merpel

17 and 18 July, the erpeltjes+entourage spent a weekend in La Roche en Ardenne. The occasion was that a certain someone did not want to throw a big party for her big 5-0, but instead wanted to have a nice weekend with her family, and I think we succeeded in that. On the morning of July 16, I travelled down to the South to try on my wedding dress, which (thank god) fit this time, although some adjustments still needed to be made (another few cms smaller around my waist for example :)). In the afternoon Paul also arrived in Etten-Leur with our rental car for the weekend, a yellow Opel Corsa :)

After dinner, the caravan went on its way. We would stay in Frank’s work place: a house near La Roche with a huge patch of grass, delimited by the Ourthe. Since his company is not using it during the summer, we didn’t have to camp out in tents, which was nice. Anyway, we got there around 22:00 pm, and after moving our stuff from the car and making our beds we sat down for some drinks and music.

On Saturday morning Dad, Frank, Hans, Peter and I went out mountainbiking. Peter only did the bit uphill because his hand was still in a plaster cast, so he couldn’t really do the downhill bit (which, unfortunately for him, is the most fun bit). Frank and Hans had done it before so they kind of raced down, dad is a lot more used to race bikes so was quite fast too, and then they all had to wait for me all the time but they were nice about it :). It was my first time mountain biking and I loved it, although it does take quite some getting used to sitting bent forward when you’re used to a regular Dutch bike…

After the mountain biking we had lunch and hung around the house a bit, reading magazines and relaxing. Sara got her first guitar lessons from Frank, Peter and me, so she was busy trying to switch fluently between the Em, C, D and G chords.

Later on in the afternoon mum, dad, Hans, Paul and I went to the La Roche to get some bread. Turns out, I’d been there before (several times already actually) but I’d forgotten. So we walked around for a bit (as tourists do), admired the shops (kijken, kijken, niet kopen) and laughed at someone rather unsuccessfully undertaking a watersports activity that revolved around this person being locked into a big plastic ball and trying to walk on water.

When we got back, the whole family tried out the zipline on the premises after which we set Frank and Hans to work to find wood for the camp fire we planned that night (OK, other people were doing other tasks, such as making salad, putting up the barbecue etc but they did the hard work). We had a truly splendid barbecue in the sun that evening.

Followed by a big campfire that lasted until well into the night  :)

On Sunday we all got up a bit late, and were a bit slow to get going. We had intended to go for a hike, but the weather was so great that it was just nicer to hang out around the river (building dams, as you’re supposed to do as a Dutch person) and sit in the grass. At some point Frank did bring out a crossbow and a handbow and some targets, so we had a go at those.

The afternoon went by way to fast, so after we had tidied up the bows and targets it was time for (an early) dinner before the drive back. We got back to Etten-Leur around 20:00, where Paul and I had a quick drink, after which we drove on to Amsterdam. Because we didn’t want the holiday feeling to end yet we decided to stay in town for another while after we returned the car, enjoying some drinks on a terrace near the Leidseplein. On to the next holiday! :)

P.S. More photos on my flickr page.

Four and a half weeks ago I defended my Ph.D. thesis at Tilburg University, so I’m a dr. now! I’m glad that it’s over, although I had a great time at Naturalis, Tilburg and exploring the world (OK, the last few months going through the text over and over again to spot any more typos, sloppy wordings, inconsistencies and generally prettifying the text to improve readability were not the most enjoyable). Then, since I got word that the committee had approved of the manuscript another fun part started: preparing  the document for printing. In the Netherlands, Ph.D. theses are to be printed properly, so with a snazzy cover, copyrights notice, particular format (17.0 x 24.0 mm) etc. An ISBN number is optional (but of course I got one :)). So, the day after my Scotland-England trip, I went by the printer’s office on my way to Amsterdam to check out different paper types, get some help on choosing the right black for the cover and various other bits and bobs. After mucking around with LaTeX to change the margins a few mm (it just made it look that much better) and a crash course in Adobe InDesign for the cover and bookmark, it was out of my hands on May 17. A few days later I already received some test prints, and on June 9 I held my book in my hands, well, all the 210 copies. About half of which I immediately had to part with because they needed to be sent to various institutions and people.

