Wow. Wowowow. I just learned so much good news from the Hoopje crowd: Marcel & Jessica will become parents, as will Mark & Diana! And, on top of that, Ferry & Yvonne are going to get married!
So, tonight it’s PARTY TIME!
Congratulations to you all, and I will be celebrating your happiness tonight in one form or the other!
Help end world hunger and improve your English at the same time. Cool, not? It’s possible. Check freerice.com, play the game and start helping out!
In addition, you can also see a list of countries working to fight poverty and hunger:
As the chart above shows, five countries have already met the goal to give 0.7% of their income in international aid: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
— poverty.com
Sometimes being Dutch and living in Luxembourg can just make you feel good.
PS: proud achiever of level 37 in that game! How well are you doing?
6.30. The alarm will not go off for another 30 minutes and still… There’s this plane to catch! I double-check if I have everything. It slowly dawns on me that I know next to nothing about the whole trip, or the area where we will be staying, or anything. All I know is I should get to the airport, on the plane, and make sure I have met up with the others before I get off. Works for me!
This turns out to be easier said than done, though. I do not see anyone waiting at what I think is the info-desk. Then, while standing in line for the security check, I suddenly see the *real* info-desk and realise my mistake… too late of course. Ah well, can’t be helped. By the time the gates open, I am getting a little anxious… but then I spot someone who just has to be Michiel’s (i.e. the groom’s) brother. Found ’em!
There are 9 Dutchy’s flying today: Michiel’s father, his brother, 2 aunt, a niece, and “the four musketeers”: Koos, Johan, Tas (not his real name, but to avoid confusion with the groom I will call him “Tas” here) and me. We will be sharing a room in the hostel, while the family will be staying in a hotel a couple of blocks further.
A quick flight, later, we land in Budapest. I am curious to see how we will find our bus driver(s) on a terminal, but before we’ve finished the coffee, Koos has found them already. Turns out Koos speaks a tiny bit of Hungarian — his brother, Michiel’s witness, is married to a Hungarian. We manage to get our things into the van and leave the airport on schedule. Given that the plane was delayed, this is an unexpected pleasure. The first stop, after an hour or three, is still in Hungary, at a local diner. The prices of food take some getting used to — it’s rather cheap compared to The Netherlands.
The border crossing goes swiftly — much easier than at the airport at any rate. A short ride from the border we gas up and have a 15 minute break, after which we continue into the Transsylvanian night. In the bus, Gert-jan, Koos, Tas and me play cards — rikken. For some of them it has been a very long while, which leads to some hilarious surprises. Eventually, we tire of the game and settle to glance at Transsylvania. While the night is slowly settling, the full moon eerily illuminates the desolate landscape… Welcome to Transsylvania!
After some more hours of driving, we finally enter (well, “fly”… the bus company’s name, ‘nemeth speed’, was deserved!) into Cluj Napoca, the place to be for the wedding. Quite a bit bigger than I had expected actually. We end up at the big church, where Michiel is waiting for us. After settling in to our respective ho(s)tels, we join up with the others for dinner. Afterwards, the night is of course still young, we explore and discover the Romanian nightlife.
After a short search, we hear some music pumping out of a cellar. Well, why not? So we enter the building, go down and find a hip bar (‘Avenue’) downstairs. Many tables, many people sitting and talking, but also loud music, and much dancing. The Romanian nightlife is cool, exciting, and hip. The crowd here seems to be 16 (on average). This gets corrected five minutes later when a couple of girls walk in with a birthday cake with candles “19”. By that time, the Romanian approach to picking up girls has completely dumbfounded us musketeers. One thing is clear, we are missing some of the subtleties involved.
But that’s not what we’re here for anyway. The music is pumping, the party is going, and we are having fun! Relatively early we call it a night. Well, we know what to do tomorrow!
“One word sums up the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is `to be prepared'”
After waking early on monday morning, I quickly got myself to working. Not my favourite thing in the morning, of course, but there was this presentation hanging over my head, and there was not sufficient material yet in the presentation. One of the first things is of course checking mail… hey look, a mail from the symposium organisers. Turns out that I do have enough material already! Woohoo! :) Okay, time to hop in the train to Enschede, meet the people there and finish the slides there.
Getting to work in Enschede took some time (even though it is handled neatly, explaining my laptop that it is handled neatly was step 2… eventually, I get connected, work on the slides, meet the people (it’s nice to see them all again), work a bit more and then it’s time to visit Ileana & Stefan’s new apartment. It has changed incredibly since the last time, Stefan & Ileana worked quite hard to get this far it seems. Ayse comes over for dinner too, and we have a nice, traditional Romanian dinner (cabbage+sour cream stuff). Good, I like to be prepared for the wedding :) And, if these tastes are anything to go by, Romanian food will be OK!
Next morning, some more work on the slides, and then they feel finished. Of course they aren’t, but that’s okay, the seminar doesn’t start until two o’clock, so let it settle a bit, have lunch, go through it once more and then: done! There’s actually some new stuff in there compared to the WISSec presentation. All of that is fairly new, so I am not feeling too confident yet. Luckily, there’s enough time to prepare…
And then surprise, surprise, turns out the seminar starts at one instead of two. UH-OH!!! A hurried lunch and a couple of quick glances at the slides later, it’s almost time! Most of the audience are familiar to me, so that’s a relief… waiting to be dissolved by the last-minute entrance of a couple of new folks. :) Good thing I thrive on this sort of thing, I guess. At least, perhaps if I think that I’ll fall for that.
Talk went okay-ish. Somehow felt it could/should have been better, but it wasn’t a substantial miss apparently either. Aah well, something to think about for a next time. Later that evening, I help Ayse out cooking a nice dinner for Stefan & Ileana. We have some fun, and too soon it’s time to go get a train. In the train, I find that I am exhausted. So instead of going to Eindhoven, I get off in Nijmegen and meet up with my sister for a change. It had been a long time, so this is actually really nice.
The next morning I quickly go to work in Eindhoven, to prepare the final things for the trip (doublecheck the Romanian cheat sheet with Simona to see if there are some other words that might come in handy). Home: pack, early to bed, and prepare to get going!
So, a short holiday and a not-so-short wedding in Romania later, and some other attended business, I AM BACK BABY! Ronald & me drove back, had a nice evening here, and now I AM BACK!
Wooooooohoooo! Finally, time for some peace, quiet & work! And err, a deadline in 2 weeks, a class to teach next week, a presentation in 3 weeks…. okay, so much for peace & quiet ;-) Well, one out of three is not so bad, now is it ;-)
Still, I am back and I am blogging! First up is of course backblogging (that is not a word… yet) on the wedding. To be done after this post. Or at least to begin after this one. So, hold on to your hats and let’s go on this majestical matrimonial tour…