Mandylio’s Valley Below

There’s not so much to report from the beginning of that year. Nothing sticks out from the first months. We have pictures of Sebastian standing on the couch from Jan 2004, and he was only 8 months old then! I think he got that from his daddy, who was also interested in being able to walk as fast as possible, to explore new worlds.
Sebastian always seemed to be in a hurry to be able to do things that he wasn’t supposed to do yet.

In April we had another trip to the US planned. This was going to be one that we wouldn’t forget so easily. Not so much what happened in the US, it was more the trip to the US that mattered!
We must have flown with UA, because we had a layover in Heathrow (My favorite airport in the world, not). We had gone through all the channels in Brussels already, and were waiting in the gate area! Luckily we were quite early then. Sebastian was happily walking around there! They had these nice iron benches to sit on. The bench had a triangle shape figure on the side of it. It will come as no surprise that Sebastian found a very up close view of one of those triangle shapes.. He totally fell against one and when we picked him up he was just GUSHING blood from his head. We got tissues, but that clearly wasn’t going to do. He needed medical attention and fast. So they called the ambulance from the airport for us and picked us up to go to the little hospital area in the airport. Of course, for them to be able to put stitches in his head, he needed to be numbed in that area. I remember that it really took Laura, me and two ambulance people to restrain this little boy! So that they could put the needle RIGHT in the area where the wound was. Sebastian cried so hard and intense that little blood vessels in his face popped and he was covered in little red spots . Of course it was no fun for him to get stitched in that place, but at least it stopped the bleeding! From laying on him, my shirt was full of blood as well, and where the hell was I going to get another shirt? We boarded the plane, they let us in early because they felt so sorry for Sebastian, so we had all the time to get us installed in the plane We then flew to Heathrow. We had a layover there and I was able to buy myself a new shirt there. Sebastian was so soaked in sweat and tears that we just put PJ’s on him for the rest of the plane! On our next flight, probably to Chicago, Sebastian slept a lot during the flight, and I think they had one of those baskets again for him to sleep in. We had some trouble with the crew though, we hit turbulence and they insisted that we woke Sebastian up to have him on our lap. Of course we understand that all it takes is a fall of 10 meters in high altitude to make a baby fly through the plane, but we were just not going to wake Sebastian up. Have us sign a paper Laura replied them, but they never did We went through customs there, and I think that time I got scolded by a customs officer for not being in the same line as Laura and Sebastian! He said that since we’re a family, we could all go through the same line, so from then on we always did that! Laura’s mom and Uncle Dennis were waiting for us at the arrival area! We had a long drive back, it’s like a 5 hour drive from Chicago to Waterloo, IA and that’s always fun! They probably rented a van to pick us all up! Laura’s mom and Dennis lived right next to a Holiday inn hotel in Waterloo, behind us was the railroad, and a highway, and in their street a lot of cars drove as well, I remember that Sebastian just loved to be on their porch, sitting in a chair looking at cars going by. Look left, look right, look left again, he could stay there for a long time! They also had some wind chimes hanging there and Sebastian loved to yank the cord of it and make noise with them I don’t remember much else from that vacation, I know that Sebastian celebrated his first birthday there, and that wasn’t easy! They went to some park with Laura’s family. Both sides even, Laura’s dad , Nancy, Laura’s grandparents from both sides , although I am not sure if Laura’s grandparents from mother’s side were there? All Laura’s cousins where there with all their children, so you can imagine it was quite busy! Sebastian did really well, until it was time for cake! When everybody started to focus their attention on him, the screaming started There was nothing we could do to quiet him down again. We got nice pictures there, even if we only had a poor HP camera , so the pics weren’t that great of course. I am sure that we went to Williamsburg outlet mall, to Cedar Rapids mall, we saw the girls , etc etc. Not that much that was special! I don’t remember much about the trip back, it must have been the usual airplane hell?

Once we were back, we got problems with Sebastian. Sleeping issues. He wouldn’t sleep in his bed anymore, and every evening was a big fight with him! He usually would just fall asleep after exhaustion! After a little bit of this , my mother told us that there was this healer person living close to us , he does something with his hands? Magnetize? We didn’t have much hope that this was going to work, but humored my mother! The guy was pretty nice, and Sebastian didn’t have any problem with him holding his hands over his head and his belly! Immediately the guy told us that he ‘felt’ major problems in the digestive system. Well, we didn’t reveal this to him, so that was a good call, or was it a guess? Lots of children these days have eating problems? Sebastian started out nice with eating, but we couldn’t really get him off the milk bottle! He drank whole milk, and bottles of water too, but solid food he rarely ate! He liked spaghetti, but these days doesn’t eat that anymore, just the noodles with some cheese on it! So back then he lacked fibers. We could never get him to take vitamin tablets , so we tried a bottle and put that in his lemonade, but that didn’t really help much either! I think he was surviving on milk and cheerios mostly! True there’s lots of good stuff in cheerios, and that kept him alive with the milk, but from such a poor diet, you can imagine that doing a number 2 was very hard for him! The guy said that he would help him with that during some sessions but looking back at that, eventually it helped because he slowly started eating other things, but if they guy was the cause of that, I don’t know? He also put his hand on Sebastian’s head and said that he felt that he was a very busy little boy! (duh, like we didn’t know that already lol) and he said that he was going to work on his head for a little. He said after he was done that Sebastian would fall asleep and would have a very good nice rest.. This turned out to be quite true! He told us that Sebastian needed a new bed, that he felt trapped in the other bed we had for him? We put Sebastian in the stroller and once outside we put him in the car, and I think Sebastian was OUT then already. We drove to Ikea, got Sebastian out in his stroller again, he never woke up! We bought his new bed, got it in the car, got Sebastian in the car, without waking up and drove home and when we got there, I think Sebastian woke up! I assembled the bed and I think that evening he already slept in it without problems! I don’t think we got any problems with him anymore after that, we just noticed that, like all children, he wanted to distort the boundaries a bit. Have us do things at his terms, but I guess that is normal for children.
In July I drove him and Laura to a highway . There’s this bridge that I would take him to every now and then, and Sebastian just looooved watching the cars pass! He would wave to trucks, and he would be so happy if they honked at him!
In august, we had Sebastian sleepover at Oma and Opa for the first time! That time wasn’t such a success so we figured that we weren’t going to do that for a while. I guess we were wrong, because it has become a tradition, and Sebastian just looooves to go there!
On Sunday we went to a Belgian animal market in Mol (I think?) and mom saw Barney there and she just had to have him! He was such a cute dog! We got money and brought him home with us!

Sebastian became such good friends with him fast! We figured they were going to be friends forever, but fate meddled with us, so that wasn’t going to happen!

