Balance and visit from another life

“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.” 

As summer is proceeding, I am trying (and succeeding) in making my time here feel as much as possible as a summer holiday. I'm a little surprised at this myself, as I thought I would go all-in for my internship, but I am really getting the benefits from a more balanced life. I guess I didn't expect very much at all from DH, but its really showing off its best side, prominently on the people side as I'm constantly surrounded by  funny, clever and warmhearted people. I am really grateful to all of them for sharing as much as they do. In a long-term perspective, I also believe that going to Vienna in October will be much better if I'm filled up with summer and energy (and beer...).

Regarding the internship, I am happy with it, albeit the feeling that I haven't really gotten in to it yet. A lot of my time is spent doing market research, which is time consuming and a bit boring, and the outcome doesn't really show yet. But instead of getting frustrated, I hope for more interesting tasks in the future and enjoy the fact that I'm the least stressed person in the office. The benefit of being an intern is that after all (at least in my case), you have no responsibility.

Last week, I was very happy to recieve my first visitor, Andres from Argentina!! Who would have thought? We met in Ecuador in 2011, and now he had decided to "cruzar el charcho" (cross the puddle) and come to Europe, and he was in the Netherlands for a little while. A lifetime ago, yet it is very near in some senses. It was really great to catch up and interesting to see what happened to us after our roads diverged - we lived basically the same life for a month when we traveled together, then I went home and back to my studies in Sweden whereas he continued to Mexico and the Caribbean where he has been working in bars and random places, even as a musician (although he said he was not very good at it). It is fascinating to imagine that I could have done that too, in a different life, but I chose this route and I am definitely happy where I am.