Dear Readers,
My last blog this year will be about Christmas madness in America and flying back home for my own Christmas celebration and New Years!
I decided, after not having done Christmas cards in the last 4 years, to 'write' Christmas cards again. But once I got started writing down a list of who had been good enough this year to receive a card, the list got longer and longer and longer until I had to end the list at around 60-70 people/cards. But since I got so into it, I had to be creative and create a card that was no longer flat and would not fit in the American sorting machines, how was I suppose to know?! I would have to send each card as a pallet with a custom form for only $6,55....times 60, so hundreds of dollars...no way...I found some cute Christmas elves in Holland that would help me out and hand deliver what they could and resend the rest outside of Arnhem and international. Hooray operation Christmas cards was saved :)!
Now that that was out of the way and just in time before Christmas started in Delray Beach (where my family lives), I wouldn't have to miss a second of it! The famous 100ft Christmas tree and one of the best in all of the States was being lit on December 4th. Santa Claus flew in via a red Helicopter and drove around in circles in a fancy car, only in America, and lit the tree. It was beautiful and they'd organized lots of activities around it. On December 5th, which is our Dutch Holiday Sinterklaas which we postponed till that Sunday, I followed tradition and watched The Grinch like I do every year :).
We got up early the next day for Art Basel in Miami, my cousin had asked me to join him and my aunt and other cousin would go to a beautiful botanical gardens in Miami. Art Basel is all over Miami and is an Art Display of International and local artists. Very interesting to see, but a lot of walking and a lot of different art pieces and styles, so that we had to take a lunch break to rest our eyes. At night we all got together for dinner on Espanola Way in Miami, sat down at a cute little Italian place we had been before. The waiters all danced and made music with pots and pans whenever Fireball played, probably to get customers. After dinner, we took a stroll to Miami South Beach and watched the beautiful moon over the ocean shine. We walked back and everybody was exhausted, my aunt was so tired that she had asked me to drive the last half, cause I wasn't that tired. And once we got home, everybody went straight to bed, forgetting that the next morning would be Sinterklaas...So I grabbed shoes, one for every family member and stuffed it with a Chocolate Letter I had brought over from Holland. My cousin had ordered a 'Sjoelbak' from some Dutch guy in America that makes them himself, so I put that together with the shoes and put down some half eaten carrots and a half empty cup of water. I know the kids don't really believe in it anymore, but it's tradition and left my little cousin (11years) in doubt about Sinterklaas. We had a Dutch breakfast and played 'Sjoelen'.
After Sinterklaas, it was all about Christmas..I have seen so many beautiful Christmas lights! We went to Hoffmans Chocolate and passed a neighborhood that was mad with (homemade) decorations! So American, so over the top but beautiful to see! And even went to a boatparade....where all the decorated boats passed on the Inter-coastal...wow...we wondered why the rich didn't decorate their houses and that night we knew why haha.
I also kept going to Thursday $6 movie night until I found out a better, more comfortable movie theater did the same on Thursdays, so I saw a lot of movies, of course I couldn't miss out on The Hobbit! Which I saw in Real 3D, HDF whatever..blabla, great quality. And I went to Renegades a few times, also brought my cousin for a kids linedance lesson and tried some steps myself :).
My cousin from Holland, Camille, arrived on December 15th and we would both be there till I left on the 24th, she stayed till the 30th of December and got home this morning. We picked out and decorated a Christmas tree the day after she arrived. I didn't look forward decorating it, but once ready, it looked beautiful :). We did lots of things together, girls day out for manicures/pedicures and shopping for Christmas. We went to a Christmas concert in which my cousin played the Oboe with the rest of her class. Had a last day of school dinner and footmassage in a place that looked like a happy ending salon at first and we were all massaged by men haha but no happy endings and my little cousin fell a sleep during it, poor thing and yet we had to take pictures :). My aunt treated me and Camille to a haircut via Groupon, beautiful salon and mimosas while you waited. I didn't know until later and Camille isn't old enough to drink in America so no mimosas for us. We had dinner together, hibachi, so funny and we had told the staff it was my aunts birthday so they sang for her. And on my last two days we went bowling, I won of course haha, with some of the teachers and all of us. And on my last full day SANTAS ENCHANTED FOREST!! I was driving and my aunt had told me that we needed to stop somewhere on the way...surprise surprise, it turned out she had contacted the artist of a painting of an elephant that had been in my room, in the guestroom I stayed in, that I loved and she had picked one out for me for Christmas! How lovely, totally surprised and so sweet she remembered!!
Santas Enchanted Forest, what can I say...all 4 of us sat in a cart behind a bike to get from the car to the entrance, haha. When we go to the entrance it was lit up with Christmas decorations! Waaaa cooool :D!!! Unfortunately after the Christmas decorations, it was just a fair, well a HUGE fair with lots of rides!! Which we pretty much all rode, even my aunt that is scared of rollercoasters, went with us a couple of times and I had my first CORNDOG! Which is basically a hotdog covered in batter and fried...wasn't as bad as I imagined and finished it...what a great last night!
I had already packed my stuff before I left knowing that I needed some space for all the Christmas presents. My aunt wanted to celebrate 'Christmas Morning' with me still there, so a day early, we celebrated Christmas morning with family and two family friends. We had a delicious brunch and started unwrapping all the gifts, which I mostly wrapped myself haha, but it was so sweet that she had wanted to do all of this for me and Camille, all together :)! After packing all of it too, I was ready to leave, afraid my luggage would be overweight... and it was by two pounds and let's not forget to mention I had 3 pieces of handluggage too haha, but that's never much of a problem in the States. Bye beautiful family, thanks for everything! See you on the flipsideeee!
Off I went, layover in Atlanta, watched some movies on the airplane and was surrounded by people from India, no idea why. Arrived in Amsterdam on Dec. 25th and for the first time ever I was being picked up by CAR haha wootwoot! A friend that I hadn't seen since I left for my last trip in October 2013 came to pick me up so we had a lot of catching up to do!
Back home, I got in my own car, which of course still started after standing still for almost 3months MICRA POWERRRR, and went to surprise visit my grandma with my mom for Christmas! On the 26th, 2nd Christmas Day in Holland I went to Ikea with my best friend that temporarily moved back next door (hoooray) to buy myself a mattress, way overdue but I finally did it! Unfortunately it's a foam mattress and therefore needed to lay untouched for 72hours to get back into shape before I could actually sleep on it. Ah well. And of course to make my Christmas complete: SOUL TRAIN!! Oh what a joy! Lots of friends went and it was an amazing night!! I've got a bit of a memory black out for part of it, but did see the video of me dancing in the DJ Booth on my song Proud Mary by Tina Turner!
After a relaxing and white saturday (we had SNOW!!!!!), I had a birthday party on Sunday in a city nearby of an old friend that I recently came back into contact with. Went to Germany on Monday, since I live close to the boarder, to get some booze for New Years with two friends, it's cheaper there and went out to dinner with them afterwards. And yesterday I took my mom to an Indonesian night market (Pasar Malam) in our local zoo. The Zoo is one of the best in Holland, haven't been there for a while, but not much changed. It was cool to walk around the market stalls in it, they placed it in the 'Busch' part of the zoo, which is sort of a tropic rain forest. There was live music and more Christmas lights outside.
And today is the last day of 2014... my New Years plans are still a bit unclear but what I do know is that I had an amazing year! It will be hard to do better, but not impossible! So to all of you a SUPERB 2015 and do better, nothing is impossible :)!
Cheerio all the best dearies!
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