How facebook can change your life forever. True story!

You know them, these programs where people reunite after not seen eachother for decades. Brothers and sisters meet for the first time after being seperated from birth and parents and children get to know eachother after adoption. These stories are always touching and rarely without tears. Two weeks ago I got dragged into a story like this, that changed two people’s life completely.

Four years ago I went on a holiday to Ireland. Even though me and my friend were there for only a week, I fell in love with an Irish guy and so I kept returning to Ireland many times over the years. Here I met Tom, one of the closest friends of my boyfriend’s dad. I’ve met Tom a couple of times when visiting him at his house. Tom leads a very solitary life in his tiny cottage without electicity or bathroom. He still lives in the 60s, having the occasional smoke and listening to Bob Dylan records over and over again. He’s an interesting fella, who’s stories are as well interesting and funny as sometimes completely insane. A very kind man who you never get bored of talking to. During one of these nights at Tom’s, he told me about a woman he used to be in a relationship with. She was Dutch, just like me. They were together for two years when she left him, her being six months pregnant. After the birth of their daughter she sent him a card, saying the babygirl is his and a little birthcard with the baby’s name and birthdate on it, as well with an address. Tom wrote to her many times, but never got any reply. After a year he gave up, but still thinking of his daughter every single day. At the time he told me this story, it had been twenty years ago. He asked me if I might be able to find her, since I also live in Holland and she must be around my age. I told him I’d try.

Back in Holland I immediately tried to google her name. No results. Then I tried facebook and to my pleasant suprise five profiles popped up with the right first- and surname. Unfortunately all the profiles were blocked so I couldn’t see if the birthdate would match. Also the pictures were too small to see if she would be around twenty years old. I decided to send four girls as Robin is also a guy’s name and one of the profiles had a picture of a dark-haired guy in front of a ‘snowhite and the seven dwarfs’ wall  a message saying;

Evalina                                                                                                          25 June 2012
I have a bit of a unusual question; I’m urgently looking for a girl with your name: Robin …. , born on 11 January 1991. I can’t find a birthdate on your profile so the question is: are you the one I’m looking for? If you are, would you please contact me? Regards,  Evalina

For weeks I waited for the right Robin to reply to my message, but I never got any replies. Six months later I went to visit Tom again and he asked if I found his daughter. I told him I tried but I couldn’t find her.

A year and a half after I had send the message and had completely forgotten about it I opened my facebook and the red sign told me I had received a message. I opened the inbox and my heart skipped a beat. In my inbox was a message from Robin. A bit shaky I opened the message and it said:

Robin                                                                                                                  25 June 2012
Hey Evalina, I just read your message because it gotten into the wrong inbox. My name is Robin …. What’s up? Regards, Robin

For minutes I’ve been staring at the message. Is it really her? Did I find her? She said it’s her right? Or does she just mean that’s her name? She wasn’t specific about the birthdate though. I kept reading her massage over and over again and decided to call my boyfriend. All hyper I told him that I might have found Robin. Now what’s the next plan? Now that I’d probably found her I all of a sudden realised I had to act on it. But what to do now? How do you tell someone you don’t know that her biological father is looking for her? How would she react? Does she even know about his excistence? What if she doesn’t and she already has a dad who she thinks is her real dad? I decided to e-mail my boyfriend’s dad.

Heya! How’s everything? To my big suprise I received an e-mail today over facebook from.. Robin! I’ve found her! No doubt its her; her name and birthdate match. Ofcourse she asked me whats up. Now I’m in need of your advice on what to tell her, because she might not know about Tom or the fact that maybe her dad is not her biological dad. How to go about it?

Ofcourse he was thrilled with this news and decided to tell Tom about it immediately. A few days later I received a letter from Tom, thanking me so much for finding her and advising me to make sure it’s her first. He gave me her mother’s name and asked me to ask her first if that name would also match. Then, if she’s aware that there’s an Irish connection to her life.

This sounded like a good plan to me, so I send her back the following message:

Evalina                                                                                             25 June 2012
Hey Robin, Wow, I really didn’t expect to ever hear from you and find the right person. Just to make sure: you were born on 11 January 1991? Is your mother’s name Eva? So sorry, it all sounds a bit strange, I’ll tell you what this is all about when I’m absolutely sure I got the right person. Evalina

My reply must’ve creeped her out a little bit because she responded:

Robin                                                                                                     25 June 2012
Hey Evalina, I was indeed born on 11 January 1991 and my mother’s name is Eva.. To be honest I find it rather strange to be approached this way by someone I don’t know but clearly knows a lot about me. So an explanation would be nice.. Robin

At this point me and my mum, who I had told the whole story, were rather nerveous about the whole thing. This was it, there was no way back, it had come to the point where I had to tell her about her dad. What would she say? I took a deep breath and e-mailed her back.