In September we visited a park in Belgium with Charlie & Nicole and Merel! That was fun! The park is really cheap, you only pay for parking! It was a hot day and they had this area where kids could just play with water shooting from the ground. That was the only time they played with it, because now it’s always a closed area, they say that’s because of the salmonella bacteria… That’s sad, they had SUCH fun there! In the Park I already noticed that Sebastian, like his daddy didn’t suffer from fear of heights! He would just climb in the highest things they had there1 I had to climb after him all the time, because I feared that he was going to fall!

In October we went to Helvoirt to see our friend Marleen, who is Sebastian’s godmother. It’s always fun to visit her and her parents! I think Marleen’s mom was in love with Sebastian from the beginning and he always has a blast at their place, playing with the cats (and the dog now) .We went to some dunes they have there. Kinda weird to have dunes that you usually find where the sea is, except there is no water there Look at the little one having fun here!

Sebastian is growing up really fast, in November he was already able to change DVDs in the player. That is something that I do not want him to do , because his fingers are always greasy, and that’s not good for the dvds. They will start skipping and stuff. We’ve also noticed that he’s so strong minded! If he doesn’t want to do something, you have to come with good arguments to make him do something! Little children need their fingernails cut every now and then, but for us that means that one of us has to sit on top of him, otherwise he won’t let us do it! That’s really no fun! Why doesn’t he realize that we do it for his own good? In the speaking department things aren’t really going anywhere yet. We know he understands us if we say things to him, but we get no response from him! When he got his first Ikea train set, the train obsession started, and it never got away. Trains are everything, and everything is trains! I do not mind that of course, since I am a big fan of trains myself!

One instance we had to take a bath together, and while the water was filling, Sebastian decided to have some bath toys, and he trow those in, as well as towels, his pooh bear and himself, clothed and all.

At the end of the year, we had another US vacation planned! Two times a year again! That is not going to hold in the future! Travelling is so expensive! Low dollar, high fuel prices, security nonsense that we end up paying, etc etc.
Sebastian slept really fast on the plane again, so that helped us! I never sleep in airplanes, no matter how hard I try, so I enjoyed the movies and well, anything that was there to enjoy, which wasn’t much! We flew to Chicago again where Mom and Uncle D picked us up with a van! It was a 10 hour flight, and we left early in the morning here, so we must have been tired, but not tired enough to hang at that big mall outside Chicago! Laura wanted to sniff some children’s clothing store air there. She quickly located the Gymboree store, and was gone for a while! My first stop always seems to be the local Starbucks to get myself a caramel frappuccino with whipped cream! Once I have had that, I can take anything There were a lot of great stores there, and it’s always fun at an American mall! We should have more malls here in the Netherlands, but I guess it just doesn’t work with big enough locations! Heck, we had Walmart in Germany for a few years, that was cool, but they’ve been taken over by Real , so the Walmart itself closed, anyways, straying! We drove a little after the mall and found ourselves a Arbyss. One of the few American food chains that we really miss over here. Food is always great there for us, so I am sure our bellies were filled! I am sure that Sebastian didn’t have any of our food, just his milk , seems to be the only thing he lives on!

Once we were at home with Mom’s I think I needed to sleep, but Laura wanted to unpack some of her eBay boxes, and Sebastian wanted to play! Later they fell asleep, and Sebastian was up at 5 in the morning already, not knowing where he was, so we managed to get him in our bed to sleep! It wasn’t much of a sleep after that though. First day is always rough on Sebastian. The time change is always difficult, but not as difficult as the way back!

The next day we had some family visits! We had several lazy days where we just watched US TV shows that we can’t watch at home! Laura seemed to be on a food network marathon, and knew all the people presenting different shows by heart already! We had to help Laura’s grandmother who had knee replacement surgery with shopping for Christmas presents! She gave us her credit card and a written note from her! We went to Von Maur and bought everything there! We spent like $400 in a short amount of time! Of course the staff was very smitten with us, I am sure they work on commission or something Later Laura bought the Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD, which turned out to be a mistake! It’s Christmas music or classical music but in a rock format with guitars and stuff. But there was this one song that put me in a trance, REALLY, it was repeating the same thing over and over and over, and we found ourselves driving OFF the highway where there was no exit!!!! The sound of the tires going over the curbs was what woke me up! That was scary! I don’t know if it had anything to do with me still being tired, or just that song, but I never want to listen to that song while driving again!

Well, I don’t think there’s much to report else. We did the usual stuff, visited lots of family, took Britney and Jessica to the mall in Cedar Rapids, and to Williamsburg, and the next day we drove them home to their mom! Sebastian found an electric toy car there, and he loved it! It was hard to get him off that thing!

I will continue more about the in the 2005 post

At the end of 2002 we went to the US again for Christmas vacation! It’s always fun to be there for Christmas! At least over there it used to be so that you had a 100% chance of a white Christmas! Not that I was looking for that, but Laura was used to that. I don’t really remember much about that vacation, only that we did a LOT of baby shopping there! Strollers over here in the Netherlands seemed so scandalously overpriced compared to US strollers. So we figured that we would just buy one there and ship it here. This would bite us in the asses later on, but we were totally ignorant of that. We bought a lot of bottles there, with pooh themes on them, not knowing anything about that stuff that they discovered now is in clear plastic and can be scraped off the inside of the bottle by a bottle brush .Celebrating the old year / new year is always fun in the US as well. When the clock strikes midnight, nothing changes… You don’t hear a single BANG outside! Sure in big cities like NY they have big fireworks, but your average US city doesn’t do anything like that! Besides it was very cold outside again, so who would want that? So we found the PERFECT deal on a Graco Winnie the Pooh stroller there at the local walmart, and we were going to get it! $120 for a stroller WITH the car seat for in the car as well. If that wasn’t an awesome deal, I wouldn’t know what was. So we had lots and lots of extra stuff to bring with us! We had to keep an eye on the weight restrictions and we had to weigh everything! We threw in some extra stuff with the stroller and just used the whole box as as suitcase , that fitted the weight restriction. I have no idea how we thought that this would all fit in the car here in the Netherlands, but fate helped us out a little bit there. The flight back must have been a problematic one, more like usual, and when we arrived in Brussels, we waited and waited, and I think none of our suitcases made it here, it probably didn’t make it in Chicago, and we got to go home without any luggage but the stuff we had as carry on. It makes things easier I guess, because a messenger delivers the suitcases for free at home, usually the day after! But there’s always a chance that customs wants to look at them, and add a free bill in it for all the stuff you are illegally importing in the country! I don’t know how that works though, I mean, I don’t live in Belgium, so why would they care? How would Dutch customs know about it if we landed in Brussels? Anyways, our stuff made it home at my parents the day after! The stroller looked amazing, and we were so glad to have something that no one else had over here! It didn’t look cheap or anything, it looked very special because we didn’t have any strollers like this over here! Later we discovered that you can buy strollers cheap, but that means the quality of the stroller is what you pay for, and I don’t think the stroller was used for more than a year! Americans lead an ultra pampered and sheltered live. They use cars to drive to and from the mall, and there’s never any obstacles like we have on the streets here, so our stroller clearly wasn’t made for riding on our streets, things broke off, it was bumpy as hell, in short, it was a bad judgement call. More about strollers later!

