Best. Day. Ever.

My blogging silence over the last month has been due solely to a large project at work that - thanks be to heaven - we successfully completed last week (World problems: solved! International criminality: vanquished!). Over the next couple of weeks, I will publish belatedly a batch of blog entries I drafted during February but never had a chance to post. Expect to be amazed! (or at least, I hope, entertained...)

But first I thought I'd share, as a one-day snapshot of my life in the Hague, how I celebrated the completion of this monster project: My Best-Day-Ever, Dutch style.

• 6:30: Wake up. Decide to go back to sleep.
• 7:30: Creative writing, with coffee and breakfast made by Jeff (with love!).
• 8:00: Yoga with my youtube guru, Esther Ekart.
• 8:30: Pick out my favorite dress to wear to work (it has glitter and ruffles! Even boys compliment it!)
• 9:30: Leave the house an hour later than normal but with no sense of guilt or compunction. Pause while transiting through Central Station for a koffie verkeerd (cafe au lait) and a hot danish. Decide to take the bus instead of the tram the rest of the way to work - less efficient, but more scenic.
• 10:30: Spend the first hour at work chatting socially with assorted colleagues.
• 12:15: Go to Step (aerobics) class at the in-house gym.
• 2:30: After a late lunch, embark on a cathartic cleaning of my office. Shred massive amounts of paper. Amaze colleagues with the ability to actually see the surface of my desk.
• 4:00: G-chat with friends back in the States.
• 5:30: Enjoy leaving work early.
• 6:30: Go with a work friend to see Black Swan at a movie theater downtown.

Tangent: This was my first movie experience in the Hague, and it was delightfully civilized. The movie theater is in a Beaux Artes building on one of the main pedestrianized squares downtown. When you buy your tickets, you choose your seats - an ingenious concept that both allows you to see how crowded the theater is before you commit to tickets and obviates any need to throw sharp elbows to get non-neck straining seats. Instead we could relax over a glass of wine and bar snacks in the lovely art deco bar of the movie house (which in the warmer months spills out onto the square) before walking into the theater right as the movie previews started. Even better, you can "subscribe" to the local movie house chain and go to as many movies as you like for less than the cost of two movie tickets per month. This could be the start of a very dangerous addiction...

• 10:00: Late sushi dinner at a tiny Japanese restaurant on a canal around the corner from my apartment. Unfortunately, sushi in Den Haag is nothing to write home about, but sometimes there's just an itch that needs to be scratched.
• 11:30: Contemplate joining another colleague at the wine bar on the way home. Decide instead to go directly to bed and sleep for 10 hours. Sweet.

I have, by the way, a personal philosophy that we should all have best-days-ever at least once a week: the day when the bus comes as soon as you get to the bus stop, and there's a window seat free; or when the Starbucks barrista accidentally makes you a grande instead of a tall; or when you get to catch up with friends for happy hour; or your loved one has dinner waiting for you when you get home from work. It's a stop-and-smell-the-roses sort of theory.