Thuis - means home

My husband and my cat arrived last Friday morning as scheduled (May 2). Their flight was uneventful, which is the way you want a flight to be. Nova, our big black cat howled a bit as we carried his kennel to the car. As expected, he was a bit put out by being locked in the kennel for 12 hours. As we got him to our new home, we closed him into room with his litter box and gave him some food and water. It turned out that he was more interested in exploring the house than eating or drinking. It was late that night before he finally ate some food and used his box. I guess cats get jet-lagged, too! The next day, he was pretty much on schedule, but it took a week for him to get used to the treacherous stairs.

My husband, Dennis, also settled in quickly. Despite the jet-lag, I dragged him all around town to shop for necessities. Sunshine and exercise are supposed to be good cures for jet-lag. Unfortunately, sharing a twin-bed mattress is not good for jet-lag or a marriage. The next day, our top priority was to buy something better to sleep on. We ended up at the sporting goods store buying a self-inflating queen-sized air mattress. It was on sale for 50 euros, so we considered it a good investment. We plugged it into the wall outlet and in 5 minutes, we had a bed. It was actually pretty comfortable, too. Having this mattress also means that we have more guest capacity - hint, hint.

On Monday, it was back to work for both of us. Dennis got the computer and the internet telephone all connected so he could work remotely. Too bad he was sitting in a lawn chair using an overturned box as a table! Fortunately, he works from a laptop. But it was still pretty uncomfortable.

It's obvious that we were anxiously awaiting the delivery of our worldly goods. But May 5 is ANOTHER holiday for banks and government. Not Cinco de Mayo, but a day celebrating the end of German occupation. The moving company had told us our stuff arrived in the Netherlands, but they had to wait until after all the holidays for it to be released by customs. Fortunately, on Tuesday morning we were informed that our stuff would be delivered to us on Friday, May 9. Dennis only had to work from the lawn chair for 4 days. He may never want to see those lawn chairs again!

While we wait for our delivery, the weather turned even nicer. It got up to 25C, which is about 75-80F. The humidity is just at the nice point where it's neither sticky nor dry. The sun shines from 5:30 AM until 9:30 PM right now. We really want our bikes so we can take advantage of this fantastic weather. The locals are telling us this is a very unusual stretch of lovely weather. We hope it keeps up!