Quarter past midnight - Bastille*

You know the videos of babies not wanting to touch grass? Like this ? 

This was me from 18 Dec 2018 to 16 Jan 2019. Trying not to touch the ground in Curaçao, but at the same time knowing that I was eventually going to have to land somewhere for good. I knew beforehand that when I arrived back home, my baby sister was going to be there and it would be that time of the year with all the good stuff and that we had only a few weeks before the trip around the world, so I was prepared for it mentally.

What I did not anticipate was the physical destruction of jetlag. I was well prepared, pillows, battery pack, laptop fully loaded with downloaded Netflix series, books, snacks…There was not going to be an easy way, so I just had to sit through the 47:55 hours and make it work. The bit I was not looking forward to, was the 8 hours in Den Pasar airport. I am too chicken to go outside for a few hours and to be honest, Kuta does not really rock my boat…Last time I was there, we were happy to move along after 1 night. Again, once again, people take different things out the same destinations, nothing wrong with that. I choose to stay in. 

packing light is not my thing...

bye bye dear friend

love these tags

see you on the other side!

that is one!

yes please

make all the steps you can

that is 2

still minding my step

can I charge me too?

I bought a few books, picked a nice spot in the sun behind a window and read. I finished 2 books** in the time I had, had a foot massage, had a good meal and then proceeded to walk the (very, very boring) hallway to make my steps goal for the day. 

The flight from Den Pasar was to Amsterdam, through Singapore and that is a long one (yay, comfort class). I slept a few hours, that made a little dent in the total of 17 hours, but mostly saw aaaalll the movies on the flight entertainment system.

In Amsterdam I had 5 hours, in which a Yotel room was most useful to take the BEST SHOWER EVER and make a quick outside trip to the Etos and the Hema. Not to buy anything, but just to go see if they were still there   ;o) They were, coping just fine without me.

The last 10 hours to Curaçao were easy peasy. At the airport the Committee of Welcomes was ready and waiting. As soon as we touched the ground the apps started pouring in, I think poor Joris must have aged a few years waiting on the other end. My (ahum…3) suitcases came though quick and I went outside to hug the family!

it won't rotate!

Stress kip

The thing that surprised me the most of my landing, is that even though Joris and I had had a lot of app contact and a few long calls, I had forgotten about the way that Polly had affected his appearance. That made me feel really bad as the scar shocked me deeply all over again. The rest of him looked happy, tan and healthy, no worries there, but that scar is a reminder of how close to a very different ending he was.

After going home to see my mom, we went to the other home, where the cats, Carol and Joris were roommates in the fabulous house we are now calling kas. The cats of course were ecstatic to see me.

oh, were you gone?

yeah, that was scary

As I got home a week before Christmas, you can imagine those weeks went by quickly. Joris was still working till the end of the month, so he had basically unpacked what he needed and sat down to work. Me, on the other hand, after having unpacked 3 huge 23 kilo suitcases (took me a week, as we were not home during the day and jetlag was sawing me off at the knees at the most odd hours), felt the need to nest after having been moving from one place to the other for months. We left our house in Amstelveen the end of September and I had been living out of a suitcase even before that, as I had been in Curaçao since the beginning of that month. 

And not being certain where I will be calling my home after the world trip, I needed to stick to the more neutral jobs in the house. So I built and sewed and painted and was very proud of all the results.

Kaya kaya was the bomb!

Proud builders of the tree

new litterbox being tested #ikeahacks

Off to Aruba we go!

all unsupervised persons will be put to work

the parade of green to be saved every day

mid-final product! The bench itself is next

Christmas brunch with the family

chairs done!

Around new Years we had more visitors and had to see baby sister off.

January 1^st we walked and ran and handed out medals, which once again was a lot of fun!

scrollie was back home after having escaped before the fireworks

Then we started planning, finally. Joris was done with work and all visitors were gone, so we could technically dedicate more time to double laptopping the countries we were visiting and booking stuff. Let’s just say, we did not. We tried to get to the beach and run a bit, to leave on our trip more relaxed. Packing went very smoothly, the house and the cats were left behind in good hands and off we went!

trip to klein cur

as soon as we left, the cleaning lady sent this...we are missed 

* I choose this song for different reasons. Bastille is the one act I really really wanted to see in 2018 and missed on every occasion because of sold out tickets or crappy weather or simply missing the fact that they were performing. I love this song because of the movement you can feel in it, the rushing through life I have been doing these last months. There have been specific moments that I was standing somewhere at 0:15 and thought of this song, feeling the end of the day and also the beginning of an evening that could bring endless possibilities.

**ok, people who know how I read, know I will give every book a 100 pages. It is seldom that I stop reading before that and even more seldom that I throw a book out instead of giving it a good new home. But one of these two books pissed me off beyond anything. I will spoil it for you, so you do not have to read this book. Together, by Julie Cohen. It gets rave reviews. I was not a fan. It is told anti-chronologically, starting in the present and going back in time. It is a love story and there is something horrible that must have happened that they keep alluding to. Maybe I am just too pragmatic a person and I have low tolerance for beating around the bush about important stuff, but really, what a waste of life by living in fear for alllll these years. When you finally get to the end of the book, which is the beginning of the story, you realize that the main characters, the couple it is all about, are half-siblings. I finished the book, found the nearest trash bin and chucked it and went and had a drink. Somewhere in me I appreciate the fact that the book kept me reading and that it got some emotion out of me, but pissed off is not what I want to be after a book.