I am still alive

So, it was another day starting in the south part of Holland and as always we had some plans to do with Marieke and mother of Marieke. And the plan was to go to Den Bosch, so we went to the station Oss to take a train to S-Hertogenbosch and after few minutes we were there in the station of 's-Hertogenbosch to start our tour but because it was raining we thought of doing some window shopping and after the good weather we went to the boat trip which we really enjoyed also. After our nice boat trip we were very hungry so we thought of giving some exercise to our stomach also, so we went to one restaurant and had lunch there. After lunch, we went to St John's Cathedral. As we read in a books that it is one of the beautiful churches of Holland and when we entered in the church we also felt the same. It was very lively, people were praying there with small candles and I also took one candle, lit it and placed it in altar. Then, it was our time to go back home (Berghem) But, but, but before going home, we went to one of the famous shop to buy Bossche Bol and hey I know there must be water coming out of your mouth and it should come also because it was really good, I still have a taste of it in my mouth. Another exciting thing was waiting for us because we were going to see the Yacht making in Oss with the brother of Marieke – Jeroen. He works in a company called Hessen Yacht and Jeroen took us for the tour of Yacht making. There was one yacht standing there for us to take a round in. Few people were working on it but most of the part was completed. We saw the room of crew member, owner and guest rooms etc. It was a big yacht with Jacuzzi. Jeroen told us that Sheiks order the yacht to them and they asked them to do the decoration with gold, so crazy.

Next day, was the easy cheesy day for us because we do not have any plans for that day except going to Germany (Cool!) so as we saw it was a half free day for us so we decided to sleep little bit longer than the usual time and we slept till 11:30 and enjoyed our free day . And in the evening we had plan to cook Dal-Bhat again. Yeah don’t laugh after hearing this that we made dal-bhat again. I can understand what you are thinking of us, but cooking dal-bhat for the people who likes it and also for those who never ate it before is fun. Everybody liked the dal-bhat but father of Marieke only liked chicken which was cooked by me because he thought that the vegetable (tarkari) was spicy. After dinner, we went to see Manuela (one of our volunteer from Marieke group), her husband and their 7 weeks old son. We went to their place together with Marieke and Henri with his fastest car. It was shocking for us to see no welcome signs in the borders when we crossed the border of Holland for Germany, because as you know in Nepal you can see the borders with police and check point to check the people coming in and going out from the country. And another thing which we noticed in Germany was they had less sign board than in Holland but after all those impressions it was nice to see Manuela and her husband and a cute baby. We had drinks and lot of talking and they gave us walking kit with energy drinks and museli bar, candy as a good luck packet for our walk in Nijmegen. (Hey Manuela if you are reading my blog, we would like to say thank you two for the special gift for our walk which we used during our walk). Then after the gifts exchange we went for a walk in the forest near their house. It was a nice walk with the great views of the surroundings. Suddenly we realized that it was almost time for us to go to Berghem because next day we were going to Efteling (finally) so we took a leave from them and came back home and as everybody was tired so we all went to bed straight.

Saturday, was the fun day for us because it was starting with the Efteling (Largest and popular theme park of Europe and also the oldest theme park in the world) and ending with Kermis in Berghem. Above all, it was a day to meet the volunteers of our favorite group. Again, we (Ajay, me, Marieke and Henri) were there in the main entrance of Efteling where we saw Marieke and Marjo. After meeting them we saw Mariken coming towards us and finally Bart was also there. That’s how our group of people was completed and then we head towards the entrance hoping to have a great day ahead. It turned out to be the best day after seeing Fairy Tale Forest, Python, Half Moon, Pirana, Bobban, Fata Morgana, Pagoda, Monsieur Cannibale, Pegasus, Dream flight, Villa Volta, Vogel Rok, PandaVision etc. I liked Phython more than the other rides in Efteling. But all the good things has its end and so Efteling visit was also came to an end because it was already 6:00 and we have to leave to home because barbeque dinner party was waiting for us, so we said bye to few of the group members and head towards to home. We reached home and Pa already put the big tent in the garden and everything was arranged by him, including the decorations. He asked us to open the tent and enter into the tent. We did it as he said and he made a paper decorations on which he wrote – Welcome in Holland Ajay and Suman with Nepali prayer flags. We were really surprised to see the things which he arranged for us. Thank you very much Pa for creating such an environment for us to feel like a home. It was a nicely arranged barbeque dinner with the family of Henri and few other friends whom we know like Koen, and Marijne. After barbeque, we all went to the Kermis but we came home earlier than the others because we are getting old, hahahahaha.