After drooling on the books for a while, I had to get to work to prepare my introductory talk, get a shirt (I looked around for a new suit, but couldn’t find a nice one), prepare for the questions and try to get enough sleep (which was hard, because I was so excited, hell, I’m still excited!). The day of the defence itself went really fast. I got to Tilburg early in the morning because TiCC had organised a symposium with talks by two of my opponents (profs. Ed Hovy and Piek Vossen). Of course the talks lasted longer than expected, so when I thought I’d have some more time to flick through the book again before the defence I didn’t; instead I had to get changed immediately and rush to the main building where I would meet my parents and one of my paranymphs, my brother Hans (my other paranymph was Steve). When Hans and Steve got changed into their suits, we went to the auditorium to plug in my laptop and to get the instruction of the beadle about where to stand and which way to walk etc.

At 14:00 I started my presentation (in Dutch) which I managed to time exactly 10 mins, so that was a good start. At 14:15 the committee, chaired by Harry  (my BA and MA supervisor) entered and the questioning began (in English). The questions were tough, but fun, and varied, and actually it was almost a shame that it was over after 45 mins. Although my paranymphs were quite happy it was over, because standing still for 45 mins in the heat in black tailcoats with all the trimmings turned out to be quite a challenge. After a while the committee returned, and they had decided that my answers were good enough so I got my diploma!!!

OK, it’s already over a month ago, but here are some impressions from Sara, Hans, Paul and my day at Pinkpop 2010:

On the bus

With the famous Pinkpop hats

Hans sunbathing whilst listening to Moke

Lollipop, Lollipop, ooh Lolli, Lollipop

Caro Emerald

John Mayer

Headbanging to Green Day

Green Day's spectacular 2-hour show at the end of the day

The advantage of having friends that live in exotic places is that every now and then you need to take a week off from work to go visit them. So it was that at the beginning of May Steve and I went to see Judith on the isle Skye to revisit some late Leiden nights with food, music and whisky. Even getting to Skye was already a surreal experience because you just drive through this gorgeous landscape where there’s just nothing there except for mountains, lochs and fabulous views around every corner. As it was getting late we meant to stop for some food, but there just wasn’t any place to stop, so we subsisted on “drop” and granola bars until we arrived at the Skye backpackers hostel in Kyleakin (a.k.a. Judith’s place). Lucky for us she had foreseen our bad food organisational skills so she’d gotten some bread and awesome hummus for us :) After dinner we got to see some of Kyleakin’s nightlife, and then we caught up by the fire with cups of tea.

On Sunday we went to climb a mountain! The mountain is called Blà Bheinn and it’s 928 metres, although it also has a 924m peak, which was high enough (and I even didn’t go for the last scramble so I got up to only 875 metres or so, but that’s still high enough for someone who is used to being below sea level). Anyway, after a slow start (we forgot toilet paper at our first checkout at the grocery store) we were on our way. We first had to walk a few miles along some slightly hilly landscape in order to get to the actual foot of the mountain, gawk at the amazing views after every hump, and of course stop and have lunch.

After lunch we started ascending the mountain. As we were talking a lot and taking loads of pictures we kind of lost the path a little bit, so we scrambled straight up through the grass till we were rewarded with some gorgeous views from a plateau.

At some point, after consulting the map and doing some bad-ass rockclimbing (OK, mainly Steve and Judith while I was trying to find easier routes up) we found the path again.

Although the weather had been superb up until then, while we were up we saw some rainclouds coming in, or hail clouds to be more precise.

So instead of going down in our t-shirts (or well, the t-shirt-jumper-t-shirt-jumper changing show) we now went for water resistant jackets and hoodies because it was a bit colder and wetter than earlier on in the day. But still amazingly beautiful. Perhaps even more so, but it’s hard to say, as every season probably looks magical up there.

Anyway, all the colours changed, as well as the light, and down in the valley, when the sky started to clear we even got to witness the sun burst through the clouds again.

When we got to the car, we changed into some dry clothes and drove to Portree to have some (Indian) food and meet up for drinks with Arthur. Unfortunately he had to work so he hadn’t been able to climb with us, so we drank tea til late and he promised to come down to Kyleakin the next day.

The next day, our legs hurt from the 8-hour hike the day before, so we took it easy and went for a short stroll and a long picnic up on the Quiraing, a place with totally different scene, but equally breathtaking.

