Rotterdam Routine

May 31, 2002
Parmentierplein 1
Rotterdam, 3088 GN
Netherlands
10:20 pm
From her to him

Hi, drei! Here's my 'detailed' letter. Finally.
Well, to tell you honestly, I've been putting off writing to you because I know it will just make me miss you more. And that I really don't have much to say, except that I miss you. (If I keep on talking now, I'd only start repeating myself.. and all I can say is I miss you, I miss you,...) Haaaay. I was hoping, actually I was expecting, to have an MSN messenger installed here but no such luck. We're using 'dump' terminals, and so it's not possible because of some firewall. What that means, I have no idea.

Tigger is doing OK. If you call being shabby OK. If he had any eyes, they would have dropped out already and if he had any hair, most of them would have been loved off. I'm sure that would have been your case, too, had you come with me. Well, I wouldn't have exactly 'loved' off your ensaymada hair, but you get the picture.

We're doing pretty OK here (save for the fact, of course, that I'm dying of homesickness and that my feet are all sore because of wearing shoes everyday. Real, closed-toe shoes, mind you! And with socks, too. Makes me yearn for my personal foot masseur). Like I said in my Keep-Frank-Updated emails, we're adjusting well with the weather and the very late sunset. When we first got here, I took a nap in the afternoon and I woke up at around 930pm and the sun was still shining! I woke the guys up, hysterically informing them that there was some kind of an eclipse. Nobody warned us of this ‘phenomenon’ so we didn't believe it until it happened again the next day.

It's becoming a routine, too, for me. Wake up at 6am. Get up at 630. Try to have a decent shower (temp. at 10° - the house does have a heater but we can't use it much. The downstairs neighbor complained during our first few nights because of the noise of the broiler. We never understood what he was trying to say but two things were clear - noise and heater. So we just turned off our heaters in fear of him calling the authorities to report annoying Filipinos). Dress up at around 7. If you call putting on layers and layers of clothes dressing up. Breakfast at 715. Breakfast usually consists of Botterhamworst sandwich (botterhamworst -cold cuts variety as thin as you can imagine) with lettuce and smelly cheese, and kuya Philip's special coffee (he's always the first to get up so he makes coffee for us). Morning chitchat while having breakfast. TV tuned in to Hallmark or Discovery channel (two of the very few English networks available. Imagine Nickelodeon in Dutch!) Stephan (some cute Dutch guy from the office) picks us up at around 830am. Either that or we get up a little earlier and take the bus-train-bus route to the office. I believe I told you about the incident the other day when I lost them (or they lost me, whichever). After our bus ride#1, I boarded the train, expecting them to be right behind me (you know how fast I walk). When I discovered that they weren't in there with me, the train (similar to our MRT) was already moving. Then panic set in. Where do I get off? Where is the connecting train located? And when I did find the connecting train, I also had no idea where to get off again and which bus to take after. I don't know how I did it but I got to the office all right. Kuya Dar and Kuya Flip called from somewhere frantic with worry, thinking that I was kidnapped by some pedophile (talk about real worrywarts). I gave them a good scare. hehe. Serves them right. They've been ignoring me since we got here because of all the blondes and redheads around. Anyway, on to my routine..
Work until 1230 and then lunch (lunch for me usually consisting of rock-hard bread, tomato soup (brings back galera memories), more cold cuts and smelly cheese, orange juice and kiwi fruit) Very healthy stuff. (Which reminds me, please tell kuya Jerry to start saving up for my Saisaki eat-all-you-can. He promised to treat me there if I lose at least 10lbs. Tell him I'm losing pounds by the gallon here.) Work till 5pm and then go home. Sometimes we go to the City Central to look around and do our groceries. Establishments here close at 6pm, some even at 5! So we pretty much don't have anything to do but to go home early everyday. Dinner at around 7-8pm. Much the same as our morning rituals. TV tuned in to Hallmark or Discovery channel. (But we got lucky the other day and found Ally McBeal speaking straight English!) The 'white nights' give us the illusion that it's still early so we sleep rather late everyday. Then I cuddle up with Tigger (pretending that I'm hugging my favorite guy. Not much of a difference, really; same smell and nothing much to hug. hehe) while reading Sheldon or Mr. Oxford to make me sleepy.
Well, that pretty much sums up my usual day here in Rotterdam. Almost 7 days down. 22 days to go. Sigh.
Tomorrow we are meeting Guido in Antwerp and then he'll be driving us to Paris. I never dreamed I'd be going to Paris. Well, maybe I dreamed about it once or twice but I never really imagined that I'd actually be going there. We'll just have a look around, take some pictures, have a cup of coffee or two, maybe buy some souvenirs and then drive back home. On Sunday, we'll go to mass (we found this charming old church just around the block) even if we won't understand a word of it, then maybe shop some more in the very few shops open on Sundays.

After work today, Stephan is bringing us to the old windmills site. The windmills there, he says, are the original windmills of the 16th century and are really powered by the wind.

This is it for now. Ang haba na pala. Sabi ko I don't have much to say a. You really have a way of getting me to talk. Tsk tsk.

I hope you enjoy your Subic and EK weekends. Tell me all about it in your good morning emails, ok?
Give my love to my gels and momi.

Gen