Next day, we had a lunch meeting with our volunteer group of August 2005 at 12:00 and because of the late night party we woke up at 11:45 and now as you know that we have to be in Oss at 12:00 so we went to the quick wash and father of Marieke dropped us to Oss. We heard some noise like someone was calling us and we turned and saw Marja, Saskia, Nicoline, Martijn and Marieke coming towards us. Ohh God! It was so nice to see them after such a long time. We had lunch and then we went to have an Ice-Waffel (famous from Oss) and they dropped us back home. Then, we went to Henri house because he was leaving for his vacation in Singapore with few of his friends. We said bye to him and hey Henri, thanks for the nice time which you gave us out of your busy schedule. According to our plan, we went to watch a movie in Oss called – Hancock. After a movie, we three were so tired so we thought of going back home instead of Kermis (according to our plan).

14th of July is the day which I do not want to remember because it was the day when we have to leave the home of Marieke and go to Nijmegen for a walk. I really did not wanted to go to Nijmegen because parents of Marieke gave us the love of father and mother and it was very hard to say goodbye to them but what to do, there are few things which are not in your control. I wanted to stop the time at that moment so that we can stay with them for forever. We said bye to Pa in the morning because he was going for his job and with the heavy heart we said bye to him and later mother of Marieke drove us to the station together with Marieke. Marieke bought a ticket for us to Nijmegen and she also came with us because she was going to Amsterdam to return her books from her college library. Saying goodbye to mom was really hard with tears in our eyes and I tried to control my tears in my eyes but it came out so I wore my sunglasses to hide my tears and I succeeded to hide it also. We were standing in the station to begin our new journey to Nijmegen. In Nijmegen station, after drinking coffee we said bye to Marieke and prepared our self for a walk which was going to start tomorrow, 15th of July. . We went to the centre for getting the ticket for a walk and made dal-bhat again. Next day 15th of July, was the day for the Nijmegen walk. We woke up at 3:30 and started our walk at 4:15. It was fun watching people cheering us by saying – Success and playing drums etc. It went well in the beginning but walking in hard road in Holland and rough road in Nepal is really different especially after 25 kms you feel the difference of walking. There were so many people who were walking with the training and we were the only ones who were walking without any practice. There was one guy called Ronald, who walked in 4daagse 19 times. He took us to his camp and gave us drinks to refresh us. We were walking and it was really difficult to walk compare to walk in the mountain because when you walk in the mountain you go up and down and your foot muscles get exercise but when you walk in a flat then your muscles do not bend and that makes it difficult to walk. In the evening, after finishing the first day of 50kms, we decided to stop walking because we did not want to end in the hospital with foot injury. Second day, we went to the Red Cross to cure for our blisters which we had because of the walk, ofcourse! On third day, we met Marjo and Rens and we also did some shopping. (Again.) Then, we thought of walking on the last day of the 4daagse. It was a nice walking compare to the first day walking and we finished our walking at 13:30 (quiet impressive). It was a nice environment there; people were giving flowers and dancing for you. Really nice. There were few volunteers (Corine, Esther, Klass, Guido, girlfriend of Guido, Bart, Hanneke and Lieke) who came to see us with the flowers and we would like to thank them for coming to Nijmegen to cheer us up. We had dinner together and we said bye to them and then we got a call from Marijn, who came to Nijmegen to see us with herself made apple pie. It was Yummy and mouth watering pie and it was the first time I liked an apple pie in my life because I am not a big fan of an apple pie but because of Marijn I started liking it. Thanks you Marijn for bringing us pie all the way from Amsterdam. After eating a pie we came back to our place where we were staying and then we packed our bags because we were planning to leave early next morning. Next morning, we reached to the station to take our train to Uttrecht with Klass, but before that we had an appointment with Marieke at 11:00. Klass, Ajay and me had a quick breakfast and then we got phone call from Marieke that she is waiting for us in our meeting point. We, together with Klass went to the meeting point and there was she waiting for us with her Mom and Dad. Oh god! I cannot explain my feeling when we saw Ma and Pa, I really felt like crying because I really missed them a lot but I controlled myself because I do not want to create a scene out there. We had coffee together, and Mom bought a ticket for us to our next destination Alphen a/d Rijn. After spending some time with Mom, Dad and Marieke, we took our train to Alphen a/d Rijn with Klaas. That was the last time we saw Ma, Pa and Marieke but we are going to see Marieke very soon because she is coming back to Nepal in August. In your life, you meet some people who become so special for you in just few days time. We felt the same with the mother and father of Marieke and we do not know how to thank them for the things which they did for us during the 9 days stay with them and they had made a special place in our heart which cannot be deleted. Thank you Ma and Pa for everything which you did for us.

