IT IS HOT STOP CLIMATE CHANGE NOW. I don’t think I’ve seen hotter days this year than week 36. Getting out of a hot shower and feeling equally wet fifteen minutes later. Lemonade barely wanting to walk outside. The sun beaming so feriously we can’t keep the windows open. Thank you, Jesus, but please make it cooler. There’s something sweet about seeing Amsterdam through the eyes of friends from abroad. (Continue)

Met Tim Bleeker at Somerlust Park on Tuesday, a get-together that started as “chilling in the park”, and which turned into grabbing a drink at l’Osteria. The venue is not one I can recommend. When requesting a bigger table because more people would be coming, the waiter scoffed at us. Then he closed the red velvet roped entrance. Later, his colleague told me people often just barge into the venue, ignoring waiters' requests. (Continue)

The first week back at work is fairly quiet, I even found myself on the verge of boredom at one point. Organically, this makes me feel bad, but I remind myself that weeks before and after holidays tend to have this effect on my life. I tell myself I’m just landing. No one can convince me the municipality of Amsterdam isn’t using major construction projects to show tourists how crap the city can be. (Continue)

This week, I attended my first Gerimedica party. It’s great to know I can expect a big celebration every year, and not just for the company’s sweet sixteen. It confirmed what I already know: great vibe, great taste, great people. I went to Bar Bario on Saturday for a meet-up called Hair Haven, which fosters connection between people with curly hair. Again, I was struck by how welcoming the space is. (Continue)

Two months of onboarding have rushed by in a blink. The new job is absolutely wonderful: the people are great, the work is complex and important, and the office itself is perhaps the finest I’ve ever worked at. I joined this company because the challenges they have seemed interesting to me. I’m very pleased that, two months in, it’s difficult to think that, at one point in time, these challenges weren’t also mine. (Continue)

I got to meet one of my Internet heroes this week: Patrick Rhone and his family were on a Europe trip, and I was lucky enough to catch the planning stage on his blog right in time to extend an invitation. We spent a rainy Monday evening in de Jordaan at Cafe de Tuin, talking ye olde Internet productivity culture, the arts, politics, hopes and dreams, and how his teenage daughter apparently woke up one night singing “raise a glass to freedom”. (Continue)

It snowed a few times this week and I was as baffled as I always am to see it happening in March. I don’t have a great understanding of what the weather’s supposed to do in a given period of the year. After two weeks of cocooning, we’ve finally been taking Lemonade out to various places. I aim to take her out at least once a day, usually to the park or a walk around the block. (Continue)