Moonlight No Longer Sleeping on a Midnight Lake

I have found a room! And it is perfect! It is exactly what I wanted to find. It's big, but not too big, and two of the walls are basically windows, and these windows, aside from bringing major amounts of light into the room, overlook not one, but two canals that run perpendicular to each other. There are only two other people in the flat (which is basically like having your own place in the Netherlands where students get squashed in 15 and 20 to a house!) and, check this bit of Universal foresight out, one of the roomies just finished his masters in, yes you guess it, Egyptology. I've actually seen him around the library quite a bit! How's that for interesting? Toeval bestaat niet (There are no accidents.)

The place is also super close to my faculty, and all sorts of other convenient things. The only trouble is it might only be available for a month. :-( It depends on whether the girl who is renting it to me finds an apartment in Amsterdam soon. So, please ask our dear Universe to help this girl, and me, out! :-) I believe it'll happen, for both our sakes!

In other news, yesterday was a great day. Class was nice, and I spent the day in the library translating Coptic magical texts and browsing through the archives of a great webcomic. I then had coffee with Jason at a really gezellig little cafe, and we chatted for a good long time. Jason is always a great person to go to for really great conversations. He's able to talk about Russian literature, life in Paris, Irish politics, relationships, or beer. And most things in between.

Afterwards, he went off to a Catena party, and I went to the Game Night. It was the 2nd year anniversary of the Common Room's opening, so we had cake. It was an amazingly crowded night, and I'd say 30 or so people showed up. I watched some kids play Settlers of Catan, and then chatted with Jan when he arrived. Then we all played Appels en Peren, which never seems to get old. Then we (and we = Andrei (Romania), Antoine (Switzerland, French speaking bit), Kia (Iran, as you know), Ying (China), Jan and me) went to the pool hall called The Church. It's called The Church because it used to be a church, so we all joked, of course, about going to church. We played darts and pool for the night, and had entirely too much fun. As usual.

I got home just about the time Janos arrived from his salsa night, and he wanted to work on a few moves, so we danced in his living room for a while. I think I miss this most about living with dancers, the late night/early morning "There's a move I want to try" moments. :-)

Today Janos and I went to the market and then I checked out the apartment, and life is good. For now, I'm going outside to play. It's entirely too beautiful to be indoors. Tomorrow, if the weather holds, which I hereby command that it do (does?) a bunch of us are going to take a bike ride to the sea! :-) I know, going to the beach in February in Northern Europe leaves something to be desired, but with the right combination of people (and I do believe we'll have that) and the variety of cafes and pancake houses in Katwijk, I think it will be a grand old time.

Dear Sun, Please shine on!