A new year, a new job

The start of the new year meant that it was time to get back to work for me. I have now lost my daily freedom of waking up at 10am and doing whatever I felt like and replaced it with days in an office sitting behind a computer.

I've been waiting for this transition for sometime now and I'm very happy to be back at work but I do miss being out and around when the weather is lovely like today.

Luckily my office is on the 28th floor so I have a great view of Melbourne and if I ever feel stuck inside I just need to look over my monitors or else grab a coffee from one of the nearby coffee places.

Last weekend

Last weekend turned out to be a very interesting one. On Friday we had a work event in which we did a libdup video of the song Don't Stop Me Now by Queen. A libdup video is a video in which you lip sync to the music and then dubbing it over the original song. We were around 40 of us and we all had a short part of the song to sing and act. We were outdoors in Rotterdam acting like fools with all kinds of props. Many random people kept asking us what show we were preparing! After a few trials we did the final trial from start to end and the video was filmed. The video is very funny but it looked very professional. The evening didn't stop there and we continued with dinner and some dancing till the early hours of the morning.

With some of my colleagues

Sunday was a lovely warm sunny day and we didn't have any plans. Until my fiancee decided that we should take a trip to Antwerp and buy our wedding rings. I liked the idea, firstly for a woman it's very hard to reject an offer of buying jewelry and secondly because I knew that I would enjoy spending a few hours basking in the sun at some Belgian cafe. The day turned out to be success. The rings were ordered (eek!) and the sun kept shining all day long.

Enjoying the typical mussels in Antwerp

The week continued on a good note - my sister in-law gave birth to a lovely baby boy. We now have a little one in the Dutch side of the family which will surely change the dynamics of the family.

Autumn colours

Looking forward to see if this weekend has the same amount of nice and fun activities, but I doubt I will be getting any more jewelry or additional family members!!

Business travelling - the truth

This year I have a lot of travelling to do. In a way I love it and at the same time I get a bit exhausted when I have trips right after the other. Not all trips are for fun, a good number this year are for work. It's exciting to go to new countries, get to meet new people and at times feel important and needed. However the reality is that in most of these occasions I don't visit new countries, the people I meet are not very interested to socialise and I'm stuck having dinners by myself. To top it all off I have to spend a week in a tiny hotel room away from my loved one. And many times instead of feeling important you feel stressed and overwhelmed by the amount of work you have.

All this sounds very negative but somehow I still love the work travel. I have learned a long time ago not to feel shy of going to a restaurant by myself. Moving to 2 different countries on my own might have something to do with it. I'm a food lover and usually I focus on that. Also I really do feeling like a proper business woman, dressed in a suit and required to travel across countries because my work is needed elsewhere. The good thing of visiting the same place multiple times is that you can meet up friends on a regular basis on the bosses' expense. You can also get to know the city and know where you should hang out and possibly manage to slip in a few hours shopping - a task which always brightens up my day!

And all this makes me feel lucky that I managed so much in my life, mostly because my parents were always reminding me how important proper education is and that if I wanted something in life I should work hard to obtain it.

The office

This weekend my work's offices were moved across the city of Rotterdam. On Friday the office looked very different than usual. Certain rooms were being dismantled and every room was full of boxes. Even the air felt different; maybe it had something to do with the blaring music we had on all day long! The office was located on the 23^rd floor with an impressive view of the city. I could see the high buildings across the city, the Maas river as well as the Rotterdam harbour. Views from such locations always offer so much to see.

We're now moving to another high rise building just a kilometer away. I'm looking forward to having yet another perspective of this city.

Car Pooling

Since a few weeks ago I started car pooling with my boyfriend. Up till now we never worked in the same city, thus car pooling was never an option but now we can work just a few buildings apart.

My daily routine needed adjusting and only after a few days did I notice that I was the only one awake in the car on the journey to work in the morning.

Apart from the fuel saving costs this new routine has other benefits. I get to spend more time with my boyfriend - during the week such extra time is precious! and since we arrive home at the same time the cooking chores are also shared - I love cooking but don't mind not having to cook every day. I also get to drive a car which is more comfortable to drive and so much more powerful than my car.

[Image Credits: Kathy Greenly @ Pinterest]

An unexpected afternoon off

This weekend started a bit earlier than usual so I decided to cycle to the beach. I couldn't just stay at home and melt. The apartment is not made to handle such warm weather.

 While at the beach I noticed that the world keeps going on when I'm usually still stuck at work.  The beach was full of young kids playing in the sand, parents and elderly people soaking in the unusual summer warmth. I never expected that so many people don't work on a Friday afternoon. I was a bit jealous to say the truth. I cannot have a free afternoon every week but most of these people most probably have a regular day off each week (which is so very common in this country).

From now on when I'm at work till late on a nice sunny day I will be wishing to be one of those people that have free afternoons!

[Image Credits: The Age]

Who am I, what am I doing here?

Welcome to my blog!

After years of regularly details about my daily life on an online journal I decided to create another blog. This blog will contain posts about random information mostly related to my life, topics which you might or might not like.

I’m a 29 year old Maltese girl, who has moved from the lovely island of Malta to live in the Netherlands. Previously I had also lived for some time in Munich Germany but decided that even though I loved the scenery in Germany, the lowlands had something better to offer.

Having lived in Amsterdam for 4 years I got used to the international community and love the fact that it so easy to make friends. Last year I moved to Den Haag (The Hague) with my boyfriend and finally I’m back close to the sea. I had missed the sea (and the warm weather), now I’m just a bike ride away from kilometres long beaches. Just looking at the sunsets one will definitely feel happiness.



For a living I click-click-click with a mouse and tap the keys on the keyboard all day long. I’m a techie at heart, although I'm not the traditional geek; the ones with glasses, crazy hair who are never more than 2 metres away from their computer. Like a traditional geek I do wear glasses, but only when my clothes/shoes/bag matches with the frame; I also have crazy hair but mostly only right after I wake up; and also am never away from my computer, but that's due to the fact that our apartment is not that big!