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.

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.

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.

On Friday morning I woke up early, so I had a little run in the gym at the hotel, not great as I don’t like treadmills, but it was already much too warm outside. At around 09:00 we left the Santa Rosa hotel for the long trip to Dallas. It was quite interesting to drive there as we would encounter all these tiny Texan towns which all seemed to have at least a petrol station and a Dairy Queen (a soft serve ice cream chain) up and running and a bunch of deserted buildings and lots of big trucks. The first hour and a half or so of the trip I got to drive, but Paul was getting a bit bored with staring out of the window and playing with the radio so at the first petrol stop we swapped. I like getting petrol in the US, it’s about 25 euros to fill up a tank (45 litres).

At around 19:00, we arrived in Dallas (not bad considering the 2 hour time change). The hotel was really nice, it’s situated on a small hill just outside the city so we had a wonderful view of the skyscrapers while cooling down in the outdoor pool. Life ain’t so bad :). For dinner we went out to an area called the Bishop Arts District, were there were cute little galleries, shops and restaurants. We had dinner at Veracruz, a mesoamerican restaurant, which serves a blend of Mayan, Aztec and Mexican dishes. As the shops were still open after we had dinner we strolled around a bit more and I bought the most hilarious souvenir ever: rubber cowboy boots :).

On Saturday morning we got up early to have a splash in the pool with the wonderful view before we set out to our second long drive (to New Orleans). Actually, we both thought this drive was the worst as the landscape isn’t that interesting, it’s just fields. However, as we got a bit deeper into Louisiana, we saw swamps and drove over big bridges over the swamps. We also got some serious thunder and rain on the way, but that’s normal for this area apparently, the funny thing is that it is still warm, while it rains and afterwards. Sometime after 17:00 we arrived in New Orleans where we stayed at a wonderful hotel recommended by Paul’s parents. After dumping our stuff at the hotel we went out to get a Cajun dinner at Mulate’s, which is the American version of a biergarten, including a band playing The Chicken Dance (vogeltjesdans). But the food was decent and we had fun. After dinner we strolled through the French Quarter, which is lovely, and we ended up at the other end of it at The Blue Nile,  where the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio was playing when we entered, and after that the Soul Rebels Brass Band came on. Both were excellent and quite out of the ordinary so we had a splendid time, apart from the waiting between the bands and of course the obligatory delay in starting, so we didn’t see the end of the second band. Instead we walked back, and did a few blocks of Bourbon Street, which is a bit like Newquay on Saturday night but then 100 times worse.

On Sunday morning it was raining, but still warm so it was OK to walk through the French quarter to get to Café du Monde. This time we when we walked through Bourbon Street it was deserted, which was much nicer. At Café du Monde we had the famous beignets for breakfast. And as it had gotten sunny, I put on some sunscreen and we went to look at the river. Then we walked on to find the St. Louis Cemetery No 1., which in a way was pretty cool, but if you’ve seen old European cemeteries it’s nothing to special. The interesting thing about them is that because of the high ground water levels all burials need to be above ground, so there are all these high tombs. It also makes for a not so open space and travel guides advise against going there alone and in the dark…

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Jackson Square (we had wanted to go to Café Amelie but that was closed for the summer) for a late lunch where Paul had a sandwich while I tried the local Gumbo (a sort of fish soup). Around 4 we left New Orleans for Florida. Luckily we needed to be at the westside of Florida, so the drive wasn’t too long, as although the road trip was very very cool, we really had enough of tarmac by now :).

Tuesday was the big day: Paul’s moving out of LA. Of course we hadn’t finished the packing on Monday night so we did some more packing on Tuesday morning and around 11 we were on our way to Vegas. It was a pretty OK drive, and at around 15:00 we arrived in Sin City. It’s interesting how you can see it from miles away and the shapes of the hotels are just hilarious (rollercoasters around hotels, an Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, and our hotel, a big piramid). It’s impossible to explain what Las Vegas is like, it’s just one of those places you need to have seen to understand the utter silliness of it. It’s entertaining, absolutely, but really, one day was plenty. We strolled around the strip for a bit, and walked in and out of the hotels. The hotels are little cities in themselves, they have several restaurants, shops, theatres, exhibitions and whatnot inside them, so basically one doesn’t have to leave the hotel. At dusk and about halfway on the strip we encountered the Bellagio, just before the water show was about to start, which was very impressive. We then walked into the Bellagio, which looks (relative to the other hotels) quite classy. The only thing is that there are so many slot machines everywhere, which kind of make it all less fancy. I tried one and don’t really see the fun in it so Paul and I decided to play video games in the arcade at the Bellagio (Dance! Dance! Revolution! and Sega Racing, much more fun). On the way out the water show started again, and this time it was even more impressive as it was dark outside (but still very hot). On the way back to the Luxor we stopped at New York, New York to find some food, instead we found drinks and entertainment at the Coyote Ugly bar, Sin City at its best. After a while we got hungry, so we made it back to Luxor and found a snazzy restaurant there where we had some nice food in a quiet atmosphere away from the crazy lights and music of the slot machines. After dinner Paul wanted to lose some money at a Black Jack table so we walked through a tunnel to next hotel, Mandalay Bay as it had more proper tables (there are also Black Jack computers but that’s not real ;)). After 5 mins there, we called it a night and went to get some sleep to be rested for the second day of our road trip.

