Egypt, here I come!

It’s a 4,5 hour flight to Hurghada from Brussels and since I’m hand carrying my precious MacBook, I decided to make use of my airborne time. I’m writing one last weblog before I set foot on Egyptian soil, my new home for probably the next 6 months. At least...

The past weeks in Holland (and Paris) have been hectic, fantastic, intense, fun, sunny, completely scheduled and organised so I could see as many people as possible, yet totally chaotic. The first time I was back in Holland from Singapore, I only had seven days, the second time, I had 10 days in the country. Both visits, I realised it was not enough time to say Hi to everybody, so this time, I took a whole three weeks to spend time in Europe even though I was of course dying to get to the Red Sea...

But now that I am actually on my way to Egypt, I’m really glad I spent three weeks of my sabbatical to stay in my home country. Holland is my fundament and though my soul and spirit are more of the nomad type lately, they need to come home every now and then to reaffirm their identity and of course, to have plain old fun.

And fun it was... In no particular order then, just a few highlights of my stay in Holland with everything else in the pictures for those who care to view what I’ve been up to.

Giethoorn with the girls:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46903&l=ae782&id=523210814

Giethoorn black & white portraits (experiment):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46919&l=6891e&id=523210814

Everything else I did in Holland:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47067&l=97e8e&id=523210814


Giethoorn, the so-called Venice of the North, with the girls. Boating on the little canals, having drinks in the sun on a terrace beside the water... Fancy dinner at the Michelin star rated Kaatje aan de Sluis, with a 7 course chef’s menu including a different wine with each course... Disappointed looks of the male population in the local bar across from the restaurant when our taxi takes us home at 2 am - apparently there is a lack of nicely dressed, slightly drunk, young (well, in their thirties) ladies in Blokzijl... ;-) Closing off the girlie weekend with a visit to the cinema: Sex and the City, of course... A large part of our friendship after all, is based on the endless TV gatherings during our student years. Uncountable evenings of Melrose Place, 90201, Models Inc, Friends, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City and cooking dinner for each other... So Sex and the City, the movie, was clearly a Must Do this time round. And I’m not embarrassed to say that I bawled my eyes out (when Big is a no show at the altar) and pissed in my pants laughing (when Charlotte shits in hers). Sorry if that was a spoiler for anyone, but be honest, if you’re a fan you’ll have already seen it and if you’re not (or don’t want to admit it), you won’t mind me saying that it all ends well for the SaTC ladies but that I find Big really quite a loser. Did you notice that throughout the entire movie - and the series as well for that matter - he doesn’t seem to have ANY friends? Who would want to marry a guy with no friends?

Then the evenings out with ex-boss Guus and ex-boss Jasan... How nice to be able to get along with one’s managers after leaving the job. The night with Guus and other former colleagues however, cost me dearly. Drinking at the same rate as 2,03 meter tall Dutch males is a bit too much for a 1,5 meter short Chinese female. Somewhere on my way home, I fell off my (borrowed) bike and lost the Gucci sunglasses that I was wearing (because of course, it was very bright at 3 am along the canals of Amsterdam). Oh well, that’ll teach me...

Of course I went to say hi to other ex-colleagues as well... How weird to walk around the office, where nothing has changed, but a lot has changed at the same time... The surroundings at headquarters where almost unrecognisable, with all these new Zuid-As office buildings shooting up, but the good old ABN AMRO logo was still on the big tower... For how much longer I wonder... And of course the best Surinam sandwiches are still at the Bijlmer... Mmmm...

And then new born babies to visit, new houses to admire and lots of other happy announcements. In the past 6 weeks I was told about 8 pregnancies!!!! Jeez... I think I’d best plan a trip back to Holland in January, because there is going to be a major baby boom in my circle of friends around that time!

Finally, the endless late nights at Siobhan’s, copying each other’s music collection (after I had also copied my cousin’s and my brother’s), organising the music on my MacBook and external disk, talking about love and life, alternating between drinking prosecco and white wine for hours on end... Watching her unwanted little grey pets sneak around the house looking for cheese or other nibbles, their tales sticking out from under the kitchen cabinets... Setting the mousetrap, planting boxes with poison around the room. “Another dead one!” the sms said one day... Did we kill both mom and daddy now?, we wondered... 200 GB of music, 2 dead mice and an uncountable number of empty bottles later, I said goodbye to the loft house where I had felt very much at home for the past weeks. Thanks lady!

So if you ask me to summarise the last three weeks in three words: WHAT A RUSH!

Thanks everybody for making my time in Holland yet again fantastic & thanks especially to mama for all the help, the car and letting your house become a war zone while I was (un)packing...

Touch down in 30 minutes... What is “Hello” again in Arabic? Salam aleikum? Wa aleikum as salam...

xYx

PS: As I post this blog, I've been in El Gouna for two days, two dives logged and feeling very much at home already thanks to Darja and Ivan. But that’s a different chapter...