Okay, I'm really going to be glad to get out of here. Scott is driving me insane. Martin was here last night because we went to the Efteling today, and he wanted to come watch horseback riding; we'd had it planned for a while. He asked if there was a bike for him and I said, "Scott never uses his bike, and he's staying in that night anyway; you can take his." (Because he really NEVER bikes; he takes the bus every single day.) So he got here and we sat around and talked for a while and then we realized we were running out of time and that we still had to make a grocery run before we left. So I went to Scott's room and asked, "Hey - would you mind if we borrowed your bike for a couple of hours?"

Instead of the "Yeah, that should be okay," which I expected, he said, "Well, I don't really want to let anyone else use it, because I got a flat last time." (I had used it a day or two before he went to Paris, way back in October or November, and there had been no flat tire when I put it back, but I noticed one a few days later when I went to get my own bike. I thought maybe he had used it before he left, so I asked him via MSN if he knew that he had a flat, and he hadn't known... and then the bike sat in the shed literally all winter long with that flat...)

So I said, "Well, if anything happens to your bike, I'll pay to get it fixed." In my mind, that should have solved all the problems.

He basically repeated himself, "I just don't feel like lending it out, because I got a flat last time after you used it."

I was getting mad by this point and said, "There was no flat tire when I put the bike back, I told you that. If there had been, of course I would have gotten it fixed myself."

"But still, I had to go get it fixed, and it was a pain in the butt, and I don't want to deal with that again."

"I just said - if anything happens, I will take the bike in and I will pay for the repairs." What I was really thinking was, you never use the damn thing anyway; this is just a power trip. "And you know - if you felt like I should have been the one to fix it, why didn't you tell me?"

He didn't really have an answer to this, just sort of sputtered out the same sentence for a third time and said something like, "Sorry, but no."

I haven't been that pissed off in a LONG time; after we got outside, I actually started crying just because I was so angry - first at his selfishness, and second at not being believed. That he would think that I would do something like that - break his bike and purposely not fix it, just for my own selfish reasons. He still believes I got the flat and then just didn't want to take the trouble to walk it all the way into the centrum; I know he does; he doesn't believe me, and I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT STAND IT when people don't believe me. I am a lot of things, but I am absolutely not a liar.

So let me take this opportunity to say how AWESOME my boyfriend is... he took me THE WHOLE WAY to horseback riding and back with him pedaling and me sitting on the back of the bike. Even up the hills. That whole trip, there and back, is probably a bit under ten miles. My butt and thighs aren't too happy today, but I did at least have the presence of mind to take a sweatshirt along to sit on to make it softer. Anyway, how many guys would do that??? :)

Anyway, so we went to the Efteling today; that was fun. And yes, I have pictures, but none that are spectacular enough to warrant uploading. Anyway, it's basically the Dutch version of the Magic Kingdom, but it does have a couple of distinguishing features - namely the Sprookjesbos (Fairy Tale Forest in English). You walk through the woods and there are all kinds of little houses and people and stuff - Little Red Riding Hood is there at Grandma's house... and Sleeping Beauty is there, sleeping in her castle... and Snow White... of course, they all have Dutch names, but the stories are the same. They even have some things we don't have, like Klein Duimpje; I don't know the story, only that it has something to do with a tiny man (Klein Duimpje), a giant, and some boots. But anyway, there are displays which read aloud to you, and one where you can 'call' Klein Duimpje from his hiding place by speaking into a microphone... and you can make the Hansel and Gretel witch talk by pulling the handle of her front gate... there are all kinds of little tricks like that, and everything is described with little poems in old-fashioned Dutch. Aside from the Sprookjesbos, there are a couple of roller coasters, a haunted house (though not half as good as the Haunted Mansion at Disney!), a boat journey around the lake, and a really cool circular thing which gently lifts you up into the air and turns you around to give you a view of the whole surrounding area. It's like the Magic Kingdom - aimed at kids - so it wasn't really 'oh-my-god-cool', but it was worth the entrance price (23 euro).

Oh, and some of the trash cans are people - they have round open mouths and say, 'Papier hier!' (Paper here!) and one of them (in the Sprookjesbos, of course) even goes on with, "Hurry up, I'm so hungry" and things like that. It's a pretty clever idea - kids are literally combing the ground for pieces of trash to put in there.

Tomorrow I'm going to Six Flags with Ann-Christin and Mark - that was a last-minute invitation which I decided to take. I feel like everything I do now is 'for the last time', even though I'll of course be back, so I'm trying not to miss anything that comes along.

So here's how the schedule looks now:

28 - Six Flags!
29
30
31 - no class (ascension day)
1 - city walk (looking at Utrecht historical landmarks) instead of a seminar :)
2 - Wim's last lesson, and first day of HARRY POTTER 3!!! (Got 3 tickets for the 20.30 show!)
3 - assignment due for Utrecht in the Middle Ages
4
5
6
7 - lecture
8 - last day of classes
9 - Marco Borsato!!! (We're going to Rotterdam at, like, 9 AM... the concert starts at 19.30.)
10 - go to Paris!
11 - Paris! (Faith arrives)
12 - Paris!
13 - leave Paris
14 - Utrecht in the Middle Ages paper due
15
16
17
18 - beach with Linde
19
20
21 - go home! Either Martin or Linde or both may take me to Schiphol.