Garden of Eden

We've discovered a whole new part of our garden yesterday. We already thought it was rather huge, but now it's quite frankly giant. We've got a small pepper plantation ( I mean the hot small variety) in the newly discovered part, a guava tree, some corrosol trees (that's the fruit I was talking about in an earlier post), more physalis, a couple of papaya trees and something my gardener calls plums... But I can hardly imagine that will be the same plums as ours (and David thinks they're water apples). Aber has already started working on what will soon be our little vegetable patch and he's planning to get all of the high grass out of the way (whitch is one hell of a job, if you can imagine that the garden had been abandoned for more than a year and that he's started working in it just a week before David arrived).
If kind of got myself a little function here (not payed or fulltime or anything, just as a pass time, you could say). David's factory needs to have some landscaping done. I should say before I go further that, eventhough most of the gardeners are quite good workers, they don't have any sense of structure, order or esthetics, so what happens is they just plant all over the place, whenever they've got something that's ready to be planted. It's quite frustrating, because it's kept up very nicely but it always looks like chaos.
And that's where I come in. I kind of had to design the garden and say which plants go where and now I go over there whenever they're planting something to make sure it's according to plan and that they plant it straight and keep the right distance between plants etc.

Working in Africa:

Hello everyone. As Laura is writing about our experience in the day to day life, I will write something about working here and try to set some things straight about what a lot of Europeans think about exploiting people here in Africa.

Working here:

I personally love it. There are several reasons for this: The work I have to do is at a level you only achieve in Belgium after 10 years of successful career. I have already full responsibility (budget, people, production, …) of a factory (biodiesel) and I am working in the palm oil mill (POM) at director level. Crazy if you think I’ve only been working for 1 year. Also the people do everything here for you, even if you want a cup of tea, they bring it to you.
But there are also drawbacks and they are not minor. For example the African people are the laziest people I ever met. You say they have to do something and if you turn your back they will almost certainly be sleeping. At the beginning I thought let’s fire them and take other people but you get exactly the same problem. Another big problem is because they don’t have good education and if you want something to be correctly repaired you must give instructions in detail (do that then this followed by this …). If you let them think to much they will come up with a solution and the day after the piece will explode. I don’t want to say they are stupid but they really have a problem here with their education.

Something I need to say:

When in Europe you meet people and see sometimes documentaries on tv (referring to envoyer special: “les forcats du caoutchouts”) that say that European or American Companies are exploiting people here. Well let me say: IT IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People working for companies as our, are paid twice what they would get if they worked for an African Company. They also get a house, free electricity, water and rice. They have a medical insurance and free school for their children. They are also treated in a fair way (If you see how rich Africans are treating their people in the factory you will understand). They come from all over the country to try to get work here.
I will end with these words: ‘Le travail que vous les blancs de la société faites est bien mieux que nombre d’ONG. Elle viennent et donnent à manger et repartent. Vous restez et donnez du travail pour la vie a de nombreuses familles’.

