december 2000 archives

Sunday, December 31, 2000

There I am again: on the other side of the North Sea! Having a great time meeting up with all my friends. Unfortunately there's always a shortage of time to meet up with all of you. Yesterday my Dad and I payed a visit to Zwerfkei, a very large outdoor shop to buy a new backpack. Using a suitcase while travelling back and forth was not very practical and after about 11 years I thought I could do with a new backpack. Having bought a the Macpac Glissade, I can't wait to go on holiday to do some hiking!

Friday, December 22, 2000

Tot straks in Nederland! Nog maar een paar uur. Ik kan niet wachten tot ik weer voet op Nederlandse bodem zet! Prettige Kerstdagen en een gelukkig nieuwjaar alvast! (Ook al hoop ik voor die tijd hier nog wel wat te melden).

Wednesday, December 20, 2000

Monday night I met up with Walid and Rabab. They arrived at 6 am in London and already at 9 they were out and about walking the streets of London. It was very nice to see them again after such a long time. Tonight we will have dinner together at my place! Yesterday I phoned e-bookers to reconfirm my flight on Friday. After clicking through all the options the operator gave the the number of KLM after I told him I would like to reconfirm my flight. However, when I got through to the operator at KLM, I founf out it was only for agencies, the general public was to call another number. As I rang this number the message said that it is no longer necessary to reconfirm flights with KLM! So it took me 10 minutes since calling the person at e-bookers to find this out!

Monday, December 18, 2000

"Sorry, the Web site is unavailable at the moment." Well, multimap.com seems to be down for the moment. A good opportunity to write something in my blog. Had a very nice weekend with a lot of shopping. At Muji's I got myself a very flashy container for my business cards. Sorry for being such a hedonist now and again. At Neal Street I bought some very nice Xmas presents.Had dinner at Belgo's, a very popular Belgian restaurant near Covent Garden. Just received a phone call from Rabab and Walid! They are in London. Hope to meet with them this evening! Would be really nice to see them again after such a time. A few more days until my flight back to the Netherlands.

Friday, December 15, 2000

Last night Multimap's Christmas party in Kensington. Nice place, nice food and lots of drink and dancing. This morning it was really hard to wake up again. Came into the office rather late. Had a good lunch at Wagamama's. After a week the travel directions service is running stably at last! Took me about a week to get back to this. Routes are now with driving restrictions and the motorways are concatenated! However, this morning we tried the same trick on another server, but it did not work out as planned. Next week another go. Hopefully we will get rid of all the noise. Good weekend ahead with lots of Christmas shopping to do!

Sunday, December 10, 2000

Friday night started off as just another TGIF, after work drink in the pub night, but everything changed. I ended up in Wembley Arena of all places for a concert by... Green Day. Two of my collegues had spare tickets so they asked Ben and me to join them. Really a great night, although most of the audience were school kids. I felt a bit old, but I enjoyed seeing Green Day life very much, though. Saturday and today slept in most of the morning. Yesterday went to do some Christmas shopping. In the evening James and I went to some pubs at Northcote Road. Was very nice. It's just about ten minutes walking from Muncaster Road so we could crawl home if necessary. Of course everything closed by 11 so we were home at a reasonable hour. This afternoon I stumbled into the living room to find Helen, James and Theresa. It was very surreal to see such a display of togetherness. Tonight we are even going out together: some karaoke bar! Help. Well, we'll see. Looking forward to getting to know my flatmates. They seem like a good lot of people.

Thursday, December 07, 2000

=~ /(^m\d{1,2})\/(.+?)/i That's not English slang I picked up, it's just PERL. Had a hard time programming yesterday, but all in vain unfortunately. Had to resort to the software suppliers once more. It's an endless story. Yesterday no Helen, so we expect her to move in today. Already exchanged more words with James than with Richard and Augusta together. Tonight pubbing: Multimap is a new company, but Soraya invited us for celebrating her first anniversary!

Tuesday, December 05, 2000

Yesterday as I came home I met James at last. He's a new house mate who moved in on Friday, but we did not meet until over the weekend. There was also Mrs. Wong with Helen to see the house. She immediately decided to take the room and she'll be moving in on Wednesday. So hopefully this will herald a better time to come. Last night I also bought Weaving the Web by THE Tim Berners-Lee. For thos of you who still not know, he's the inventor of the World Wide Web your using at the moment. Really a good book. Just can't stop reading.

Monday, December 04, 2000

For days we have been receiving e-mails of clients who were complaining about the speed limits in the travel directions: over 100 miles per hours. So what happened? Edward screwed up! O yes! I forgot to change a parameter in the code! Well, everything is all right again. I am still in the job. I even arranged to have the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve off.

Sunday, December 03, 2000

Some weekend! Yesterday I slept in until 2pm. Think it was really necessary after all. Fortunately I found some time to do my shopping and book a ticket for the film Same Old Song, a.k.a. "On connait la chanson". Seen it before last year, but it was so funny I decided to go once again. This morning running in the park, around Clapham Common. After a good English breakfast I went to visit the exhibition Impression in the National Gallery about... the French Impressionists. I really get to know them better each time. I particularly like Edouard Manet and Renoir, although the latter paints a bit too "sweetly" I think. Of course Monet must been mentioned as well. After that I went to do some shopping at Oxford Street. Never, ever do that again! Not on a Sunday when Christmas is approaching. Nevertheless, I got a very nice black turtleneck sweater at GAP. Well, as I went to Charing Cross Road to buy a nice book, I found all bookstores closing as it was approaching 6pm. So now I am in one of the EasyEverything Internet Cafés. Just read an e-mail from dad. Thanks a lot! And also one from Judith, one of my dearest fellow students from Utrecht Uni. It all seems such a long time ago. Hopefully during my Christmas holiday I get to see some of my friends back in Holland.