, ask these two males for their ID. "Sorry we forgot to bring it". Hmmmkay.... I will take that as a "Yes we are younger than 18, busted.". So they ended up ordering two cola haha! It was a strange situation but also kind of cool, I did feel a bit weird as I myself am only turning 20 this year and then to be asking others for ID is strange but part of the job.

Besides working I have been hanging out with the people that are still left in Middelburg. The other day I cooked dinner for my friend Tisha (who has been cooking for me mostly haha so I had to return the favor) and afterwards we just watched youtube videos for a few hours. This is so nice and relaxing as during our semesters it is harder to do this as there is always something you could be doing. Also despit living the appartment building that I live in with another 175 students I walk around in my pyjamas all the time if I am going to a friend or doing my laundry. However on this same evening that I was hanging out with Tisha I also went to pick up my laundry. But I had sort of forgotten there was a party going on (I was fully aware just hoping to not run into too many people). So I walked to the laundry room in my massive sweater and workout shorts and tired make up less face (not the first time I have looked like this haha) to straight away run into someone on the stairs and have a conversation for 30 minutes, and only meeting more people on my way back haha. Normally I would have actually joined the party for a little while but I wanted to sleep cause I had to work again the next day.

Right now I am on my way to Apeldoorn to see my family again! My dad came back from Beijing and my mom and sister came back from Singapore a few days ago so we will all be together again! Today we are going shopping, tomorrow we are going to see a musical and in between I will be sleeping... a lot...

Trying to keep track of the whole family's weather conditions!

Really Don't Care

Sitting in a cafe by myself was one of the strangest yet lovely experiences I had this week. As I was working for half the week I had the other half of the week to fill with whatever I wanted. Unfortunately I was once again ill for these days but I did try to do something every day. I attempted to watch a movie with some friends, celebrated another friend's birthday and made sushi together with another friend. However this last one lasted for both Saturday and Sunday as I had bought way to much and didn't want to let the ingredients go to waste. And as I was ill I spent a lot of time in my room and so I decided to go out and drink some hot chocolate in a cafe. But I did this by myself. At the restaurant that I work I have now seen an individual come by every now and then and just have a drink all by themselves. And I thought this was awesome but it never occured to me to actually do it myself. Now this Sunday pretty much everyone was not in Middelburg, I had been in my room for most of the day and so I decided to go out to a cafe and have some hot chocolate and read a book, by myself. Despite the two cafes that I actually thought to go to being closed, I had fun! It is definitely something worth repeating, I have gone shopping by myself before but never done this. I have also heard that going to the cinema alone can be fun, maybe that is something to try for later this summer. For now I am going to make some more plans with the friends that are returning to Middelburg, as later this summer there is more chance that most people will be gone.

End of Time

To properly finish the semester my university has an End of Term Party. For the fall semesters this is the winter gala but for the spring semesters this is a party at the beach. This year the theme was hippie party, peace and love, all of that haha. The sunset was beautiful that day and I had a really nice beach walk with Sophie. 

The day after the party we celebrate Sophie's birthday and it was wonderful to see her unwrapping all the presents!

What Time Is It

Summer time! Haha so although I already posted something about my job I also wanted to write about the actual last bit of school and parties, basically what happened in the month between my previous two posts.

A lot actually happened in those months but instead of describing all of them in detail I will show you the instagram pictures I took. I started the #100happydays challenge after some things happened in my life that had a really big negative impact on how happy I was feeling. In order to remind myself that life was/is also still good I decided to start the challenge. I try to post pictures from that day but sometimes I have used an older picture.

PS. There were some weird formatting issues with some of the pictures, I have no idea what happened and how to fix it.

Day 1 - bought new shoes

Day 2 - Spent Kingsday at the beach with Sophie

Day 3 - People serenading the apartment/dorm building for votes

Day 4 - Beautiful sunset a week earlier

Day 5 - Classy dinner with these lovely people

Day 6 - Classy selfie at the dinner with Julia

Day 7 - Bought a new dress

Day 8 - Hot chocolates in the common house 

Day 9 - Throwback to my birthday with Jeanne and Ivi

Day 10 - Dutch National Remembrance Day in the Abbey Square

Day 11 - End of Term Party Ticket

Day 12 - Onions meant to help a cold, woke up sicker than when I went to bed

Day 13 - Taco Dinners with Tisha

Day 14 - End of Term Party Shopping

Day 15 - Finally seeing my family again and admiring my mother's new clothes

Day 16 - Lush bath bomb that I got as a present from Sophie

Day 17 - Happy Mother's Day!

Day 18 - Yearbook time!

Day 19 - Last hallway dinner

Day 20 - Bartending in the common house

Day 21 - Rhetoric class outside

Day 22 - Gilles goodbye and pre-ETP BBQ

Day 23 - End of Term Party! End of the 1st year of university!

Day 24 - First day of work, restaurant on the right the rest is the view!

Day 25 - Presents for Sophie's birthday

Work B**ch

Summer is here! And I got the sweetest card from my family today congratulating me on finishing the first year of university and wishing me a relaxed and fun summer. Well I have only had three 4 days off from school but 3 of those I spent working as a waitress at a restaurant in Flushing (Vlissingen). It is a 35 min bike ride (10 km) from where I live and in the past three days I worked mored than 24 hours which for someone who is not used to having a job is a lot haha. It is really fun though and the view is amazing, which is what I remind myself of when I am on my bike and getting tired. As soon as I see the view again I am happy and all is good. Also from all the biking and walking around and carrying things around I am hoping to get quite a bit fitter by the end of the summer than I am now/was 3 days ago. Here is an impression of the view:

On the right is the restaurant and the rest is the view :)

What I saw when I was putting on my uniform this morning