the bakfiets

i thought this one is hilarious: my face says complete and utter panic, and maarten is having a ball :)




one more - i look like a 1940's mary on her way to bethlehem

only in the netherlands

i've been thinking and writing and deleting, repeat...


i'm not able to put my thoughts on this into words just yet.

a couple of shots

wedding planner and witness elvira at work



the car



arriving at city hall (wind? what wind?)



during ceremony



during ceremony



prelude to a kiss



all done!



on our way to the reception



hug from ellis



laughs



my mom looks awesome!



old friends



maarten's adorable nephew



my brother and his girlfriend



me and maarten's grandmother



looking at pictures of the bachelorette day

perfect

it was fabulous. amazing, extraordinary, wonderful, moving. i want to do it again next week!


to each their own; we just wanted a wedding that was genuine and warm and that's exactly what we got - in spite of the incredibly hard wind that was blowing over the netherlands. but for me that was awesome, because it kept my ankles cool and therefore, i could wear my wedding shoes. and my hairdresser is a god because my lame hair survived everything.


on thursday maarten left to spend the night at his mom's and my friend ellis came over to keep me company. we watched the eurovision song festival which was a hoot and i managed to get 5 hours of sleep that night. fortunately, on friday my adrenaline rush was so high i didn't feel sleepy until about 8 that evening.


friday morning, elvira and jeannette joined me and ellis and we all got dressed. my friend elvira was also our wedding planner and she did an outstanding job. she had planned all these little surprises throughout the day, that all fit us perfectly. she had decorated everything white and red with lots of balloons and red roses. her husband lend us his white MG A with red leather seats so that maarten could drive us to the ceremony, then to the reception and finally to the place where we had dinner with a few friends and our parents - all in my dream car.


the ceremony was relaxed, with short speeches from our friends mandy and jeannette. although i think for some people it wasn't short enough, because it was HOT in that room. we had visited marc in the revalidation home he's in now, prior to the ceremony, so that he could keep his promise to my dad to give me away. a special and intimate visit.


our moms did a speech together with funny anecdotes from our childhood, which was histerical. who knew my mom was such a terrific speaker? i certainly did not. and my friends, my amazing friends who had done so much to give us the best day possible... i can't even begin to put into words how much they mean to me and how much all their efforts mean to us.


the only thing that i really, really regret is that i brought the wrong music. i had selected cd's for during the reception and we accidently brought maarten's car cd wallet instead. which had like four cd's. one of them being metallica. uh-huh. now, everyone is telling me not to fret over this because no-one noticed and everything else went perfectly. but i know you guys understand my pain. and that i can never listen to metallica again without laughing and crying at the same time.


oh, oh, oh, the BEST part was when we left the restaurant, and they 'surprised' us with a "bakfiets", which is like a giant trunk on a bike and i had to get in the trunk and maarten had to peddle. my grandfather used to peddle around my grandmother, then pregnant with my mom, through the hague during the 2nd world war - fitting, eh? we thought this was the way we had to get to the hotel. fortunately, they stopped us halfway and i could get off the thing, which was wiggling like crazy.


anyway - i guess y'all need to see the pictures. coming up asap! and thanks for your well wishes and e-mails :).

oh boy

i'm getting hitched today!

(it's 5.30 am and i have been awake since 3.30. my friend ellis is vast asleep and it's not fair. maybe i'll make some milk 'n' honey. by the time we've gotten married, i'll probably tell my guests to enjoy themselves, while i go take a nap)

thought i'd share

i just made a salad with three kinds of lettuce, fresh goat cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, roasted chicken, loads of fresh herbs from the garden and roasted pine tree nuts. i made a honey & mustard dressing with it.


and this entire bowl is ALL MINE.


YUM.

knocked up and abducted

on saturday morning, two friends rang the door and told me i had to get showered and dressed within 20 minutes. that was the only thing i had to do myself that day. after i got ready, they just put me in the car and abducted me to utrecht, where the rest of the lot was waiting.


it was the most fun day! completely outdoors because of the beautiful weather. there was creativity, water, sun, great food, lots of rose wine for my friends and iced tea for me and above all: loads of laughter and fun. as a reminder, they had made a deck of cards with themes that had to do with me. the dave matthews band got mentioned three times, surprise, surprise.


there were friends from different walks of my life and they all got along great. it was a real treat to see them get acquainted and have fun together. i'm blessed. wish some of you could have been there :).


after they had brought me home, i was completely beat and i'm not over it yet, i think. i have the day off on thursday, but i still have many errands to run that day - which sucks. on friday, i plan to just sit back and enjoy the day. let everyone else run the day. i'm too BEAT.

