Coming back to Amsterdam felt weird. It felt like we had been on a long vacation and arrived back home. Meeting with friends and family was so familiar it felt we had never left. We stayed with Charissa’s mother, while it didn’t feel exactly like our old place, it felt homey enough.
The flight was just enough stress on our bodies to allow the cold to rear its ugly head again. So it was a rough few days getting over jet lag, but luckily we hadn’t scheduled anything in the mornings, so we were able to sleep in each morning. But in the afternoons our time was filled with visiting friends and family.
I was able to catch up with my good friend Aaron before he headed back to the UK for Christmas. I miss our regular dinners. Together we had our annual fancy Christmas dinner with Lynn and Yves, somehow I hope to keep this tradition going in the coming years, maybe the next one will be in Singapore.
We had an Indonesian rijs tafel with her brother and sister.
We spent a whole day with Rick, Mark, Patrick and Douwe, first brunch, then some champagne and games, followed by an excellent dinner which Rick cooked for us.
Charissa had many appointments with friends without me, I took those opportunities to walk around Amsterdam, see what has changed.
For Christmas we spent it with her family, her brothers came over including her cute nephew Jeremiah. I helped by deboning some chickens to make rollade. I made the stuffing out of tayerblad, a Surinames green was way better in this recipe than spinach, I will definitely be making it again. Spending time with her family was very nice. The second Christmas Day was spent with her extended family at Oom Ray and Tante Francis. While its great to see them all it is pretty intense for me, 8 simultaneous conversations mostly in dutch with some surinamese sprinkled in. I don’t ever know if I am just not understanding the dutch or if they are speaking surinamese. But the surinamese food is always good.
The remaining days were busy with meeting with more friends. We had drinks with James and Marietta, old booking colleagues that became friends. I met with my old colleague Ryan for a couple beers, it turns out he may be touring New Zealand with his family the same time as us, so we can meet up with them. And I got into some trouble with my old friend Chris after we had a couple La Chouffes. You gotta watch out for that little gnome, he will get ya. Charissa had more appointments that she will have to tell you about, but I was able to take a stroll to the Lindenmarkt to get a taste of our days living in the Jordaan by eating a broodje beenham served up by the sometimes jolly, sometimes grumpy old guys.
But this brief trip back still led me to fell as though we are just on holiday and haven’t actually moved yet. It feels a bit like we put real life on hold and are living a different one for awhile, which isn’t too far from the truth. But it did bring on the yearning for an actual home, giving me some comfort that when the time comes to stop travelling, that transition will be a welcome one.