After few hours, we reached to our half destination – Utrecht, which is a beautiful and smallest province of the Netherland. First we went to Klaas place because he is staying in Utrecht and we do not wanted to carry our heavy bags so we put our heavy bags in his house and went out for cycling, huhu cycling again. Yes friends but this time I survived with any accidents because I was sitting at the back of Ajay – no Klaas bycycle. Utrecht is a beautiful city with the highest tower with 450 stairs, we could not go up to the tower because it was too late and Ajay finally found one shoe which he liked in Den Bosch (remember Marieke??), so he is happy again. After the city ride, we went to the station to get the train to our final destination Alphen a/d Rijn. Klass bought a ticket of train for us (Thank Klaas). We said bye to Klaas and I know we will meet soon in Nepal.

Eelke (father of Dennis from the March group of 2005) was waiting for us in the station of Alphen a/d Rijn and Marjan was waiting for us at home. She made a very good dinner and we enjoyed a lot. Next day, was planned to go to Belguim, yes guys you read right Belgium. Actually, we gave up the plan of going to Belgium because it was costing a lot of money to us and then we thought not to go there but when we were talking to the Ilke and Marijan they said that they can drive us to Belgium. So good of them, but because of few works we decided to go the Belgium for a day trip, instead of staying there for few days. In the morning, after a breakfast we set our self to go to Yvette and then to Bruges with her. It was an adventurous ride because we do not know the way to her place we had a map but still we were confused because of the location and her house number. I think we saw most parts of Belgium because of the searching of Yvette’s house, but finally after many attempts we found Yvette home. She is staying in a very beautiful place, a very big and nice house. We had pie and coffee and then we head to Bruges. Bruges is a very beautiful historic city centre and World Heritage site of UNESCO. Ajay made a lot of pictures like always and it was fun being there with Yvette. We came back home (Alphen a/d Rijn) at 12:30 and then straight to bed and next day, I woke up at 12:00 so twelve hours sleep. Sometimes you enjoy sleeping. Next day, was a starting of a bad weather with lots of rain and wind but we decided to challenge the weather and went out (yeah yeah in car not by walking)to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. In the evening, we planned to make dal-bhat again and I think the last time so we went to the market with the Marjan (mother of Dennis) and brought the necessary things to cook dal-bhat. We cooked for 8 people (Eelke, Marjan, Sander, Daphne, Maarten, Sabine)and two of us. We showed them the style to eat by their hands and they like the food also. And later Ajay and Maarten were playing football in play station upto 2’o clock.

Yesterday, we woke up and packed our bag and had breakfast and then Marjan told us that she will drove us back to the Alkmaar because she was free and going by train to Alkmaar was not easy from Alphen a/d Rijn because we need to change 3 trains, so she thought to bring us back to Alkmaar in her car. We reached Alkmaar and now we would like to say thanks to everybody from Marjan family for taking care of us and I know that Marjan you must be reading my blog and we are really thankful to you and hope to see you and your sons and their girlfriends in Nepal. I think we made good impressions on them. Hahahaaha.

Today, we are resting here in Alkmaar and Dorien just came in and I wanted to talk with her so now I stop writing and see you guys soon!