Holland - Before the big departure

We arrived back in Holland on August 23 after a sleepless night on the plane. This day was however my birthday (that would be Silvia) so we didn't want the day to go by unnoticed. After driving to Amsterdam for no good reason at all (we had to feed the cat of friends but had forgotten the house key) we took the train back to Rotterdam and finally took a rest at my mums. In the evening we went to dinner with my Mum, Viola and Frans (thanks for coming all the way from Amsterdam) and Sylvia (no not me, my friend Sylvia, although I was there as well of course) and naturally Chris. It was great seeing everyone again but we were also quite happy going to bed early after the previous sleepless night.

The 4 weeks in Holland were originally planned so we could store our furniture (which we were planning to ship from Dubai) to register the car (again planned to ship from Dubai) and further of course visit friends and family. We also wanted to finish writing the web site (as far as possible of course), teach Chris's mum how to use dreamweaver as she has offered to update our site while we are away (a big big thanks to her) and to arrange last minute things like, new passports, scan the insurance cert's, tickets and all other important papers we didn't scan and of course arrange the visa for India. By the way when we found out the price of this visa it gave us quite a shock. It is EUR 50 per visa which is about the GNP of India but hey as they say in Dubai Whattodo? Going back to the furniture and the car, since we decided to store all our stuff in Dubai (as this was far cheaper then Holland) and we sold our car in Dubai, we were left with a lot more time to visit our friends, and enjoy the beautiful weather which came upon us quite unexpectedly.
Chris has taken upon him the ominous task of creating the web site (thank you thank you thank you) which left me with a lot of free time to do all the things I had in mind, like learning Spanish (for our South America trip), walking a lot so i would actually be able to get up the mountains of Nepal and generally getting fit and slim. Well I can brag and say I have come a long way but that would be lying. Instead I decided it would be much more fun, to read numerous books, and spent lots of time with our friends to catch up and eat lovely food and drink lots of wine. Ok so I haven't done anything i planned but I had a great time and that is what this year is all about after all. Today is also the first day I spent some time writing the web site (and enjoying it immensely to my utter surprise), as I felt very guilty towards Chris who has spent most of his time behind the computer. This is the last week of our time in Holland and it has absolutely flown by. As the time of departure is nearing we are getting more and more excited and can not wait until September 23 comes so we can get on the plane to India for the start of what is no doubt going to be a wonderful, exciting and adventurous year. So long, until India.