Hollandse Gezelligheid [Dutch Pleasantness]

I have been invited by Kimm to come over and spent Queensday at the usual spots, Vondelpark and Cafe The Soundgarden but it would've been a last minute [therefore an expensive] decision. I wasn't really willing to pay a hundred pounds just to fly over to NL for one day... So to all the Dutch: Happy Queensday! Hope you had a good time and a nice day off and no headache tomorrow morning!

I feel a bit drained today since yesterday was way too 'gezellig' [=Dutch for pleasant]. I don't really have a hangover it's just that I feel like having cotton balls for brains and I can't seem to concentrate on work. I was invited for lunch by Maurice; I would deliver the wine and he would prepare lunch. I bought a bottle of Rosé and A. kindly offered a box of death which contains another 3 litres of either red or white wine, in this case it was a white Chardonnay. I was on Maurice his door step at 13.15 sharp, with the wine and a gift: some Indonesian Boemboe pastes so he could prepare his partner a nice Indonesian dinner some time.

We sat in the garden all day, the weather was nice, not too hot, perfect! I introduced myself to their cat, letting it sniff my hand first and when I tried to stroke her, she started hissing and hit me with her paw [she didn't use her nails, lucky me]. After that little introduction, Maurice told me the cat freaks out at times, growls at people, attacks them, hissing, biting and clawing. I said to him that by the end of the day she would pick up my vibes and come to me.

I ignored her all day and only gave her attention when she asked for it [eye contact and talking to her] and by the end of the day she approached me several times and rubbed against my chair with the back of her head and the rest of her body. Maurice was surprised to see this, he said it normally takes up to a year... I have done this before with cats of friends and it always works, they are drawn to me somehow and behave in a different unusual way; they would come and sit next to me instead of hiding, let me stroke them instead of clawing etc. As long as I respect their territory things are fine.

I had such a good time the day was over too soon, I stayed till after midnight and I had way too much to drink... The bottle was finished in two hours [just the two of us] and since we've been chatting so much we had 'lunch' in the afternoon, around 16.30 instead of 14.00. Maurice had prepared a really nice paella, delicious. By the time we had our lunch the weight of the box of death was already starting to slightly decrease. Around 22.00 Warren came home and introduced himself. The three of us were chatting in the kitchen and having a great time. Then just before 01.00 A. called me to tell me that he couldn't sleep when I wasn't there (...)

He asked me if I wanted him to come and pick me up. None of us was really tired and we were in a deep conversation but since Maurice had to work today it would be a clever idea to head home and let him catch some sleep, even though he didn't want to. So I asked A. to come and collect me. I had a great day and we will probably meet up again soon. It was good to be able to speak Dutch all day long; even though A. and I tend to mix the languages, most of the time it's English. [A. is very good at speaking Dutch, just not when we argue]. I was also happy that I didn't have to carry the heavy box of death again: I reckon it only contained about a litre when I left.

So today I'm experiencing a bit of a fried brain, I wanted to sleep in but my cell phone kept beeping every ten minutes, when I no longer could stand the annoying beep and finally got up, I found it was a message from Maurice, telling me how crappy he felt at work after saying, 'thank you for bringing the lovely wine' first... *lmao*