An epic night

The weather is still cold but the sun is shining, the parks are full of blooming crocuses (croci?) and finally it feels as if spring was just a couple of days away. Anyway, I figured I should write a happy post today and the best material for that at the moment is the events of last Thursday. It was one of the greatest random nights I've ever had at UC.

I took a nap in the afternoon and decided to attend the lecture by McKinsey. I wasn't impressed at all by the lecture, so I just walked out after an hour, at 9. I got ready and called Gábor to ask whether I could borrow his bike to go to town. He warned me that the breaks don't work and that the locks are a bit hard to open (my god, I never fought so much to open a lock!), but it was okay in the end, and I arrived to Mariaplaats at exactly 10 pm. The party was just starting... I went up to a bartender and asked for Kevin (also an ex-UCer, he graduated a year after me, and I found out that he works at Café Maria during Paul's birthday party). We agreed we would have a drink once his shift was over. I danced till around midnight and had a couple of great dance partners, including the Greek guy I got to know the other day, Raja, who introduced me to L.A. salsa during the summer of 2007 and Anthony, a one night stand from ages ago. Anthony and I actually hardly recognized each other, he had shorter hair and different glasses (and to be honest, even if this sounds bad, I find it more difficult to recognize Black faces than Caucasian ones), and I'm obviously quite a bit slimmer now.

Kevin and I had our drinks and we chatted for about half an hour. Then I went back dancing and he went back to his colleagues. The party ended at 2, and I was lucky enough to have a partner who was able to chacha, which was the last dance of the night. (Few people dance chacha, so playing chacha music is a good way to clear the dance floor and indicate that the party is going to end.) Then, I met Kevin again, which was very convenient because 1) some freaky Indian guy was chasing me and 2) he was able to open the lock much faster than I would have been able to. I biked back to campus. I'm sure I've already said this at one point, but I love biking through Utrecht at night!

I went to the bar because David (I was staying at his place again) said he was going to be there and he had the Xs card that opened his unit. But since there were four ex and present BarCos (David, Natasha /ex HR Manager/, Ted /present Inventory Manager/ and I ) in the bar, we just started chatting, drinking and swinging the lamps. Some first year guy was hitting on Natasha and we were gigglish enough to be entertained by his advances. Natasha and the first year guy left and Eric, a friend of David's and ex UCSA Board Treasurer, joined us instead. For about an hour, David and Eric argued about why ex UCSA cannot swing the lamps and why ex Barco can, and in the heat of the debate Eric and I had a glass of beer thrown at us. Well, he was the target but I was sitting next to him. We ate tons of Doritos covered in Tabasco. By the time the chief (Ted) closed - and that was already around 5 o'clock in the morning - there were only five people in the bar: Ted, Andrea (the bartender), David, Eric and I.

As we left the bar, Eric asked whether anyone had eggs in their unit and since Andrea did, we went to her unit in the tower. The guy made a pretty good omelette with pepper, cheese and salami. We had that as a morning snack, and we also opened a bottle of wine, which we slowly finished by 7 am. Of course, we had a very random conversation in the meantime (mostly about pussies, as far as I remember). We thought that it was too late to go to bed - and Andrea had class at 8.45 anyway - so we went to DH for breakfast. We were the first ones. We even had to wait for DH to open. We sat there for more than an hour - mostly talking, we hardly ate anything - watching the hall fill up with people. By then, we were completely exhausted, of course, but that state of mind calls for deeper topics of discussion, such as love or what we want to do with our lives.

At 9, I picked up my things from David's room and left. I knew that if I stayed there, I would have slept through the whole day. I slept through half of the day anyway, but at least in my own bed instead of on a couch. It took me one and a half hours to get home. It was pure torture trying to fight falling asleep on the bus and the train (I didn't sit down in the metro to reduce the risk) and eventually I did fall asleep on the train, but I woke up at Bijlmer Arena, fortunately. When I got home, I just undressed, got in my bed and fell asleep immediately. And I slept and slept for ever and ever... Well, till the phone rang at 3 pm.

