Week update

As you know, we came back from Amsterdam two weeks ago. Man! Time sure goes by fast, doesn’t it? It seem like if it was just a few days ago! But you’ll understand why in the next few lines. I’m zonked, so I’ll try to keep it short.

As I mentioned in our last post, Jaap and Patricia were making a stop-over at our place on their way down to Bari, Italy, where they were invited to a wedding. They arrived here on Wednesday evening (June 21) and stayed overnight before continuing their trip southward on Thursday morning. They arrived safely in Bari on Friday morning. Imagine: They drove about 1700 km (about 1065 miles) and that, one way. I know that for you folks in North America, it doesn’t seem very extraordinary, but for Europe, it’s a stretch that one would usually fly. Well, I would.

Anyway, they came back last Monday and decided to spend the week here. While Orange and I were working, Jaap and Patricia slept in... No wait. Jaap slept in and Patricia got up early to study in the morning. They usually spent their afternoons at the public pool nearby or went into Basle to do some shopping. And when we got home from work, a lovely dinner was always waiting for us. We like call Jaap our little Jamie Oliver because he loves to cook and is extremely good at it. Now who wouldn’t like to have guests like that? You come home after a hard day's work, have a drink and then you are served dinner. Ahhhh!

On Friday evening, we invited them to dinner at the “Wacker”, a restaurant nearby that serves “Charbonade”. You get a mini charcoal grill and about 200-250 gr. of thinly cut pieces of pork, beef and veal that you grill youself, plus diverse pickles, three different home made sauces and fries. The boys decided to go for that and believe me, after an appetizer, the Charbonade was almost a bit too much. Being the men that they are, the bravourously finished their plates and nothing but a few fries and pickles were left. I must say that they had a refill of fresh fries and sauces about halfway through their meal.



That evening, Patricia and I went to bed around half past midnight and the boys chatted outside on the terrasse until about 3:30 am. That's also when Orange took Dale - who was deep asleep on his favourite spot in the garden- back inside. Dale was all wushi-washi and didn't care being dragged in one bit!


The next day, Patricia and Jaap left to go back to Holland. It was a great week and we hope that they could really relax a bit and take a break from their hectic lives. We know they’ll be back soon and look forward to it.

I don’t know why, but we took very few pictures while they were here. I suppose that we were too tired in the evenings to even think about it. Luckily, Jaap took a few with his cell phone.

Last evening, we were invited for a lovely dinner at Berit’s, a work colleague of mine. We spent a very nice, relaxed evening. After all the entertaining and being entertained, this is what we are doing today. The weather is beautiful and we're just laying around.

Ahh, my Adonis :)

Notice the Dutch beeron the left?? Ve-e-ery important!

PS: I have been trying to follow all of you, but my evenings were busy with our guests, and on occasions, I did visit you during my lunch breaks. So, even though I didn’t always comment, I tried to at least read your entries. Hope things calm down a bit, but summer and fall are always the busiest times at work. Have a great week!