Just Call Me Talula-Does-the-Hula-from-Hawaii

Another successful weekend has come and mostly gone.  Here's my weekend update.

Saturday morning I went shoe shopping.  I have been searching for new shoes for months, and have yet to buy a pair!  Ah well, I did finally find a suitable winter coat!  I'm wearing it in my photo of today, though it's difficult to see.  It's the most beautiful shade of turquoise and suits me just fine.  

Saturday afternoon was spent in the company of Julia, Silvia, Silvia's roommate Jason (Canada), Ilaria, and Janos (Hungary.)  Julia is working on a film of sorts about experiences in Leiden.  So each of us went to our favorite spots in Leiden to talk about why the mean so much to us.  After only one stop, however, it started raining a very cold rain, so we sat in a cafe and drank coffee and hot chocolate and nibbled on illegally smuggled almond cookies and talked about poetry and problems with cultural integration.  

I took the group to the Burcht, my fortress on the hill that kept me company in the deeply lonely days before I had any friends in Leiden.  It's also an amazingly beautiful view of the city.

Saturday night was Hawaiian Night!  We had flowers and balloons and coconuts and pineapples and beach music.  We played pass the coconut, and twister, and did the limbo.  The place was quickly filled with the usual crowd, and I was pleased to see some new faces (included a Dutch face!)  You can check out my Facebook page for the photos.  :-)  

We brought the Hawaiian sun to Leiden and hung it in our skies all night!

I feel like I had some amazingly strange dream last night, but I don't remember.  I remember a dream with a tall and twisted tree.  There were a lot of us trying to climb to sit right in the middle, but it was so high and so difficult most of us were probably going to fall.  I had a secret though:  I knew I could fly.  So I wasn't afraid of falling.

Today has been slow and great.  I've done a bit of homework, and I've worked on my autobiography.  I also found a site that I think it fabulous.  Again, I think I must have brought it to myself.  I decided I needed to write a list of my goals, long term and short, that I could look at.  I think it's important to know, and to see what your priorities are.  And today I found a site that lets you do just that:  www.43things.com  You make a list of what you want to accomplish, and you encourage others on their paths to do the same!  And they encourage you!  

I realized that the very top thing on my list is: to write a novel.  I've always been a writer, and I've wanted to write a novel since I was 11 years old (I used to act out this one story in my front yard.)  I actively started work on one last year, but stopped.  Maybe it's time to get back into it!  I have a lot of work to do, a WHOLE lot of work.  But, well, I always find time to waste, so maybe I could just fill in those empty moments with my words. :-)  

And hopefully Oprah will LOVE it!

I made the best dinner, oh, ever, of tofu, roasted potatoes, green beans, and roti sauce (a Surinamese sauce.)  I mean, this stuff was awesome!  I amaze myself!  For now, I'm working on my autobiography, and drinking lemon tea, listening to Zakir Hussain.  Can't get much better than this!  

Except, I'm going to make some fried apples (Southern style) and head out to watch a movie with Giovanni (Italy, duh) with Johnny Depp in it.  So it could possibly get better.  Just, well, not much!  :-D

Here's me and Janos, laughing at something.  That's my new coat.... Isn't it beautiful! :-)