Well the day finally arrived. The big move to the little country - a move from one small kingdom to an even smaller one. Hopefully this will be the last move I ever make around our little global village.
As much as I was prepared for it, and as many times as i've moved its never easy. Saying good bye to all the friends at work and Mum and Nin was not easy and London had definitely grown on me. The good ole pub life, footie on the common, the BBC documentaries, real English sausages and queueing - The best that Britain has to offer (oh and we can't forget Macclesfield now can we). But it was a case of always saying goodbye to Femke or saying goodbye to Britain and alas Britain lost out.
Well - the sad bit: Mum cried, I cried and Femke Cried but my little sister, being the tough nut she is, didn't. Also everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We woke up, sunday morning that some nut tried to blow up Glasgow Airport and ofcourse all the airports in the UK were under the tightest security. So instead of being driven to the airport we opted to take the train to gatwick.
Everything went fine up to the gate whereupon we found out our plane was cancelled due to a lack of cabin crew. (We found out later that BA was understaffed due to new staff checks as a result of the "incidents"). No matter we were rebooked from Heathrow and had to reclaim our "heavy" bags, get them on the bus to heathrow, and had to lug them around two terminals in Heathrow due to tube, bus, and train chaos. Our new flight also took of late and we arrived in The Netherlands 6 hours late - having also missed my surprise welcome party in the process.
Nonetheless, Femke's parents picked us up from the airport at 11pm, with a little bit of fanfare (see pictures) and drove us home to our decorated apartment. We still uncorked the champagne, toasted, had a little speech (that told the story of Femke and Desmond) and much to my surprise that evening I became the proud owner of a real dutch bike (een echte Nederlandse fiets) thanks to Femke's parents! Please note that due to this, I am now only 99.8% undutchable. I'll have to put a undutchability meter on the blog so you all can tell how well I'm settling in.
Anyhoos, since Day 1, (mark it well 1st July 2007), I've been unpacking, organising things, renewing my passport and generally practicising being a kept man....oh and watching the A-Team (in english) everyday at 2pm.
Well I hope you will all enjoy the blog. I think I'll get one basic post in tomorrow (probably something Dutchy) and then Femke and I are off to the Pyrenees so no posts for me - as I can't stand French keyboards.
Dutch word/phrase of the day (specially for Darren): Waar is het heren toilet? (where is the men's toilet).