We had started to look for an apartment , because it was essential that we were going to have a place of our own soon, for every body’s sanity If Laura had a lot of baby clothes to get washed, it wouldn’t have worked if my mother was still so eh, uptight about doing the laundry. We quickly checked what kind of mortgage would be possible for me, and that wasn’t so bad, there were plenty of things to chose from! We specifically looked for an apartment, but looking back on that, we should have never chose that! We found one place online, and we made an appointment to go look at it. The price was like 90k, and we had an eerie feeling walking up the stairs there! It was 3rd floor, we had all these foreign names on the doors, that made us already feel like it was wrong to be considering that place. When the realtor opened the door, there was NOTHING inside. No carpet, nothing on the walls, the kitchen was completely removed. This was nothing for us. I told the realtor that I wasn’t even considering it if he knocked 10K of the price, and of course, he wasn’t considering that either, so that first encounter left us kind of wondering if we were ever going to get a good deal for the money that we were wanting to spend.. Then a little bit later we saw an add for the apartment we currently live in. Immediately we loved this place. It had a bath, which we valued a lot, and mostly , places in our price range just had a shower and nothing else. The downside was that it was 3 floors up as well, and of course, no elevator. We got a mortgage for it, didn’t really look any further because our minds were set on this apartment! One funny thing I remember was that on the day we went to sign the papers, we went to McD, and I had Mcnuggets for the first time in my life, and it gave me a very severe case of food poisoning. Really high fever, and I couldn’t keep anything inside. We signed the papers and we were ready to move in here! I already had a double bed, we both 3 identical cupboards, 2 for us, one for baby Sebastian. We also bought a nice cupboard to have Laura’s computer in! For the first part after Sebastian was born, she wanted it to be in his room. The thing was hell to put together, and I was sure that it didn’t have all the parts required, but after calling Ikea, we went through all the parts, and sure enough I had everything. I finally managed to assemble it. I had help with from my family with the moving, and a friend from work Dirk helped me move in. After seeing the apartment for the first time, we were kinda shocked at the state it was in. There was birdPOOP everywhere from the previous people and their birds, and they left big holes in the wall where they attached stuff to. The cabinets that we agreed with the previous inhabitants seamed in a VERY poor shape as well. They required some major work. I also had a big screen projection which was a LOT of fun to get up here LOL. It was not that it was too heavy or anything, but it was too big to handle. Dirk and I had no one else to help us, so we only slowly managed to get it up here. Dirk informed me right then that he wasn’t going to help me with it again if I moved anytime soon Last days of March in that year, we moved inhere. Very quickly the 3 flights of stairs became annoying to walk up and down all the time. I guess it kept us in shape, but for Laura it was becoming less and less fun, getting bigger with Sebastian all the time . It didn’t take us long to become annoyed at both the neighbors we had. Across the hall they always seemed to blast their music. It’s 6 years later, and I STILL don’t even know what they look like. I never see them! The neighbor next to us always played his XBOX games on a big speaker set, and it was always war next door. Shooting, explosions, or racing cars crashing. I am sure that added to irritation levels with Laura. Being pregnant, being sick a lot, walking up the stairs, it wasn’t easy, but at least we had our own place, and we could do whatever we want, whenever we wanted