The interesting thing about this place is that it’s still alive; you can just see that some of the boulders that are scattered around have only come down recently (a friend of Judith’s told us later in the pub that he’d once seen a bunch of rubble come down and it was the scariest thing ever). Luckily for us they weren’t moving noticeably that day, so we got to one of Judith’s favourite camping spots and just sat in the soft moss with our biscuits, chocolate and ‘water’.

On the way back to Kyleakin we did a short detour by the Faerie Glen. As every loch or pile of rocks on Skye has a story, this place has a bunch, ranging from stories of people having seen flags on the castle shaped rock to a story of a man who went to live there against the fairies wishes and well..it didn’t end well.

True stories or not, the place has something magical. The grass is a beautiful shade of green (no doubt being well maintained by the sheep dung), and the shapes of the miniature hills are very special. Also, the place is so quiet. Well, the other places we visited outside the towns were superquiet too, except for the sounds made by sheep and birds, which is just something entirely impossible in the Netherlands. Very cool. After we each climbed and descended our own hills, we went back to Kyleakin and had a nice hostel-cooked dinner (pasta with salmon, spinach and cream sauce and a splendid apple crumble with rhubarb yogurt for dessert) at which we were accompanied by Arthur and Neill.

On Tuesday we went to the mainland to the fisherman village Plockton for some excellent sea food and then on to Applecross via the steepest road in the UK. Back in Kyleakin we went to Saucy Mary’s to watch an ubercool local band, mix with backpackers, fishermen, tourbus drivers and dance. :)

On Wednesday we lingered around for as long as we could, drinking lots of tea, but at quarter to four we really had to say goodbye to Judith, to start making our way to Balbeggie, near Perth, near Edinburgh, where Alan lives. We took a different route this time, past Glen Coe, as well as a bunch of places whose names I’d thus far only seen on whisky labels instead of on street signs. We were lucky again when we got to Alan’s as he cooked us some nice pasta after which we showed him the pics of our trip onto Blà Bheinn, and started planning a camping trip back to Skye with climbing ropes :)

As we hadn’t told Alan that far in advance that we were coming he’d been unable to take time off, so we decided to go explore Edinburgh on Thursday while he was at work. I like Edinburgh a lot. Especially the little alleyways that may lead you halfway down a hill. Perhaps because I’m used to being below sea level, I always feel the urge to take any opportunity that arises to get above sea level. And since Edinburgh is hilly, and there is a fairly decent sized hill for a city trot on the east side of the city centre, we climbed it. Getting out of Edinburgh was a pain because it was rush hour, but we got out and when we got to Alan’s place dinner was ready (mac and cheese :D). After dinner we went to see some of Alan’s friends who live on an estate owned by a guy who wants to turn it into a nature reserve more or less. So we had a walk around the loch and woodlands.

After some more tea, we headed back to Balbeggie to get some sleep for the next day, which would be a big drive down to Malvern (606km). The drive was even longer than anticipated because of some major roadworks, but fortunately we had two iPods full of excellent music (if I may say so myself) and luckily it wasn’t raining or icy (actually the weather had been quite splendid all week).

It was good to be back in Malvern, as a bonus even the bluebells were still in bloom.

As always Heather’s food was superb, the dogs were crazy, and Dave got me hooked on a new computer game (Osmos). Sadly, I couldn’t stay very long, because on Sunday I was flying back to the Netherlands. So around 10:30, I left Malvern to go to Birmingham airport, and I managed to get the fuel tank as empty as possible (OK, I was getting a little bit nervous when there was only one little bar left on the dashboard, but I made it) and got back to Amsterdam without any delays. There Paul was waiting for me at the airport and we took a train to Roosendaal, where we were picked up by my parents to have dinner with my grandmother: an excellent end to a perfect week.

Yes it’s still cold in Amsterdam, but not as cold as it was (more than 5 degrees above zero), it’s light when I wake up in the morning, it’s getting dark later, there’s even some sunshine (this morning started off sunny, then there was some fog, and then there was sun again)…the thing that really announces spring is in people’s behaviour though. While I cycled home from work this evening there were more people running (which in winter you only see the die-hards do on the weekends, the majority of the people I’ve been seeing these days wasn’t wearing gloves), you can hear more birds (true, only if there’s no tram in sight) and I even caught some dinner sounds from open windows. Anyway, I like spring. It does mean that time is going way too fast. Yesterday I realised I’ve been living in Amsterdam (with Paul!) for 6 months already. People still snigger a bit sometimes if they hear me utter a very “Brabants” phrase, but I am starting to feel at home here.

