Mandylio’s Valley Below

1998

For my work, a coworker and I had to go to Norway for a working week. My work had the idea that it was much cheaper for them to have us fly back on Sunday, instead of on Friday, so they told me to ‘just have fun’ in the weekend in Norway. I was already friends with Elin back then, and she always said “if you ever come to Sweden, make sure to visit me” , and I had the idea that it could be done. Elin went on holiday to Greece I think, since I had her phone number, I called her mom, and she and I arranged me and my friend from work visiting them! Both Elin’s parents were extremely friendly people and I was just in awe how trusting they were, how inviting etc. After all, I was a tad older than Elin, lots of people could take a friendship like that totally the wrong way, but they didn’t! I don’t know exactly what the time line of events was, but I think Elin was really freaked out, because when I talked to her right before I was in Norway, I don’t think she knew that I talked with her mom about me visiting yet, so when it was brought up, she was probably excited, but had no idea how to ask her PARENTS if that was OK. I think it was very funny at that time, although I don’t know for sure anymore how what and when things happened

Anyways, on Friday, we left the city of Tonsberg in Norway, and went to Oslo to stay at a hotel. Norway was screamingly expensive for us, and we knew that we couldn’t survive there financially for very long. We went to a car rental place, also expensive and rented a car, which we were to return on Sunday. I had calculated in the Netherlands that the trip to the city in Sweden were Elin was must not have been more than a 1.5 hour drive. Sadly, my atlas-sing skills were slightly off.. It took a tad longer than what I calculated. Also : In the Netherlands if you want to go from A to B, you basically can draw a line and pass all the cities along your line. But this is a densely populated country, and Sweden is nothing of that sort. So it was more the Pythagoras these, where driving from A to B equals driving from A to B and then from B to C, like the sides of a triangle.. (gee I hope that makes sense to anyone else but me).

Here’s a view from the hotel we were in :

Driving through Norway was fun… NOT… max speed back then on highways was a staggering 80 Km/h . In the Netherlands it’s 120km/h on our highways, and HERE it’s awfully busy, and it totally wasn’t in Norway. Once in Sweden (I think THAT was already 1.5 hours later) we discovered that Swedish and Norwegian people aren’t the best of friends. We had Norway plates, and people with Swedish plates seemed reluctant to let us pass. I called with Elin a couple of times postponing our arrival time. It turned out to be a 4.5 hour drive, instead of the estimated 1,5 hour drive. Silly me, a ruler doesn’t help you when you look in the atlas Anyways, we arrived safely at Elin’s and had a great time! Neighbors even came to visit. My friend from work sat around listening to the Swedish language lol, while Elin and I were in the computer room, my helping her with computer stuff, and looking at MK&A stuff. She was great, and I had a very nice time there. She was the first online friend I met who didn’t live in the Netherlands. I had no idea that I was going to do that a lot more often! This was May. My friend Marleen also became friends with Elin, and I think a little bit after, Marleen and I arranged with Elin that we were going to visit her together in Sweden for 2 whole weeks! I was going with my car, we took the ferry in Hamburg in Germany, to Goteborg in Sweden, and drove from there to Elin’s .Nature in Sweden is just awesome (if you are into nature stuff). The lake close to where Elin lived was just awesome as well. I took a picture there that I blew up, which still hangs on our wall here

Awesome image huh? Anyways, we had a great time. After 10 days, Elin had to go somewhere else, so we decided to take a hotel in Goteborg, and spend our remaining days there. It’s a great town. They have a great theme park there, Liseberg, which I had some fun , Marleen just had fun hanging around with me there, she’s not a ride person 

This was their roller coaster and I think I went in it 3 times

This was a nice building we saw at the harbour, where the ferry was about to bring us back home. We were sad that the vacation was going to end, but of course, also glad, I remember that it was very hot. The ferry was great fun again! I think on the way back, we even had the bridal suite (was the only room available, ha ha) It was a really big room, with a forward view no less. Food was amazing, all you could eat buffet. Then we got off again, drove all the way from the north of Germany back to the Netherlands, where Marleen’s parents were picking her up at my parents’ house . That was an awesome vacation, but it was only the beginning

