Prompted by lucy's post earlier today. My turn to update!

We've been here for a month or so now. Last week saw my one month probation period end at work. I am now a full fledged game developy bumble bee (as according to lucy). This is a good thing(tm).

I'm currently developing levels for the killzone 2 online project. Thus far I have developed one level that has been approved and is currently undergoing full production. During the selection process for this level an argument occured between those present (minus myself) as they couldn't decide which of two level proposals was the better.

Ego boost much?

Thus I am happy with work. I feel the need to use the word 'hence' since It's been rolling around in my mind all day, hence I am writing this sentence - mission accomplished.

Today lucy and I agreed to move into a sharehaus (or shareflat) with two fellow designers from work, PJ and Steve. They are two rather quiet british lads. We'll be living about 20 minutes by tram from work and about 30 minutes from centraal (I know lucy has posted this already but this is my post - goddamnit!)

Moving on. This weekend we bought stuff! A few necessary odds and ends that people can't live without (speakers for my computer, a dvd writer, the complete scream series on dvd and world of warcraft game cards, and at lucy's request. pants)

Also this weekend we managed to get out of amsterdam by night, we journied towards Utrecht by train. We were actually heading to a club so I can't speak much about utrecht itself. On the way back we were accosted by several dutch youths. At one point I think I declared myself part of the dutch navy. The trick is to use as many australian words that nobody else knows the meaning of ('grouse' and 'schmick' are good weapons here) to confuse your enemy.

Yes. I will get you a sandwich.

In case people were wondering. I'm not foaming at the mouth or inhaled some strange dutch flora, i'm in a good moond! (deliberately mispelled as it sounds funnier).

Lucy and I are still unable to speak a word of dutch. Shame on us. No. Shame on you all for not teaching us dutch when it is obviously a dire essential for australian living. Something like that.

Thus ends my rant.

My affections to all those stuck in australia land where according to the dutch exists three things. Snakes. Spiders and Steve Irwin. Apparently he's not dead according to some dutch. Well, there you go. Send out the reconnaisance, he's doing a christopher skase on us!

Rant Over.

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Hi all!

Hope everyone is well and happy :D

The rainy season has started here which is fine for the likes of evyn and myself, although i feel i should have myself waterproofed! It's quite beautiful really. It only gets really cold at night at the moment, so we're grateful for the central heating... although where we are in the campus the heater makes a crazy banging sound at odd intervals for some reason... the joys of old buildings and new renovations i suppose!

One of the other joys of living in the old trade town is the mice! One or two have taken up residence under our kitchen ( there's quite a large gap) and come out at night to try and get into our bin! This isn't quite as bad as it sounds though... we have had the landlord in to try and sort them out, but they are proving rather resiliant! Ah well, we will be moving out of here quite soon.

We've chosen to move in with some of the guys that evyn works with. The place is really nice and is just outside the city.. about 20 minutes by tram. Hopefully we'll be able to show you all in the not to distant future... i know we keep promising photos... but we'll get there!


The place we're moving to is a really good find... again it's fully furnished, and there's already internet and cable tv. It might not prove to be a permanent move, but it's certainly a good one!

Other news... unfortunately i still can't work! They need more documentation from me. Thankfully this only includes sending our marriage certificate to the department of foriegn affairs and trading in australia for an apostle's stamp which is the expensive part (which we might have to do to our birth certificates as well) and getting a proof of residency from the town hall here. It's quite a bit of leg work, but we'll get there! and then we do it all again when we move...

Any way... I'll finish by saying that i'm keen to hear what's going on over there, so feel free to email me! Mum and dad have the address..

Love to you all!

Well, we've had our first official night on the town! Laura (who we know from home) was here for the weekend- she's over here visiting family in England.

We went out to a good (psy)trance club and didn't get in untill quite early. :D

Lots of fun had by all! Only downside was that we hadn't been dancing for months and i guess we were a little out of shape as i managed to hurt my knee.

Still, anyone that knows me knows it doesn't take much for my ankles or knees to give way! Ah well.


Other news is that we now have a computer to call our own again (although the monitor is the tv at the moment untill we buy a proper one) so there's no more over heated internet cafes for me! Woot!

Well, thats about it for now. You'll hear more once something else worth sharing happens.

Love to all!

Today I will show you all exactly where Lucy and I am in Amsterdam. Having no camera to work with (or the ability to fly) I will rely on the satellite images of google earth to show you where we are hiding.



Firstly, a map of europe to show you all where we are in relation to other countries. As you can see we are located on the north western tip of europe. The Netherlands is an incredibly small country, half the size of tasmania. It is also incredibly flat. To describe it as flat as a pancake is actually rather inaccurate, it is actually much flatter than a pancake if you shrunk the netherlands down to pancake size.

Moving on.



This aerial view of the city of amsterdam gives you some reference points as to where we live. We are located in the south west of amsterdam. You can see my work - Guerrila Games as it sits along the Herengracht ('Gentlemens Canal'), the third of the 5 major canals that runs through the city.

The campus where we are staying lies only a few blocks to the west. It sits on the Prinsengracht ('Princes Canal') and the Looiersgracht ('No idea') just on the outside of the main canal belt.

A better image.




It's not actually that green at the moment as we head into winter, but it gives you an idea.

That's my bit of information for today.
A real update is to come soon.

- Evyn