Evalina                                                                                             25 June 2012
He Robin, I can very well understand this is creeping you out, I’m sorry. I would probably feel the same way if I were in your shoes. I’m honestly telling you, I don’t know you either and I’m certainly not a stalker. I’ll tell you what the story is:
My name is Evalina, I’m from Amsterdam and have an Irish boyfriend who lives on the east coast of Ireland. Through him I’ve met someone who’s looking for you. Do you have any idea who this could be?

I thought this would be the best approach. If she knew, she would know who it is. If she didn’t.. I’d tell her to ask her mum. What happened next might be too private, but I’ll broadly tell you what happened.

She knew about it. She immedialy knew who I was talking about. Obviously she was shocked. I can’t blame her. I was bloody nervous and it had nothing to do with me. After her not responding for a while I finally got a message saying she was beyond happy to hear this news, she’d been looking for him a few years ago, but couldn’t find anything on the internet. So she had given up. She had thought she’d never know who her father was. When she was younger she had found a letter between her mother’s old mail. The letter was for her. It had the lyrics of a song, which she’d listened to all her life when she felt bad, knowing somewhere in the world was her dad, caring for her.

Now two months later, they’re sending letters back and forth, and getting to know eachother after 21 years. As far as I know, they’re getting on fantastically, and they might meet in the future. Tom is beyond happy and has a new meaning to his life. He now has a daughter.

As a thank you I received a pile of different kinds of chocolate!

PS All the names, dates and other details are changed in this story to keep the people involved anonymous

Why my grandparents are the best (pictures to prove it :P)

I have a special bond with my grandparents. Unlike some people, I never hated to go visit them. They’re both in their 80’s although my granddad tells people he’s 46, you’re as young as you feel and unfortunately not as fit as they used to be.

My granddad is a strong man. During WOII he was forced to join the army and has fought in Indonesia for years, while my grandmother waited for him at home, not hearing from him for months. After he got back they got married, and a few years later they had my uncle. My mum came a few years later, my granddad delivered her himself, because the doctor forgot his book and had to go home to look up what he had to do. When he came back my mum was already born and the doctor asked my granddad: ‘So, how did you do it?’. My granddad always worked hard in a paperfactory, while my grandma stayed at home with the children. My granddad is a man with a great sense of humor, always joking around and fooling all of us when he’s pretending to have a sore back and laughing hard when we’re concerned. On the other hand he’s a very stubborn old man, who has his own specific opinion and it’s very hard to make him think otherwise. My grandma is caring, she wants to please everyone and is always interested. She can worry a bit too much sometimes, so we tend to keep the bad news to ourselves. Come to think of it, I’m a mix of both my grandparents, maybe that’s why they mean so much to me.

Unfortunately they’re getting older, my granddad has laughed at men and woman strolling by with their walkers or in wheelchairs, but now he can’t deny he needs one himself. Still he prefers to sit down on his walker and rolling backwards into the elevator, because it’s just more fun that way. My grandma has had Altzheimer disease for a couple of years and recently my granddad is also diagnosed with a form of Altzheimer. My grandma is very forgetfull and her short term memory has almost gone completely. Still, she always remembers what I’m up to, which is pretty special. Altzheimer disease has been hard on my grandma, who does notice she has the memory of a fish; she almost forgets the moment something happened. Altzheimer can sometimes lead to hillarious situations, though. Everytime I visit them, I find something different in the cookie cabinet. While my grandmother is looking for cookies, I try to take out pairs of shoes, a half-full pack of juice and a paperplate with what looks like a cold, deep fried snack, without her noticing it. Things are never in the right place, and I often find the remote controll in the magazine chest or the sugar in the tv cabinet.

