The time I spent in Holland was amazing, I had so many adventures with Holland as my "base camp." Most of those adventures I have already shared with you, but there are quite a few that I have never gotten around to sharing with you. ( In other words I had a motivation issue!)
I had all the best intentions of keeping this blog up to date and sharing my stories with everyone, but you know about intentions... So here I go again, and I am aiming to be more successful with my newest of adventures, Africa!!!
Before I get to far ahead of my self, I had some amazing adventures in the last half of my time in Holland, and I think I need to share them, and give those who shared them with me a little credit!
The first of my missed adventures was a visit from one of my best friends, Jamie. Jamie is brave, adventuresome, and easy going... So we had a great time! I got to show Jamie all around Paris, we stayed in a new neighborhood for me, and we ate some amazing food! Then I got to explore Amsterdam for the very first time with Jamie. I will never forget walking down the worlds skinniest corridor in the "red light" district and after getting to the end, how uncontrollably we giggled as we squeezed through all the other "Lookie Loo's". I am sure Jamie and I will have many more adventures together in the future!
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| Jamie in crazy corridor |
After Jamie's visit, Mikkel, myself, his Sister, and Mom, all went on a short holiday together, to the Champagne region of France, for Mikkel's birthday. We stayed in a cute little cabin, over looking a lake, and really close to a pretty medieval village. The first half of our trip was amazing, we had great food, lots of cake, and even Champagne! The trip had to be cut short do to me catching the Flu... Can you imagine, the flu in the middle of June... It sucked, but at least we made it past the birthday boy's special day, before we left!
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| Mikkel's Birthday Cake |
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| Family Photo in the Hoh River Rainforest |
After our trip to Seattle, we came back to Holland, moved into a new place, and then Mikkel had to leave town for business for 3 weeks... Those were some very long weeks, but I did get to go and visit him after the first 2 weeks, for a long weekend! Luckily he was staying in a town in France I had never visited before. Fountainbleau is not the most direct of places to visit, one plane, three trains, and a taxi to get there, but once there you forget about the journey there, you can really enjoy the beauty you are surrounded by. I had lovely weather, the Chateau Foutainbleau, and the national forest to explore. It was a great mini break, and a recommend for anyone wanting a nice side trip outside of Paris!
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| Chateau Fountainbleau |
My following adventure included a visit from my Aunt Vickie! My Aunt Vic was touring around in Belgium with her friend, and decided to extend her tour to get in a visit with me! We began our visit in Paris, and I walked my Aunt all over Paris! I had the biggest blisters on my feet... Ouch! The following day, we went to Versailles, I had never had the pleasure to see it before, so it was a great to see something new! After Paris I had my Aunt in Holland with me. We saw Amsterdam, Alkmaar, Schagen, and Den Helder. We also spent a lot of time playing with our new puppy, Lulu!
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| Chateau Versailles |
Speaking of Lulu, I haven't had the opportunity to properly introduce her to you. Mikkel and myself had been looking into adopting a puppy for quite a long time. We finally decided on a breed, French Bulldog, and then were lucky enough to find a really great breeder. Lulu was born on Sept. 24th from a litter of 8 puppies. She was able to come home with us the week before Thanksgiving, and she has quickly stolen our hearts! She is our monkey-bat-pig-dog, and the biggest princess in the world!
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| Lulu the Pillow Princess |
Not long after Lulu's arrival we headed to Denmark for Christmas! I have always enjoyed all of our road trips to Denmark, and Lulu was such a champ, 10 hours in the car and she slept for 9.5 of them! We all had such a lovely Christmas, Especially Lulu. She was a spoiled rotten little girl, who always had someone to pay attention to her. We enjoyed a few Christmas parties, meeting up with friends, great dinners made by Mikkel's Mom, a Christmas Cabaret, Tivoli alight with Christmas decor, and an overall amazing Christmas!
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| Tivoli at Christmas |
On top of making all of out preparations, we also had a string of visitors coming to say good bye. Mikkel's Dad came to visit for a week. Then the following week we had our friends and their family come to visit, and lastly Mikkel's Mom came for a visit, and made us our last Danish dinner for a while! It was really nice having all of these visitors, and Lulu really appreciated Louise and Torbin bringing their kids Freda and Lauge! She thought they were the coolest toys ever. On top of all of these visits, Holland also got a good snow, and then slipped into a deep freeze! It was lovely to see, but no one should ever have to experience -18 Celsius...
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| Freda and Lulu playing in the Snow |
Our final weeks in Holland were so busy that they flew by in such a blur. We had to say goodbye to all of our friends, and we had a lovely party put together by Mikkel's colleague Monita! I also had some very fun outings with Jan and Miek. I got to visit a water fowl breeding farm, and also a tulip farm, as well as saying goodbye to all of my farm friends. My farm friends got me a Frieisan horse pendant necklace to remember them by, it is lovely and I will remember them always!
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| Mandarin Ducks at the water fowl farm |
We have had an amazing time living in Holland, and we miss all of the friends we have made, but so far we absolutely love it here in Cameroon! Just wish we could have brought all of you with us! I have lofty plans to try to regularly maintain my blog, don't hold me to it, but I will promise to do the best I can! I look forward to sharing all of my new adventures with you all! Until then, happy wanderings and wonderings to you all!
<3 Chelyn