The second leg of our road trip took us to via the Hoover Dam into Arizona to the Grand Canyon. It’s a very interesting drive as the landscape changes constantly and is by far not as barren as I thought it would be. Around 16:00 we reached the Grand Canyon and enjoyed one of nature’s most stunning feats. We took load and loads of pictures, but they can not only begin to capture the vastness of the place (of many of the vistas we’ve seen along this trip actually). It’s just so incredibly huge. I was worried that it would be really really hot, but it was kind of OK, and around 17:00 it actually started to rain. So we walked back to the car and started driving to Flagstaff, where Paul’s uncle lives.

Flagstaff is a pretty sweet place, it’s about the size of Etten-Leur, and people cycle there! Paul’s uncle took us out to a nice Italian restaurant where we sat on the cozy patio. On Thursday morning we went out to breakfast to an old school American diner (mmm blueberry pancakes!) after which we hit the road again towards New Mexico. That’s where I am right now, in a hotel on Route 66, which thankfully we didn’t have to take as it’s quite narrow, but they’ve built a nice motorway next to it, which is wider and has pretty new tarmac on it. The route to Santa Rosa wasn’t that hard (just follow the I-40). We stopped at Albuquerque, which, according to my travel guide, has a lovely old town centre. We thought it was a bit of a disappointment, perhaps because there weren’t that many people, but probably mainly because it was so Disneyfied: every cliché about traditional Mexicans seemed to have been exhibited there with chilis hanging on every doorframe and silly souvenirs in every shop. But we could stretch our legs for a bit and had fun commenting on it. Anyway, tomorrow we’re onto Dallas, 474 miles (762 km) from here so I’d better get some sleep…

The two hour car journey to San Diego gave me time to calm down a bit and process the morning’s events (and sober up a bit from the champagne). Although I kept muttering “this is so amazing” all the time (especially after I’d heard the story of the beautiful ring I have on my finger now, it comes from a jewelry store that’s owned by a surfer, and it’s platinum so it’s low maintenance, which is very considerate of Paul as I’m quite sloppy with these things). Anyway, we arrived in San Diego just in time to see the sun set, from our hotelroom with ocean view. The fabulous view wasn’t the only surprise, Paul had also had the hotel rent a surfboard for me and put it in the room, so I could just go surfing whenever I felt like it. This meant after checking the surf from my bed, as the nearest surf spot also happened to be right in front of the hotel :D. Yes, I got spoilt last weekend. The hotel itself looked very cool, with some very snazzy features, such as a lovely roof terrace with comfy sofas and a fire.

After a stroll while it became dark we had a delicious 5 course dinner at the restaurant downstairs. Then I immediately passed out as I wasn’t (and actually am still not) quite used to this time zone.

On Sunday we went out for breakfast and found a lovely little café that did great eggs and toast and stuff, I had toast with pesto, mozzarella and tomato, while Paul went for eggs benedicte. They also had various flavoured hot chocolate options on the menu but I thought that would be a bit much for breakfast so I just had an enormous (as this is America) black tea. After a little nap I went out surfing while Paul (poor thing) did some work that just had to be done that day. I had a wonderful surf session on the 8-foot yellow fiberglass board that was mine for the weekend. It was a very stable board, making for long rides, and I even saw a seal at some point, only 15 metres or so away from me. After about an hour and a half my hands and feet were numb from the cold and my arms were tired because I really hadn’t  surfed for ages so I went back in with a big smile and had a nice hot shower. Paul had finished his work too so we posted it and treated ourselves to some liquid feel-goodness at Starbucks.