1999

I always wanted to go on vacation to the US, to visit some theme parks there that were high on my list. Also , it was time to met up with Laura, and I could make that all happen! I relayed this idea to Marleen, and she was ALL for it! We were both super excited, and made our plans. The trip was very intricate airport wise, yet we MANAGED somehow to each pay only 1100 guilders for it (say 500 euro) , yet it was a trip made up on sections!!! From Amsterdam to LA, from LA to Milwaukee. Then from Minneapolis to NYC, and from NYC to Amsterdam! This trip took place end of August, beginning of September. Maybe prices were cheap because it was not “high season” anymore? Anyways, first we flew to LA. The trip was from Amsterdam to Heathrow (my least favorite airport in the world). In Heathrow we were notified that coach was overbooked, and they had to upgrade us to First Class. This was something I could live with however.. They wanted to serve us Champagne and stuff Individual entertainment centers in the chair and all… massaging chairs lol!We had to laugh our asses off on the custom forms that you have to fill in to enter the US.. Questions like “where you ever convicted of terrorism” and things like that.. Yeah, I bet that your average Islamic fundamentalist terrorist will answer “YES” to that huh? We had to get out of the plane in Washington to go through customs, and then went on to LA. LAX was cool! It was a bit STRANGE to me that at the baggage claim carousel, you just walked OUT to the streets. I could imagine how easy it was for someone to walk IN there, and steal someones luggage? We waited for our free ride to the Hilton LAX hotel outside, and were soon picked up! The hotel was huge, the room was awesome, the downside was that all those airplanes did produce quite some noise, even with the windows being as thick as they were. The hotel was along some big boulevard, and the first day we discovered that drivers were just sooo cautious whenever a pedestrian walked across a street.. Cars in the distance just started to break for you already! You could just walk on the streets blindly , and cars would stop for you. This had something to do with the fact that in LA, you could get sued for driving over someones foot.. Makes sense once you know that. Also, we discovered a SUBWAY restaurant there, and we ate there a lot. Marleen only ate cheese and ham on her sandwich, and the people working there NEVER got used to her ordering that. Since all the salad stuff is FREE, they couldn’t understand someone NOT wanting it. We also discovered that on that boulevard, underneath bridges it was just packed with homeless people. That gave us a very eerie feeling. Definitely not a place to pick for an evening walk! I think we stayed for 10 days in the Hilton hotel . We visited everything worthwhile there! Universal Studios, Hollywood, Six flags, knotts berry Farm, Disney Land and Sea world in San Diego! That place was great! Seeing the great Killer whales perform there! Disney land still sits in my memory because we had some major smog that day! It irritated my eyes and my throat and gave me a headache! We always did the trips from the Hotel, with organized bus trips! They were expensive, but worth it. You never had to wait in lines, because you already had your ticket!

The superman ride was the only one where I had to wait 45 mins to get on. When we arrived at Sixflags we weren’t even sure it was OPEN. We didn’t see anybody! It turned out that the schools had already started so it wasn’t packed with families or anything. I could do all the coasters that I wanted, and I had a blast! Marleen sat around most of the times, running after me from ride to ride. Some coasters I just did 3 times in a row Ran right back to the beginning again to ride it again, that’s how busy they were! It was the best theme park I had ever been to! Nothing could compare to it. Back in the hotel, the yearly American Muslim convention took place, and the whole hotel was just awful! The language, the LINES at the elevator, the disrespect they had for other people, the fights in the hall, the loud screaming in the middle of the night, the people with uni brows we saw, that was just a black mark in our vacation I am sorry to say! The hotel even apologized when we checked out. Apparently most guests had complained about it , rightfully so! Our LA part of the trip was over, and we were flying to Milwaukee to fly to our friend Kelly. She picked us up with her brother in Milwaukee, and they drove us to Madison where she lived! She had to foster kids, Deontay and Kiara, who were really sweet! The day after that we were driving to Minneapolis to visit the Mall of America! Laura and Ryan were meeting us at the hotel , they shared a room with us, and Kelly had her own room! When I saw her first, I couldn’t imagine that this was the girl I had been friends with for so long. I had no idea that she was so SMALL. Her friend Ryan looked like a sky scraper next to her! The first day was not a great day. Lots of things annoyed me heavily. She was in a relationship with someone I shall not say anything else about , other than that he will burn in a hot place once he dies, that is according to what most people in the US believe. His interference ruined that first day. OK, they were boyfriend girlfriend at that time, and I think he was in the army far away from her, and the idea of his girlfriend meeting up with someone she met online, may have bothered him slightly? The second day when we went to the Mall, I had a great time! Laura and I just hit it off majorly, and I felt like I had known her my whole life! I spent as much time with her as possible and enjoyed every minute of it! Later it was time to say goodbye, I kissed her, and she shed a tear in the car I think. We spent another night there in the hotel and the next morning, Kelly drove back home, we said goodbye to her, and a shuttle brought us to the airport where we flew to NYC.

