waiting for supper...

i'm now living in utrecht...temporarily, till we can find an apartment or house or a cardboard box somewhere that we can call our own...
i attended my first classes at the university of leiden. it was in english, taught by a british dude who shares my sentiments about dutch signs and road systems.
studying on my own is ok, the first few days were quite interesting and i think i could enjoy the subjects to a certain extent... sleeping in isn't a good way to start my mornings though, so i have to set up a schedule just to keep myself going.
living with students will be good again, though i don't know them all too well yet. they are all nice and pretty easy-going so that shouldn't be too hard. and if all else fails, i have liesbeth to talk to (or listen to) till we fall asleep every night.
iowa student loans are stalking me...
i miss seeing luuk every day.
three and a half more months!
shit, i have alot to study, arrange, sew, buy, plan before then... (sigh).
last week i visited the family i nanny-ed last year. good to see them. glad not to be nannying though. occasional visits will be good. or random trips to the zoo. but then i can take them home...and leave! ah... i like this arrangement.
i found out today that taking birth control pills for up to 8 years reduces risks of certain cancers... those little things come with so many benefits!

yay! suppertime!

doei!

Resumen

K, so no one reads this anyway, and I don't feel like writing alot today. I'll summarize the Guatemala and Mexico part of the trip with: it was the best part of the trip, and well, the best damn time I've had in a long time!
We're going back some day and perhaps when we're old, we'll retire there to enjoy the perfect temperatures and beautiful people, and stuff our house with handicrafts.
If we are friends on facebook and are interested, you can see pics of the trip and find out more about Guatemala and Mexico.

For now, it's back to real life, figuring out school and visa stuff and planning for wedding and housing and living out of my suitcase between Liesbeth's and Luuk's parents' place, until something more permanent comes up.

Honduras (belated)

After constant traveling and early mornings and tired backs, we were all ready for a relaxing break. So, our trip through Honduras consisted of four nights in the beach town of Tela in the northern part of Honduras and then a night in Copan before moving on to our next stop.

High and lowlights:
- taxi drivers in Tegucigalpa
- waiting for almost two hours with Liesbeth in the bus station for the guys to return from the ATM that was supposed to be just down the street.
+ the guys coming back alive and unharmed with money, passports, and the taxi driver who hadn't understood where they wanted to be taken despite the map that they had shown him and who wanted an extra tip after giving them a full unwanted tour of the city (the ATM didn't work and the nearest one was down town).
+ Tela: sun, sand, ocean.
+ kitchen in our apartment/hotel room; the beer/hotsauce soaked chicken i cooked one night.
+ beer.
+ airconditioning.
+ bargaining a discount for a kayak tour.
- waiting for two hours before we left for our tour the nextmorning.
+ kayaking through mangroves.
- finding out on the tour that we weren't getting the food we thought we had paid for had actually been the discount so we shoulda brought food along...

- waiting another hour for the tour guide to show up.

- missing the monkeys and cool animals because it was too late and they had all gone home to hide from the sun.

- finding out that kayaking takes team work, trust, and alllloooot of patience...

- finding out that luuk and i have to work on those little details.

+ finding out that every other couple on the tour also had a few details to work on, so our case wasn't hopeless!

+ crashing a wedding later that night (we were invited by one of the couples on the tour, brother and sister-in-law of the groom...met the bride and groom at the wedding itself...had to wait till during the reception to write the card because we didn't even know there names...)

+ the wedding: the bride was barefoot; the sun was setting; the ocean was calm; a girl played Death Cab for Cutie, Johny Cash and others during the wedding...(sigh)...

? the prayer to God, the wind, the earth, everything green, and the sun to (everyone repeat after each line) "bless this marriage! (among other interesting mystic, new-age, and who knows from where allusions).

+ dancing with cousins, aunts and uncles of the bride and groom.

+ dancing to "Besame" with Luuk, to later find out that the only other two couples dancing were the bride and groom and his parents...oops.

- forgetting our camera that night.

+ the cute little (touristy) town of Copán.

- the very expensive entrance fee to the ruins of Copán.

+ the ruins of Copán.

+ the bus right through Honduras.