That’s what I wanted to say. Greetz to everyone,

David

Het Douala avontuur

Ja, sorry he, geen zin om int engels te schrijven en k moet da Nederlands toch soms wat kunnen trainen he.
Gisteren dus samen met Davidje naar Douala gegaan. We zijn er zelfs in geslaagd om s middags iets te gaan eten. Pizza! Grappig eigenlijk, in België is da iets wat we nooit of amper op restaurant zouden bestellen, wegens zeer gemakkelijk thuis te maken, hier is dat een rariteit... en dus zeer gegeerd! (vooral het spek dat erop ligt, aangezien dat nergens anders te krijgen is, althans voor zover wij weten tot nu toe).
We hebben dus ook de meubels voor onze salon, hip hip hoi. Ze zijn echt fantastisch, maar naturlijk kon niet alles perfect zijn (we zijn immers in Afrika voor iets!) en heeft hij zich vergist van stof... Roos nota bene! Zien wij eruit alsof we roze zetels willen voor onze living... Mm misschien geen antwoord geven op die vraag, maar neen, dat was inderdaad NIET wat we gevraagd hadden. Wat we werkelijk gevraagd hadden was een ecru stofke met een motief, maar aangezien hij dat niet vond dacht hij: "ecru... roze, same difference!"
Dus nog ne ganse tijd moeten zitten onderhandelen om een nieuwe overtrek vast te krijgen. En gelukt. Het eindresultaat is (of zou moeten worden, we'll see) wit met een rood en beige patroon erop, een beetje arabisch en eigenlijk t zelfde van op onze stoelen. k Heb er toch nog een paar keer op aangedrongen zeker geen roze meer!
Ma bon, we hebben dan wel een heel mooi bewerkt houten dooske kado gekregen en dan hebben we ineens een tweede set overtrekken voor wanneer de andere in de was zit.
Voor mensen die zich afvragen hoe roze zetels eruit zien zal ik zo rap mogelijk s een fotooke op den blog zetten, maar nu zitten de overtrekken nog in de was.
Nog even over Douala. Deze keer was t eigenlijk echt wel plezant. Nog altijd vermoeiend, want ge moet zo de ganse dag van hot naar her lopen. Maar we hebben wel charcuterie kunnen kopen!!! en zelfs worst en lamsvlees... (mm we beginnen al spontaan te kwijlen als we deraan denken!). In een echte boucherie dan nog, zo met frigo's en zo (maw niet gewoon in open lucht aan een balk: welk stuk koe wilt u madame?)... geweldig!!! En we zijn ne keer in een andere supermarkt geweest, eindelijk ene die de naam supermarkt verdient! Wel ongeloofelijk duur, maar alles op één plaats en ook een aantal dingen die ge nergens anders vind (ze hadden zelfs aziatisch voedsel, stel je voor), dus toch de moeite waard.
Hebben ook een nieuwe groente- en fruit winkel ontdekt. Ik heb er zoiets vreemdsoortigs gevonden (het noemt chouchou, christophines of chayotes), zal binnenkort s laten weten of t lekker is.
De zoektocht naar de strijkplank en de onderlakens dient echter nog steeds voortgezet te worden (en hoe moeilijk kan da nu zijn om een pakske bloem te vinden? Moet ge daar echt 36 winkels voor doen of is dat enkel om mij te ******).
Hopelijk tot binnenkort,
greets
Lau

Snakes of Cameroon

Here it is: a picture of the first ever snake I saw here. it was already dead by the time I took the picture. The two men in the picture are the gardeners, to the left, Aber, which is our gardener. (little detail: they were going to eat the baby python and had found it in our garden, 20 meters from or house).
Tomorrow we're going to Douala to get our furniture, so I'll let you know how they've turned out asap.

This is the back of our garden, the river you see here is the Nyong

First of all, thanks a lot for the comments!

Garden adventure

To keep you guys posted on what's growing in our garden: we've got the first tomatoe seed coming out! Hip hip hurrah!!! Furthermore we'll be planting some pumpkin seeds and I've also kept some orange, olive and cucumber seeds. It's amazing how fast the watermellon grows. Almost all of the seeds we planted have come out by now and some are already 6 cm high.

Quite funny, who would have ever thought this would become a gardening blog...

We've got somenew furniture!

The local carpenter delivered the desk for my computer and a table for the kitchen. He also put up some shelves in our pantry and we finally got our freezer. (Which is actually way too big and doent foit in either our kitchen or the pantry, so we had to put it in the back room)

PS.

't Is hier helemaal niet eenzaam, daar moet ge u geen zorgen over maken. Ik heb de ganse voormiddag onze kok in huis en der is ook een tuinman en af en toe passeren er nog loodgieters en electriciens. En ongeveer één keer per week ga ik naar Edea met een chauffeur, dus ik zie hier volgens mij meer volk dan wat ik in België gemiddeld op een dag zie.