Marleen and I had an awesome time again in NYC by ourselves! Our hotel was JUST a little bit sleazy I guess and noisy too! We slept at a window that was right accross a fish processing factory of some kind, and the whole night there were garbage trucks there! We very much liked NYC though! It’s an awesome city! We didn’t try the Subway though, it had a bad name as far as we knew back then! We walked everywhere! Everyday we went to central park, we went to all the great stores there, we did it all!

anyways, can’t remember everything we did anymore, so I guess this is where that vacation ends. We flew back again and talked about all that we did online with everyone a lot. Laura and I made plans that same year for me to return to her and stay with her in her house for a week in November. That was interesting first few days were OK, but then due to her boyfriend everything went sour so to speak. She did some stuff there under his influence that made me realize that I had nothing in common with her. We weren’t able to speak to each other about it even, and we resorted to writing each other on paper Her door was closed and she just had a thing on her door where I could slip the paper I wrote on in, lol! We did most of our communicating in written words, so it was just easier to deal with. We managed to get along again at the end, but I was certainly glad to go home again! I didn’t know whether or not my relation with her was ever going to be the same again! The new millennium was going to make a big change though, more about that later!

1998

For my work, a coworker and I had to go to Norway for a working week. My work had the idea that it was much cheaper for them to have us fly back on Sunday, instead of on Friday, so they told me to ‘just have fun’ in the weekend in Norway. I was already friends with Elin back then, and she always said “if you ever come to Sweden, make sure to visit me” , and I had the idea that it could be done. Elin went on holiday to Greece I think, since I had her phone number, I called her mom, and she and I arranged me and my friend from work visiting them! Both Elin’s parents were extremely friendly people and I was just in awe how trusting they were, how inviting etc. After all, I was a tad older than Elin, lots of people could take a friendship like that totally the wrong way, but they didn’t! I don’t know exactly what the time line of events was, but I think Elin was really freaked out, because when I talked to her right before I was in Norway, I don’t think she knew that I talked with her mom about me visiting yet, so when it was brought up, she was probably excited, but had no idea how to ask her PARENTS if that was OK. I think it was very funny at that time, although I don’t know for sure anymore how what and when things happened

Anyways, on Friday, we left the city of Tonsberg in Norway, and went to Oslo to stay at a hotel. Norway was screamingly expensive for us, and we knew that we couldn’t survive there financially for very long. We went to a car rental place, also expensive and rented a car, which we were to return on Sunday. I had calculated in the Netherlands that the trip to the city in Sweden were Elin was must not have been more than a 1.5 hour drive. Sadly, my atlas-sing skills were slightly off.. It took a tad longer than what I calculated. Also : In the Netherlands if you want to go from A to B, you basically can draw a line and pass all the cities along your line. But this is a densely populated country, and Sweden is nothing of that sort. So it was more the Pythagoras these, where driving from A to B equals driving from A to B and then from B to C, like the sides of a triangle.. (gee I hope that makes sense to anyone else but me).