School was becoming increasingly difficult, but Laura was lucky enough that she didn’t have to be there the whole school year! She got to get out of it a month earlier because she was pregnant. She had already passed that year, and wasn’t required to come back, so that worked! I am skipping a few months now to the end of the pregnancy! We had arranged that Laura’s mother was going to be here at that time, that helped! She could make all the comfort food for Laura and that surely strengthened here quite a bit. The due date came and went, and there was just no sign of Sebastian whatsoever. Laura’s mom was only going to be here for 3 weeks, and slowly there was a danger that Laura still didn’t have Sebastian and Laura’s mom had to go home already! One night she began leaking, and we went to the hospital, but they said it was nothing and we had to go home again!I wanted to film the delivery and checked the camera and the new tape that I had bought for it, and everything worked like a charm! Then it was time to be induced, because they don’t really allow you to go over more than 2 weeks. It’s not good for the mother or the baby! But when we were there, we had some OB tell us that we were wrong in the date of conception! That could not BE because we know exactly when Laura got pregnant and I am very confident that Sebastian has half of his gene pool from me, and not from someone in the US So we weren’t wrong. The guy did an ultra sound of Sebastian, measured some things and said that it was an average baby. We were put in a room, she got some hormone to be induced, and it was all going really slow. At least we got to hear the babies heartbeat for like half a day!Slowly we started to wonder about things, and they quickly made it known to us, that we had nothing to input in the delivery anymore. It was all the hospitals decisions, and the mom had nothing more to say about it anymore! Since the baby was going to be induced, all the mothers wishes flew out of the window! We had always objected to being cut, to have the vacuum used or to have the tangs used. But we would see them all hours later. Being induced was slow as Hell. It took hours and hours, and it didn’t really seem like there was any progress. We had one whole team that already went home because their day was over. Then we got a new crew, and we would see them go home as well! By now, she was dilating, and pain was more and more eminent. Laura always said that she didn’t want to use anything and have a natural birth, but everyone involved seem to want to force Laura into having the epidural. I have to admit that I helped, and so did Laura’s mother. It just seemed like the best thing to do at that time, even though Laura didn’t want to use any drugs. She had already had one drug in IV, and now some OB was going to give her the epidural, which Laura had agreed to take to make everyone shut up! Looking back she was glad that she got it, because I am sure that pain wise it was great! By then I filmed quite a few things already , but didn’t bother to check what I filmed , that should be a hint where I am going with this. Anyways, the final crew came in, and there was this young woman that had been on call all this time, and she finally decided that it was time to get the baby! Epidural was going to work off and that wouldn’t benefit anyone. All the events that happened after this , I shall never forget . Details maybe, but I saw far more than I ever desired to see . Laura was finally done and started pushing. They let her push for at least a whole 3 minutes when without any occasion, they got the vacuum, and the scissors because the baby needed to come out! Now, was there any medical reason for it? Was it obvious that the baby was in distress? I never heard anything about that but before I knew it, she was cut and the vacuum was used and the head was out. Of course, Sebastian, being difficult as he’s always been was positioned wrong and his nose was facing up. Of course that way, the shoulders are horizontal, and a woman is shaped more in a vertical way down there so that wouldn’t work. The DR that was doing the delivery grabbed his head and just turned it in like a 10th of a second, like you do if you would be BREAKING someones neck. This sounds like something from a horror movie, but I saw her do it! By then I was politely asked to stop filming, because they said that we didn’t want to ever see this at home. I can imagine!! It was blood and gore I tell you! Laura’s mom wasn’t even in the room anymore most of the time, she totally couldn’t cut it anymore and was more outside smoking than anything else. I couldn’t blame her, knowing what I all saw! So I just watched myself. She yanked Sebastian out, and a loud crack was noticed by us all. They were afraid that they dislocated her shoulder when she pulled him out! Sebastian was rushed in the other room where I snapped a few pics from him! He looked dead , almost purple, but he was OK… as OK as you can be after such a trauma! Shoulder possibly dislocated, 2 weeks overdue, WAY more heavy than anyone expected! He was like 4250 grams, and that’s a big baby! They told us that had they known how big he was, he should have been a c-section baby! But at least the recovery from it was a lot shorter now! Sebastian was brought upstairs to where the incubators with little babies were. His bloodsugar level was also not OK, so he was not allowed to leave the hospital anyways! I was quickly called downstairs again to be with Laura, because they couldn’t get the placenta out either. Right before they decided to surgically remove it, an OB managed to gently force it out of her body! Of course I was in heaven that everything was OK, and that I had a baby! Marleen was called in the middle of the night that everything was great, and she valued the phone call, even if it was very late for her Looking back on how that room looked when they were done with Laura , it was JUST a scene from a slasher horror movie! The delivering doctor was putting stitches in Laura’s downstairs, and I felt strange that she asked me to OK the results . I was like..whatever? As long as she doesn’t bleed anymore! They made an extra fold down there, so apparently putting stitches in someone was ALSO not this woman’s best quality.. I didn’t really think that she was fit to be a DR that delivers baby! She seemed like she was like 24 years old or something ,not older! Laura was OK however, and she was brought to a room! Laura’s mom and me went home for a little bit of sleep! Laura wasn’t going to sleep long, just an hour or 2 – 3 because they wake you up in the morning to have breakfast! I remember that on one of the more busy intersections in town, a Sheppard with ALL his sheep were crossing there, and I was like HUH? What now ? Sebastian was required to stay 48 hours. Laura wasn’t , but was allowed to stay there to be with the baby! My mom visited alone on Friday because dad was sick, and Marleen came on Saturday to visit the baby! On Sunday they finally got home and we had Sebastian all for ourselves! I filmed him when we got home with him, and we immediately looked back at it and it worked, but later when we wanted to watch the whole birth, everything was black, and the camera didn’t record anything, but that part when I tried it while still at home ! Strange huh? I was of course glad that we had Sebastian home now, but you know..babies aren’t really my thing, I love to cuddle with them, as plenty of pictures will show, but you don’t have much conversation with a baby, and not too much interaction either, so I always said that I would spend more time with Sebastian when he got older, which I do Laura’s mom had to fly back a day or two after, so we brought her to the airport, I am not sure which, but it was probably Brussels or Dusseldorf? I am sure that she will have thought back to the time in the hospital and I bet she wished that she came AFTER the baby was born. Having two c-sections, she never got to experience a birth.. If that is good or bad, I can’t really say? Fact is that when they put a zipper in your belly after they gently yank the baby out of it’s protective cover, you take a lot longer to heal, and often stay in the hospitals for several days up to week, so you don’t really get to enjoy much time with your baby then either! I remember that Laura didn’t really feel that she was a mother yet. She only enjoyed Sebastian on her chest for at least a full minute before they rushed him out, so that’s not the usual BONDING that you are required to do, but quickly she became a very protective mommy! Nobody touch my baby, go wash your hands, and don’t anyone dare smoking around my baby!

We had to go to Amsterdam to the American embassy to report Sebastian there. Rules were strict already about open eyes on the passport pictures, so that was hard to do, since Sebastian wasn’t very old? We got his passport ready though, and had a trip to the US planned already! Travelling with Sebastian means that we didn’t have to pay for a seat for him, so it was very affordable. But no seat also means that you can’t strap him in a car seat either! The parents have to hold the baby on their laps, and that is FAR from easy with a 3 month old. Sebastian was not difficult or anything, I think he was a little sick so he got some baby cough medicine and that made him sleepy most of the flight, but it still wasn’t easy to deal with ! I think UA or AA also had a basket thingy where you could put the baby in for sleeping, that worked, but we had to switch seats with some people for it! I don’t remember much about the US visit itself though I am sure we did some more baby shopping, and Laura’s family was smitten by our little friend (seriously, who wouldn’t be with such a charmer) . We went to Des Moines with Laura’s brother and his wife to go to adventure land and we got a call from Laura’s mom there (or we called her) and found out that Sebastian had a really high fever! After adventure land we hurried home but still visited a Babies are US there after we ate across the street. At Babies R us we bought some outfits I am sure this is blogged somewhere already, haha! After we got home we noticed that Sebastian had like a 41 degrees fever, so we called some ER’s over there to see if we could bring him there. Of course, since Sebastian is dutch, he falls under my insurance, and no one in the US knows how things work, so we ALL figured that I just needed to show my card and that would be it? But that wasn’t it we later found out. They did ALL sorts of useless tests on Sebastian and hours later they said they found nothing, he just had a respiratory virus, to give him some Tylenol and he would be OK. Well THANKS, you could have said that immediately! We had to SIT on Sebastian basically to keep him still so that they could draw blood from both his arms, and they even got pee from him by going up his you know what! What cruel people to do that when they knew that they weren’t going to find anything interesting? They said later that almost always, babies get a high fever because it’s their first time… They couldn’t just have told us that? What did think, that we were some Munchhausen by proxy parents that did something to their baby so that they could bring it to the ER? Anyways, at home later they told us that our medical insurance wouldn’t have okay-ed us to go to the hospital and they weren’t going to pay the bill. Well, OK….you don’t pay, but we don’t pay either. So the quite expensive bill never got paid.. Poor Sebastian huh? He quickly was OK though. Laura called her cousin that Sebastian was sick, and since his baby was going to be there, she didn’t want him to catch whatever Sebastian had. Laura’s cousin said it was OK to come! When we came there, we heard loud coughing and apparently HIS baby was sick too, had the CROUP, which you can easily spread to other babies, so why didn’t have the courtesy to not mention this to US shall always be a mystery to us! We flew back again to the Netherlands and continued our lives! I don’t think there’s anything that year worth mentioning, but I have been known to be wrong, so I might add something more later!

