Last Day

Today is Kelly’s last day in the office; our last day to share our glass aquarium like room/office. We had to go out for one last lunch at our Neighbor’s Wife. That’s the English translation of the restaurant. We can’t remember it in Dutch. But they have great food and a wonderful chicken and pesto sandwich. We each had a bowl of soup as well. Kelly opted for French onion, I went with the mustard soup. Mustard soup is popular here and Kelly’s dad told her about it and that she had to try it. The first time I had it was a few weeks ago on our trip to Utrecht. The soup there was better, but this wasn’t horrible. Kelly’s French onion was delicious though! It seems to be such a safe bet in these parts, I might just start having to opt for that.

My mother arrived this morning. I went to get her from the airport. It was an interesting challenge. Not that I haven’t made numerous trips already, but I parked in the bus lane (since I wasn’t going to leave the car) to keep an eye out for mom. A young police like officer on a motor cycle came up and knocked on my window and told me to move. He was a bit nicer than that, but not a lot. So I make another lap around the airport worried I’m going to miss mom but then I find a new road to a new parking area. Now, I don’t know if I’d be able to get there from how we usually come in, but maybe. I now know where to look. I was able to park the car and get out and stand looking for mom. I didn’t have to wait too long and out walked my mother! I was so happy to see her! She had her stuff on a little luggage stroller and pushed it over to the car. I eyed the 3 larger suitcases and got a bit worried. I also eyed the instructions on how to lay the back seats in our car down. I figured now would be a good time to try it out. Turns out, Its pretty easy! Just lower the board thing that covers the “trunk” when in normal use and pull the little handle and they flop forward. The car has some pretty spacious luggage room when there are no seats in the way!

I got mom to the apartment, showed her the direction of downtown, and the windmill, and any other sights she might want to get out and see. There isn’t a lot open in the mornings so I figured that would be a good time for her to sleep and unpack. Hopefully, she’ll make it out for a stroll this afternoon. The weather doesn’t appear to be great, but I haven’t seen any precipitation fall from the sky yet either. I guess we have to count our blessings. If she doesn’t make it out, I guess that’s alright too. Before we left I wanted to give her some money in case she does get out but I left my purse in the car. Kelly was nice enough to shell out the cash for my mom. Such a good roommate! (I promptly paid her back when we got to the office!) For dinner we are going to head down that way anyways for dinner at XO and a glass (maybe 2) of champagne.

On Saturday my mom and I have planned, well, I’ve planned for us, to go to Madurodam and Keukenhof. I feel bad leaving Kelly since she only has a few days left but I know she doesn’t want to re-tour those places. Sunday, mom and I are headed to Delft to visit the Van Nieuwkoop family (the source of two Christensen family exchange students) and to catch up with them and see how their life is going. Mom also brought several things for them as well as hauling some of their son Chris’ belongings back. My mother is a bit of a pack mule on this trip, I hope she doesn’t mind! I guess that’s what happens when you start having children.

I’ll work on Monday then on Tuesday we are headed for a tour of Belgium. On Thursday we fly out to Nurnberg, Germany to visit Doris and her family and then go to Prague for the weekend. I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll be able to do during the time but I’ll try to keep everyone semi posted. This is a forewarning if I fail at my attempts.

For beer Friday Kelly and I (but mostly Kelly) brought stuff to make guacamole and queso for the chips. I have to take note of Kelly’s ability to make these simple things since I will be on my own soon. I knew I should have been paying attention to all of those fabulous meals she made. Now I’m going to have to try and figure it out by trial and error….hopefully not too much error though. I might starve. If worse come to worse, I can always count on the Albert Heijn premade section. I don’t have to worry about it for a few more days though.