Saturday

Yesterday I was cruelly woken up at about 8:30 by the workers who have been fixing up stuff on the house I live in. I was afraid they'd work on Saturday... Fortunately they are taking Sunday off. They were doing work yesterday at the front of the house, on the walkway to the front door, so right next to my room. It looks like they might be raising the path to be level with the sidewalk. They have only just begun, it looks like they have another 2-3 days of work. I hope during the week I'm out of the house before they start on the sawing and jackhammering that they were doing yesterday at about 8:30/9 in the morning. It's such a mess out there too, they had the front door off its hinges (it's back now) and there's bags of sand and concrete, and piles of tiles... I'll be glad for it to be over.

I ended up going to two different parties on Saturday afternoon and evening. First, I went to a colleague's house in Rijswijk for a little get together. It was a really nice, relaxed time, and she fed us well. Actually I ate a bit too much before I needed to leave to go back to Den Haag for a curry cook-off with an expat group. I pretty much knew no one there, and there were a lot of people there, at least 20, so I met quite a few new people. There happened to be quite a few Americans there, more than I'm used to being around, and there was a lot of talk about Thanksgiving and arguments about what belongs in a Thanksgiving dinner and what doesn't. The curries were quite good, though I missed out on a couple. I did manage to grab a piece of chocolate cake, after which I felt like my stomach was about to burst. It was a good time though and I hope to make it out to more of their events.