Week in review

Last Tuesday - After work picked up E in Utrecht and then headed down to Den Bosch to see Damien Jurado play. The show was very good, he played solo, so the songs were quite powerful, with his voice echoing around the theater. He played Medication, one of my favorite songs and one I don't think I've heard live before. Someone took a better video of it than the one I made.

We talked to him a bit before and after the show, he recognized me from when we saw him in Amsterdam earlier this year, which was nice. E and I then trudged back to Utrecht.

Wednesday - A lovely, relaxing day in Utrecht. Sat around chatting for awhile and getting some anti-stress therapy from the cats making rounds between our laps. Hit a couple of vintage shops in town, though I did not find the Perfect Winter Coat. Went to Bond en Smolders for coffee with lots of whipped cream and a pastry. Nabbed some of their gevulde speculaas. Popped by Ekko and found Damien's wife, Sarah. Ended up chatting with both of them outside next to the canal before heading off to Amsterdam to see The Thermals. Grabbed dinner first at Getto (burrrgerrrrrs). The show was fun, very energetic, of course, and the crowd was really into it.

Thursday - My birthday. It didn't feel like it by the end though. Went out with people from work in the evening because of two people leaving. First went to Wynand Fockink for liqueurs, then had an Indonesian rijsttafel for dinner. I probably should have stopped at the liqueurs, I was so tired during dinner.

Friday - A bunch of people leaving work and having sweets for their goodbyes, and some Halloween candy, meant I was buzzed on sugar all day. Had fun carving my pumpkin that evening and managed to do it without cutting a finger off.

Saturday - Downloaded the old Charlie Brown and Garfield Halloween specials and watched them for the first time in ages. The Charlie Brown one was kind of boring, but the Garfield one was actually pretty funny in places. The pirate ghost part that always freaked me out as a kid was disappointing to watch because the glowy nature of them was too high-contrast in the video, so you couldn't really see what they looked like. I was surprised at how short of an amount of time the ghosts were in the episode.

In the evening, went to see some short films as part of the Leiden Film Fest. It was in an (unheated) chapel in St. Elisabeth Hospital. As expected, it was a mixed bag. The two animated films (The Pierce Sisters and El Empleo) were both awesome and humorous and bizarre. Tanghi Argentini was very sweet. A couple others weren't really my thing.

Sunday - In the midst of baking a carrot cake, I went to see two films. There was this steady drizzle almost the entire day, so I got pretty wet on my way to and from the first film, then I didn't really dry out before heading back for the second film, so I started out all cold and damp and only added to it. Fortunately I got a break on the way home from that film; the rain had finally stopped. I quite liked the first film, $9.99, a stop-motion movie about various people living in an apartment building. The second one, Gigantic, was ok, but it felt like an indie movie being quirky for quirky's sake. The leads were cute at least.