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Arriving back in Amsterdam on Friday night, I was fortunate to have been offered the use of Timo’s apartment for the entire weekend. I met him at his bother’s house, where he was staying, and we had a nice dinner. He had decided not to go out dancing with me, so I took off solo for a club called Melkweg. Steve Lawler (one of the best dark progressive house DJs on the planet, and one of my all time favourites, for those of you who don’t know) was on the decks and the timing was perfect for me. Fly in from Morocco, see an awesome DJ, pick up my fiancé the next morning….. life is good. At the club I made friends with a group of people who really reminded me of my friends in Vancouver. They accepted me into the fold, and we all had a good time dancing our asses off.
The next morning I picked up Jen from the airport. Waiting at the arrivals door, the anticipation was intense. I hadn’t seen Jen for over ten weeks, and when she walked out into the hall, it was like a dream. She dropped her bag and book, and ran towards me. At the last second she jumped into the air, and I caught her in my arms. Real fairy tale stuff, I know!
We spent the weekend in Amsterdam riding around on rented bikes doing tourist stuff. Canal boat tour, Red Light district, museums, etc. On Sunday night we visited relatives of Jen’s north of Amsterdam, Gert and Susan. They were fantastically nice, gave us dinner, and we chatted for a couple of hours. Very nice hospitality. We’ll look them up again for sure. A late night train then took us home to Delft.
On Monday we picked up a friend’s bike for Jen and we explored Delft. Jen had found the number of people and bustle in Amsterdam quite overwhelming, and was much more comfortable in Delft. Part of the purpose for her visit was also to get a feel for what it will be like to live in the Netherlands for a while. The rest of the week was mostly devoted to biking around Rotterdam and The Hague.
On Wednesday we visited The Hague on bicycle, and found it to be a very pretty town with lots of old buildings and beautiful neighborhoods. We biked up to the beach north of the city, and saw many of the Consulate mansions along the way. By the end of the day we had a pretty good feel for the city, and headed back to Delft. The process was repeated on Thursday for Rotterdam. This is a totally different city, and felt much more like Vancouver. Most of the city was destroyed by bombing in WWII, so there are a lot of modern, tall buildings are found in the center. We found a nice neighborhood to live in called Kralingen, which reminded us of Shaughnessy.
Friday we went back to The Hague to compare it again to Rotterdam. This time we got a much better feeling for it, and came very close to deciding that this is the place to live. We checked out the M.C. Escher museum too. Escher is Jen’s favourite artist so it was exciting to see originals here. His work is unbelievable in its detail simplicity. It blew my mind! That night we went to a club to see what dancing was like here. The music was OK, but it was mainly nice to be dancing together again.
On Saturday we hung out in the sun at the market all day, went to a movie, made dinner, and prepared for taking Jen to the airport the next day. The airport experience was a gong show though. After a cancelled flight, changed flight, and overbooked flight, KLM finally gave Jen a hotel room for the night, some money, meals for a day, and a flight on Monday. WOO HOO…. Another day with my girl! I stayed at the hotel with her, and went back to Delft on Monday morning.
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