The plan was to have some visitors over for the Ascencion Day holidays. Since I was in the Netherlands before that anyway, the plan was to all travel to .lu together. Well, there was a slight problem with getting the car we had rented, which through some convoluted but amazingly funny reasoning we managed to turn into a “let’s visit Walibi Flevo today”. So we did, and it was fun — as you can see on the picture :) (top to bottom: Marek (slightly relaxed), Ania (enjoying herself), me (pondering), Klaus (having a blast))
The reason for visiting Walibi was that they had a special discount and extended opening hours. Even though we left at 4 (pm), we managed to do all the roller coasters in the park and even check out the fireworks! Of course, by the time we got back to Eindhoven, it was a bit late to pack everything and continue to Luxembourg, so we went for a short sleep instead. (Incidentally, turns out that I was not the only one who didn’t sleep brilliantly that night. Can’t win ’em all :)
Next morning, redo from start. I.e. start with a nice meal — breakfast this time, not lunch — and then pack and go. Well, I was up early anyway, so I went to get some bread for breakfast. Got back, and then realised that we didn’t have all that much breakfasty stuff. So went back to the store again, and got some more supplies. Came back, we had a nice breakfast (the fresh bread was brilliant!) and then got round to packing. Realised I was missing batteries, which were sorely needed for use with the mp3-player.
Incidentally, if you have a TuneCast or iCast or whatever thingy that converts your mp3 player into a short distance radio station: from Eindhoven until a bit past Luik/Liege, FM 91.8 is available (with incidental hickups, but nothing substantial). After Liege you enter the range of some Luxembourgian station, I have yet to find out which channel works then, although I think somewhere near 107 FM there is something which lasts the rest of the way.
But to continue, I went back to the store for the third time that morning, got my batteries and we got going. Sjouke graciously lended us his apartment, which is very much appreciated since 4 people would be quite a squeeze in mine :)
We installed ourselves there, had a slight miscommunication then which led to us having pasta there (with fruit and boiled in milk, tastes quite different from your regular pasta, but nice), and then went for the dreaded registration and pasta party. Afterwards Ania felt like checking the route — an activity which had a profound distressing effect on my mood. Luckily, as Petr’s tile says,
There is no problem so big that chocolate cannot cure it.
So afterwards I o.d.’ed on chocolate, which lifted my spirits to a new height. So now I am looking forward to this thing again. Will let you know afterwards (eventually) how it went… For now, cross your fingers!