My parents seem to like it when I introduce my friends to them. So I took some of them to the beautiful south. As my parents have a nice big house with a nice big (read huge to Dutch understanding) garden my friends were thoroughly impressed. In the absence of a barbecue we dug a pit, put four poles around and stuck some chicken wire on it. Et voila, a good way to char the meat.
The next morning we went site seeing in a graveyard in Roermond and we took a walk in the forest near my parents house.
I surround myself with friends. Many people do this, because friends give you friendship. And through friendship you receive love, attention, feedback, and relaxing times to spend. One of the things friends also do is check up on your love life. So when nothing happens for a long time relationship wise, friends start reminding you in special ways. This is how the Panda party started. Let me first explain to you what a Panda party is.
The thing about panda’s is that they’re an endangered species. One of the reasons is stated in wikipedia:
when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year
This made a friend decide that when another friend “didn’t get some” for a year he or she would have to celebrate a Panda party. The Panda party started…
Now it is time for my Panda party. I have to add another detail though. This is my second consecutive year without “having relations”. Friends wouldn’t be friends if they wouldn’t make the second Panda party more special. It is stated that when one celebrates his or her second Panda party he or she will become virgin again.
So the 7th of August 2010 will be the time when this panda celebrated his second Panda party. Join me to celebrate this special event.
The weekend began with Merijn graduating. It took him 9 years so I guess it’s a good thing he decided to get his bachelor. He now is an official Dutch teacher with a specialty in Dutch as a second language.
The weekend progressed with a family reunion on my mum’s side. Since I had a party to celebrate Merijn’s graduation I was excused from the canoe trip early in the morning. But it looked like everybody had fun.
This morning I went back to Nijmegen. I’m trying to start running again, but my right ankle is still in need of some rehab before I can do 5 km. My colleague, the one who treats me, tells me to walk for 10 minutes and then run. And what do you know, it works. To celebrate the success I joined Merijn to the Thermen in Nijmegen. Multiple sauna’s, a massage, nice food, sitting down to read a book. As I’m typing this post I’m actually melting from relaxation.
As you know I live in a communal house in Nijmegen. So what do you do to spend some together if you live together in a house? You all go to another house with some extra friends.
We went to Friesland and rented a house. On Saturday we rented a boat and boated round the place. Really relaxing.
Friends had to have a shed removed. Maybe you have experience with breaking stuff and maybe you like it. I like it…a lot.
A nice detail was that this shed had been used as a place where a certain product was sold. The product was sex. Terrible colors everywhere and tacky wallpaper.
First of all the screws I had in my ankle are out. A little hiccup occurred though. The surgeon put several needles of anesthetic into the skin and opened the outside of my ankle. The first screw came out.
Then the second came out.
Or so I thought. Apparently the second one is broken off. X-ray showed that the broken screw will not damage the joint. Since I thought the screw that was broken off was pushing through to the other side the surgeon decided to explore the other side as well to see if it would cause any problems in the future. He decided there would be no problem so he stitched me up again. So now everybody is happy. Although I have to say I’m very happy. I complained of not having a man scar before. Now I have two scars plus a piece of metal in my leg. How cool is that?
In the afternoon a dear friend of mine had to defend his dissertation. Miko has work hard on his thesis and has earned his doctorate. After defending his work for an hour in a very eloquent way the assembly of professors and doctors decided to make him a peer.
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
It has become a tradition of some sort to have a mid winter garden party. There are several things you need to have. First you need a nice fire to heat up the chilly bones and to barbecue the meat on. Second you need friends that take wine with them, because during the party only wine is being drunk.
And this year there was a special guest by the name of Sjoerd (with shawl around his neck).
In July 2009 we had his wedding and he has been living in Bangladesh ever since. So you see everybody returns to Nijmegen eventually.
I sometimes sleep over at Merijn’s place when I’m to lazy to drive back home or if I had a drink. Yesterday he pulled out the “enormous crocodile” by Roald Dahl and started reading it to me. Just when I pulled out my camera he decided to stop reading it to me.
