My next big purchase is going to be a car. Will look into some car deals and see what the options are concerning relatively cheap new cars and payment plans.
Then I won't have to be so dependent on the irregular bus schedules and will be able to pick up Asnida at the airport on April 2 :-)

back in back

Small update time. After a week of taking pills I figured it was time to go see a chiropractor. Have been there twice so far, 3rd appointment on Thursday. The back is pretty much back to normal but still has the usual stiffness and slight soreness. My chiropractor says she wants to correct my posture now ha. Good luck with that seeing how I can't avoid sitting behind the computer a lot.

Steelers are going to play their 8th Superbowl on February 6 :-)
I'm trying to convince some colleagues to watch the game but the kick off time (11:30pm local time) might be a tough sell. Either way, I'll be watching and let's hope the Steelers get to 7th heaven!

Back pain...

I'm really getting old. Since early last week I developed a serious lower back pain/soreness which didn't want to heal. So I went to the hospital today and after being given a muscles relaxer shot in my ass they prescribed me 3 different meds and no sitting allowed the next few days.
No idea what caused the back pain. Maybe just old age, maybe my sister's bed, maybe too much sitting around, maybe too much sex (mat salleh! besar gajah!), maybe too much air travel crap. Either way I'm glad to finally have gone to the hospital. Pain killers are awesome!!!

air travel fun and X-mass break

I had already read the weather forecast for Funchal on December 17 predicting heavy thunderstorms and the NL weather forecast for extreme snowfall. To keep things short, I spent 12 hours at tiny Funchal airport before I could fly out to Lisbon. My original flight got cancelled after 4 hours so rebooked new flight which also got delayed but eventually did leave Funchal. Spent the short night in a hotel in Lisbon and early morning December 18 flew to A-dam where I arrived with a 18 hour delayed. Good thing my girlfriend's flight was not delayed and she was strolling through Schiphol airport for 5 or 6 hours window shopping waiting for me to finally arrive.

Fortunately the 2 weeks together were well worth the trouble. She had never seen snow and since a LOT of snow was falling in the NL the first week we walked around the first few days. Since she's not used to wearing (new) hiking shoes she got blisters on her ankles so we took it a bit easier.
We went to Thermae 2000 which was awesome since we could swim in the outdoor pool while the snow was falling on us. Well worth the money and due to the extreme winter weather it wasn't that crowded in the pools and the sauna.
Drove to Heerlen and Maastricht to show Asnida a bit of other Dutch cities (though all pale in comparison to A-dam) and we shopped a bit. Also visited the X-mass fun fare on the Vrijthof which wasn't as crowded as expected. On first X-mass day we went for a nice Greek dinner and on 2nd X-mass day Asnida met my grandmother as well as one of my uncles.
We went to visit some friends of mine last Wednesday which was a lot of fun. Throughout these last 2 weeks we watched a lot of movies, mostly DVDs but also went to see "Rapunzel/Tangled", "Burlesque" and the 3rd "Narnia" movie.
Many pics of our 2 weeks together can be found HERE.

And of course my travel back to Funchal also was done in dubious style. Since I had packed 2 suitcases I was expecting to pay some extra money for the excess baggage. What I wasn't counting on was that they decided that my carry on luggage was overweight and had to be checked in too. After paying 240 euro for excess baggage the only thing on me was my laptop. I had forgotten to take out my house keys and Portuguese cell phone from my original carry on luggage...
My flight from A-dam to Porto ended up having a 2 hour delay so since my connecting flight was only 55 min after the original landing time I assumed I missed it. Even checked with the flight crew on the first flight who said my connecting flight had left Porto. Imagine my surprise when I eventually found out that my connecting flight had a 2.5 hour delay and that I actually was on it haha.
When I got to Funchal airport it was a nice surprise to actually see all 3 baggage pieces made it too. Grabbed a cab from an insane cab driver who felt like he was racing in Formula 1. Eventually made it home around 5am local time, exhausted yet happy to have my own bed again.