To the homeland

The days are all melting together. I can't remember when we did what, but we've had a lot of fun. It might have something to do with jet lag, or the busy schedule.

My creative writing is under a lot of stress right now, because I'm trying to live up to the high expectations Mike Simmons has given me. I think he's the first person who's told me I am a good writer, so now I'm all nervous, and worried that I'll mess up. But then again... up to now I just write whatever I'm thinking, so I think the best strategy is to keep doing what I've been doing.

We had the best flight between America and Europe! It was the first time we have flown non-stop, and man does that make a difference!! Plus, we were lucky enough to travel with KLM, which is a 5-star airline compared to the 1 star poohole of American Airlines. I guess the Dutch are more service oriented. Each chair had their own tv, with literally dozens of movies, tv shows and games to choose from. No more worrying about children who get bored or sit backwards in their chairs to terrorize the back neighbor. There was so much choice, that I wanted to just skip the sleeping, and almost wished the trip was actually longer. The food was excellent as well. There was even Dutch Fanta! (very different from the chemically flavored American Fanta). Sorry if I'm sounding a little Dutch biased right now... I am among all Dutch folks.. I guess they're rubbing off on me.

Each time I visit Holland I feel a little more like a visitor, and less like a native. Especially the first day.

After watching movies all night, we got to the hotel of our "old" friends the Simmons (they're really not old, we've just known them for longer than any of our friends- 7 years). They have been living in France for the last 9 months, and are just at the tail end of their adventures. I was just lucky enough to be here to show them a little of my home country. So while we crashed at their hotel, they went on a bike tour through Amsterdam. When we drug ourselves out of lala land, we joined up with them at an awesome flower parade. Once a year the big flower garden puts millions of flowers on floats and shows off why Holland is famous for flowers. Just standing on the road, it seemed like my nose was in a bouquet of flowers.

After walking a few miles we took the Simmons to a typical dutch pannenkoeken (pancake) restaurant, and introduced them to the delights of sugar syrup, bacon, and carbs.

(pics come later)

We caught Joe and Mike sneaking into a "coffeeshop" *dutch name for weed shop- and NO they didn't buy any

Joe and I really enjoyed staying with my cousin Talita and Camaron a few years ago, and were lucky enough to stay with them again. Joe and Cam are 2 peas in a pod. Each time we tried to go to bed, Cam would crack another joke or start another anecdote. It would be fun to live in Zoetermeer and spend more time like this with them.