Sickness and lights and trips, oh my!

It's been a fairly boring week, I'm sorry to say. I got really, really, sick last Sunday - we're talking delusion-inducing fever - which didn't really go away until Friday. As a result, I spent the better part of 5 days asleep or reading on the couch. Friday I was fortunately much much better and went in to Amsterdam to start my first day as a black market, illegal alien cleaning lady. Yes, I have moved to Europe to fulfill my dream of becoming an illegal migrant worker. Wowzers. After scrubbing out my friend Keith's place, I met with another former Genzyme colleague to discuss the details of cleaning her place. A second client already! Business is booming.

Yesterday, we tried to improve the lighting conditions in our apartment by replacing the ceiling bulbs with 100-watters. This was not our most brillant idea and we proceeded to blow the breakers. Ooops. We tried flipping the switches in the fuse box downstairs (by candlelight as my flashlight cut out about 2 minutes into our self-induced blackout) but to no avail. Unfortunately, we didn't think to unplug things before doing the breaker flipping, so of course they flipped right back. In the end, we were forced to call our landlord and throw ourselves upon his mercy. And now we're downgrading to 60 watters. I still think it's ridiculous to even put 40 watt bulbs in ceiling lights.

And finally, the only exciting news in this post is that my sister Kirsten and her fiance are coming to visit! They discovered Tom has some extra vacation days to use up quick and have decided to make use of the free accomodation, fine dining and tour guides at chez Stephanie & Rem's. So, for 11 days, we've got them at our mercy. Not only are we going to show them the sights here in the Netherlands, but we're going to take a quick jaunt down to Paris for three days and then spend a day in Antwerp on the way back. I've never been to Paris and now I'll be there on my birthday! How excellent is that?

Were a little chagrined to find out that buying international train tickets is rather complicated. There are about 6 different fee scales with varying degrees of ticket changeability and corresponding costs but there are only a certain number of the cheap seats on each train. We thought we had to book at least 3 weeks in advance to get the cheap seats. And that is, in fact, the rule. But saavy travellers have learned to book THREE MONTHS in advance in order to make certain they get cheap seats. All in all, we did okay, and the train tickets probably still cost us less than flying, but it was a lesson learned.