Ladies' night!

I live here in The Netherlands for 9 years and in these 9 years I have made a lot of friends... almost all of them with one thing in common: Adam's apple!! Be it because of my job where most of my colleagues are men or because most expat women of my age came here with a husband or a boyfriend (or acquired one very quickly...) and by now they have three kids and not a lot of time to socialize between PTA meetings or even because I do no find I share anything with the native ladies in order to develop a friendship, I have not been able to have close female friends...

And because I'm not one of those women who, perhaps because of being competitive or insecure or I don't know what, do not seek female company, I do miss having friends of my gender... Men are great, funny and honest and pretty straighforward and as I said I do have a lot of friends of the kind but they cannot compensate for women! As we say sometimes "men are wonderful but if you want someone to talk to, talk to your girlfriends"... because they most likely will understand what you mean and men most likely won't! Moreover, try talking to a (straight) man about why you prefer last winter's Jimmy Choo collection better or about the most coveted zebra leather platforms by the guru Christian Louboutin and you will have to face charges for boring him to death!!!!

Lately though things have changed as the coolest girl has moved into the building where I live! A friend of a friend and now a friend of everyone this lively Portuguese and her Maltese (female as well :) have both entered my life to give me exactly what was missing: girlfriends! 

So, last nigh I was invited to a "ladies only" dinner party by this new girlfriend and I have to say that I enjoyed it immensely!! A room full of women of more or less the same age, independent, intelligent, working ladies with all the joys and the problems of being an independent, intelligent, working woman nowadays, being involved in all kinds of discussions about everything that concerns us... work, men, travels, being an expat, books, music, beauty, food and the list goes on and on... Great food offered by our host, great wine that untied the tongues and words were coming out like rivers (even from my mouth and I'm very far from being proficient in Portuguese...) great, warm atmosphere... Overall, a night to remember!

And I would be just stating the obvious if I were to say that I am grateful to have a new girlfriend and to have been invited to be part of her circle of girlfriends and to have had such a perfect night but... what the hell, I will do it anyway! I am grateful and I do feel lucky and yes, nights like this are better than shoes!

ps. Happy birthday S :)