Between Christmas and New Years I was working as usual. Short weeks, but still work weeks. I don’t mind really, it kinda keeps you in the normal rhythm of things which is good. No hard start for me after New Years. For New Years I was invited by Peter, a friend of mine from Amsterdam, to attend a party at his house. I gladly accepted the offer. On December 31st, public transport comes to a halt at around 8 PM, which meant I had to make sure to get to Peter’s before that. I left for Amsterdam at 18:30 and as I arrived at Central station I realised just how busy Amsterdam was on NYE. It was just amazing. The tram stop was moved to the main road near Damrak, at least that’s what I was told by some officials. As I crossed the road and walked past a waiting tram I saw it was the one I needed to catch. The driver kindly opened the door and I asked him for a fair. He threw his hands in the air and exclaimed:"what the hell were my bosses thinking!" The tram was packed…and so was the one in front of us, and so was Damrak…pederstrians all over the place, inlcuding the road. It took us 20 minutes to get from Damrak to Dam square, which is a 5 minute walk. I was the first to arrive at Peter’s. I brought 2 bottles of wine but we started of with one of his excellent expresso’s. After that I started on a good bottle of red. As I was going to surf Peter’s couch (he is a fellow CS host) I could finally get a taste of all the different wines Peter usually offers. We had a perfect evening and nite and had a blast watching the fireworks in the street, after which a small fire was made to burn the paper left overs from all the fireworks…some christmas trees also found their way to the fire…

Me with Lola, the Couchsurfing dog, on my lap

Peter and Diana

Leonoor, Diana and Femke, aka Peter’s Angels