A lot has happened in the time I neglected this blog. It looks like my thesis is finally starting to make its way to the committee, I bought a wedding dress, Paul and I got our marriage licence, my project is getting up to speed at work and we’ve booked a snowboarding holiday (well, I didn’t do too much, my brother Frank did, but anyway, we’re going, with him, his girlfriend and another friend).

Anyway, it’s 9pm now already, time for a cup of tea!

It wasn’t foggy when I took this picture, but as it was very warm and humid outside (and colder and less humid inside) my camera lens fogged immediately when I went outside.

Earlier this week I finally finished the film that was still in my mother’s SLR since Paul and my road trip this summer. So I took it to get developed, scared because I hadn’t really used a proper camera in quite a while, and also because I generally just have no clue what I’m doing. I also had the films that I had already had developed put on CD, so now I have 83 black and white photos to sort out. Some need some work, especially the night photography from New Orleans, but still, I’m quite happy with the results. It also brings back good memories of California…

I’ve never complained about my life being boring, simply because I just have a very cool life. The past two weeks have again been full of exciting things. Such as getting to talk about my work during a presentation, in front of a camera for a little research video and in a phone interview for a research magazine. The weird thing about the talk at the colloquium was, was that it was in Tilburg and it’s honestly very weird to be back there while not working there anymore. I’m having a great time here in Amsterdam but I do miss the Tilburg campus. The VU campus needs more trees! Anyway, I’m also finding out more about the field I’m working in now, I’m starting to figure out which way to go for my project (I think, we have another project meeting tomorrow, so we’ll see if the rest of the project agrees ;)), I’m gathering data, working on a paper, preparing for another presentation etc..anyway so much about work though, as there is more to life, way more.

On the last day of October I went to the Efteling again. This time with my uncle. The Efteling always rocks! Afterwards we had dinner with Paul and my other uncle at Da Atillio in Breda. I slept the whole way on the train back to Amsterdam. The Sunday after I spent pretty much the whole day in bed again, not really ill, but definitely super-tired. Perhaps that’s because I’ve been cycling to work a lot (check it out here), or maybe because I just hadn’t fully recovered yet from the bug that I had caught a week earlier…

Last Friday we got to see a bit more of Amsterdam life at a party that a co-worker threw to celebrate his new kitchen (from which fabulous food emerged the whole evening). On Saturday night, Steve and Veronique came over for dinner and afterwards we went to the Amsterdam Museumnacht. If you’re too lazy to click the link, it’s a special evening, once a year, during which 42 museums in Amsterdam are open until 02:00 and have special programmes.

We started at FOAM, the Amsterdam Photography Museum, which is one of my favourites. It’s located in a gorgeous old building, but has a mix of old and new elements in its interior. We had to queue to get in and inside it was filled with hip and trendy people and fun things to do (such as commenting on photos via post-its). After FOAM we set out to the Museum of Bags and Purses (mainly a venue for Veronique and me but the boys seemed to enjoy it too). On the way to the handbag exhibitions, we popped into Museum Geelvinck, simply because it was on the way. The cool thing about and event like the Museumnacht is that you go to places you would normally not go to. Museum Geelvinck (it’s built in 1687 and the rooms are decorated in styles from that era) is nice, albeit a bit small and I would have liked more explanatory texts with things, but that’s personal. What’s also cool about it is that it’s run by volunteers and they have concerts on Sundays, so I will probably go back for that sometime. The Museum of Bags and Purses was fun, again located in one of those gorgeous canal houses and there was a lot to see. They also had bags and purses for sale but those were rather pricey (besides the fact that I prefer rucksacks ;)).

When we left the bags and purses, it was just past 22:00, so we could go to the Amsterdam city archives, located in an old bank. The reason we wanted to go there after 22:00 is that at that time musicbloggers would start playing music to a flickr expo of photos of Amsterdam. Maybe we were there too early, but it hadn’t yet turned into the party I’d hoped it would be. Fortunately, there was plenty of other stuff to see. Downstairs in the building you walk through the enormous door that used to lock the safe to an exhibition area and a film room. In the film room, acoustic bands were playing and their concert was filmed and projected on a big screen at the same time.