2002

I remember that early in the year, like first week of January, we flew to the US again, for a belated Christmas there. I am sure that the flight was as eventful as it always was, so I don’t remember anything from that. I am sure we visited family a lot, got Christmas presents and stuff which is of course always fun! We arranged with Laura’s brother that he would drive us to a mall in Des Moines. He had his son Cory with him, who was still a baby then. I bet Laura was happy to be with a baby she could take care of. I am sure Laura’s brother wasn’t really going to do that if she was there anyways. I remember that we had the big white car, and first we drove to New Hartfort and picked him up there. he then drove us to Des Moines. I immediately became annoyed at his driving speed! He wasn’t really speeding, but the road was covered in snow. It was fairly cold, and if there had been an animal or a kid crossing the road, we had no chance of missing it. The road was like that all the way to the highway, which was really far if your driving around on snow/ice. He showed us the house he and Laura used to live in when they lived in Des Moines temporarily. This was not a big event for us, but for her brother, i will come to that later. We finally found the mall we were looking for , and it was fun there, but Laura’s brother got a phone call from someone ….. That someone told him she was pregnant again… Britney. Jessica, Christian, Cory and now another one? He couldn’t even decently afford one child, and now he was going to have a 5th one. I remember that he wasn’t really excited on the phone, but I am sure his lovely Jennifer was. Another baby, her year was good again! I remember that Laura was slightly miffed about it. I mean, here you have a trailer trash like woman, who shouldn’t be breathing at all, and SHE got pregnant , putting another helpless kid in this world? A kid that deserves a decent education and that deserves to be loved by both parents? Jennifer’s biggest hobby always seemed yelling at Laura’s brother , or yelling at the kids she already had. Anyways, she’s a real piece of trailer trash who really think that she’s better than everyone else, especially Laura’s family. Enough about her, my stomach is acting up! I don’t think there’s much to report else from that vacation? I think we attended the birthday parties for the girls, and it was with Jennifer’s family as well, so I got to enjoy them some more !

I am sure that our trip home came with the usual unnecessary stress caused by the airlines and attitude problems of their personnel At home , it was getting back to our usual things again. Me going to work, Laura staying at home in the attic. It must have been boring for her there! Most people she knew were in the US, and they were never online at the time she was, because of the time difference obviously. Then in April the horror of school started, and she had to go 4 days a week to dutch classes. She had to use the bicycle, no matter what weather, and it was outside town, so she got a good start in adjusting to living here, since so many people uses bicycles here to go everywhere . I remember many instances where I got phone calls or messages at work about school and what happened there, so I am sure that she didn’t have a great time there! She did get along with a number of people! This lady from Brazil who was a teacher there she got along with, but I think at some point she went to an advanced class. I received some stress from this education as well, and one time I got so angry that I took the dog and went for a long walk. In my mind I was just sending her back alone to the US, where I would notify authorities here that we split up, and then I would have her flown back to the Netherlands again. I Don’t see anymore how that would have helped our situation, but I am sure I did when that time was there. In July – August, I decided that it was time for her to have a vacation from us, and she got on a trip to the US by herself. It turned out to be a troublesome vacation. All we did was seem to be sitting behind the computer and chatting to each other. We could have done that here as well I guess we just missed each other too much? It was 2 weeks, but it were two long weeks! Then finally when she came back, cycle wise it was the last possible day to get pregnant, and somehow the planets aligned and we managed! Laura knew it quite early that she was pregnant, the signs started very early. Morning sickness was really bad and she couldn’t stand any smells. I remember driving in the car and she would always get sick in the car too. One time we stopped at a gas station in Belgium (Back then the gas price was just 99 cents there, compared to the 1.42 that it’s currently at) and after I got gas, we drove a little, and she yelled stop, opened the door and puked One time she even managed to puke while we were having a nice dinner of Lasagna (I think?) at my parents place. We had like 4 visits to the OB in the last part of the year, and we had a rd ultrasound done as well. I don’t remember where anymore, but I am guessing Gouda? It’s was like a 2 hour drive, because no one did that yet locally.. At the end of the year we also fired our OB because he said that there was 0% chance of him delivering the baby, so why should we come to him then? I arranged a midwife in a nearby town, and we started going there!

This was a stormy year.

2000 was a complicated year, this one almost tops the previous year!

In April, Laura came to visit me for the first time, to meet my parents, the dog Kai, and to see what it was like over here. I arranged a trip for us to Paris with a bus, which I thought was a nice idea! It sure was cheap, so no complaints there. We had a bus that brought us to a city north from us (Paris is south from us) , to have us transferred to a different bus with people from all over the Netherlands. We sat, and sadly we had some old guy sitting behind us who’s only motivation for going to Paris seemed to be the bus, and the trip to Paris in general. It seems that he was hitting on the woman next to him and he just WOULDNT shut up! He kept talking and talking and talking. It was already heavily annoying for yours truly, but for Laura it was worse. She didn’t speak the language, so she had no idea what he was talking about, and I can imagine how it must be to sit close to someone from China for 4+ hours. So she wasn’t a happy camper! I arranged two MP3 players for us, but sadly the batteries ran out really quick, and we had no way of recharging them in the bus, so she just HAD to listen to the guy. I even turned around at some point and asked him politely to calm down a bit, that I was with someone that didn’t speak the language and that was about to explode. I think it was a little bit better after that.

When we arrived at our hotel, it seemed nice, but we noticed a police car in front of some gate at the back of the hotel. That seemed odd to us, but it turned out that it was near the crash site of the Concorde airplane. Police were still guarding the gate. I think we just dropped off our stuff, and then went for dinner. I didn’t have any French money yet, figured that I would use my credit card in a bank somewhere. But no such luck, so we just stopped at a restaurant and had dinner. I figured that we could pay with credit card there, but the RUDE French Garcon told us that they didn’t except (our) visa. The sign was on the freaking door, so he was just lying to us. We had to borrow money from the people sitting opposite to us. That didn’t feel good of course! As soon as we were able, we asked them to stop at a bank so I could pay them back! I dunno what happened else that day, I figure that they just drove us around in Paris to see some sites. Of course it was Laura’s first time, so I am sure she enjoyed that all! The next day we went to Disney Land Paris. That was fun, but it didn’t take us long to find annoying people. Spanish people were majorly cutting in line at some ride, and of course we said something about it. ‘Family’ was waiting for the guy far in the distance, and the Spanish guy displayed some major attitude when we complained about them line cutting. He spoke Spanish to me, so he probably told me that I was a SCHWEIN or something , so I yelled back in Dutch to him. What an idiot. I hate people who cut in line. It’s no fun to wait like 1 hour in line for a ride that takes 3 minutes. So our first experience with Spanish people wasn’t a good one! We had some fun in the park after that! That morning was also quite interesting! The bus line that we took the trip with charges you little money, but during breakfast we discovered why.. Every person had like one bun, 2 butters and a predestined amount of food per person. So if one person was extra hungry and decided to have 2 buns, someone else didn’t HAVE a bun.. The next day we went to Disney Land again, and later we went to town. I remember being on Place de Pigalle, which is always fun, and later we drove to a place where you could take a tour on the seine which we did. We also had them drop us off at the eiffel tower, and we walked all the way to the Champs Elysees, at that place the bus was going to pick us up, but we didn’t see them for the longest time! I think they said that WE weren’t there at the time they told us to be there, so they drove around a little. I don’t remember being late, but I remember the bus driver having attitude about it , lol! Anyways, on the way back we asked them to drop us off at Maastricht, where we ate at Applebees , and my brother picked us up there! Maastricht is near us, and there was no reason to take a big detour and then drive south again to end up at our place!