Davidje is trouwens heel erg gelukkig met zijn werk. Zijn fabriekje is ondertussen af en t ziet er schitterend uit. Hij heeft er een bureau zo groot als onze slaapkamer, voor hem alleen... De stoefer!

Hello everybody

Finally got some internet time again. If you read this, please comment, just to let me know I'm not just writing this for me. It does get kind of isolated sometimes, so it would be nice to hear from the outside world.
After the last post, I've planted some watermellon seeds, and you can believe it or not, they're already coming out!!! We're also trying to plant tomatoes and paprika, but that's more of an experiment... I'll keep you posted.

Quote of the day:
Les Africains ne trompent pas leur femme, ils se trompent seulement parfois de femme.

The first weeks I was here, whenever I came into the village people started calling me: "la blanche, la blanche". (I wondered, if we would do that in the opposite direction, in Belgium, wouldn't we be lynched for being racist?) Now the children even go around calling: "bonjour l'argent" when we pass by... What can I say, they learn young???

For starters some pics from our garden

this is the strange fruit I talked about earlier. It is called corrosol

De annanas in ons tuintje
Onze banane plantaine
Front of our house

Some more Q&A

Who does the shopping over here?
I do. I try to do that once a week, but that’s not always possible. Not to worry; there’s a woman who delivers fish to our home, right out of the ocean and we’ve also found a fruit deliverer. And when all else fails, we still have plenty of things growing in our garden.
Kind of funny, though, you have to buy your chickens still alive and the gardener then kills them.
We need to buy everything in big amounts, because we never know when a car will be free to drive me to the market. We make lists and then we have to do as many supermarkets as possible, just to find half of what we needed.
Cooking is a rather creative process here. It’s not like at home where you can consult your cookbook when you’re out of inspiration and then you can just stop by the store to pick up whatever it is you need. We go to the market and buy everything that looks fresh. Then I browse through the cookbooks to see what we can make with what we’ve got. But we eat really well here. No wonder! There’s two of us cooking all day long!!!
I had a little chat with the gardener today and we’re going to start growing even more fruit and veg. Really easy here, I just collect the seeds from whatever we eat and he plants it for us… cross our fingers for it to grow.

Our garden

Every week I discover new fruit growing in our garden. Well, actually, I don’t discover them myself. My tropical botanic knowledge is limited to the mango’s, papaya’s, limes, bananas and pineapples growing in our garden. It’s usually our cook, Lambert, who points it out to me. Last week, he told me he was going to check if there where some ripe avocado’s. Quite astonished I asked him if we had avocado’s in our garden. We went out and he showed me. Little did I know that avocado’s grow on trees. I had passed that tree many times and never noticed that. Just minutes ago, he walked in with a strange looking thing, green and with stings on the skin. He had picked some fruit – from which I didn’t quite catch the name – that I hadn’t seen in our garden at all.

Q&A

Over the past weeks I had some e-mails bombarding me with questions. I thought I might answer some of them here, because I think many of you will have the same questions and this will answer them all at once.

Where are we exactly?
Well, we are on a plantation a 20 minutes drive from Edea in Cameroun. Cameroun is situated at the west of central Africa, right under the bulge of Western-Africa. It’s one hour and a half to Douala (second largest city of Cameroun) and 45 minutes from Kribi, which is located at the seaside.

Have we seen snakes yet?
No. We do have frogs and lizards and all kinds of birds living in our garden. There’s also a squirrel that jumps around in our trees every once in a while. David has also had a close encounter with an Iguana once, but that was before I arrived and I haven’t seen that one yet. And of course there’s an entire variety of insects and spiders crawling and flying around. Yesterday we even saw a butterfly the size of a small bird.
I was told that there are all kinds of monkeys around here, but I haven’t seen one myself.

