The cold sets in

Mondays seem to pass me by without me even realizing they have come. This is the kind of thing I treasure when I'm on vacation, you know, when you get to lose track of the days and it doesn't really matter. But being here with so little to do is driving me mad. And it has been getting colder here. On Monday the windchill was -13. Ya, not all that extreme relatively but I assure you I packed nothing that would keep me warm while biking around at such frigid temperatures, and if you add the humidity it is enough that you never want to leave your house.

Being sick lately, I've been laying low, hanging out in my room, watching tv shows, doing homework, etc. Nothing really exciting. I went to the city centre on Monday to run some errands. In the evening a few girls and I made a nice dinner, it was delicious and so inexpensive when you cook big meals with other people. I think this is something we are going to have to do on a regular basis. And as a bonus there has always been enough left overs for a little bit of lunch the next day.

Outside of doing homework and generally killing time I've not been up to much.

Today, I slept in, then got up and went back to bed. Heck, if I'm sick and I've nothing to do I'm going to milk it. I organized a few things for my trip which commences around 4:30am Thursday morning - eek - as I need to catch a 5am train to get me to the airport in time to catch my 9:30 flight. I finished my readings in advance, painted my nails, and eventually out of need of something to do I ventured out for an evening at the movies.

Fortunately for me there is a theatre less than a 5 minute ride away from my front door. I went to see The King's Speech, I'm sure you've heard about it. It has consistently been sweeping the award shows. It was great. Absolutely lovely. I highly recommend it. I wasn't sure if a movie with a simple story line would really captivate me but the acting is beautiful, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are great together.

Here are some lovely insights into the theatre culture in the Netherlands:

1. They assign you a seat, yes ladies and gentlemen, you are given a row and seat number on your ticket. I suppose this ensures that groups will be seated together. It also takes away your freedom to sit where you like. Well, this isn't entirely true, I sat where I wanted and not where my ticket said and there seemed to be very little wrong with this, but then again the theatre was not busy at all and I was just one person.
2. There is an intermission. I don't really like this. Sure it gave me the, somewhat unnecessary, opportunity to go to the bathroom but really? Can't we sit down for 2 hours straight?
3. They serve you beer and wine. I guess they do this some places at home, but here it just seems so right. At home it seems weird. But why? I'd love beer with a movie. Heck, they even served the wine in wine glasses, made of glass. Classy.
4. They serve tea, in mugs. Outstanding.
5. When you buy a pop they give you the bottle. No worries about spilling. Although I would say that a general trend here is no fountain pop. This can be problematic.
6. The seats are lush, roomy, and comfortable but someone forgot to introduce the concept of staggering the seats from row to row. So, if someone sits in the chair in front of you, they will certainly impede your vision of the screen.

Tomorrow I'll be packing for my trip on Thursday! I'm so excited to go! And who knows what else I'll be up to. At the moment I'm hoping for some quality time with my ear plugs and a good book.