Selfie Sunday #4 - Swinging Amsterdam

Gooooood morning everyone! It’s sunday again; Selfie Sunday. #4.

From the look of it, I’m swinging myself through the day;-).

So what’s the story?

As you may know I am doing this 3-monthly here-and-there between Holland and Singapore already since 5 years now. It may continue this way for 5 more years, for all we know. Time will tell….

Anyhow, during my months in Holland, my husband always comes over for about 3 weeks. He tries to see as many of his friends, family and particularly his children in that short period of time. Usually he keeps working on top of all of that as well! Poor guy, great guy!

This summer, on his last evening, we went to Amsterdam-Noord, to have an al fresco dinner at Eye, Amsterdam’s Film Institute, with Frits’ two children. The weather was just gorgeous, the food was yummie and the atmosphere was happy. A bit bittersweet as well, since we all were emotional because of Frits’ departure the next day. We also talked about Menno’s loss. Frits’ 20 year old son Menno lost one of his best friends in the plane that got shot down by the separatists in the Ukraine. Tragic. It’s remarkable how many people in the Netherlands were connected to someone aboard that plane:-(. It’s a good thing that Menno has a lot of friends and that they all stick together to cope with this loss.

Walking back, after dinner, towards the ferry that would bring us back to Central station across the IJ, we made fun, climbed on stuff, watched b-boys and b-gals doing cool break-dancing, took pictures and I sat on a swing for a few minutes, while there was a gorgeous sunset behind me.

Then Frits and I took the train back to Haarlem. His children waved goodbye from the platform. There were some tears. Bittersweet, as I said before.

It was late and Frits still had to pack his suitcase. A bunch of ticket inspectors came on board of the train. Accidentally something was not right with my husband’s train ticket, after which the inspector started a big fight, threatening to throw us of the train. The debate was over 4 euros, mind you!!!

So our lovely evening ended very upsetting with a huge anticlimax.

Fortunately, sitting on that swing, I was not aware of all that was about to happen, 15 minutes after this picture was taken;-).

P.s.: The next morning while my husband was already on his way to Singapore, I filed a complaint with the Dutch Railways. Still waiting for their reply….