Have our boxes arrived?
Yes and to our amazement, everything in one piece. Only a corner of one of the boxes and a lock were broken. It arrived in Cameroun the second week I was here, but got stuck in customs until this week. It was quite an ordeal to get them here. First, they didn’t find a list of included items, while I had sent one with it and had also attached a list per box. Then they wanted us to estimate a price per item, onto which we would have to pay importation taxes. Then I had to go all the way to Douala, because only David or I could retrieve the boxes. But when I arrived there, they had already been taken to another socfin company in Douala.

Have we got any furniture?
We still only have the table, chairs and bed David bought before I arrived. We did order two daybeds, a television stand and bookcases. They should be ready on April 15th. I say order, but I mean we are having it custom made by a carpenter. Another carpenter is making a kitchen cupboard and a desk. That same man should also come and fix some shelves in our storage room and put up some mosquito nets in the windows.

Do I cook myself?
Yes, I do. Lambert gets to do the easy things and he also cuts everything before I begin, but the main part of the job I do myself.

I often get asked how long we will be staying here, but that is a question I can not answer. Certainly I year and most likely more… But I think all of you know that nothing is for certain here.

't is weer al eventjes geleden, aangezien internet hier plat lag sinds de blikseminslag twee weken geleden. Maar zulke dingen zijn hier normaal.

Zoveel te vertellen en zo weinig tijd.

Twee weekends geleden zijn we naar Kribi geweest met alle expats van Socfoin die op da moment hier waren. Kribi is een kuststadje op een 45 minuten rijden van hier. We hebben daar gelogeerd in een schattig klein hotelletje, dat gehouden wordt door de dochter van een expat van Socfin. Een française.

We zijn een paar keer gaan zwemmen en dat zeewater is hier stikheet. t is zelfs moeilijk om er al te veel in te bewegen.

Hier alvast enkele foto's

The beach at the hotel

Funny road sign, it says: danger hospital...

Fishing boats at the Kribi falls

Voor de rest zijn onze dozen toegekomen. Ik ben ze gisteren gaan halen in Douala. Wonder boven wonder is er zelfs niks kapot gegaan, alleen één van de dozen... We hebben ondertussen ook al een wasmachine, maar op de salonmeubels moeten we nog wachten tot 15 april.Je kan hier wel kant en klare meubels kopen, maar die hebben hier meestal zo'n een ouwe bomma stijl, dus we hebben ze getekend en laten maken bij een menuisier.

Tgenwoordig ben ik hier voornamelijk controle van de werken aan het doen, want om de vijf minuten staat er wel een plombier of een electricien voor de deur. Zoals ik al in de vorige post zei is ons huisje aan een deftige opknapbeurt toe. Maar ik ben vastbesloten om er een thuisje van te maken. Nu dat de dozen er zijn met zo al wat persoonlijke spulletjes voelt het toch al meer thuis aan dan dat kamperen van de voorbije weken.

Ik sluit af voor vandaag, want ik moet gaan koken... hopelijk kan ik snel nog s komen bloggen

