Joyeuse Fête Nationale au Québec! www.cfn.org

Merci et au revoir à Marie-France Bazzo! www.radio-canada.ca/indicatifpresent

Fin de la première année de la maîtrise et bienvenue les vacances! www.vacances.org (le site existe, alors pourquoi pas?)

It looks like we've found a place to live for next year! Weesperplein 15: right in the city center, two minutes from the university, authentically steep Dutch stairs and a nice big living room, all for what qualifies as a steal in the crazy Amsterdam private housing market. Great news!

The Netherlands won their first game in the World Cup last Sunday, 1-0 against Serbia & Montenegro. Bernd and I took a few hours off from our homework and crossed the street from the Tinbergen Institute to the Kriterion Café, where the game was projected on to what looked like a big hanging sheet. People were excited, and I had a good time. The pictures are of decorations outside somebody's house, another looking up from the ground floor of my building at the decorations, people cheering on (a replay of) Holland's goal against Serbia, and the Metro newspaper the next day.

I was just listening to "Indicatif Présent". Marie-France Bazzo's great show on Radio-Canada, that I get through the magic of the internet. Pierre Thibault, who was giving his revue of various magazines, naturally discussed a soccer magazine to celebrate the start of the World Cup today in Germany. And he said the winner will not be Brazil or Italy as the magazine predicted, but rather it was sure to be Holland! Holy smokes! Even here, nobody I know can claim that without laughing at the same time! If I would have known this, I would have made other vacation plans since I won't be in Amsterdam for the final match. My friend Kobus told me it would be a crying shame if the Netherlands got to the finals and won, while I happened to be overseas. I told him that would indeed be a shame, but somehow it didn't seem to make sense to make all my travel plans on the assumption of Dutch domination and victory in soccer :) But you never know.

All humour aside, people are very excited. The banners are up: Hup Hup Holland! The orange is also out, and will indeed be out in force on Sunday for Holland's first match against Serbia (and Montenegro). I'll be looking for some great pictures to post. The first match of the World Cup is this evening, with the host Duitsers from Duitsland in action.

Bruce Springsteen is currently on tour to support his latest album, "We Shall Overcome : The Seeger Sessions". I went to the Amsterdam show and had a blast, and now look at what's being done! For every show of the US leg the tour, AOL music is putting a different live clip on the internet. The title says it all: 18 nights of Bruce. I must be in heaven.

As of June 8, the latest is "Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam)" which Pete Seeger originally wrote about the Vietnam War. Now it's been reworked, first by Seeger himself and now by Springsteen: "If you love this land of the free, bring 'em home, bring 'em home, bring them back from overseas, bring 'em home, bring 'em home".

The website is http://music.aol.com/photo-galleries/18-nights-bruce-springsteen-seeger-tour