In all Laura didn’t really have a good feeling about the Netherlands. Compared to living in Iowa, people over here are rude, careless, egoistic , etc etc. I agree with it mostly, having been in the US quite a few times! She thought that Maastricht was a really filthy city, and that’s true, there was just papers on the floor everywhere!

Next vacation it was my turn again : If I remember correctly, mid August 2001 . We had some marriage counseling to go through. The minister was only going to marry us if we shared their christian views on marriage and relations! It was quite fun to go through, even if I am an atheist myself. We did learn a couple of things about each other I guess. Laura was also required to attend some church Sundays when I was gone again. Since I was at home, I couldn’t, my loss.
I attended their church happenings one or two times. It’s nothing for me. It seemed to me that some of these people were a little “insane in the membrane” LOL!
To each his own I guess?

I remember that I was supposed to fly back on the 9th of Sept. But when we arrived in Cedar Rapids airport, fate was going to keep me there a bit more. I was on the runway, waiting. Someone overflowed the bathroom (poop everywhere) and there was the usual airport congestion, and that made them decide to go back to the gate and had everyone exit the plane. By then it was impossible for me to get reach my connecting flight, so I was stuck there! I Called Laura’s mom, Laura wasn’t even home yet, and asked her if Laura could come back once she had reached home to pick me up! I asked at the desk when my next flight was possible. She said they were totally booked for the 10th already, so I was going to be flying back on the 11th of Sept. I bet you know what happened!
We enjoyed an extra day there. Saying goodbye to each other was never much fun anymore, so having extra days was a plus! Laura’s mom called us in the morning of the 11th to turn the TV on, and we knew after a couple of minutes that it wasn’t possible for me to fly back anymore. Thinking back of that day gives me the chills. So many things were said on live TV that day that indicated that much more was going on than just those planes hitting the WTC. People constantly were talking about explosions, explosions that we now know had nothing to do with jet fuel exploding, but more with other things
I was in the US for an extra 5 days that time, before I was able to fly back! Once I got home on Monday, I had till Friday until I had to take the plane again, this time with my parents to attend the wedding with me. Work was not happy with me that year, I think I used like 10 vacation days extra in total that I didn’t have, I felt the tremors from that event for a couple of years after

I remember that Laura’s mom picked us up with the old car from Cedar Rapids airport, and almost in Waterloo, the car stopped running. The gas gauge was apparently broken without her knowing, and she ran out of gas. Uncle Scott came with a jerrycan of gas and we were on our way again! My parents were dropped off at Laura’s grandparents and I went with Laura to her home in Cedar Falls. Laura became a bit stressed the closer it got to the wedding! We had a wedding reception after the wedding with no alcohol, that was pretty special ! The wedding was beautiful, but quite a few things went wrong according to Laura. Things that are outside of her control always bother her greatly. For me it’s not so much a problem! Marleen and Kelly were also at the wedding! That was cool! Marleen stayed with Kelly in Madison for a week or so. Sadly they got stomach flue and we didn’t really hung around together, that was a pity! My cousin Ruud was my best man, so he was in the wedding too! It was cool that he came. I am sure he had a great time in Iowa, after all there’s lots to see there! I totally forgot where he stayed though? He only stayed a couple of days before he had to fly back again! The wedding ceremony was like you know from movies, exactly. We had the wedding pictures taken at Laura’s grandmother’s house as well. The pics were nice, but it seems that she had to do a lot of effort to get those images made, I mean, time to move on to the digital era, instead of walking around with black and white plates that you shove into a camera and expose them to light.. That’s like from the beginning of the 20th century .After the wedding we spent the night in a really cool hotel suite at “Country Inns and suites” in Waterloo. That hotel room was sooo spacey, and not at all expensive. IT had a bubble bath for us and all, and we sure used it Ruud came by the next day to say goodbye cos he had to fly back to the Netherlands. We had to take a trip to Des Moines again together to get a special stamp on our marriage paper. It had to be done, because that made the wedding official in our country too. I don’t exactly remember how long my parents and I still stayed there! I am sure it wasn’t long since I was already very short on vacation days! Laura stayed behind and finally head to the Netherlands in Nov. I think we had troubles finding a one way ticket! I am sure that we didn’t think about the impact it was going to make, her being here?

So mid October came, and Laura flew to Dusseldorf, and I picked her up there. Of course one bag was missing, so she was very worried about that. It happens a lot that one bag or ALL bags are missing, so I wasn’t worried. I think the bag probably came the day after with a courier. At my old house, we had decorated our attic to some extend so that we could live there. It wasn’t easy for us there, especially not for Laura. She couldn’t do laundry because mom was really difficult about that and in the winter it was cold in the attic of course. There was more to come, which I never realized. She had to go to town hall with me to announce that we were living together and that we were officially married. The woman said then that since she was English speaking, that she didn’t have to go to school. Now, there’s a really stupid rule here in Europe, if you are from a European country, like England, Germany, Ireland, and you come to the Netherlands, you don’t have to go to school and learn the language. If you are from the UK or Ireland, and you come here, you have NO clue what Dutch people are saying, but you don’t have to go to school.. It’s the rules. So the woman at town hall figured that this would apply to Laura too, since she does speak (a slightly different yet certainly less snotty version) English. But a couple of weeks later we got a letter from some organization that we didn’t know about,and after we went there, the woman basically said that since she’s from USA, she HAD to go to school here to learn Dutch. This came as a shock to us. So people from UK or Ireland are OK, but people from Canada, Australia, USA have to go to school here! Laura was unhappy about the school situation.
In Nov, we also managed to get pregnant, which was really cool, but the first time, we weren’t successful. There’s a 30% chance that something goes wrong in the first stage of your first pregnancy, so it’s not uncommon. What sucked was that we got to see the nasty side of our home physician. Laura and I had to come in because she was bleeding, and the DR just sat in his chair and concluded that she had a miscarriage. He never even LOOKED at anything, and was just going to send us home! Laura’s jaw dropped on the floor and she was like I want to see a gynecologist!! So reluctantly our DR called a befriended ob and he could see us that day. He gave her an internal echo and even though there was bleeding involved we SAW that the foetus was still there, so no miscarriage, but just pregnant. Our happiness was nothing to enjoy for a long time though, because in the evening she had the miscarriage. It was horrible. She went to the bathroom and came back with the foetus in her hand. I shall never forget how that felt for me, and how it must have felt for her! We could see eyes and everything. We gave it a name and a proper burial in our garden. Later the OB said that we should have brought it to the hospital when we saw him months after..Yeah like hell we have some student cut into it and then being unable to say why it died? This is getting lengthy, so I will leave it at this. Next post will be 2002

This is a hard year for me to blog. I am sure that I will have some dates wrong. I am sure that the trouble I had with Laura disappeared. Online, it was just easier to deal with each other! At the end of 1999 I arranged with Elin , Sandra and Marleen, that I would join them on the MK&A Russia Cruise. It wasn’t that expensive to go on it at all I thought, but of course we also had to fly to Stockholm for it. Somehow, my intuition told me that it wasn’t a good idea for me to go on that cruise, I had the feeling that I wouldn’t like it much, and I know that I was right. I asked my friend Kelly from the US if she wanted to take my place, and go with Marleen from here to Stockholm. We all managed to work around obstacles and made it happen.

