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Published: October 7th 2008
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This weekend we planned a surprise visit to Friesland to spend Mum, Dad & Beppe’s last weekend in Holland with them. Oom Arjen picked us up from the train station in the morning, after we took the boat and train across to Holland. When I said we took the train across Holland, that’s what we really did - you see, I printed two timetables for the trip to Heerenveen, one slightly earlier then the other, however what I failed to realize at the time was that the destinations were different. One was Heerenveen, up near the top of Holland, the other was Heeren (or something like that) which is near the bottom of Holland. Eventually Daniel figured it out when none of the stops were at destinations where he thought we should be passing, so we quickly jumped off at somewhere starting with a T, and then headed back up to Utrecht to start the journey again, this time heading North!
Anyway, when we finally got to Oom Arjen’s and Tants Anna’s place Beppe and Tante Anna greeted us with fingers on their lips telling us to ‘shhhhh’. So we quietly walked into the kitchen where Dad was sorting photos
Dinner 1
L to R: Dad, Daniel, Me, Oom Popjke, Beppe, Oom Arjen's sister on his laptop and Mum was doing Sudoku’s. After standing there for what seemed like an eternity, I cleared my throat, still nothing, then I thought that they were trying to trick us and ignore us because they had figured out that we were coming, so I said “You know, don’t you?”, to which they looked up with expressions of blankness and then shock as they realised we were here in Holland! It was fantastic, and I quickly realised they had no idea we were planning on coming! Keeping things a surprise from Mum is not too hard, but surprising Dad is very difficult - so Daniel and I were both thrilled that we managed to give them such a surprise. And we managed to get it all on video as well.
We had a lovely weekend with them. We had all the Great Aunties and Uncles around on Sunday and we went out to a Chinese restaurant. The place was great as it was like Sequioa, where you can choose you own food and eat as much as you want, however, along with ready-made buffet food, you could also compile a plate full of raw vegetables and meat
Dinner 2
L to R: Tante Anna, Tante Aukje, Oom Jan, Henk, Tante Faye, Tanta Anneke and they cooked it in front of you. There was a Chinese wok and also a Japanese grill (tepanyaki). You could choose your own sauces also, and I was very proud of myself as I managed to work out zwartboonensaus (black bean sauce), which was what I ate as I was so pleased I could interpret one of the sauces that I didn’t want to ruin it by finding out I couldn’t understand any of the others!
Watching them cook was also fascinating as they would throw the food around in the wok and flames would fly everywhere. Then to get it out the guy would throw it in the air and catch it in his soup ladle and put it on your plate. For those of you who know my Beppe; it was most amusing watching her jump back in fright or put her hands in front of her every time this wok guy threw the food around and the flames spat up - hilarious!
Today, Monday, we had a quiet day around the house. Mum and Dad packed their suitcases - very impressive when you see how much Dad manages to squeeze into the suitcases! They have
Dinner 3
The two stunning men in my life! an extra 20kg of luggage that they are allowed to bring home on top of their 40kg allowance, so they have been kind enough to take lots of our things home also.
After lunch Mum, Dad, Daniel and I went into a small town to do a bit of shopping. I stocked up on yummy Dutch food such as Rokerbrood, Tai-tai, Papernickels, etc.
Now I am on a train on my own heading back to England. Daniel is staying on in Holland to spend some time with his family while I have courses in London from Tuesday-Thursday this week. This is the first time we have been apart since we started travelling so I’m already missing him. And going from a house full of family to a train full of foreign-speaking strangers it not very ‘heslisic’ either. Oh yeah, you can probably tell that Daniel is not around as my spelling of the Dutch words is bound to be terrible!
On that note, I shall end. But for those of you following this blog who can understand Dutch, here is a little song that we sung in church on Sunday which is apparently quite funny and cute:
Dit is m’n hand en dat m’s voet.
‘k Heb ze allebei nodig
Waar moet ik heen al seen het miet doet?
Niets is er overbodig.
‘k Heb m’n voeten nodig om te lopen.
En m’n handen om m’n schoenen vast te knopen.
Hand, voet, knie, oog, oor, neus, keel.
Alles is nodig, niets te veel.
Alles is nodig, niets te veel.
M’n hand kan niet zeggen tegen mign voet:
Ik heb jou niet nodig.
Stel je eens voor, dan ging het niet goed.
Niets is overbodig.
Want al kan ik met m’n handen ballen,
zonder mijn voeten zou ik op m’n snufferd vallen.
Hand, voet, knie, oog, oor, neus, haar,
Alles is nodig, voor elkaar.
Alles is nodig, voor elkaar.
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From Uncle Teus.
non-member comment
Hello from Uncle Teus and Aunty Joke.
Hi Monique when are you comming back to NL again? Hi, Daniel here. Hope you are having fun in London. Nice blog entery, I''ll keep you on. Luvya.