The Bane of Our Existence

Things may seem like a fabulous free-for-all here in the Netherlands, museum visiting and strange-food eating with some conservation thrown in on the side.  In all actuality, Louise and I are here to have internships and to visit conservation studios and museums.  We are both financing the majority of this courtesy of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, generous granting agency and benefactor of students.  This is fantastic and we both cannot say enough good things about the Kress.

The University of Delaware, which gave us our grant funding as advances, requires that we retain every single receipt for every single thing we purchase.  The items, if in a foreign language, must be translated and the money spent must be converted using the conversion factor for that particular day.  

This means that every so many days Louise and I sit down and do our receipts.  Today was one of those days.

It also means that you become the social outcast, because you are so worried about saving the receipts.  Nobody wants to go to dinner with you - nobody being French conservation students, who then snub you later.

Doesn't this look like fun?

This is a two page spread in my notebook.  Flying tickets and train tickets must be saved, to prove to the powers that be that you actually went there.  Each day must be totaled at the end.

This is the worst scrapbook ever made in the history of the world.

This weekend I am heading to Paris, France - as in tomorrow evening.  The computer is not going along, so don't expect any new writing.  I'm sure I'll have many things to share once I return, and many receipts to add to my book.