First , I went to Paris with my friends Charlie and Nicole. That was a lot of fun! I made a pic of a restaurant where MK&A sat in their movie “Passport to Paris” .Had some great fun there! We stayed outside of Paris, near Disney land, and took the RER and the Metro to get everywhere, that was awesome of course. It was all too well, because my friend Charlie had adapted to a strange way of driving on the highway that made me quite nervous. Anyways, that lasted 4 days. Then in June, Kelly came here for a couple of days to stay with my parents before she and Marleen would leave for Stockholm! It was fun, I picked Kelly up from the airplane, and she was so overtired that she couldn’t sleep anymore, so I just decided to keep her awake by sightseeing! We went to Scheveningen, The Hague and then drove back to where we lived. On the way back, I treated Kelly to my ultimate “fall asleep” song (waiting for Cousteau by Jean Michel Jarre) and it didn’t take her long before she fell asleep!!

Destination : Stockholm

Then the day came where we got on the car to drive to Marleen’s, and picked her up to drive to Schiphol, from where we got on the plane to Stockholm! We met Sandra and her dad at the airport, and we drank something there, chatted a little ! I dunno how Sandra felt at that time, but everything she said was really silent I remember. We had known each other for quite a few years already, so we weren’t strangers or anything. I guess it is always weird to meet someone in person for the first time! I have noooo idea anymore how we got from the Airport to the Hotel in town anymore, but I am guessing it was a bus? I don’t think Sandra’s dad was with us anymore then? We checked in our hotel and I think Elin came the day after? We went to Grona lund, the amusement park in Stockholm, which was quite close from our hotel! Of course that was enough fun for me already In the evening I think we watched the first American Pie movie! I remember Sandra nearly died laughing, and I thought it was really funny too! Kelly had seen it already and it was not her kind of movie and Marleen didn’t like it either. We can’t all like the same things I guess! The day after we met Elin and her dad in the hotel and Sandra’s dad came too, and they transported us to the Harbor where the Cruise ship was waiting. I got in the waiting area and saw MK&A there. I shot like 3 pics of them, and was able to post them on the trenchcoatwins the day after, and had the very first images of them . We got everyone on board and I hung around with Sandra’s father who showed me some places in Stockholm ! He was quite fun to hang around with I remember! He and Elin’s dad then dropped me off at the airport again,and I flew back to the Netherlands again, and drove home from Schiphol.

Next destination : NYC

I had arranged with my dutch friend Rieneke, that we would go to NYC again. It has always been her most favorite town in the whole wide world, and since I had already gone there the year before with Marleen, her parents felt pretty confident that this trip could work well enough for their daughter. I don’t think she ever went on vacation without her parents before. They were a really close family! I remember that the farewells from her family lead to quite a lot of tears on most of them The flight was as good as you can expect. I don’t remember any instances where flight attendants were annoying. Then once we landed in JFK, a cap found US outside, and I remembered that you should ask before getting in whether or not they were on a fixed rate to NYC. He said yes.. Logically the next step I should have taken was the question “how much do you charge” but somehow I forgot about that one.. So when we arrived at the Manhattan Plaza hotel, he told us that it was $90 . He even showed it to us in his cab book. That was a bummer and a rip off. Our first one I guess. The hotel we great, and so was NYC, too bad there was a heatwave in NYC at that time and it was hot as hell. Rieneke and I quickly got familiar with the subway system and soon drove everywhere we wanted! We went to central park everyday, bloomingdales, everyday to the Internet cafe on 42nd street, we just loved it there! NYC is an awesome city. Laura arranged that she was going to come for 3 days to visit us. It turned out to be a life altering decision We went to Coney Island, I got to ride in the Comet, one of the oldest working roller coasters in the world! It was awesome They actually still have people pulling a break lever at the side of the track to stop the train.. The trip there with the subway was interesting though.. Lots of anti social individuals, and the outside of the tracks didn’t look very cozy or anything, lots of graffiti and stuff The subway station at coney island smelled of urine, and it leaked fluids from the ceiling on lots of places. Outside it looked like we got out at a ghetto. Colored people with ghetto blasters on their shoulders blasting something that didn’t resemble music anymore We talked to some cops who told us how so many things in NYC were still named after Dutch people. Erasmus Univ. and one of them told us that Brooklyn came from “Broeklijn” (line in your pants) . I am sure it’s true, but it didn’t sound logical to me. My relationship with Laura greatly improved while we were in NYC, and a little spark flew between us Her mentally abusive boyfriend became an EX, after me and various other people told her a 1000 times to dump him, so that greatly improved our relationship! We went to the statue of liberty (it’s so small in real life!!) we met Jimmy from www.sweetin.com there, had some fun together with him there and went back! We saw the WTC. We were clueless about the fact that it would be their last year in NYC. Laura stayed an extra day with us, but we had to say goodbye to her the next day! Rieneke really liked her too, and well me..that’s a given .

On our last day there, I walked by a shop there, and saw a sony playstation 2.. It hadn’t even come out in the US yet. They wanted $800 for it, without a game, so I spent $940 for it with one game.. When I bought it, I realized how TRICKY that would be to get it into the Netherlands without customs asking difficult questions.. I decided to stuff it in my backpack and take it through customs that way!! We flew back, and when we got to Dutch customs they actually asked me if I had anything to declare and I just answered “Some t-shirts and pants” , and they let us go through, haha! If they had searched me, that would have been a hefty fine PLUS 20% of the value of the playstation! Anyways, Rieneke and her family were glad to be reunited again,and I was also glad to be home. It wasn’t going to be my last vacation…

next destination : Iowa

Laura and I arranged another meeting that year in Oct AND I flew again in Dec that year for Christmas. I don’t have much recollection of October, but Dec was pretty eventful In October we did a lot of lovey-dovey stuff, developped our relation ship a little more. We went on bike rides near the water and I think we also had a tornado warning that month too! One time we were at the water and I saw a snake crawling on the bike path. We stopped, Laura got the camera and I picked up the snake. It bit me on the hand, but just knicked me? I had it’s venom on my hand, and it stank like Hell! I decided to let the sname go then, I honestly couldn’t imagine that in Iowa they have poisenous snakes, but I guess they do We found a waterhose a little further along the path, and I put my hands under the cold water. It felt nice, but it took like half an hour of water before I lost that smell on my hands. We still have it on video, I can make a clip if anyone is interested One nice warm day I decided that I wanted to go on a little nature hike . Laura was probably working at McD, so I had some time to spare. It was fun, but found myself wandering around in the swamp pretty fast, that was a sign to go back. Saw lots of unfamiliar bugs and I didn’t like it much. The next day I was covered in itch red spots On my elbows, knees, hands, various places! It itched really bad. We had to go to the ER to get it examined and I got some cream that helped! I think it took like 3 days before everything was alright again! When you’re walking around with constant itching, you don’t have much fun. Saying goodbye wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t for long