Nicaragua

Already at the border Nicaragua looked different than Costa Rica. The poverty there was immediately apparent; the lack of emphasis on preservation of nature was also immediately evident, seen in the garbage strewn all over in corners, on sides of roads, in empty lots; even the people looked a little different, slightly darker and wearing different clothing (as in, no name brands). Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America with the exception of Haiti. The greatest positive difference: culture. While Costa Rica is geared to tourists, is populated by many expats, and has no real cultural history, Nicaragua´s history is full of civil war and revolutions and the continuing fight for a better life. The people are more reserved but when spoken to or smiled at are very friendly.

highlights:

- staying on Isla Ometepe, the largest lake island in the world, created by two volcanos that stand right next to each other.

- being charged by a large cow with very sharp long horns.

- Granada: an old picturesque colonial style town with many churches and much to see.

- the chocolate shop in Granada.

- tamales.

- fruit, every day.

- standing at the crater of volcano Masaya.

- staying Ponch in Managua!

- the 50th bday party of some guy that we never met before till Ponch took us along (and the chocolate cake we ate there!)

- Selva Negra: hearing (but alas, not seeing) howler monkeys; eating pink quail eggs; the absolutely romantic chapel practically growing out of the jungle that we found; wading through mud; the suicidal hitched ride back to town which ended with them taking us actually past town and to some work shop at the top of some hill at which point we really started to fear for our lives...but they brought us back to a point previously passed and dropped us off unharmed.

And I´ll stop there before this once again gets too long...

Costa Rica

The first two days involved recovering from jetlag and getting used to the climate (very warm, sticky, with rain every day at least twice and sometimes for hours), adjusting to noise and dirt and persistant taxi drivers. We found out later that in San Jose we had managed to stick to the dirtier part of the city and missed out on the nicer places to visit...ah well. And Heredia was not the colonial city described in our travelers handbook..a bit disappointing, but still interesting. It got better from there.

Highlights:

- pleasant surprise, spur-of-the-moment trip to the Valley of Orosi, where we stayed in a hostel owned by a Dutch guy who married a Canadian he met during an exchange program in college...apparently we aren´t the only crazy ones.

- meeting a couple who were once both in engineering but decided to live in a commune...when that didn´t work, they moved to Costa Rica and started a vegetarian restaurant which they run with their daughters...interesting couple to say the least.

- taking a couple of the trails given at the hostel, missing the goal on one, getting a bit lost on the other, and were rewarded with hotsprings with the third.

- getting caught in the rain on one of our trails.

- a gigantic friendly frog, a lost butterfly that was as big as two hands next to each other, a cockroach, plenty of dogs (quite a bit healthier here than expected), an iguana that dropped from a tree right in front of us while trekking through some jungle), and lots of geckos.

- riding horses up the mountain in La Fortuna; they walked through mud in holes so deep that our feet reached the ground next to them...

-waterfall at the top.

-fruit juice from a hippy from some-where-in-south-america (he kept avoiding the question and wouldn´t say).

-seeing maybe-monkeys-maybe-ant-eaters in Monte Verde (Luuk is the only one who insists that they were monkeys...the rest of us are still on a mission to see our first monkey before the trip is over).

-eating fresh, ripe mangos, guanabanas, and bananas.

-watching Luuk run with a girl who was so afraid of lightning that she refused to walk outside with lightning that was kilometers away...she thought running would actually prevent her from being hit...

I´ll tell ya´ll later about nicaragua.
Right now: we are in Honduras, at the beach, enjoying the sun (and the Tour de France on our cable tv...boys...pff).
Hope your summers are going good!
Cheers!

adios amigos!

