I was home around 22:00 o'clock from the German language course. Tonight we talked about a new grammar subject, the declination of Der-nouns.

It was a nice evening, but I was very tired today and my German was pretty bad tonight.

Petra and Raoul gave me a ride to Antwerp yesterday. We first picked up Barbara, and we saw their new house. Then we drove to Antwerp. The road was blocked near Breda, so it took longer than we expected but it was cosy in the car. We had lunch and coffee at McDonalds.

Around 15:30 o'clock we arrived in the hotel. The hotel had a remarkably bad parking place but the hotel itself was beautiful. After checking in we walked to the bar which we knew was somewhere near the Grote Markt. It took a while -- we got lost. The meeting place was The Pelgrom, a Middle Age-like decorated bar, in a cellar. It was very stylish, and lit only by candlelight. There was a separate room for Chess, and when we arrived most collegue's where there already. A lot of people brought their partner, so it was quite full; there were around 100 people.


There was of course a lot of nice beer. Erik and I tried "Poorterbier", in a stone bottle. We stayed a couple of hours there. It was great fun, both to drink beer with colleague's, and to meet many partners of colleague’s.

Dinner was in another location; we walked to there with the whole group. Again we had some difficulties making our way, but we found it soon enough. The place was called The Stage and it was close to the hotel where Sasha and I stayed in August.

The Stage is a combination of a restaurant and a theater. There was a life-show during the whole evening, with magicians, dancers, singers, all in beautiful costumes. It wasn't the best theater or restaurant ever, but I found it very entertaining and we had a lot of fun.



The program there was over around 1:00 o'clock, and with 15 people we went to a pub nearby. We talked, danced and drank beer.


I was sharing a room with Joris, a colleague, and after we got back in the hotel we chatted a while and went to bed around 4:30 o'clock.


This morning the alarm went at 10:15, to make sure that we wouldn't miss breakfast. A lot of coffee and a good, solid breakfast were quite welcome.


Gijs and Martha gave me a ride back to Haarlem (thanks!), I was home around 1:00 o'clock. In the afternoon I had a nap. I didn't do a lot more today, except for some reading and two homework assignments for tomorrow.

I'm going to Antwerp this weekend. We're going out with Chess, the company I work for.

Raoul and Petra will pick me up in a little while.

Dutch newspaper Trouw reported yesterday:

Speaking German is getting easier

The variation of 'accepted German language' is getting wider, said Prof. Dr. Eichinger, chairman of the Institute for German language. Spoken sentences that are strictly speaking grammatically incorrect, are getting used more often due to the influence of television.

Well, I suppose that's good news for me.

It was quite strange this morning to enter my work. The last year I've built up a certain routine: take the elevator to the second floor, get a cup of coffee there, and then the stairs to the third floor. Somehow I could never force myself in the mornings to take the stairs to the second floor -- that's bad, I know.

Since yesterday we're at the first floor, so I have to get used to a new routine. I got my coffee from the second floor again, even though there's a machine here as well. I like the coffee from the 2nd better.

In the morning I saw the Dutch news twice on the horrible bombings in Madrid. They made it sound like there was undeniable proof that Al-Queda is behind the attacks. CNN however, was much more careful drawing this conclusion. From their website:

A group saying it speaks for al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the Madrid train bombings in an e-mail to an Arabic-language newspaper in London.

However, intelligence officials have said the group does not speak for al Qaeda and has been unreliable in the past.

I was a bit annoyed that the Dutch news didn't make this distinction. A bomb attack is terrible, no matter who is behind it. Still it's important to know who did it, and to be careful in reporting about this.

We have moved to another floor. I am now at the first floor, on a really nice spot. I'm looking out over the Nieuwe Gracht, and over a bridge on the street that goes from the station to the Grote Markt.

I still feel a bit feverish, but not too bad.

Well, I don't feel extremely healthy yet, but the worst is over. At least my stomach doesn't hurt anymore, so I'll try and go to Chess today.

I'm a bit paranoid about my breakfast now -- I kind of suspect yesterday's morning-sandwich to be the cause of all this. I'm quite hungry, yesterday after lunch I didn't eat anything. As I don't have a lot of food in house, I'll go to the supermarket and pick up a sandwich there before I go to work.

This morning around 10.00 o'clock all of a sudden I felt dizzy, and my stomach started to be upset. The feeling wasn't very strong, so I went for lunch and had a few slices bread. But, at 15:30 o'clock I had to go home because I felt really bad.

It's really annoying, also because I don't know what caused it. I still feel crappy now, hopefully I'll be beter tomorrow because there is a sort of deadline.

I went to my second lesson of the German course tonight. Part of today's homework assignment was to write a letter of complaint to a travel organization. I spent quite some time on it this weekend and it was a great exercise. It had been many years since I wrote a German text!

I sent my homework assignment by e-mail yesterday, and in the morning I received the result by e-mail. There were still quite some mistakes in it, but it wasn't as bad as I had thought.

In the course tonight we spoke again about prepositions. First of all, you have to learn when to use which preposition (zu, in, nach, an...). Second, you have to find out which case should be used with the selected preposition. With some prepositions it's easy, for example zu and von always have the 3rd case, the Dativ.

However, the prepositions we looked at these lessons are a bit more complicated. They're called the Wechselpräpositionen. In general the rule is: Wo? implies Dativ, Wohin? implies Akkusativ, but there are some exceptions. The verb 'to float' (schweben), might feel like a Wohin?-type of verb, but it actually comes with the Dativ. That's language for you.

Tonight we did various exercises, and practiced conversation with the newly learned rules; it was a fun evening.

Today my uncle Peter celebrated his graduation; he now has a Master of Business Administration degree.

It was a cosy afternoon, and I saw a lot of family. There were a lot of nice things to eat. I was home around 19:00 o'clock.

See also these pictures.