Ssshhhh, I'm supposed to be working

Slow day here at Freshfields, so I decided to check out the blog.
There were a lot more posts since the last time I checked, which absolutely made my day, and I think confused my office mate a little as I was laughing out loud and smiling a lot. She must think this notification form to the Italian competition authorities that I'm supposed to be proofreading is very funny.

A few notes from looking through the other posts: Daddy, from an experienced yogi, that is not, contrary to popular belief, the butt touches sky position, but rather the Down-Dog. Now you know. I'm so happy to see you're working with Dea! She's the best and told me she was working for Donald, but I didn't know you were working with her. Looks like you're having a good time serving the hipster doofuses of the world. Peace, love, and unshaved legs.
Cailin, I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for myself working one 13 hour day after your description of work. Sounds tough, but they're lucky to have you. It's making me miss my kids at Mary Johnson and Kookamunga. Also, the Mandela quote gave me chills in a big way.

Things have been great here in Amsterdam!
Because they don't have a ton of work for me a lot of the times, I have started only working 4 days a week, which is great, so I only have 3 and a half hours left of my work week! And it gives me more time to travel, etc.
Two weekends ago Felix, his friend Philip, and I went to Bruges, Belgium for a couple nights. Really awesome old medieval town, I'll post a couple pictures later. Went to a bar that served all 1300 of the Belgian beers, tasted every one. (Just kidding). On the way back we got stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam because a bunch of tractor-trailer trucks crashed. It was a long day, but a good weekend.
Last weekend we went to a birthday party for one of Felix's high school friends, which was great because I got to meet a bunch of his and Caspar's old friends, and I got to hang out with a lot more people my age. One girl there had studied for a year in Boston and knew Zuki. Small world.
The next day we did the touristy things around Amsterdam. Felix and his parents were definitely more excited about this than I was, because they finally had an excuse (me) to do all the things they could't do as native Amsterdamians. We rented a boat and spent all afternoon cruising around the canals, went to the Anne Frank house, walked through the red-light district, and strolled through the city. The Anne Frank house was incredibly moving; everyone was tearing up and it kind of put a damper on the afternoon, but I'm glad we went.
Sunday was father's day (Daddy, I tried getting a hold of you, but you must have been gone) and we went minigolfing with Felix's dad for the day. It's not like, side of 22A in Castleton, rickety plastic minigolf, but professionally manicured, real grass in the middle of a gorgeous garden. The Dutch take minigolf very seriously, and even have some semi-professional leagues. Also, the town where we went for this is the summer palace of the Dutch royal family, so it's very quaint and charming. Unfortunately, the Queen Beatrix was not playing that day. By the way, I got dead last by 8 strokes. Bo, any golf advice?

The Dutch soccer team is, or was, in the Euro Cup right now, the biggest soccer tournament besides the World Cup. They were supposed to be one of the three best teams in the tournament, and ended up not making it past the first round. Everyone here is shocked, angry, and beside themselves. All 16 million Dutch people have an opinion on what went wrong and are more than happy to tell you about it.
Poland and Ukraine, where the tournament is being held, have been having a lot of trouble with far-right nationalism and xenophobia, and there has been lots of racist taunting, fighting between groups, and general hooliganism at the tournament. I have made the mistake of bringing this up not once, but twice, to my Ukrainian office mate, who does not take the criticism of her country well. I'm just making so many friends.

We've been trying to get to Paris for the last two weeks but stuff keeps coming up; I think we're going next weekend. Really looking forward to that.

Back to work, love to everyone. I'll be home two weeks from Saturday.
Til then,

Connor