Monday = less tourists : )

I really like Mondays here... it's quieter and much easier to walk around at night. There aren't the hordes of tourists that invade the city starting about Thursday night every week. On Mondays, no one is yelling, singing, etc. at the top of their lungs outside my window, less cabs come through honking at the oblivious tourists... it's just so much more peaceful. I went to the gym tonight and barely had to dodge any people... so nice!

After being so light on work last week, today I finally got the data in for a huge Amsterdam project I was assigned to... figures! We had requested the information from the client back in early January. At that time, I was told it was a "rush" project and I had to "drop everything" to work on it. I looked through the data today and all the descriptions/legends are in Dutch (not a big surprise), but no one seems to be able to tell me what I'm actually looking at (or more likely, wants to take the time to tell me). Great... I tried popping words into an online translator, but that is even more confusing because it does a literal translation... which is actually pretty funny sometimes (an example: the word for gender translates to either "family" or if the word Partner is after it, it translates to "slaughtered" for some reason. So instead of "gender of the partner/spouse", I get "slaughtered partner" from the translator). I'll be so glad to get back into the English speaking world again! : )

I am REALLY looking forward to coming home... normal food, regular television, people who speak English (for the most part anyway), getting to see Matt : ) and my family and friends again, so many reasons! One thing I am NOT looking forward to is the weather. I looked up what the weather is in Chicago compared to here... it's so cold!!! And the forecast doesn't even factor in the windchill! : (


Although it rains almost every day here, at least it's warmer. I was hoping Chicago would warm up before I had to come back... no such luck, I guess.