(now playing: coldplay - everything's not lost)
I have to admit, from the six-and-a-half years I spent in Holland, the moments where i was at the lowest, stuck-in-a-rut type of moment, were those that really stick in my head. (note: i believe there's a research saying that negative memories last longer in your brain)
And true, only at these moments we found out who our true friends are, i dont have to mention it here, you know who you are :)
but this post is not frienship-related, coz nia and neysa have pretty much summed everything there is about friendship. this is about telling a story.
chapter 1 - utrecht
background song: beck - lost cause
i lived in utrecht for a while, about 6 months, for an internship. it was between february until august/september 2005.
it was quite a gamble. I had to manage to survive the 6 months with the little money I had left in my savings account. I realized that moving away from amsterdam meant that i might not get part-time jobs as easy as the sin city, and having to work office hours also laid another obstacle in finding a matching work schedule.
however i found an affordable room in the middle of the city, cutting my transportation cost because after that I walked to office and home every single day. It wasn't that far, about 30 minutes walk.
i did my internship in an NGO called the AEC - Association for European Conservatory (music schools), my boss was Martin Prchal (he's a Czech), a very nice man. He offered to pay my rent as an exchange for my salary.
So rent was taken care of, there was still the issue of food :p
i still got overwhelmed whenver i think of it. I always felt thankful to God that I'm still alive and well until now.
to sum it up most of my diet during that time consisted of bread.
i took home leftover breads from meetings (better than had it thrown away), put it in the fridge, and ate it sparingly.
in the office i would rely on chewing sugar cubes, drinking up coffee (up to 6 to 7 cups a day), and yoghurt. why those 3? ahum because those are office supply :p plus coffee covered up the hunger.
the office building was also rented by other companies, and coffee and such, including bread for meetings, were accommodated by the building owner :p
i didn't do much groceries. only for bare necessities (such as food when there wasnt much office meetings :p), and at that time shampoo wasnt one. i used the liquid dish detergent at the kitchen to wash my hair. dont really remember about soap, probably i also used the detergent as well :p
ah my room. it was actually very small. a cramped 2 x 3 living hole. or mouse hole as elvin called it :) it only has a study desk and a bed frame.
the homeowner somehow 'forgot' to tell me that mattress was not included, so at the first months I slept on the wooden panels of the bed. it was not until elvin showed up and told me that i actually could use some of my clothing, blankets, sheets and all sorts to make it more bearable. she also brought me an extra blanket.
(Now playing: Gorillaz - don't get lost in heaven)
through a friend of mine I found a part-time job in the kitchen of an Indonesian food take-away shop. it was tough. i remembered that on the first day I had to peel one big sack of onions, i had cut marks all-over my fingers -_- i think i only worked there twice, i guess the owner didnt see my potential. but i knew that that friend of mine worked longer there. and she survived. my respect for her went tripled.
(Now playing: the killers - all these things I've done)
so what did i do on the weekends? relatively nothing :p i stayed home, hallelujah for unlimited internet! downloaded games, movies not so much because at that time I only knew very little about torrents.
too bad i couldnt remember how much money i had on my bank account. or how much I had left when I went back to amsterdam (I think I only had just enough to get my a$$ back there)..
one year later i read on the newspaper that my homeowner in utrecht had troubles with the police for illegaly renting out rooms. So the lady had a couple of houses which rooms she rented out, but in holland you cant just rent away your houses/rooms, its more complicated..tax & permit related. the newspaper also cited the police who said that some of the rooms were 'inappropriate to live in'. lolz.
to be continued...
(typed from a wordpad then sent it via my blackberry. Sorry for the spelling errors :p)
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