On Monday we left the hotel around noon (in the rain and after I had tried the Mexican hot chocolate at the café where we’d had breakfast the previous day) and headed for Balboa park, a 4.9 km² park that contains museums, gardens, the zoo etc. As it was raining we wanted to go to a museum. As the signage is horrible in America and we couldn’t find the Science Museum we decided to go to the Air and Space museum. When we found out the entrance fee was $25, we decided not to go :). So we drove to another part of the park, found the science museum and saw the huge queue in front of it. It has stopped raining so we parked and wandered around the park a bit. We saw most of the reconstructions of the 1915 Pan American Exposition, which basically consists of elaborately decorated vaguely Spanish-style buildings with lots of trees and flowers. Some of the buildings also hosted museums, but the ones we were most interested in (the ones with paintings) were closed.

After traipsing around the park for a while we headed for downtown San Diego. We parked at Horton Plaza, a huge shopping centre, and wandered off through the Gas lamp district to find the modern art museum. We found some parts that belonged to it (it all wasn’t very clear) and those were closed and since it had started to rain as well we decided to look no further for the main part of the museum but to go find some food. We didn’t eat too much because afterwards there was one other mission to be accomplished: a visit to extraordinary desserts. One word: Heaven. This was also the first time I really appreciated doggy bags, as my raspberry concorde was just too big to devour all in one go. So after 45 mins of drinking tea, picking a dessert and eating half of it and just enjoying the ambiance of the place we hit the road up north back to LA again.

The past week started pretty much like any other. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I worked (although we did have a thesis defence which means party during work time). On Thursday night I went round Steve’s to admire the new lay-out of his apartment and to eat some curry and play with a BB-gun. When I got home I quickly packed my bag for LA and got into bed at around 23:00, only for a few hours though as I had to get up again at 03:30 to go to Schiphol to begin my trip. All went smoothly. I had a swell time exploring the whiskey shop at Heathrow airport, I read 300 pages in Anathem (I still have about 200 to go now) and for my flight from London to LA I got put in Economy plus which means vast spaces of legroom so I could stretch out comfortably and get some sleep.

I landed at around 14:15 (first surprise: rain) and I had arranged to go to ISI on Friday afternoon since Paul wouldn’t be in LA until the evening as he had to come back from Iowa. But this was the second surprise of the trip: he had caught an earlier plane and had landed half an hour before me so he was waiting at the airport! We shared a taxi to Marina Del Rey and then went into ISI because he still had to print some stuff for the San Diego trip the next day (which he hadn’t been able to keep a secret) and I had to do some stuff for work as well. In the evening we met up with Jason, Erika and Dirk at the Waterfront café. There we also bumped into Kerstin, so it was a good but chilly night.

On Saturday morning the sun was shining so I went for a run in Marina Del Rey while Paul answered some emails. We were supposed to leave for San Diego at 11 but a meeting about one of his applications came up so we would go by Manhattan beach first around 13:00. This is when Paul casually asked whether I wanted to go to the beach in Venice. Since I’m a sucker for the beach I of course said yes, and then I faffed about a bit (drinking tea, burning some CDs) because I thought we had loads of time left. But Paul kept asking me to hurry up. In the meantime Gully called a few times, Paul said because he was having some trouble with a Valentine’s date or something…

We got to Venice, found a parking spot on Main Street and walked down Rose to the beach.

Near the water I spotted two chairs and a table with a white table cloth, a vase with a rose, another rose lying on the table and two champagne glasses. I thought was so cute, not that I’m a die-hard Valentine’s day fan but I deep down inside I do like romance. While I pointed out the little scene to Paul he suggested we’d investigate. He sat down at the table, so I did too and we drank some champagne. I thought this was already the best Valentine’s day ever, sitting in the sun, watching the waves roll in, drinking champagne, I mean, it doesn’t get much better than that now does it? Well, it does, as then Paul proposed to me, literally “met alles erop en eraan” (and I’m keeping the details to myself :P). It was just absolutely perfect.

And of course I said yes!

Fast forward to a few minutes later. The mystery of how Paul had arranged all this was solved by the appearance of Gully, Paul’s accomplice in this whole undertaking. We had some more champagne (OK, I had most of it, since I was the only one not driving and the most astonished of the party). Some people who walked by thought it was very cool and wanted to take a picture of us, it as all a bit surreal, in a good way. Just absolutely amazing. It’s Tuesday now and the smile is still plastered on my face.

Unfortunately we couldn’t stay on the beach for too long as we needed to get to Paul’s appointment in Manhattan Beach. On the way there we stopped at ISI to pick up the prints we’d forgotten the day before and for me to quickly skype my mother who was rather shocked, but happy for us. In the car I called dad, who was at work and hadn’t been informed by mum yet.

In Manhattan Beach Paul went to his meeting and I read some more in my book on a bench on the boardwalk, although I didn’t progress very far as concentrating was hard :).

Around 15:00, when Paul was done and my face had gotten a bit sunburnt we were on our way to San Diego. More on that later…