48 hours ago....

…we were on the other side of the world, on top of the world!
Conspiracy takes years out of your life, but it is sooo worth it….At the beginning of this year I had hatched the plan to surprise my parents for their 35th anniversary on the 30th of April. At that time, we had no house to be bought, so there was no reason it would not be possible. Inge requested the flight and we would hear in March if it would be final or not. I asked Carol if she wanted to go, but she said no, she had made other plans and would be going for the summer holiday anyway.

At the beginning of March I got my schedule from the university and the first hurdle showed: I would be digging that week and would miss some essential days and would not pass the course if I left halfway. A letter to school confirmed this, but by then the longing to go was bigger than before, I thought: though, I’ll have to make it up next year.

Then Inge got sick and lost a few weeks of her schedule. Then she got better and got a Bonaire instead of a Curacao. Then she got sick again. When she called me up in the middle of the night, about 3 weeks before the 30th, I thought it was something bad that happened to one of her cats that had gotten in a fight with a dog that day. But instead: Guess where we are going April 30th????
April 30th meant that we would fly back on May 2nd, the day that we would have to sign for our house and receive the keys. Crap, that was hurdle number 37 or so by then. A call to the notary public, the bank and our financial advisor and for Joris a few sleepless nights later, we decided to go through with it anyway. It took some planning and stress (and money) to get it done, but I could sign for the house through a notary-assistant. We decided to wait until I got back to officially toast on the house.
Then I got sick, had to leave the dig-site and go home to try and get better to be able to finish. I drank some TheraFlu out of desperation, did NOT have time to be sick, and got a nice full body allergic reaction and then even sicker. But WHO CARED? I was going HOME!

We were flying IPB, which meant that we could only go if there were seats available. So Inge was checking the flight daily for the numbers and things were looking tight. By that time the only people not in on the conspiracy were my parents. We had managed to get them to come to the airport to get their present from Inge, that Carol en I were sending.

That morning, at 3:30 am, we woke up to go pick up Carol in Tilburg and drive to Schiphol. There we checked in and sat and waited and waited. We had to wait for all the paying passengers to be boarded, and then they would check for empty seats.

Inge pinged to say that 12 more IPB-ers were on the list and the flight was full. In Curacao people were praying and biting their nails at 2 in the morning, waiting for the final news.
The board-desk was calling out names and with every name our hearts sank a little bit more. To come so far and not to go! When Inge pinged us that the captain had said that all IPB-ers were going, we could not believe it. Let’s just say, the seats we had were not usual chairs….at that point we didn’t care if we had to sit in the lavatory, together in the same seat, or in the belly with the animals….


When the plane took off, we were the happiest people on board, and I think Lisa the happiest person trying to sleep in Curacao. Marieke a close second….


We had a good flight and even though everything was completely full, we had a full service of meals and then some extra Inge care, which is better than business class. The plan was that we would get out and Inge would walk out, see my parents, do as if she forgot something and walk back for us.


Things went a bit differently. They had built this whole new glass door which we walked by and I was sure Pa had seen me, as he was looking straight at me when I walked by. When I switched on my phone, I had all these messages from ma, worried about not being able to find Kwek. So we ran back, put on our big bows and walked to the door. The first one out was Boe, who had sent a ping before that she was going to bring the present along with Ing. No reaction. Then we walked out. My parents were standing right across the exit. Still only blank stares, eyes darting over us. My father started to smile and all the other co-conspirators too. The only one still not reacting was Ma. Then pa told her: Emma, wak! She looked again, froze, made a very loud, questioning sound, said What…How?, rolled her eyes back and simply fainted and dropped to the left. The picture below is me reacting to her reaction. I almost died, I could see the ambulance driving away with her….Pa was standing there to catch her and thank God she came to and was gasping for air pretty quick and kept saying How? How? Is it real? Is it really my babies? Hugs all around and tears everywhere.

We had 48 hours on the island, finally we had traveled about half that to get there and back and it was so worth it. We had quality time as a family, which won’t happen again soon and had the opportunity to hug some people that we have missed dearly. A few hours on the beach was amazing for my skin, that has been suffering from a winter depression. I met Scroll and Lava, our two cats in kitty booth camp at Henny’s (training in how the help read the paper and lay in the way) and made some nice memories to last me to our next visit.

2 KLM IPB tickets AMS-CUR: 390 euros
Enough hair dye to dye back the hairs turned white due to stress: 40 euros
2 big blue bows: 6 euros
This experience: PRICELESS