quick recap:
said goodbyes to the family in woerdense verlaat. was a strange experience...didn't feel quite complete somehow. i think i wanted to feel sad for a bit but after hating the job so much sometimes and after all my bitching, i couldn't quite justify it. it all came out later that night when least wanted/expected. ah well.
goodbye to dane was awkward, with jeroen watching and waiting to drive me away to zoetermeer... not exactly how i'd expected it. email makes up for things i guess.
trip to costa rica: long. had a nice little scare when stopping in the miami airport (yup dane, we didn't fly straight through). luuk was in line ahead of me for customs, and he was sent to some other room to be questioned with no explanation to me who was watching nervously from behind. apparently new passports raise some flags. we didn't miss our flight though and made it to san jose with no gliches.
in san jose: evaded the taxi drivers trying to offer us a ride for 20bucks and took the longer, would-be-scenic route with the bus (windows too dirty to see through), then a taxi from somewhere in town to roughly the address where a couple hostels were supposed to be. we were dropped off and walked around looking like lost tourists ready for the first eager guy to come up and rob us. of course, no such thing happened and we made it to a nice hostel where we promptly fell into bed to sleep a restless night through. weird how when one is super tired its harder to sleep...
next day: wandered around san jose and heredia, both of which proving to be interesting in all their grimy, noisy, smelly glory, but not exactly what expected. i'll have to rearrange my expectations.
anywy...so far so good. today: its off to some jungle and volcano hikes. :)

"i didn't want cany anyway!"

jules learned very quickly that peeing in the potty earns him a candy. now he trys to go every five minutes. he is very disappointed when the tiny little trickle is not enough to earn his awaited candy.

the latest development of the house: raoul can wave goodbye now. and he can take three steps now before falling on his face.

tomorrow is my last day here.
today seems to be crawling by somewhat slowly.

there are two boxes with wrapped in colourful paper and with bows stuck to them sitting on the kitchen table. 
i'm curious.

the "tent" is once again kapot. i have to go fix it. the best part of this little game is that jules will promptly tear it apart again, at which point i will be expected to go fix it. and he will break it. and i'll fix it. and so on until i get sick enough of it to ignore his tugging on my pants and he gets bored of waiting for me and finds something else to do...
ah.
there are somethings that i really don't like right now but will for some reason miss some day.
such is life.

....bleh...

luuk is temporarily moved into his parents place till we can "i do" and move in together to some apartment or house yet to be found... it's amazing how much stuff people accumulate in four years... moving alot helps. or maybe this just illustrates some major differences between luuk and myself. cause i sure have alot less crap than he does!

i'm halfway through the first day of my last week here. only a total of 6.5more days of work (with a weekend in between). and then i'll be an ex-nanny!

i'll have to find a new way to define myself... i'm losing my identity!
(no worries...i'm not terribly attached to this one).

...emmm...yeah. not much going on. i'm bored. went to the doctor's office this morning, with the two youngest kids. surprised at how well that went. we left just before they started getting crabby - good timing! yay for naps...

i want a nap.

jules wants to play cops and robbers. i think i'll do the whole "pick up, dump in the crip, walk away, pick up, dump in crib..." routine a couple times and hope he gets distracted... am i getting old? why do those sort of games make me so tired? i should exercise more or something...

coffee

you know it's addiction fueled by habit when you realize that you just filled the pot without even looking and its the perfect amount to fill two cups...

recap

thursday: got vaccines for the summer trip. apparently living there for most of my life didn't make me immune to diseases like hep A, typhoid, tetanus, polio... oh yeah, and malaria. i get to take 120pills, one each day, for 120days... i'm totally gonna miss a day somewhere and get bit by a malaria mosquito and it will be a waste of whatever its gonna cost me (still haven't picked them up yet...). the vaccines made me sick on friday. that was fun. apparently the malaria pills have great side effects too, like oral ulcers, fevers, hallucinations, vomiting... that'll be great fun on the trip. i'm considering getting malaria instead...

friday: i considered leaving an hour later than normal so i'd have time to do my hair/makeup/eat... opted to skip vanity and rushed to get to the train on time. apparently i took the last train before everything shut down half way up to groningen just after i got there. 
good timing. yay for... what's the word? non-vanity?

saturday: the jonge-nederland (under-21 dutch) team (soccer) played serbia for the final of some cup/championship in groningen. they won. and they celebrated. and we joined. and we remember most of it.

sunday: hmm. wasn't very interesing. 
nevermind.

today: i just watched a bit of some new tv show (new here, maybe old already in the US) called "big love", with bill paxton... about a polygamist and his three wives.
disturbing.

no words...

nigeria. drug trials. death. justice?

