Harmelen/NL: October 2001 Archives
As most of you know, I have spent a lot of my spare time doing voluntary work for Jong Nederland. Jong Nederland (www.jongnederland.nl) is a national youth organisation, with a local group in Harmelen.
Yesterday after a big fund-raising activity, the board and the animators of Jong Nederland Harmelen (jnh.tmfweb.nl) surprised me with an official good-bye. Normally leaving animators are thanked at a special evening with all the parents of our members, but since I am leaving the country next week they had to do it earlier.
Berry had prepared a nice document summing up the things I have done in Harmelen during the 13 years as an animator. If you know me a little bit, then you know that this list was not so long... The main point was that I have spent a lot of nights drinking a beer.
After that, he gave me the presents. The traditional present is one plate to put on the wall. I will surely take it with me Catalonia. Besides that I received a set of pens and a pin. It is the small things that I appreciate most...
Of course I arranged a box of beer afterwards, which reminds me of one more thing: I still have to pay my bill!
On Saturday, October 20th, my parents and my sister have organised a farewell party for all my family. They have really made a big effort of organising a great party. The best for me was that all the invited people showed up. Fortunately the weather was quite good, because we really couldn't fit everybody into the house.
MJ and I have received a lot of nice presents, mostly typical Dutch products as drop, hagelslag, erwtensoep and pepernoten. Some people also took the occasion to get rid of their last pesetas.
I can tell from both of us: Thanks a lot!!!!
One week of holidays is not a lot if you have to travel back and forth to the other end of Europe. Last week, we have spent the whole weekend packing my stuff. The result was a huge pile of boxes, of which everybody doubted it would fit into the car. On Sunday evening we removed the couches from the car and started fitting everything in it. To our surprise, there was some space left!!! So we quickly went back inside to get three more boxes which I intended to leave in Harmelen.
On Monday we left at 4 o'clock at night to drive in one time to Lleida. Expected distance: 1600 kilometers. At half past nine at night we parked the car in the garage in Alpicat. Completely exhausted we made it just before the Catalan supper time!
Tuesday we took a rest and emptied the car, and on Wednesday we arranged some practical things as visiting a language school, washing the car, checking the oil and arranging some of my stuff (CD's!!!).
Thursday morning we left at 4:30 in the morning, with an almost empty car. The trip went a ot faster this time, but again we were exhausted.
And now I am here, while all my stuff is over there. I will have to wait two more weeks before I will leave Harmelen definitivly.
Just a few more days to go! My room in Harmelen is turning little by little into a big mess. I am emptying my wardrobes, spreading everything out on the floor, putting stuff into boxes. Along the way I find back things of which I couldn't even remember their existence.
And as you can imagine I just have to read those old letters, go through the old pictures, look into the old magazines...
In between there is of course my daily life: getting up, going to work, meeting friends, talking with my parents and of course phoning with MJ. The days all seem so very short...
Anyway, four more days to go, and then everything has to be packed. I haven't decided yet the exact way to drive to Lleida. There are two options: drive over Paris -- Toulouse -- through the Pyrenees or Lyon -- Perpignan. The first option is shorter, but with smaller roads and the second option has better roads, but over a longer distance.
The main reason most people will visit this site at the moment is because you want to know when I will be moving to Lleida.
The answer is: SOON!
Next week, on October 15th -- 20th I will be moving all my stuff to lleida by car. I really hope that everything will fit in, but we will see...
After I am back, I will be working again until October 31st. On Friday November 2nd I will finally take the plane to the south of Europe.