bachelorette party.


so cool.


so tired.


can't talk.


more later.

yesterday i had the day off work, so that the hairdresser could test the 'do' he has in mind for next week (HOLY JESUS I'M GETTING MARRIED NEXT WEEK). after two hours (!) of hair business, i went for a walk through the local shopping center. i had some italian ice cream there as well. so there i was, ice cream and all, sitting on a bench watching the people go by, kind of dreaming. i guess i relaxed. as soon as i did, mikey started turning and kicking softly - which he hasn't been doing a lot, to say the least, this past week. that was an eye opener.


you know what's worse than smoking and drinking during your pregnancy? stress. stress affects the foetus' development, weight, even its personality (which starts to develop in the third trimester). for over a month, i've been feeding this kid poison. and it ends here.


thesis? if i finish it in november instead of june, so be it.
work? i've got a contract for 40 hours a week. for now, it will have to do.
wedding? just tell me where to be at what hour and i'm there. who cares if i have to take off my shoes in the middle of the day. we'll just put on some string cheese and re-theme the party to 'love children'.
marc? HE'S OUT OF THE ICU!!!! they transferred him to normal care yesterday. let's all exhale again.


i think i just might go outside and lay in the grass for a while, staring at the sky. catch y'all later.

jay archibald's amsterdam central station

just because i get a kick out of this picture every time i look at it.

i'm on a roll

Your World View

You are a happy, well-balanced person who likes people and is liked by others. You question whether many conventional views on morality are valid under all circumstances. You are essentially a content person. Sometimes, you consider yourself a little superior. You are moral by your own standards. You believe that morality is what best suits the occasion.

What Is Your World View?

hey - i have an excuse...

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 8 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

dude, it's my power month!

Your Birthdate: December 14

You work well with others. That is, you're good at getting them to do work for you. It's true that you get by on your charm. But so what? You make people happy! You're dynamic, clever, and funny. And people like to have you around. But you're so restless, they better not expect you to stay around for long. Your strength: Your superstar charisma Your weakness: Commitment means nothing to you Your power color: Fuchsia Your power symbol: Diamond Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

good news

the tube is out and he's talking. coherently and everything. he's still very tired and it seems that all the drugs he's been getting the past weeks have a) taken away any internal boundaries (he called a nurse 'bitch'. this man was born in 1934 in a very high class french family and he called someone 'bitch' - in english too. unreal) and b) give him terrible nightmares, which he describes as really bad lsd trips. hm. does that mean he knows from experience what a terrible lsd trip is like? this man never ceases to amaze me.


but what am i babbling about? the tube is out and he's breathing independently, and he's mentally completely okay and he even got to sit in a wheelchair for 3 hours straight yesterday! everything is happening really fast now. i think it's safe to say he's going to be okay :). (YAY!)


he cried and told me that he had had this reoccuring dream where he and i were miraculously bloodrelated and he had to draw a branch to the jewish family tree for mikey and he would die if he didn't succeed. but in the end he succeeded and he and i and maarten were all taking care of mikey. now, i realize that is the weirdest dream ever, but i really had to cry hard.
he also told maarten that i don't take after my mom (ahem) but i take after my dad, and then he cried out: "and i'm her dad!" and laughed real hard. i think it's the drugs. but it was also very cute. don't let my real dad hear him though. although... when marc and i were in the hospital the night it all happened, i silently praid to my father that he had to send marc back if he threatened to cross the bridge to the other side. isn't that weird (i realize this whole post is weird but bear with me)? i would have thought i would pray to god in a case like this, but the first person i turned to was my dad. eh - maybe that's praying to god too. only not in so many words.


so, in less than two weeks (holy cow!!) we will first stop by the hospital on our way to our wedding. marc says he has a little speech prepared and we will have to forgive him if he has to cry again. that's cute - i'm uber cry baby, and he's apologizing for crying a little after having looked death in the eye and having been on heavy drugs for three weeks.


one more thing: this morning i saw a honda accord with a florida license plate. what's that all about? so you travel europe and you bring your own car? or is it an expat who simply insists on having his own car with him? fascinating.


the weather rocks over here, these days. i think y'all should come and see for yourself.