The first African post

It’s really difficult to start this post, because there’s quite a lot to tell. Maybe the best way is to start chronologically.
I left Belgium on Friday at the Brussels South train station (and not Charleroi airport, as Isabelle mistakenly thought for a moment) where I took the TGV to Paris Charles De Gaulle airport. Isa and Nathalie came to say goodbye to me there. It was really strange, cause in a way I felt sad and excited at the same time. One hour and fifteen minutes later I was at the airport. Since there were only two people working customs, it took a great while to get through and my flight had half an hour delay.
The flight was quite comfortable. I had a window seat and nobody sitting beside me. I watched a movie (Heb diene film gezien die gij met Jean-Marie hebt gezien, Nathalie, die met Audrey Tautou. En ge hebt gelijk die rol gaat haar inderdaad met hoe ze er daar uitziet. Kweet wel niet meer hoe die noemt.), had some conversations with people on the plane, so the – almost – seven hours it took me to get here literally flew by.
Douala airport was a different story. The airport itself is quite modern and seems rather ok at first glance (maybe because I was expecting the worst)… And then you have to pass passport and health control. Health control is ok, they check your yellow fever vaccine and put a piece of paper inside. But for the passport control they are totally understaffed, so you have to wait in line or ages, by that time you start feeling the heath and the moist air surrounds you as if you’d fallen into a warm pot of glue. You start sweating and your clothes stick to your body. You really should get some layers off, but you’ve got a bag and a passport in your hands and the line keeps moving every time you try to take off your sweater. Staying put is no option, because then people just pass you by.
Luggage retrieval is how I think hell must be. It’s hot and there are so many people (even though only one flight has landed) and everybody is pushing and shoving to get to their luggage. Then you find out that there are two retrieval points for the same flight, so you have to go back and forth the whole time. Meanwhile the luggage handlers keep stalking you to help you with your bags (but telling them your husband is waiting outside and you can carry your bags yourself, thank you, and you don’t have any money on you anyway, seems to help). And still I was lucky, because I didn’t have to open my bags at customs, they just asked me what was inside. And when I answered (really blondly): “well, shoes, sir, and clothes… the usual stuff”, they let me through. All this while, I really needed to pee and there are no toilets in the airport.
There are no toilets along the way from Douala to Edea either. And apparently there are no toilets anywhere… Did I ever say that toilets should be the first basic right a human should get? Not freedom or equality or anything like that, but a simple sanitary facility. In Thailand I held on to it being a clean toilet, but that doesn’t even matter any more, the fact of there being one somewhere is already more than enough now.

We drink about three bottles of water a day… and that’s a bare minimum. I am getting adjusted to the temperature now. I even get cold with the airco allready.

Our House

We seem to have a thing for thing kind of house… It reminds us a lot of the apartment in the Jakob Jordaensstraat. Breathtaking at first sight, but in desperate need of attention. Bad paintjobs, grudgy, doors who don’t fit or close, things falling off and holes in the walls. But with the right kind of loving this will be great.
We’ve only got a bed and a table and chairs for the moment. But we’re going to order some thing tomorrow.
It’s funny how some stupid, simple things, you woudn’t think about in Belgium simply don’t seem to exist. Like pillows… They only sell mousse ones here that are terribly small and hard and uncomfortable…
For those who think Africa is cheap… think again. Everything local is indeed very cheap. Imported goods though are about three times as expensive as they would be in Europe. And since only vegetables and fruit are local, you can figure out it’s not as cheap as you’d think. It’s funny how much is imported, this being a fertile country and all. Everything that is not a basic product is imported: marmalades, toast, cookies, chips… Cooking therefore is quite an adventure, no such thing as opening up a bottle of passata, you have to start making it from scratch. Now, it’s no like I’ve got to do it all myself…
For those who think all of this is depressing me, that’s really not the fact. Not one of these things weighs up to the fact that we’ve got papaya’s and mango’s and limes in our garden. That whenever we go out it’s nicely warm. That we have only a ten minutes drive to being in the rimboe. That I don’t have to cook or clean or do anything I don’t want to. That all food you it is extremely fresh…

The first post of the year

It's been a long time since I've written anything. This for the simple reason that I was at home and didn't have anything special to tell.
All that is going to change drastically since I'm leaving for Cameroun tomorrow. How do I feel? Excited, a little scared and also a tiny bit sad to leave everybody behind.
To forget all of these mixed emotions, let me tell you some anekdotes about David's stay in Africa until now.
When he was in Ivory Coast, he once stepped on a snake when it was dark. He also got pretty shook up one morning when opening the door and finding an Iguana "looking at him" (this was already in Cameroun). After a while the beast lost his interest when a delicious 5cm long beatle came along for breakfast.
The worst thing in Cameroun, he said, are the parrots. They're making an awfull noise because it seems to be mating season.

