The Weekend

I am not really a big party animal, but this weekend was for me quite heavy. First on Friday a friend of mine came over, I cooked dinner (yes, a real dinner from a recipe!) and we went to a dancing-show. It was quite modern and frankly I am not that fond of modern dancing. I never go to any dancing shows, but if I had to I would prefer ballet or jazz dance. This was a bit too experimental for me, though for less than an hour it was doable. After that we went to my place and drank some wine and talked about life... Saturday during the day, not much to do. Just went out for some shopping, bought some new shoes and studied some more. In the evening went to see Troy. Well, what to say about it. According to my limited knowledge of Greek mythology it was more or less correct, except for some mistakes, but made on purpose for the storyline as I understood. The movie was entertaining, no doubt about that, but something was missing. No idea what it was, but the feeling I had when watching Ben Hur or Spartacus was more intense and more alive. The movie forces you to like the Troyans and dislike the Greeks, although the Troyan prince does the wrong thing. So seeing the movie and knowing the end, you will not get a happy end, which everyone would like to see. Good entertainment for 2.5 hours, but I have seen them better. After the movie I looked at my mobile and saw that a friend of mine from Nijmegen sent me an SMS, that she was coming to Groningen 1 day early and if I was going out at night. Since I had nothing planned, I looked forward to it, the only thing was that I could not reach her back as my mobile was disconnected from the server. Calling to the UK had cost me over 300€ and I couldn't pay that whole bill at once, so my provider cut me off: I could receive, but not send. So I went home to look for one of my old mobile, which should still have a pre-paid card in it. Luckily there was also still some money on it. So we agreed to meet at the centre square in the city. Around 12o'clock I was there, but she wasn't and as I couldn't reach her (she didn't pick up her phone), I sat for another half an hour. After that time I went into a bar to look for her, and of course I found her. She was with a group and just wanted to test one bar first, then call me and move to the next bar. The thing was we only left the bar when it closed at 2, so if she then would have called me, I would have been asleep already. We went from one bar to another, just to show her and her friends around in the very exciting nightlife of Groningen. We ended up in the Tapperij, which is a bar that is only fun after 3o'clock and when you are very drunk. Bringing in mind that I don't drink, you can image how thrilled I was to enter there. Lot's of very drunk people, throwing around with beer and singing very silly Dutch songs. Not my idea of a great evening, but ok. Around 5 we were still dancing when suddenly a friend of hers fainted right next to me. In your mind and in movies you are always fast enough to catch the lady, but I was way too late and within no time she was lying between movingfeets and spilled beer. We dragged her out and provided her with some water and salt. It appeared that she had a low blood pressure and that it happens more often. She sure scared the hell out of me though... It was an abrupt end of the evening. They came to Groningen to row on Sunday for some match and their first heat started at 11.30, so image the rowing speed the next day. The only problem was that I hadpromisedd to come and watch them, which meant that I had to get up at 10, take a shower, get on my racing bike, cycle 30min., arrive there already sweating and seeing them cross the finish line last in a time of 2.20min. Such a disappointment... I couldn't witness the next heat, as I had to return home for a dinner with my hockeyteam. We placed a bet though that they wouldn't reach the 2.15min time. The winners of their heat rowed a 2.11 time, so 2.15 was possible and they had done that before. Got an email in the evening: I can find us a fancy restaurant: they rowed 2.18...