My day in the village on the bike

Day 2 - Thu

My 2nd attempt on the bike and after a few fall, I managed to conquer and jumped on it and riding away. Nice right! Then Sander always make sure that he rides ahead and give me traffic condition and instructions. I gotta say it is pretty nice and easy to ride since there is a dedicated bicycle lane. Errhhh i am however a road hogger! hmmm wh can imagine me being a road hogger on the street of singapore in my parent's mercedes??!! N here I am being a road hogger in the little village of alkmaar in a bicycle. As we cycled into town, heading for the park, I was scared!! Shit, we had to stop at the traffic lights and since I can't even tip toe on that bike, i needed to jump off it. phooo.... it was extremely ugly! Well, so the entire of my day was spent jumping up n down the bike around town. I am not so worry about myself but I am worried about damaging his mum's bike while i jump(aka fall) off.

We went to see the restaurant that we are considering for the wedding dinner. De Hertenkamp it means "the deer camp" is a quint little restaurant especially for functions only, sitting at the corner of a park De Hout, which means "the wood". It is nice that they have a little farm with deers, goats, sheeps, a boar and chickens running around.

Aiyo, then the rest of the day, we just strolled around village centre to see THE wedding cake shop, passed by THE wedding gown shop etc. n yup, the only like one of each of those nice shops around. Ahha and guessed what? There is a Mango ! Heehee at that point of seeing mng, i decided to upgrade the village to a Town :)

Day 3 - Fri
Today, there was a lot of visiting we had to do. First thing after breakfast, we had to visit Op-pa, grandfather. And he had specially requested that we do not all (ie, his mum and older bro) go together so that he can have sufficient attention to give to all. Oh Ya, I had forgotten to state that on Thur evening, Henri had kindly drove 2 hours journey to fetch Gerard, Sander's elder brother, from the home. Gerard is blind and mentally challenged and is currently staying at a home and comes home only once a month. They had specially brought him back this weekend so that we could meet him. Gerard has a super sweet voice and is a huge fan of the Bee Gees. He had gone on national TV, singing competition and performed at concert. He speaks relatively ok English and was able to explained about his likes and dislikes and stuff. Sweet and generally happy person!

Yup, and back to his Op-pa, he is probably the most important person that I have to meet. He stays alone in a block away from Laura. The super enthusiastic old man was standing at the walkway waving to us as we approached. His house was nice and neat and filled with a lot of his hobbies. There was a room filled with model trains, cars and ships, all built by him. There are also painting and cros stitches around the house in which he did it all by himselves. And this strong 78 years old man was also showing off his large jigsaw puzzle that he is working on! Amazing!! And the entire house was filled with a lot of passion! oh, and I forgot to mention to birds n the plants and the countless of photos.

As we were having tea, he showed me his albums of photos of young Sander and the entire family. Not speaking a word of English and with my bare minimal Dutch, we spent the entire hour playing charade. He was a really really warm and kind and gentle old man. I heard later from Laura that he likes me~! ~Phew~!

Another lazy afternoon of just shopping around for wedding bands. N we had raw herring by the tail and Kiplings for lunch. I am a natural fish person, so that didn't scare me too much. Haha and since it was an entire walking day, I am starting to like the little town.

And in the evening, we went to visit his grandma at the nursing home. She is suffering from elzimer and can't really remember things well. When we first found her in her room, she didn't recognise Sander at all and scolded and asked him to go away! After much coaxing from the nurse and prompting about who he is, she finally remembered. However she maintained her fierceful look and kept rolling her eyes, especially whenever I looked at her. Before today, I had always thought that my mum was the master of rolling her eyes, n now i found her match. When Sander told her he was going to marry me next year, she again rolled her eyes and said she don't know me! Haha and of course he tried to introduce me and said that I am a nice girl but don't know dutch. She said it was not a problem and I can learn cos I look smart.... haahaa but all these are of course base on Sander's translation. Through the entire long half hour, there was only 1 smile found on her stern face when she said that she had been married to Op-pa for more than 50 years! And her entire conversation was so much about him! Lovely couple! Even when she loses her mind about the rest of the world, she still remembers him!

And the evening ended with a meeting with the Aunt's family and then followed by meeting a friend Ysbrand over for a beer on this Friday night!

Days in the village.....

Many of you had probably asked me why i didn't blog for a long long time... I would normally credit it to laziness but most importantly life in a city is not much of a difference. Being right here in the Hollland had certainly stirred up so much thoughts that I need to record here.....

Day 1 27 Sep (Wed)
After an hour of drive, we arrived to Alkmaar (north of Amsterdam) to a quint town to be greeted by a huge red and black soccer stadium standing across the street from the red rubbish incernrator. Then we drove further past the city centre and past some nice neighbourhood and finally arriving at Sander's parents' apartment which really resembles our HDB flat with a carpark in the middle.

Having missed the fresh air of Holland, Sander wanted to walk the dog before dinner and so we did. That damm Chiwawa was not at all friendly to us but since we were bringing it to a walk, it gladly came along. We walked around the block and only 10m down the path, I saw cows n sheeps n ducks n a windmill!!!

"This is a village," I thought and I am going to marry a VILLAGE BOY !!! Aiyo ultimate scary thought!!

N that is not all.... After dinner we were supposed to go to a friend's house for coffee and as Sander had pre-warned me, we were going to get around on the bicycle. His mum had kindly agreed to lend me hers through this period.

URGHHhhhh.... The bike was bloody big! considering that her mum isn't taller than me! I couldn't reach the bike seat with tip toeing and since it was dark, I didn't dare to ride. So, Sander laughing said that it was his fault for over estimating me so offered to bring me along at the back of his bike.

He said, along the way, that he felt the ride was sweet that he could were close and he felt good having me cling on to him so tightly ... poo~ Tian mi mi is a fake and overly romantised movie. Imagine you are cold, can't see the road and trying to balance your ass on that hard seat.....duh~it is not my favourite

As for his family, his mum, Laura, was meeting me for the sencd time so there wasn't much of a problem. Henri, his stepdad, is a nice man, trying as hard to recall his English that was learnt 20 years ago and trying as much to speak to me. The dog, is more his mum's dog, so let's just leave it as it is. Oh, and Mark, his younger brother came with his girlfriend, Amy, to visit. Hahaha .... That girl is even more afraid of the dog than me!! Well, Mark doesn't look as cute in person than on photo.