Updates

Hello, all,

I am very remiss, I know! It's been a long time since the last blog. (This sounds too much like, "Forgive me, Father . . . . It's been ___ days since my last confession.")

This working full-time affair is utterly consuming, too much work, too little free time, but very educational, pays the bills and helps my Dutch a LOT. While I'm in no way a workaholic, I am prone to working far too hard, and I have been doing that.

The entity is one of London's largest law firms, with about 40 offices world-wide. The Amsterdam office is growing very quickly, and I've decided that what's been eating me up, in addition to just having a full-time job again, are the office's growing pains.

In order to arrive in Amsterdam-South (a train station) and Amsterdam's "World Trade Center", I have to be out the door at 08:00. These days, that means leaving home in near-darkness, and after this Sunday, 08:00 will 07:00, so it will be pitch-darkness when I arrive at work! We will have about 7.5 hours of light a day. It was hard last winter, and it will be harder now, I think, since I'll be in the office as it goes dark.

I don't have the sense of being in Amsterdam when I'm at work. We're in a glass building that's about 26 stories high, barely inside the "ring road" that takes people south from Amsterdam. We're about 15 minutes south (by tram) from the real center.

(Pause, to collect a "stroopwafel" from the kitchen.) A stroopwafel (literally, a syrup wafel) is a national treat here. It's made of a sandwich of two thin (but sturdy) wafers that have been pressed to look like wafels. The filling (the best, anyway) is a sweet, thick syrup. They're also made with honey, but the syrup ones are the best. I've exported these to London and to Savannah, Georgia.

So, work has gobbled me up. And I have a romance. I tried for a long time while still in the States to meet men via match.com. This came to a big, fat nothing. I started afresh here, and the frogs appeared! One frog came from the north of England, was obsessed with field hockey, and in person had almost nothing but warts (internally, anyway). Non-prince #2 was also English, but has lived his adult life in Scotland, near Edinburgh. His warts took longer to appear. Mind you, this is after very careful screening on my part! Having visited N-P2 in Scotland and being wowed with Scotland, I kept looking for princes in Scotland, and I found one. He's very Scottish, wears his kilt* and kit to formal events, doesn't seem to mind my incessant requests for repeating his utterances in our native language, and is, in short, wonderful.

We just had a lovely long holiday together here, training around Holland and seeing things I hadn't had the time to see before. He's an adult and we get on very easily. I don't seem capable of working at relationships any more, so it's lovely not to have to.

In the course of the match.com process, one meets people who probably aren't the ONE, but who are excellent people, and I've got a couple of those, too: one, a Scot here in Leiden (whose American ladyfriend moved here) and the other, a charming, very funny, beautifully-spoken Englishman who flies all over advising governments on their economic programs. He once worked on Dutch drainage issues, and I always think of him when I see boggy areas (sorry, Tim!).

Despite all of the options for screening and being descriptive that match.com offers, many men don't say much, or are incapable of saying much, so when I found articulate, bright, interesting people, it was a joy just to talk to them (via Skype or msn.messenger), whether romance blossomed or not. I did enjoy the process, but I'm so enjoying being OUT of that process.

If you're wondering why I keep changing colors in this blog, it's a silly effort to put all the colors of my friend's tartan in this note. His tartan is lovely -- shades of blue with a strand of yellow and green. In case you're wondering, it's the Douglas tartan.

So, there are lots more bits and pieces that have dangled since the last blog, but they'll wait a bit longer. It seemed the time to mention Mr. Douglas.

Until very soon,
Pamela

* And yes, all those rumors are correct: Scots do not wear undies under their kilts!