David has already seen our house. It is quite a bit larger than we've expected. It has three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Here is a little preview:
For some general data: it is now 30 to 35 degrees and up to 90% of humidity, you could best compare it to a steam room. Posting over there will be possible, but I can't imagine it being quite so regular as in Sweden.
So this is it... Goodbye to all of you and a very warm hug. Keep me informed about what's going on by mail or through the comments.

Why there's not a lot of Blogging goin' on
It's really hard to keep up blogging now we're back in Belgium, even though there's not much else for me to do. Mayba that is the actual reason: nothing happens, so I can't write anything. I thought coming back will give me all sorts of things to do, but that isn't true at all. I believe it is even worse than in Sweden.
But I do have some little things to tell today. In january, we will be going on honeymoon to Thailand. We will spend three nights in Bangkok and eleven on Koh Samui. I can't wait!!!

Last wednesday we went to the movies in Ostend. When we came out, a woman approached us.
"Could you spare me a moment?", she asked us. We nodded. "Are you a couple?" was her next question. Our answer was again positive.
"You might already know where I'm trying to get at" (to be honest, we didn't have any idea, we were thinking all kinds of other things than what we would say next.) "I work with a production company," she said, "and we are looking for couples for 'Temptation Island'. Would you guys be interested?" Off course we said no way, but it was quite funny. Especially because when we first got married, at the community they also asked us if VTM could come and film our wedding.
Maybe we should start considering a carreer in reality TV.

As promised: Pictures of Elinor's party

We had a lot of fun with the table decorations. (The problem afterwards was that the colour of those thing got into my skin and I couldn't get it off for two days).

Elinor in the middle with Mathias (left) and Johan (right)

As it got later in the evening, Christian suddenly found the floor to be his best friend.

I really like this picture. On it are Jeroen, Elinor, Pelle and David.

So we're back...
It feels really weird to be in the same place for a while, even more so to be able toplan at least some things ahead. It's funny how quickly you adjust to not being able to polan things and to just live day by day.
We went to the photographer yesterday and the wedding pictures turned out wonderful. The waiting time to get your album is about four months though, and although she said she would do her best to get it done while we're still in Belgium, she couldn't assure us that. Grr...
Not much else to tell really, I'm just dointg the laundry and cleaning up our room... not that exciting. So if I don't write too much the next couple of days, don't be mad, it's just that not much is happening.

Elinor's party

There was another party this saturday at Elinor's. The whole company was invited, so there where a lot of people. She made mexican food for all of us and it was actually quite good. After dinner, they started making whipped cream, so David assumed we were getting dessert, too. What a mistake to think such a thing. When people in Sweden make whipped cream it can have no other reason than to make hot shots of course!
We didn't drink all that much, because we wanted to enjoy our last day off in Sweden and go for a shopping spree the next day (I have to mention that their winter collection is quite good, I think it's even better than ours in Belgium).
So the party went on and we had great fun dancing and just plain enjoying ourselves. Until at about one o'clock we started getting tired and wanted to go home. We had driven there with Jan, and when David went to ask him to go home, he got quite dazzled. He drank too much to drive he said and he wouldn't allow anybody else to drive his car. He never had the intention to go back home and he would sleep over. That had been the plan from the beginning and it seems everybody forgot to mention that to us.
I got so angry, we instantly called a cab and got home anyway. (If ever somebody comes to Sweden: cabs are extremely expensive, so you'd better drie to parties yourself, you've got to be carefull, though, because there's a zero tolerance towards alcohol, so you'll drink one glass of wine with your food and that's it!)
I do have pictures from the party, but they're on the other laptop, so I'll upload them when we're in Belgium.

