Back in the Bay Area

Oh myyyyyy. When people warned me about 'repatriating' my thoughts were-eh, no problem. How hard can it be to go back to your own country!  Well, now that I'm experiencing it first hand, I can say  that repatriating has its challenges. Everything is sooooo big here. There is cement everywhere. There are cars (big cars!) everywhere. There are people everywhere.

Yesterday we went to the grocery store (Safeway). There you can buy pretty much everything you need.....it's a big store!  I went over to buy eggs, opened the container and counted how many eggs were in the carton. It seemed like sooooo many eggs!!!

Tonight we went to one of our favorite restaurants we've been talking about going to for months. The food was delicious....as always. We watched the waitresses running around trying to serve people and we just felt rushed during the entire dinner. It is such a contrast to what we experienced in Europe where people sit, take their time and really enjoy a good meal.

Pulling my heartstrings

We fly out from Amsterdam Tuesday morning to San Francisco. We have a direct flight, which is wonderful, but many hours of sitting on the plane!

We have hired a company to take care of Sammy on this end. They will be picking him up from the house tomorrow afternoon and will keep him overnight since our flight is early in the morning the following day. He will be on the same flight with us, in the baggage area.

We have paid for five bags on the flight. Because our shipment of goods won't be there for about two months, we decided to pack one extra bag to make sure we have enough clothing to get by, especially since the weather will be changing soon.

Yesterday we spent the day enjoying Haarlem...walking around, stopped for a beer down by the river, etc. Such a beautiful place to live!

Last night we had our neighbors over for a party. I had emptied all the cabinets of all the canned goods, and cleaning supplies, etc. We set everything out and asked them to please take whatever they wanted!  We also brought all of our liquor out and set it on the table. We told everyone we would need to drink it and whatever was left we asked them to take it home!! We had bought a bottle of champagne and we had some movie tickets that we gave away also.  Joep and Astrid brought their new baby, Louis-he is such a sweet baby!  Hans, Angela, Hetty, Michiel, Roel, Bart, Bop, Bruce , Linda, Ileke and Marijka were there. What a fun night!!! We didn't get to bed till after 0100.

This morning we slept in a bit and just hung out at home. We started packing our bags today and I started going through some things that need to be thrown out before we leave. We walked down to the recycle bins and got rid of the empty bottles from last night and some boxes I had cut up. We also took Sammy for a nice long walk through the Haarlemerhuit (Haarlem woods). Everything is coming together....but it is still surreal to think we will be gone from this place we've called home in just two days.

Earlier tonight we went to a friend's house (Meg and Ubo and their three girls) for dinner. What a special evening!