And it's Monday again...

Time goes fast. It seems like it's slow...but then all of a sudden, you're somewhere for 10 months and it's only 4 weeks till vacation and less than 3 months till September and classes and studying and only 6 months till the next big step in your life.
Weird.

Jules is learning to use the toilet. He was quite proud of the teenytiny little turds he grunted and squeezed out for all the world to hear. He was even more proud of the raisins he got as a reward. Kids - they think everything is candy. How convenient, actually...

I have a dress. Finally. :)
I'm quite proud of having found something nice, affordable, and actually somewhat original. I even could pay for it myself! After everyone else is paying for the church, the reception, the food, the transportation, the tickets, 
possibly even the first apartment, I am quite proud to be able to pay for at least one thing on my own. Who care's if it's not even a tenth of what everyone else is paying... It's still 100% my own.

Ah the things make us happy.

Last one for the day...

i'm totally moving to denmark...

This one just kinda made me annoyed...

and ok, it's not a big deal in the scheme of things...but still, the stupidity...the hypocrosy...egh.

Crazy story...

This is...nuts. (Hardyhar!)

daily exercise

8:45am: 'mana! i'm the robber you are the cop! come get me!
8:48: i got out! come get me!
8:53: come get me again!
8:59: i got out again! 'mana! come get me!
9:02: 'mana!!! i got out again!

...repeat about a million times...

9:25: 'mana! come get me!
9:30: pick me up again!
9:36: i got out! 'mana! come throw me in jail!

...brief pause for me to recover from fingers in my eye...

9:45: 'MANA!!! come get me!
9:50: 'mana! i'm out!
10:00: 'mana! 'mana! 'mana! come get me!
10:01: ...but i don't want to play anything else...
10:02: (sniff) i wanna be a robber...you have to get the robber... (sniff sniff)

...another pause while he sits to cry...

10:03: mana! come get me!

...repeat in random intervals throughout the day...

Kids...

yesterday, camiel rushed into the bathroom in a hurry. i listened for the toilet to flush and then water to run in the sink indicating that he had washed his hands. didn't happen. when he came out, i asked him what he had forgotten to do. he thought for a minute and then with a surprised look said "ooh! oops! i forgot to wipe!".

good morning bonita!

I am back to work again, after a nice string of long weekends and whole weeks off. Any time Camiel has vacation, I get vacation too. As I told Ann...if I'd started working here in January or February instead of in August, the first few months here might have been alot easier to adjust to!
My search for a wedding dress that's cheap-yet-nice (which means: doesn't look like a gigantic white bag hanging off of my neck) has turned into a quest for cheap-yet-perfect (that is: fits me, flatters my physical shape and ego, inspires awe in all wedding guests, 
and is completely original). 
K. Well, the original part is gonna have to go, cause I'll be buying second-hand, most likely. I'm still working on the rest. In the meantime, it's become an obsession. The center of my tiny little universe. Let's hope I find one soon.
Next obsession on the list: apartment searching!

I'm reminded of one difference in culture between the US and Holland, every time I mention that I'm getting married. Most people react to the idea of someone my age tying myself down to someone else before I've had a chance to check it out first (in Dutch: live together) as if it were completely foreign. Ok, well, really it is. At least, it's not a Dutch thing...
Today I had to get a piece of paper from the town hall (or whatever it's called) that says "I am in Holland legally and no, am not married," for the purpose of applying for a marriage license. When I asked for the paper, the woman at the desk looked up in surprise. No. Shock. I coulda been a 10 yr old kid telling her I had ten pounds of coke stuffed up my butt and I woulda got the same reaction.
Really. Why? Dunno. Seriously folks...I'm not that young! Aaagh. 
Though, I've been mistaken several times for a highschool junior. (What the hell?). This is only good if the trend continues and people think I'm 30 when I'm really 50 or something...

Anywho...it's coffee time.
Cheers!

icky feeling.

i slept like poo last night.
today i feel lightheaded and woozy.
my ears are stuffy and i think i'm getting luuk's cold.
not a good feeling.
coffee didn't help.
but, i work today and then have the rest of the week off. that is nice.

:(

Carmela is gone...
I'm sad.