It was a very full weekend: Ankush and I had a video catch-up, I attended a feminist zine-making workshop at Unity Bookshop, and then spent Sunday finishing up all possible household chores, including dropping off organic waste for composting and doing five rounds of laundry, and finishing up an essay that was due the next day. In fact, by the time Amber reached home after a delayed flight, I had even prepared dinner despite having an annoyingly hard time deciphering the meaning of one of the icons in our Instant Pot interface.
Administrative errands in Brussels continued with my appointment at the Bureau d’Accueil pour Primo-Arrivants. As did health-related things. I had a dental appointment, and spent an evening nursing a low-grade fever.
The next edition of Type&Faces was announced, where I will be speaking about my book.
On Wednesday, Amber and I took the train to Amsterdam. That evening I was one of the panelists in the inaugural Women in Type Talks, and Amber went off to attend a community talk with Varun Grover. We had both hoped to have dinner together afterwards — had even checked if our hotel restaurant was open late — but ended up going hungry because their kitchen closed early. That was the case with all the places nearby as well and they were only serving drinks. Neither of us was keen to go to the city centre to eat, so we ate the leftover snacks from our train ride and went straight to bed.
We had the rest of the time in Amsterdam off from work: we met Arindrajit and Rungta on successive mornings, spent an afternoon at Moco Museum, and visited the San Seriffe bookshop. In a walk around Museumplein, we saw our first Eurasian Jackdaws. Later, we saw a pair of Stock Doves, and thought it might be the first time we have spotted them. After consulting my lifer list, I realised that I had seen one in Barcelona several years ago.
By Friday night, we were back home.