Hotel Singel and Vinyl Extraordinaire

I was pretty sick on the last days before the weekend, but for some miraculous reason I felt better by Friday evening. Beats me.

Since Rolf was going to Copenhagen to celebrate his birthday I invited my sister Anna and her friend Marit to stay in our apartment during the weekend. Also our friend Arpi is visiting this weekend with a friend, so with Anna and Marit at Hotel Singel, they could borrow their rooms.


This morning we got up late. After an hour or so of relaxation and morning small talk, we went to a little place in Jordaan where they have amazing sandwiches. We all ordered the Italiana with pesto, mozarella, olives, tomato and parma ham.

After this delicious meal we went to a market in the northern part of Jordaan. Last week I was there with Rolf and bought some stickers and vinyl. I was hoping to find some more golden tunes today - and boy did I! Here are some of the catches.

"I-sajd-hip-hop-and-you-don't-stop - be-atch"

Volvo just launched their new Volvo C30. Togeter with it they launched this site, where you can play some games and hear what comments people had about the car when they were spontaneously introduced to it.

My favorite game or function is the one where you can write a text and then a giant mouth in the trunk of the car reads it out loud in for example Swedish, Japanese, German, English, Spanish or Greek. Great way to have a conversation if you're not allowed to talk.

And to say a few words about what's going on with me, I'm sick. Hard cold or flu. I can't really decide. The timing is not very good since we're hosting a couple of workshops this week. Yesterday we celebrated that one of the teams at our company won the contract to develop a daring and new site for a Dutch newspaper addressing mainly people between 25 and 35. Champagne tastes nice even when your nose is stuffed.

Family visit and a fantastic store

This weekend my parents and youngest sister, Lotte, came to visit. The days were spent eating out, going to museums, shopping and general enjoyment of Amsterdam.

Planning the weekend
Lotte spent so much at American Apparel that she got two sports bags for free
Lotte and El Papa
While looking for the shoe store Patta

The shopping part of the weekend gives me a good opportunity to tell you about a very cool little shop and factory - Universe on a T-shirt. They make all their stuff in the store, and you can get it customized as well. It's no pull-back either that they make sure that their gear is produced environmentally sane and under good worker conditions.

Me outside the shop
Lottes new hoodie in production
The family went bananas and bought eight items or something