Here’s a view from the hotel we were in :

Driving through Norway was fun… NOT… max speed back then on highways was a staggering 80 Km/h . In the Netherlands it’s 120km/h on our highways, and HERE it’s awfully busy, and it totally wasn’t in Norway. Once in Sweden (I think THAT was already 1.5 hours later) we discovered that Swedish and Norwegian people aren’t the best of friends. We had Norway plates, and people with Swedish plates seemed reluctant to let us pass. I called with Elin a couple of times postponing our arrival time. It turned out to be a 4.5 hour drive, instead of the estimated 1,5 hour drive. Silly me, a ruler doesn’t help you when you look in the atlas Anyways, we arrived safely at Elin’s and had a great time! Neighbors even came to visit. My friend from work sat around listening to the Swedish language lol, while Elin and I were in the computer room, my helping her with computer stuff, and looking at MK&A stuff. She was great, and I had a very nice time there. She was the first online friend I met who didn’t live in the Netherlands. I had no idea that I was going to do that a lot more often! This was May. My friend Marleen also became friends with Elin, and I think a little bit after, Marleen and I arranged with Elin that we were going to visit her together in Sweden for 2 whole weeks! I was going with my car, we took the ferry in Hamburg in Germany, to Goteborg in Sweden, and drove from there to Elin’s .Nature in Sweden is just awesome (if you are into nature stuff). The lake close to where Elin lived was just awesome as well. I took a picture there that I blew up, which still hangs on our wall here

Awesome image huh? Anyways, we had a great time. After 10 days, Elin had to go somewhere else, so we decided to take a hotel in Goteborg, and spend our remaining days there. It’s a great town. They have a great theme park there, Liseberg, which I had some fun , Marleen just had fun hanging around with me there, she’s not a ride person 

This was their roller coaster and I think I went in it 3 times

This was a nice building we saw at the harbour, where the ferry was about to bring us back home. We were sad that the vacation was going to end, but of course, also glad, I remember that it was very hot. The ferry was great fun again! I think on the way back, we even had the bridal suite (was the only room available, ha ha) It was a really big room, with a forward view no less. Food was amazing, all you could eat buffet. Then we got off again, drove all the way from the north of Germany back to the Netherlands, where Marleen’s parents were picking her up at my parents’ house . That was an awesome vacation, but it was only the beginning

1999

I always wanted to go on vacation to the US, to visit some theme parks there that were high on my list. Also , it was time to met up with Laura, and I could make that all happen! I relayed this idea to Marleen, and she was ALL for it! We were both super excited, and made our plans. The trip was very intricate airport wise, yet we MANAGED somehow to each pay only 1100 guilders for it (say 500 euro) , yet it was a trip made up on sections!!! From Amsterdam to LA, from LA to Milwaukee. Then from Minneapolis to NYC, and from NYC to Amsterdam! This trip took place end of August, beginning of September. Maybe prices were cheap because it was not “high season” anymore? Anyways, first we flew to LA. The trip was from Amsterdam to Heathrow (my least favorite airport in the world). In Heathrow we were notified that coach was overbooked, and they had to upgrade us to First Class. This was something I could live with however.. They wanted to serve us Champagne and stuff Individual entertainment centers in the chair and all… massaging chairs lol!We had to laugh our asses off on the custom forms that you have to fill in to enter the US.. Questions like “where you ever convicted of terrorism” and things like that.. Yeah, I bet that your average Islamic fundamentalist terrorist will answer “YES” to that huh? We had to get out of the plane in Washington to go through customs, and then went on to LA. LAX was cool! It was a bit STRANGE to me that at the baggage claim carousel, you just walked OUT to the streets. I could imagine how easy it was for someone to walk IN there, and steal someones luggage? We waited for our free ride to the Hilton LAX hotel outside, and were soon picked up! The hotel was huge, the room was awesome, the downside was that all those airplanes did produce quite some noise, even with the windows being as thick as they were. The hotel was along some big boulevard, and the first day we discovered that drivers were just sooo cautious whenever a pedestrian walked across a street.. Cars in the distance just started to break for you already! You could just walk on the streets blindly , and cars would stop for you. This had something to do with the fact that in LA, you could get sued for driving over someones foot.. Makes sense once you know that. Also, we discovered a SUBWAY restaurant there, and we ate there a lot. Marleen only ate cheese and ham on her sandwich, and the people working there NEVER got used to her ordering that. Since all the salad stuff is FREE, they couldn’t understand someone NOT wanting it. We also discovered that on that boulevard, underneath bridges it was just packed with homeless people. That gave us a very eerie feeling. Definitely not a place to pick for an evening walk! I think we stayed for 10 days in the Hilton hotel . We visited everything worthwhile there! Universal Studios, Hollywood, Six flags, knotts berry Farm, Disney Land and Sea world in San Diego! That place was great! Seeing the great Killer whales perform there! Disney land still sits in my memory because we had some major smog that day! It irritated my eyes and my throat and gave me a headache! We always did the trips from the Hotel, with organized bus trips! They were expensive, but worth it. You never had to wait in lines, because you already had your ticket!

