I "own" Blaak. Antique shopping in Delft. And someone has a new bicycle.

Last weekend, Rik and I decided to be productive and proactive about the wedding, so we headed to Delft to see if the antique shops and market had anything we could use.

But first, let me show off my larger-than-life designs currently gracing the city centre of Rotterdam (Blaak).

Yes, that's right, I designed these huge wall stickers for Oude Haven (the yellow bit) and CitizenM hotels (the black bit which is cut off). Following their respective house styles, of course, but most of the time was spent searching for appropriate images and technical bits like measurements and cutting off and joining the images and text at the right spots.

And now we return from the promotional break...

Do you see my brand new bright yellow New Balances? A month ago I had zero sports shoes, and now two New Balances have popped up in my shoe cupboard. Life always works that way, doesn't it?

I love all the green on the surface of the canals in Delft.

Soooooo Dutch. Definitely not for the locals.

I love these colours!

Just a random picture Rik felt like taking, I guess.

And Rik's new bike! Some of you who know us on Facebook will have seen this already. It's a chrome/champagne Sparta and it looks super hip and cool (more so without the bike bag). Rik's trusty old crappy orange bike had been involved in one too many accidents and was pretty much beyond repair. At least it would have cost almost the same amount of money to fix as to buy a new one.

Maybe you're wondering, did we manage to find anything good in Delft? Well, we did! We walked into a small antique shop (no pics of it) and tried to haggle the price of copper spoon box down, but we only got € 2,50 off. We wanted to use it for the rings in the church, and € 20 was over my budget for such an item, but I figured, it's not easy to come by these things, so what the heck. No pics though, let's save it for the big day :)

Bagels n Beans, Rod Stewart, Indonesian food, V&D retail therapy and my BSN!

A few days ago, Schrobbenmaster and I went to Bagels n Beans just around the corner from our place. I love the place because they have an awesome Tuna Melt & Cheese bagel, plus they're the only place I know which serves mochaccino.

That lady sitting at the next table looked SO MUCH like Rod Stewart from the front angle and with her sunnies on. Omg, seriously, she really did. Think she might be on the homo side, wearing those sort of sunnies (sorry no clearer pic of the rockstar sunnies).

Just surreptitiously snuck a snapshot of the people on my left. The lady is British and she spent most of the time complaining about her life and work to the Dutch guy. Refreshing to hear English spoken by a native English speaker though.

Before our bagel and coffee, we actually went into a shop a few doors away to see if they had any nice big mirrors for the bedroom (for me). Saw this quite nice and affordable one. But it's not the best quality, so we decided to wait and see what good quality mirrors cost first.

And just some scenery from the Hoogstraat (High Street).

I decided to start a Bicycle Chronicles. It won't be as funny as my Motorcycle Chronicles was, but oh well, you take what you can get.

Looks like a secret romance!

Anyway, yesterday I was really craving some retail therapy, so I walked to the V&D (department store) to see what I could find. Found out the Prijzencircus (a really big sale) had started, so I buzzed around some of the clothes.

Tried on a couple dresses, an office skirt and a few blazers. I dunno why I tried the skirt, since I never wear officey stuff. I guess just wanted to see how good I look in a pencil skirt.

I ended up buying just that striped dress. It originally cost €81. Gawd, how can people sell simple jersey dresses for that price! That is really ridiculous. It had been reduced several times and I bought it in the end for €15. Good value, eh?!

I couldn't help camwhoring in the paskamer (changing room).

I went home happily with the dress and a summer blazer from H&M.

Later in the evening, I met Schrobbenmaster at the train station to walk nearby to the Indonesian restaurant for takeaway. It's such a hassle ordering Indonesian food here, seriously.

You know how in the warungs, you just get a plate of rice, then pick whatever you like? Over here they have a menu for you to choose from, if you want separate dishes, or if you want a "Mixed Plate". In this shop, they had a Mixed Plate of two meat and two veg. I ended up choosing that because the price of the single meat and single veg was really high.

The Mixed Plate was €10,75, whereas a single meat dish would be around €5 and a plate of white rice is €3.25. So which is more value? :D

I think we took around 10 minutes to even decide what we wanted. I miss those days of just getting a plate of rice from the pakcik (who always overserves the rice like it doesn't cost €3,25... wait, no, it DOESN'T cost €3.25, hmph) and then just choosing 3 dishes and him saying it costs RM5. And it tastes much better too.

My Mixed Plate of Daging Smoor, Ajam Pedis, long beans and tofu. The telor was complimentary. I love complimentary things!

When we got home, we also got a nice surprise in the mailbox.

My Burgerservicenummer! The equivalent of the Malaysian IC number. So I'm very close to being a legal Dutch resident. Now at least I can open a bank account and have a PIN card to pay for stuff!

No more rookie tourist paying by cash, no no.