After a while we got tired (and thirsty) so we decided to go for a pub-break. We ended up in a pub at the Rembrandt square, which is actually my least favourite square at night (full of police and chavs). But at least the sofas were comfy, the wine was decent and we got to observe some funny people. At around midnight, we arrived at the special collections of the University of Amsterdam that was exhibiting their collection of 16th century cookbooks. They also had the staff of restaurant fifteen cook recipes from them, although we didn’t see or eat anything of that because we ended up at a presentation on the influence of Jewish food on New York today. Afterwards, we were too tired to party and see more (Steve and Vero also had to catch a train to Leiden) so we decided to call it a day.

On Sunday, Paul and I enjoyed a quiet day around Zeeburg. We didn’t have to do anything, so we just wandered around a bit, had coffee at Sissy-Boy (yes, awkward name for a shop for native English speakers) while reading magazines, we checked out some of the other shops on KNSM-eiland (now I know of at least one shop that still sells Levi’s 501 cut for women! They also have great dresses, but a tad expensive). I even worked on my thesis for a couple of hours, and in the evening we watched a few episodes of Californication (incredibly funny).

And now it’s Monday night again, and time for sleep as tomorrow we’ll have another busy day with work and two friends of Paul’s from the US happen to be in the Netherlands so in the evening we’ll meet up with them.

So after almost two months of living in Amsterdam the novelty is slightly wearing off. I’m not getting lost anymore on the way to work (which is handy) and I’m also shortening the time it takes to get to work (going from 40 mins, although that included putting my bike chaing back on twice to just under 32 minutes).I quite love being able to cycle to work again, especially towards the end of my project in Tilburg I was on trains too much. And it’s a great way to see more of the city. My new job is really nice too. It’s taken a while to get going, as I had a lot of reading up to because it’s not a computational linguistics group or a computational linguistics project, but it’s nice to work cross-disciplinary. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what direction the project should go, but I already have some ideas (too preliminary to share though).

Other than work, not much has been happening. The last week and a half of September I’ve been travelling back and forth between Amsterdam and Tilburg to discuss my thesis with an additional unofficial supervisor. This week I will see my supervisor again, so fingers crossed.. Last weekend we had our housewarming, where a lot of our new colleagues showed up as well as some of our new neighbours, so we had a house full of people. I think there will be many parties thrown at this house as it seems to have all the features for a good party location (space, close to the supermarket and the `glasbak’, easy to clean the next day, just parking is a bit of a pain). To be honest, I haven’t seen much of the Amsterdam city centre yet, or any of the pubs or cafés, which is a little bit of a bummer, but will sort itself out once we get Paul’s bike fixed. We’ve mostly been hanging around Zeeburg really, which is quite cool too. The last weekend of September there we got to watch the iShares cup,  an extreme sailing contest, just around the corner from where we live, how cool is that?

After years of vague plans revolving around mum and me going on a citytrip, we finally went on Sept. 18. It wasn’t easy picking a destination as there are still so many cool places we haven’t seen, but Liverpool was high on mum’s list because she is a Beatles fan and had never been there. I nearly didn’t make it on time to the airport because I always leave home too late (funny how I always underestimate how long it takes to get there, I guess it’s because I live pretty close to the airport, just not close enough). When I got to the train station my train was rerouted so it wouldn’t stop at Schiphol, and the second one was delayed, but fortunately I still made it on time. Around 4pm we touched down at John Lennon International Airport (that’s where the Beatlesmania starts already :)) and a bus took us past Penny Lane into the city. I had found a really nice hotel between the two cathedrals (Liverpool has not one, but two cathedrals, one Anglican and one Catholic, a stone’s throw away from each other). After dropping off our stuff and inspecting our underground snazzy cocoon bedroom we went for a walk through town. Sadly, the shops were closed but there was still enough to see (especially funny people). We passed the Cavern Club, where the Beatles used to play, but didn’t go in just yet as we were pretty hungry. We found a very cool (and cheap!) vegetarian restaurant called the Egg Café, just off the main roads in the city centre. After we stuffed our faces with great salads and vegetables and I had a huge bowl of truly splendid apple crumble, we set out to find a bus that would take us towards Penny Lane again to meet up with Jilly in a pub. I hadn’t seen Jilly since she visited me in LA, so it was great to catch up. Before we found our bus stop we passed St. Luke’s church that had been bombed out in the Second World War (nothing too special). The cool thing that drew our attention was that the church was used as an open air cinema where people sat on the grass and on benches watching `Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, thanks to Urban Strawberry Lunch. Very cool. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay, but we were happy we got a little taste of the event.

