Spiritus

Today the weather was even prettier than yesterday! It was so warm that I finally wore my flip-flops for the first time this year. Yea!!

*does a little dance*
*falls flat on face because i've forgotten i'm still wearing my flip-flops*

hehe, ok seriously though...for a good part of the day all I really did was relax in the sun. Sometime in the afternoon I decided I had better do something productive with my day, so I decided to go to Ineke's office and clean the outside windows, they were in desperate need of it. When Ineke asked me to do it she also said that I needed to buy something to put in the water called Spiritus. It's almost completely alcohol and it keeps the windows from streaking and stuff, I guess. They didn't sell it at the store across the street from the office so I walked down the street to a little Turkish shop to see if they had it there...no luck there either. Oh well. The Albert Hein and Blokker are just a few minutes extra down the road and at least one of them was sure to have it so I walked down there. They were closed! I mean, ok it's sunday, day of rest, blah blah blah, but the sign on the door said they were supposed to be open on sundays from 08.00 till 20.00, so what in the world is it doing closed at 15.30 in the afternoon?! I miss Wal-Mart *sigh*

At that point I was pretty much at a loss as to what to do. I needed to get the windows clean which meant I needed to get that darn Spiritus but I really didn't have a clue as to where they would sell house hold cleaning products. So I started walking kind of aimlessly towards more stores. I didn't see anything promising and since there was a tram stop right there I figured my chances of actually finding somewhere that sells it AND is open would be in the center.

After about ten minutes I was at Centraal station and again began a somewhat aimless walk into all the promising looking shops (let me just add at this point that I was dressed for cleaning so I had on capris, a grubby tank-top, a zip up sweatshirt and absolutely no make-up, yikes! At least I didn't make any small children cry...that I noticed anyway, hehe)

First shop, no luck. Second shop, no luck. Third shop, again no luck (ok, so this one was a clothing store but still). FINALLY, I went into the fourth shop that looked halfway promising and they had a decent selection of cleaning products. I looked up and down the aisle and still didn't see it. At this point I was just about to give up. My feet were sore from the darn flip-flops (I always forget how they make that little blister in between your toes the first few times you wear them, ouch!) and I was simply getting frustrated. I decided to make one last sweep of the shelves, reading every bottle, when I saw it, BrandSpiritus. YEA!!! I grabbed it and paid (only €.90 not bad) and then headed back to the office. I didn't even have to wait for the bus cuz it was sitting there when I got to the stop. God loves me *smile*

Five minutes later I was at the office. I poured the stuff into a bucket and was greeted by quite possibly the worst chemical smell I've ever smelled in my life! UGH! It was truly wretched. I managed to fill the bucket without passing out and got it outside. Once outside the smell wasn't quite as bad and cleaning the windows was actually pretty enjoyable.

I finished with all the outside windows and grabbed my stuff, walked to the door...and realized that my purse and the keys to get in the office were sitting safely inside! *sigh* So I walked home and found out that was the only set of keys besides the set Thea, the lady who works with Ineke, had. Luckily, everyone was really nice about it and Thea came and unlocked the door and everything was fine.

So yeah, that was my adventure for the day. At least it was a beautiful day and walking around the city was enjoyable once my mission was accomplished. Who knew that cleaning windows could be so complicated!