I love these random nights when everything starts out so plain and then you end up with a random bunch of people in a random unit and stay awake till the next day starts... So UC.

Nothing, really

I'm sitting in Voltaire and it's almost completely empty, but only because it's dinner time. When did UC start to admit so many nerds that Voltaire is always full?

My supervisor forgot to bring a voice recorder with her to the VU - which she had promised that she would do. So, I couldn't record the two overlapping meetings today.

I'm Dutchifying my attitude toward the NS (Dutch Railways). I don't like them. I could have taken the train from Amsterdam Zuid at 11.08 and no trains came till 11.28... I almost missed my first meeting of the day.

I'm tired. I feel numb. It's good that I have people around. I'm staying at David's (the Dutch one) place tonight and tomorrow, but I'll probably also see the other Dávid (Hungarian) tonight because he asked me whether he could talk to me about his relationship. I'm glad to do so, but I don't feel competent at all to give advice... At this particular moment I feel as if I knew nothing about relationships.

Two good news though: 1) Irma is probably going to come and visit me and 2) I don't have to censor myself anymore. So, a long, uncensored version of the previous post is coming up at one point (in the next two weeks, maybe). I need to get my head straight.

Censored

Last week I lost a friend. Maybe I mistook him for a friend, maybe he wasn't even one. But I've known him for 6 years, we were in love for a while (or from time to time, a bit), he stood by me in hard times, he wrote the most beautiful things to me when Joram and I broke up, he always had something smart to say about the guys I was going out with, he was one of the few who solved the identity of the person I was in love with in AC, I listened to his issues with his girlfriend, his work, everything... He was one of the few people whom I could talk with for 2 hours straight on the phone about anything and everything, without any awkwardness. The first time he ever called me we spent one and a half hours talking on the phone - and we had only met once before. He was also one of the few people I found so attractive that I had to restrain myself from jumping on him whenever I saw him in person. That didn't happen too often (I haven't seen him for almost 2 years) and we had long radio silences, but he was part of my life for 6 years.

I had suspected that what happened recently would happen eventually, but I imagined to find out about it differently. And here is where the censorship comes in because I can't say what happened. The point is not what happened anyway, but that he didn't let me know. We've been friends for 6 years and he didn't tell me this, something we've been discussing for years... I can't conceive it.

It's hard to find the right words to express how upset I was. I had to call a friend who knew our whole history. Then another one. I felt betrayed. I felt the need to do something. Talk. Write a post about the whole story from the beginning till the end. But I can't. Not even without names. He would be in major trouble if the truth came out and it would take a second to identify him... I hate the fact that I have to censor myself, especially for someone else, especially if that someone did not show the faintest appreciation of our friendship.

Anyway, I hope he'll be happy and that he won't regret his decisions. I also hope this post is not too revealing. RecogMe, you'll be missed, even if you sometimes act like a stupid, infantile idiot. May the force be with you.

Alone again

These five days flew by so quickly... When I got home this afternoon, the flat felt very empty. We were in a rush in the morning, so when I got home, our tea was still on the table. Now I'm drinking it alone.

I thought that we were going to have issues with the narrow bed I have. I was completely wrong. We slept like babies every single night except last night but that was because of the anxiety of him leaving. I can never sleep well before traveling. Nor can he, it seems. I don't remember the last time I slept as much as during these 5 days. 10 hours per day was a minimum. Plus the naps.

I wish he could have stayed a bit longer. Does distance make the heart grow fonder? According to Zsuzsa, the secret of happiness lies in having the distance equivalent to the width of the Atlantic Ocean between lovers. I'd rather decrease that distance to 0...

So, today, I took Jani to Eindhoven. I love that he cries at the airport every time we say good-bye. I really do. Now it's another month till we see each other again. Till then, we'll just Skype religiously, like we usually do.