In December I flew back to Iowa!I remember when I flew in to Waterloo (which is now financially impossible) that it was like -30 degrees there.. The streets were totally snow covered, and outside on your own, you had very little chance of survival. People said on TV to stay indoor as much as possible.. This was going to be a great vacation, me being an outdoor person, lol! It was like holiday in the freaking north pole! I remember 2 meter long icicles hanging from the roof, and because it was so dangerous, Laura got rid of them, and I filmed that! The tree in front of the house had a thick ice core from all the water that had dripped down on it! We still managed to go out a lot , but driving was very tricky! In Dec 2000 I also proposed to her at Christmas evening. Of course she said yes. What happened then is good for the 2001 entry of my blog. I hope I remember everything correctly

I think in that winter we also went to the Mall of America again? We took the greyhound bus there. That was fun, NOT. Seems that the greyhound bus is the transportation of the citizens that are poor or something? You could just see that looking at the people in the bus! The trip there took forever it seemed, but we arrived finally ! We did the usual Mall walking at the mall, which was fun as usual! On the way back I remember we had to wait for the bus at a gas station and it was very cold outside! It finally showed, but then the bus driver looked at our tickets and then neglected to say that we had to change bus somewhere in Iowa. I forget what city it was again. So we stopped there, but stayed in the bus, being ignorant about having to switch bus in Mason City. So later in the bus, I noticed cities that I didn’t see before, and I knew that something was going on. we were heading south, and we were supposed to head east.We ended up in Des Moines in Iowa. Fun city, but we weren’t supposed to be there! We had to call Laura’s brother to see if he was able to pick us up there! Not our favorite person to ask for help, but at least, 2 hours later he showed up with his wife and (then baby) Christian. We went for subway somewhere, drove around in Des Moines a little, and headed home. I remember on the way back I had some fun with Christian, and we kept screaming at each other. Turned out that Laura’s brother had a headache or something, and he was super irritated about the screaming but didn’t say anything, haha!

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!

So, it was 1996, around march, or something. I had always been interested in the series “Full House” and I had seen every episode more than once. People told me that you could find things on the Internet about the stars of that series. I mostly liked the character Michelle, as so many people that I would talk to later on. I had only once been on the Internet, and even though I was amazed, it was slow as hell. Most people were still dealing with 14k4 modems when I discovered it, and that’s nothing compared to how it is nowadays anymore So I made the call to worldaccess.nl and got myself a log in and account there. My first email address was mandylio@wxs.nl I wanted the user name MANDYLION, because that was my then favorite album by dutch group “The gathering” , but my email account could only have 8 characters back then, and not more. The “n” at the end had to go. I also really liked a group called ” world war III” and their singers’ name was “Mandy Lio” (it was a guy, ha ha) , so I was OK with that name

Quickly I started to look up things about Mary-Kate & Ashley when I came online. There was ONE site, and it was some guy named “Sigurd Enghoff” and he was from Denmark. He had the ONLY site back then! He had great scans, loads and loads of pictures, and I learned that the twins were in a movie, “It takes two” . I noticed that the very movie was coming to theaters in the Netherlands, so I went. First went alone, the theater was PACKED I remember (last time every that I even seen that here in the Netherlands… ). I sat through the movie and thought it was great. I went with my parents one more time, and in the same week I asked my cousins to join me again, that’s how much I liked the movie

Everyone that went with me equally enjoyed the movie!! At that time, on the Internet I discovered a guy from Sweden, and he helped me with some contacts in the US. The guy from Sweden was actually an A-HOLE himself. He had lots of MK&A videos, but he didn’t want to help me with anything. First time I discovered an guy like that. Possessive, didn’t want any tears or rips in any of his precious collection. Good thing was that he brought me into contact with Brian. Brian was a cool guy, that helped me get any video that I wanted with MK&A in it. At that time he liked them too, but he would grow out of that a couple years later. For me that took a lot longer. I quickly got the movie ITT at home, and had to get myself a special VCR to play it, since the video was NTSC. Luckily NTSC playback VCR were getting more and more popular and cheaper here, so I got me one. Brian then informed me that the twins had a whole RANGE of movies out already! Several full length movies, and their adventure series. He helped me obtain those as well, and I was very grateful! I have to admit that after seeing “Fun house mystery” my stomach slightly turned . I remember thinking “Why do you think you like this?” . It was obviously meant for kids, but I knew that lots of people liked it, boys and girls, women and men, so I went along and got whatever was available at that time.

Brian got me in contact with Laura (a then 16 year old girl from Iowa, USA). He had a picture of her at home, but wasn’t able to show it to me! Scanners were very limited back then, and he didn’t have access to one I guess. He described her as a freckled girl. I don’t know why, but I thought back then that I wanted to marry her. It seems such a silly thought, I didn’t know anything about her (well, a little bit) but I still felt that way. It’s must have been meant to be, since we are married, ha-ha! Our planets aligned somehow? Around 1996-1997 I became friends with lots of people online. Marleen, Rieneke, Elin, Kelly, Leah, several people I can’t remember at this point. Some of them were going to make an impact in my life
In 1997 the only MK&A site on the net went belly up, and Brian and I started www.trenchcoatwins.com. That page became very popular really fast, with thousands of visitors a day, but the more pages were added to the net, the less popular it became. Brian eventually opted out, and Laura joined in making it with me. I guess we were known of having an opinion on MK&A actual potential (rather than other people who continued to worship the ground they walked on) and that gave us some online enemies I will spare you their names, those people are long gone and never heard of anymore.I met up with my Dutch friends a number of times,and we all looked at scrapbooks that we made where we kept our pictures in, and that was great fun! A little group of people emerged that all knew eachother and who visited eachother as well!

I always had a normal life, went to a normal school, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to me, but in 1997, I decided that it was no longer a ‘yuppy’ thing to have the internet, but just something that I couldn’t ignore anymore. Too many people had access already , and I felt that I was a little behind. From that day on, interesting things happened in my life, and that’s what I want to blog about. The time from 1997, until now