The superman ride was the only one where I had to wait 45 mins to get on. When we arrived at Sixflags we weren’t even sure it was OPEN. We didn’t see anybody! It turned out that the schools had already started so it wasn’t packed with families or anything. I could do all the coasters that I wanted, and I had a blast! Marleen sat around most of the times, running after me from ride to ride. Some coasters I just did 3 times in a row Ran right back to the beginning again to ride it again, that’s how busy they were! It was the best theme park I had ever been to! Nothing could compare to it. Back in the hotel, the yearly American Muslim convention took place, and the whole hotel was just awful! The language, the LINES at the elevator, the disrespect they had for other people, the fights in the hall, the loud screaming in the middle of the night, the people with uni brows we saw, that was just a black mark in our vacation I am sorry to say! The hotel even apologized when we checked out. Apparently most guests had complained about it , rightfully so! Our LA part of the trip was over, and we were flying to Milwaukee to fly to our friend Kelly. She picked us up with her brother in Milwaukee, and they drove us to Madison where she lived! She had to foster kids, Deontay and Kiara, who were really sweet! The day after that we were driving to Minneapolis to visit the Mall of America! Laura and Ryan were meeting us at the hotel , they shared a room with us, and Kelly had her own room! When I saw her first, I couldn’t imagine that this was the girl I had been friends with for so long. I had no idea that she was so SMALL. Her friend Ryan looked like a sky scraper next to her! The first day was not a great day. Lots of things annoyed me heavily. She was in a relationship with someone I shall not say anything else about , other than that he will burn in a hot place once he dies, that is according to what most people in the US believe. His interference ruined that first day. OK, they were boyfriend girlfriend at that time, and I think he was in the army far away from her, and the idea of his girlfriend meeting up with someone she met online, may have bothered him slightly? The second day when we went to the Mall, I had a great time! Laura and I just hit it off majorly, and I felt like I had known her my whole life! I spent as much time with her as possible and enjoyed every minute of it! Later it was time to say goodbye, I kissed her, and she shed a tear in the car I think. We spent another night there in the hotel and the next morning, Kelly drove back home, we said goodbye to her, and a shuttle brought us to the airport where we flew to NYC.

Marleen and I had an awesome time again in NYC by ourselves! Our hotel was JUST a little bit sleazy I guess and noisy too! We slept at a window that was right accross a fish processing factory of some kind, and the whole night there were garbage trucks there! We very much liked NYC though! It’s an awesome city! We didn’t try the Subway though, it had a bad name as far as we knew back then! We walked everywhere! Everyday we went to central park, we went to all the great stores there, we did it all!

anyways, can’t remember everything we did anymore, so I guess this is where that vacation ends. We flew back again and talked about all that we did online with everyone a lot. Laura and I made plans that same year for me to return to her and stay with her in her house for a week in November. That was interesting first few days were OK, but then due to her boyfriend everything went sour so to speak. She did some stuff there under his influence that made me realize that I had nothing in common with her. We weren’t able to speak to each other about it even, and we resorted to writing each other on paper Her door was closed and she just had a thing on her door where I could slip the paper I wrote on in, lol! We did most of our communicating in written words, so it was just easier to deal with. We managed to get along again at the end, but I was certainly glad to go home again! I didn’t know whether or not my relation with her was ever going to be the same again! The new millennium was going to make a big change though, more about that later!