It’s been over a year since I had seen my love and fiancée Anais and so the two weeks she spent here were most welcome. Both because she was here and because I was due for a proper vacation. I take about two weeks every year for the purpose of being with her. I wish it was possible for it to be more, but unfortunately she doesn’t build vacation hours as quickly as I do. Nor is it very cheap to fly to and from the US these days.
In any case, this year it was her turn to come over to visit me. We didn’t really have an awful lot planned, because she had been here before and we’re running out of things to do XD.
For the first week or so we just took it easy. Allow her some time to rest after the flight and things. We spent most of the day playing videogames and we went out to see Suckerpunch in Zoetermeer. That Saturday we had dinner with Istran, Raluca and Stefan and spent an evening with beer and more games. The dinner we had was the oh so fun “Steengrillen”, which is basically DIY meat cooking. It’s quite fun! Especially with friends and/or family. Because of the time it takes to cook the bits of meat you have plenty of time to sit around and chat, which adds to the charm.
And then finally, to end the week, we had lunch at a quaint pizza restaurant in the Hague and a mid-afternoon showing of Rango.
The week after we visited the Escher museum in the Hague, after failing to do so the last time she was around due to it being closed for renovation. That very same day we went straight to the airport to visit Barcelona, more about that in the post “Mini-vacation to Barcelona“.
From here on we slacked a bit less and started doing a bit more. We went on another night out, but this time with just Istran and Raluca. We had planned to go have dinner at the “Panda” in Leiden, which is a wok restaurant, and have some beer afterwards. Unfortunately the night ended with me having to call my dad to pick us up because we had missed the Randstad Rail and otherwise would have had to wait an hour in the cold and walk home from Zoetermeer. Funnily enough, there’s two BP gas stations near that train station which makes arranging a meeting point somewhat annoying if you don’t know there’s two of them.
The day after, Sunday the 10th, we spent the day in the Rotterdam zoo “Blijdorp” watching the the animals and enjoying the nice sunny day. Then on my birthday, April 11, we spent the entire day in the flowery “Keukenhof“.
I’m not sure when the next time will be that we’ll be together. At the moment we’re sort of hoping we can be together for the interview I need to do for my K1 visa. It would help a lot to have her there as well, but it all depends on when said interview is whether it is at all possible or not. Ah well.