Leaving Sweden

This is it... We're all packed and leaving around three thirty. It feels weird. In the end we have been here for three months and it really allready feels like home. We got to know a lot of people. Will we see them again? Will we ever get back here? Who knows...
Still leaving Sweden means getting away from really bad food and equally bad coffee, so in that department we won't miss it. But it also means giving up having our own place for a while, and as much as we love our parents, that is not easy after living on our own for so long. It also means haing more time for our friends at home...
It's really confusing, I'm not sure if I will miss it at all, but I certainly couldn't guess feeling so weird about leaving today.

Palm oil fame

On a lighter note, the company had a visit from a guy who has a palm plantation in Columbia. He came here after seeing the article in the newspaper abut David and his biofuel machine. Another guy from his company had already met David in Indonesia, and since David is apparently getting rather famous, they where interested in buying a machine as well. So they came over here.

car trouble... again

We had to be towed for the second time today. This time, our car waited to break down until we got to a parking lot next to the highway, luckily. The good part is that Jeroen (the Dutch guy) drove by right that moment and saw us there, so he could come and tow us back to the company. Last time it was the fuel punp that had a leak, we've had that replaced. This time, it seems to be the filter... so I don't know if they'll be able the fix that and if we will be able to go to the appartment... Anyhow, David still has a lot of work to do today, so we'll find out sometime this afternoon.

I would also like to ask you all again to comment when you read this site. With sitemeter I can now keep track who's on and for how long, but it's still quite frustrating to keep writing and nobody ever says anything. So please next time, take five seconds to leave a comment!

Wedding pics part 1

Ok, I've called this part one in the hope of getting more pictures sent to me in the next couple of days, becuse these are the first ones I've seen so far and I'm extremely curious.

Isabelle, ik hoop dat dit uw nieuwsgierigheid toch al een beetje kan onderdrukken!
Nic, nog s heel erg bedankt hé!

This one is taken just after my part of the speech (which wasn't all that big a deal), so at the very beginning of the dinner.

Our magnificent, gigantic, three-flavours wedding cake, from which I could only eat half a slice (why oh why did I put on such a tightly fitted dress!)

David and his mom.

David's dad and sister. Although not a big dancer, David's dad didn't leave the dancefloor for one second that night. He was going so completely wild, we started wondering if he had taken speed...

Newspaper scandal

A while ago - I think it must have been somewhere last week - a Swedish newspaper published an article about the Holocaust which provoked a lot of commotion here in Sweden. The reason for this scandal was an advertisement by a gas company, saying how it is the most environmentally friendly energiesource, right underneath the article mentioned above... Talk about product placement!

Home sweet home

We took the plane coming back here two days ago. As we've become regulars on the Ryanair Charleroi to Skavsta flight, we use web check in (because the check-in at charleroi airport is hell, frankly) and so we can beat the boarding cue. As we were waiting to board, there was another Flemish guy behind us who had also used web check-in. "The joy of having a computer", he said to me. I nodded and answered that it was quite easy and less uncomfortable than the usual way. He said that, sadly, in Sweden he wouldn't be able to check in through the internet. I frowned and asked him why - apparently assuming that everybody lives in Sweden. As he said he wasn't sure he could print out bhis boarding pass in the hotel, I caught myself saying: "ah, but we live in Sweden". I was rather surprised about saying such a thing.

Some more remarks about the wedding

David had a headache for about two days after the wedding. It made us wonder about how quickly we lost our partying stamina. We would have never had so much trouble with getting into bed at three o'clock and drinking a couple of beers when we were 20... What will it be when we're forty if it goes downhill so fast!
Another fun fact that few of you know about: in the beginning of the party (somewhat after the speech), my nephews girlfriend came to me. She had to tell me something, she wispered, and took me off to a quieter place. David's pants was torn, she said, at the backside (yes, at his butt!). Because he always put his hands in his pockets, it became visible... And there was nothing we could do, because we didn't think about bringing needle and thread (whuy would we do that!)... So I told David to stop putting his hands in his pockets. He was so embarrased that he put on his jacket and ran around with hat until he was to drunk to bother.

