April 6, 2012
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Maastricht, Netherlands
One thing that I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post is that I finally got around replacing the light bulb that was still suspended from the ceiling on an electricity cable with a real lamp worthy of the living room (even if that living room is actually also my bedroom, kitchen and laundry room at the same time.) I bought the lamp at a nicely discounted price at Bijenkorf in the morning and hung it up in the afternoon. One of the advantages of being a qualified physics teacher is that I’m not too afraid of working on electrical things – so all went well, there was no blackout in the city of Amsterdam due to me creating a shortcut or anything like that.
Back to today. I’ll be spending the Easter weekend in Limburg with my parents and this morning I took the train down to Limburg, also taking my bike with me. I’d bought my parents some Easter chocolates as well as a nice bouquet of spring-like flowers. Speaking of Easter eggs, I have not eaten a single Easter egg yet this year. Andy and Colin gave me some delicious Lindt Easter chocolates when I was in Glasgow in February, and admittedly they were too irresistible to leave them in my cupboard as decoration, so I did eat those – with much greater moderation that normal – but I’ve not eaten any of the dozens of Easter eggs that are in a couple of locations in the office. Nor did I eat the chocolate Easter bunny that was left on my desk (I gave it to Ana, for her son) and that is a huge contrast with previous years, when the pre-Easter weeks were completely chocolate fuelled. And you know what? I don’t miss it it all!
For this weekend, however, I decided to let go of my low-carb diet and just eat ‘normally’. So I did eat the bread that was on the table during lunch time and for the evening meal, even though I’ve not eaten bread for weeks now, and of course it tasted great, especially because it was home made. I was actually a bit curious if my family would notice that I had lost more than 11 kilograms already since they last saw me on 15 January. My mother didn’t say anything during lunch time, but in the early evening she remarked that I looked thinner, and that my ‘tummy’ was disappearing. Great – it’s noticeable! In the evening, when we went to my sister Joyce’s place, I also didn’t stick to any diet – and it was fine. Earlier in the week I had been wondering if I’d been losing weight to quickly, so it will be interesting to see how my body reacts to two days of carb-rich diet.
In the afternoon I went to Maastricht by train (the sky looked too threatening to risk riding my bike there) and had a nice time walking through that wonderful time. To be honest, I don’t see myself returning to Limburg anytime soon, contrary to my statement when I left my home province nearly 20 years ago and expected to be back before the turn of the century, but should I ever return, then Maastricht would most likely be the destination. I love the place. At the Graus photography shop I looked for the new Nikon D800 camera, but unfortunately it was not in stock. Too bad because it seems to be a fantastic new Nikon camera. If my apartment wouldn’t have cost me an arm and a leg, I’m pretty sure I would have bought one, because my old D200 (nearly 6 years old) is clearly not in good shape anymore and certainly hasn’t kept up with the fast moving times of digital SLR photography. The picture above (taken with my compact Nikon) is of the wonderful Selexyz Dominikanen bookshop in Maastricht. It was chosen as the world’s best bookshop by the British Guardian newspaper a couple of years ago. I’m not sure if that’s justified (Waterstone’s Piccadilly flagship store springs to mind) but it is a wonderful shop indeed. I love it!