Thanks to my GPS we got off the bus 50 metres from the pub where we were to meet Jilly and Peter. After a drink at the Richmond Tavern we moved to the Penny Lane wine bar where we stayed until closing (11 pm that is). It was OK that the pub closed early because the next day we wanted to get up early to go see all the sites in Liverpool. We met Jilly and Peter again in the morning as they would show us around town. While we were waiting for them I found a geocache that was just around the corner from our hotel (sadly I didn’t manage to find any of the other ones as it was too busy around them or already getting dark). We first went to the ‘old’ cathedral (it wasn’t finished until 1978 so it’s not that old, but it’s older than the Catholic cathedral). During lunch, Dave found us. He had come up from Malvern to visit a friend first and then hung out with us the rest of the day. The rest of the day we visited pubs (including one near the cathedral where John Lennon used to go to), the Albert Dock, and the shopping centre (although we didn’t shop, yet). Around 6pm we said goodbye to Dave who was going back to Malvern, and Jilly and Peter drove us past Strawberry Fields and through Penny Lane. Then Jilly cooked us a lovely dinner at their house while Peter showed us around the garden and the house.

On Sunday we explored the city on our own. In particular the shopping district. Mum instantly developed a appreciation for GAP, the 30% discount on the jeans probably greatly attributed to that. After we tried on dozens of pairs of jeans and finally decided on a few items (mum a few more items than me), we happily proceeded to the Tate Liverpool. The best thing about our visit to the gallery was a long chat with one of the attendants who knew a lot about Liverpool, architecture, modern art and New York and was very keen on sharing his knowledge with us. It even made me look different upon some of the representations of performance art. Our favourite quote (and possibly take-home message) from our ‘Tate host’ was “That’s what art’s all about, isn’t it? It’s trying to understand how we bloody think.”

Anyway, after the so-called `high’ arts, we made our way back to the Cavern Club and this time we actually went in. We were amazed at how cheap the drinks were (actually everywhere in Liverpool, Dutch pubs could learn from this!) as one would expect the Cavern is pretty much the most touristy place in the whole of Liverpool. And there was live music. I’m afraid I forgot the name of the guy, but he was pretty good, playing Beatles and Kinks covers and some of his own work (naturally the Beatles were received best by the audience). At around 7pm we got a bit hungry so we went to find some food again, because we didn’t want to fall into a tourist trap (although we’d had good experiences the whole weekend) we decided to be lazy and go to the Egg Café again. Again very reasonably priced and tasty food :). On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the Philharmonic pub. We didn’t venture into the men’s rooms to see the marble urinals as Peter suggested, but fortunately the BBC has some pictures of it. The bar and the seating areas of the pub are quite splendid too though.

As our flight wouldn’t leave until 17:30 on Monday, we pretty much had the whole day still to see and do stuff. So after breakfast (muesli and yogurt for me, toast for mum and tea for us both) we set out to the Beatles museum. I was wrong in thinking the Cavern was the most touristy thing in Liverpool, it’s the Beatles museum. But still, it’s a cool museum, nicely designed with lots of goodies, music and info. On the way out, I did what I always do when I’m in a touristy mood, which is buy a t-shirt (although it’s actually a nice t-shirt and not too obviously touristy or Beatles-y, anyway, everyone has their vices). We stopped by Tesco’s to buy the latest Dan Brown (at about half of what it costs in the Netherlands, affordable books are yet another thing Dutch society has to learn about), some goodies such as tea and Tesco’s homebrand coconut conditioner and lunch. As the weather was still great we had lunch in the courtyard of the Bluecoat, an arts centre in one of the very few old buildings in the city centre of Liverpool. After lunch we shopped for a bit more, mum was again more successful than I was. Then it was unfortunately already time to pick up our bags at the hotel and catch a bus to the airport (well not really, but mum wanted to be the first one at the check-in desk (yes that is arriving at the check-in desk before it actually opens, something that normally never happens to me;))). Our flight went smoothly, and Hans and dad picked us up from the airport and drove me home to Amsterdam (where Paul was waiting with dinner) after which Hans, mum and dad went home to Etten-Leur.

Now the hard part starts: choosing a destination for next year :)