Apparently, we've got a lot more readers than we bargained for... But that's just fine, because it makes it worth while to keep writing.
We're back in Sweden since yesterday evening, and this should be the last visit. We should be back in Belgium by the 17th of october, if all goes well.

I haven't got any pictures from the wedding yet, so if anybody has some, please send them to me!! I would like to dedicate this blog to an overview of the wedding, but there's so much to tell, that I don't know where to start. Firts of all Isabelle and the two Jokes, it is such a pitty you guys could't be there, because it was truly magnificent. I had my doubts before, because it wasn't really what we had wanted, but it has proven to be really great.
I got to the hairdresser at 7.15 in the morning after a night of getting hardly any sleep. It was real fun and she did my hair just great. She used 3 pieces of 45 cm long hair!
My mom came to pick me up at about 9 o'clock and we left for Brussels around ten thirty. When we arrived at the hotel (we stayed at the Conrad) the photographer was already waiting for us, so we quickly went into the room and I started painting my face on... Nathalie arrived shortly after us and we had quite some fun getting on my dress and undergarments.
We were a little behind schedule. David was at the hotel before I could put on my dress. When I finally got to the bar I had to stop him from crying (I knew I would cry too, if he would and was afraid it would ruin my make up). My mom did cry (and she thinks I did not see it).
The server came to offer us a glass of champagne to congratulate us on our wedding, but we hadn't eaten anything until then and it quickly got to our head. And I had to pee, too, which was quite a task with the enormous dress I was wearing. I had to take Nathalie with me and couldn't close the door. It was very funny and Nathalie was sorry she didn't bring her camera to take a picture of that event.
While we were in the bar, a little girl came in with her mama. She gaspt for air whilst pointing at me and said: "look, mama, a princess..." (It wasn't the last kid that would say that during the day, so I think I achieved my goal!)
After taking some pictures in the bar (It was raining and we were waiting for it to stop), we went to the 'Justitiepaleis' and the Sablon. My brother joined us to drive the car and he was already wearing his tux. The kind with slips at the backside. So when we where walking round the Sablon, there was a couple sitting in a café. When the girl saw us she pointed us out to her boyfriend and said: "Look, how cute!" then my brother passed by and the uy want: "You see, it's not for real!". When finally the photographer passed by thay were startled and didn't know if it was for real or not. From there, the phototour lead to La Grand Place and the Galerie des Princes. We were so hungry we got some muffins at Haagen Das and got a discount! Later on we were eating that and a woman came up to us to ask us where we got them. When we were taking pictures in the galerie, another woman came to ask us if we were realy getting married or if we were just there for decoration.
We went to L'estaminet for a beer and got a standing ovation. I had to turn around to fully show my dress. When David went to pay the check, the man scribbled a smiley face on a piece of paper and said we didn't need to pay.
The time had come to get to L'abbaye de Forest, where the party would be. Eventhough we got lost driving there, we managed to get there before anyone else. Slowly people started arriving, but there was no sign of our photographer (we had dropped him off at his car and he would join us from there). In the end he got there and apparently was stuck in traffic for about half an hour.
And so the party started. The food was great, everybody looked lovely. But I could hardly eat anything, because I had a corset-like bodice on my dress, that restrained my stomach from expanding! We had a wonderfull five high wedding cake with all different flavours. Again, I only ate half of one piece, because it didn't fit in my dress. David did the most wonderfull speech.
It was over quite early, because there where elections the next day. I think we got into our bed at 3 in the morning.
That's about all I can think of. I hope to post some pictures later on.

So I'm back in Belgium again, since friday night. I'll be staying untill after the wedding. Strengely, there's nothing elwe I can do for the weddingf anymore. We did the las bits this weekend, and that's it, apart from going to the hairdresser en getting my nails done. I don't like having nothing to do, it feels so out of control.