Sjroeplog

When you online all day and skype is on people from all over the world are able to reach you. So far I’ve talked to Joanna (AYAD-volunteer when I was in Papua New Guinea and now lives in Melbourne), André (Physiotherapist/IT specialist (there are more physio’s with this combi) who came over to the Netherlands in 2001 on the same exchange programme I used to go to Cape Town with and now lives in Pretoria), Miko (I lived with Miko in the same dormitory from 1997 to 2000 in Nijmegen and he lives in Oxford now) and last but not least

my sister who lives in Christchurch, New Zeeland.

This weekend I had a family reunion at my parent’s place in Limburg. A reunion on my mother’s side. Because of the hassle with the A73 (Dutch) I decided to go early. I took the exit just before the tunnel at a place called Swalmen. Driving onto a provincial road I got almost jumped at by a dragon.

An ugly one at best. Arriving at my parent’s house is always accompanied by a nostalgic sentiment; mostly triggered by smell. It’s always good to come home. With family members slowly dropping in I found out that the tunnel I avoided, because all signs said it was closed, was actually open. Hell and damnation, excuse my French. You have to drive down very busy village roads taking ages to arrive where you want to arrive.
Anyway, soon talk erupted and it was fun catching up with everybody. After a nice walk we sat down to eat. It is customary for everybody to create some of their favourite dishes and bring it along. Needless to say when you have a family who’s origins lie in Limburg, the food was good.

After PNG I returned to a physical state where sickness doesn’t touch me. Until now. It felt like I was having a flu the last few days. I never have the flu so I started thinking. This doesn’t come naturally so I stopped it.
So I did what every male does when faced with a dilemma like this (even though I frikkin’ spent 4 years getting a BA in physiotherapy and have been working in the health system ever since); I rang my mum. And my mum, like I reckon every mum, has the Answers. When mums speak you don’t actually have to think. Their words somehow seem to connect straight into a very old part of the brain. The instructions were; eat your fruit, drink tea and go to bed early. Right, easy enough.
But how did I get this debilitating illness? Another instruction took care of that as well. You haven’t been getting out a lot during weekdays. So you are not getting enough sunlight on your skin. UV will give your body the opportunity to create vitamin D, which in turn keeps your immune system healthy. A walk outside of at least 10 minutes a day will give your body what it needs.

You know what? I wonder what kind of study you have to do before you can become a mum.

Mum, the plant you gave me turned out really well you see. It has pretty flowers now.

Dutch cartoon about Sigmund

You have seen what my family does to me on my blog. My oldest sister made it up to me.

So my first Christmas holiday was a right out hit. Why? Well, I think because it’s different when I celebrate it with my parents. First of all there is nothing related to Christmas. No tree, no annoying music and not the obligatory nice clothes. And secondly there is the way we celebrate Christmas or rather the way we have a nice weekend.
In the morning I gorged myself at breakfast, because everything was so tasteful. To get rid of the excess calories we did a two hour hike and two hours of heavy gardening. Soon I found out I lost too much calories so I made a bouillabaisse as a starter for dinner. My mother prepared a cow tongue, which people find weird. I don’t actually mind people thinking this is weird, because this leaves a lot more for me to eat. You might be grossed out, but you’ll never find a more succulent and tender kind of meat.

Soon I found out that I overate and therefore gained more than my desired amount of carbohydrates, leaving me with this inflated feeling. The only proper way to get rid of it is through a game of Yahtzee. Having the world champion in the family means I play to get better with my dad.

Big sister came by to check out my new crib. She stayed for dinner. I decided to make something really good so she wouldn’t make fun of me anymore on my own blog. Let’s see how that goes.

Ow yeah, she’s back!!! Not for long, because she is going to New Zealand. Enough time though to show her my brotherly supremacy.

Last weekend (yeah, I did not find time to post sooner) I went hiking with my parents. My parents have a group of friends they tend to spend time with. Not surprisingly they are all respectably grey. Being the Benjamin of this group last Sunday was really nice. These people know so much about life and nature. And when being without story, stories are made up with great allure. This venerable group meets every last Sunday of the month to walk and one of them acts as a guide. The guide makes sure there is a route and a story.

Last Sunday afternoon was an exception as there was an external guide. The subject of the hike was Eugene Dubois. You might recognize him as the person who found the missing link (I never heard of him). He proved that Darwin was right with his evolution theory. Apparently he was übercool for that fact and it is really weird we Dutch don’t know him. Maybe because he was from Limburg or that he was without religion in a catholic region.

He owned an estate in Haelen (Netherlands) and experimented with a lot of things. The following picture is a bat tower that was supposed to attract bats who could keep his marshes free of mosquito’s.