hi

i'm here. they surprised maarten for his bachelor day this morning at 6. s-i-x. that's right. so don't expect me to be all chipper, i have a cafeine limit these days and it's not making me real happy right now.
[seriously - not just parties here, no - it has to be an ENTIRE day. good lord)


marc is doing better. he's still on the oxygen machine but he's been able to spell out words on an alphabet board ("pour water on my head", because it's so warm in his room) and yesterday he even wrote a couple of words with a marker. i'm secretely letting myself hope that his brain hasn't been damaged - he just needs some time to come back to his senses, so to speak.
the pneumonia is now a double pneumonia, but he's doing better than before, weirdly enough. they are probably going to start training him to breath independently after this weekend.
the reason i probably don't sound extatic about all this, is that we've been let down before after an initial improvement. i guess we're just more cautious not to get our hopes up too high. we should just give him loads of time, because he's going to need it. as long as he's not so depressed anymore, that's the most important thing right now.


friends continue to be wonderful. although some people only care about themselves, but i already knew that. the funny thing is, you secretly already know that some people are just all about themselves and no-one else. then something like this happens and it still baffles me how insanely egocentric some people are. one person called recently and managed to ask how i was doing and i said "not great, my stepdad is in the hospital". his answer? "oh, bummer - but i'm calling about blablabla". whatever though - i'm too old and too pregnant to let it bother me much. so i'm just focusing on the great people that are also in my life. i love you lots!


mikey is doing great under the circumstances. the obstetrician wants me to go on maternity leave six weeks prior to my due date though. we'll see about that... she told me not to think that being pregnant is a vacation. i almost had to kill her. slowly. but again - whatever.


i've been having the most random thoughts. for instance:

• there are people that feel that when you say that you are against (the) war, you diss on the soldiers fighting it - so you can never say you are against the war, you can only say you feel 'it's time for our men and women to come home'. that's the most hilarious fallacy ever. a clever example of selfcensorship though.

• karel appel died today. he's right up there with rembrandt, vermeer, van gogh, mondriaan. all dutch painters and all extremely influential. so you have this crappy tiny country that is not good for anything and it manages to produce all these great artists, just the same. i have a theory about that. this country and its landscape are so incredibly insignificant and dull, that creative people are stimulated even more to use their imagination and find beauty in less obvious matters such as light, anatomy, deviation and chaos.

• never buy wedding shoes one month before you get married when you're pregnant. mine have an ankle strap and my ankles have started to swell up since yesterday. it's not that i don't fit the shoes anymore, it's just that the straps put emphasis on my now not existant ankles. eh. i have a good excuse, i guess.
  only two more weeks! time flies... the dress is finished and cost about a fifth of maarten's attire, ha ha ha. i guess that's just because mine is so simple. white is out of the question and strapless tight schtuff is not exactly comfortable right now. i'm really happy with my dress though. it's pregnancy proof but festive nonetheless.
  so on our wedding day i have this appointment with the hairdresser and that's all i'm going to let anyone else do. no-one touches my make-up. not ever. i can do that myself, thank you. but the hair? yeah - too difficult hair. y'all think straight hair is wonderful but believe you me - it's a pain in the butt. it only goes one way - down. hee. anyway, i'm thinking this hair dresser will be done in half an hour, right? nu-uh. 2.5 hours. ???!!!! 2.5. get real!

• don't you just hate it when people think they're really intelligent when they're really not? yeah, me too.

• i need a drink and a smoke. and it's 9 am. seriously, once i poop mikey out, i'm going to hand over the kid to maarten, tell him "it's your turn" and step outside. then i will have a sandwich with filet americain (raw meat), after which i will drink a glass of white south african wine accompanied by a really nice cigarette or ten. yum-my. can not wait.

• to 'all' the dutchies: happy liberation day! and if you weren't silent at 8 pm yesterday evening and you felt the need to notify others of your non-quietness: kill yourself. now, please. seriously, if you can not show f-in' respect for two lousy minutes a year to those people who have freaking died so that you can be the moron that you obviously are, it's your choice - and you are at liberty to make that choice without consequence because of them, but whatever. but if you can not even show respect to those of us who do wish to shut the hell up, you do not deserve to live. at least not here. so don't kill yourself, but please do get lost.
  and if you're the complete and utter a**hole that felt the need to yell 'hamas, hamas, all jews on the gas' during these two minutes of silence, i don't even know what to tell you. except that i wish to personally lock you up in auschwitz for a very long period of time and make you read 'het achterhuis' 10,000 times and watch shoah 24 hrs a day. you make me f-in' cry. i'm not kidding. moron. loser. don't come crying that they won't accept you over here, the next time you get refused at a club or turned down for a job. i'm not the one to say this otherwise, but in this case: GOOD. god, i just wanted to hit you.
  (this incident happened last year but i don't think i will ever forget it).
  (wow - i think i might be my grandmother's grand daughter after all. whodda thunk).
  (this whole thing didn't make sense to 90% of my readers, but i had to get that out).

• i think i'm done now :)