Also they now go to ‘daycare’, because it’s now becoming too dangerous for them to be on their own. To give an example; my granddad walked all the way to their old house when they had just moved, to pick up his laptop because he thought he needed it. that he doesn’t know how to use is just a side issue He didn’t bother asking anyone for help, he just took off and tried to carry the heavy thing back to the new flat. Please notice that my granddad already has trouble walking without the walker, let alone walking all the way there without it, carrying a heavy laptop. That it didn’t go smoothly goes without saying; on the way back he fell down in front of the elevator and broke his ringfinger.  Now they live in a nursinghome there’s a few people looking after them, which is quite nessesary because, stubborn as my granddad is, he tried to cut off the cast with a sharp knife because he thought it was uncomfortable.

My grandparents are not religious, but live in a religious nursinghome, so to their suprise the first week they found themselves attending a service and to make matter worse for them, they were seated in the front. They decided to just keep listening, but at the end of the service everyone around them started singing. My grandma was half asleep, but my granddad was fairly awake and didn’t want to stand out of the crowd, and have a little bit of fun of his own so he started miming the hymns. Apperently he got really into it, because afterwards the nurse came up to him to compliment him on knowing the words so well and his excellent singing. He tells me this story every week, while laughing hard at his own prank.

My grandparents are the sweestest, kindest and funniest people I’ve ever met, and to give you a bit of an idea why, I took some pictures with my IPad.

Always cherish the people around you, think of what you have before it’s gone. 

I won, I won!

The Versatile Blogger Award! I won it! My second award, thank you so much Full of her Travels for nominating me! I really appreciate it!

I know I’m supposed to nominate 15 others, but I really don’t have time at the moment to really go through websites to see who I want to nominate. So I’m just going to nominate these seven, makes it a lot more special to win it too!

And so the award goes to..:

– Commander In Chic
– Covelli Boutique & Shoes
– Smile, Kiddo
– Trendyness
– Paper Crane Heart
– Uninspired revolution
– I can’t get no 

Check out these weblogs, they’re worth it!

I’m lazy, kind, creative, incredibly sexy according to boyfriend, enthusiastic, messy and a bit mad sometimes. There ya go, 7 facts about me!

Have a good Sunday and congratz to all the award winners! 🙂

You are my sunshine..

Oh wow, I had never expected this. This is so overwhelming! I’d like to thank Bossymoksie  for nominating me, check out her blog and discover her awesomeness too! I’d like to thank my mum for giving me..

I practised many acceptance speeches when I was younger and still under the impression that one day I would be a famous actress. it could still happen! But seriously, thanks a million for this Sunshine Award, nice to know someone is reading my blog and actually likes what kind of crap I put on there. Cheers!

The Sunshine Award!

• Include the award logo in a post or on your blog (see the flower photo above).
• Answer 10 questions about yourself.
• Nominate  10-12 other fabulous bloggers.
• Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know that they have been nominated.
• Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

So here are the nominees:
– Don’t think the worst  – Funny daily observations
– The laughing housewife – Stay at home mum with some great sense of humor
– Sew and bake and love – Always the best recipes!
– Stuff Dutch People like – Hilarious descriptions of the Dutch from a foreigner in Holland
– Craft Ideas and tutorals – Creative ideas to do yourself
– We’re Jumpin‘ – Random thoughts
– Wooden Insights – Very versaile blogger!
– In my opinion.. – One question every day for a year!
– The Happiness Cocktail – Food that makes ya happy!

So alright, here it goes, some randoms facts about me:
– I’m the sort of girl others my boyfriend might refer to as crazy catwoman. He’s my baby!
– I’m scared of flying. As soon as the plane starts moving I’m straight up in my chair, the sweat breaks out, I’m squeezing the armwrests or the person next to me, whether it’s someone I know or not and I’m swearing I never fly again if the plane would land safely.
– I’m a crybaby. I cry during movies (Titanic, 50/50, Finding Nemo), when I see older people walking hand in hand or for any other reason.
– I used to love playing ‘house‘ as a child. When my three year older cousin told me she didn’t want to play anymore, I swore to myself I would always keep loving to play house. My dolls made place for my cat.
–  I’m kind of a hippie. I love braids, maxi dresses, feathers, organic/vegetarian food and I want the world to be a big happy place filled with love and happiness.
–  My brother thinks he’s black.
–  I love lists, making lists of lists and being proud of myself to cross things off the lists. First thing I always put on my list is; make a list. I cross it, and prospone the rest because I already did something that day.
– I like babysitting or teaching children because I can act extremely childish and blame the child.
– I have a fantastic idea that’s gonna make me rich.
– I like dinonaurs, a lot. I drive my boyfriend crazy sometimes with requests to watch dinosaur documentaries or going to a museum where they show them. Dinosaurs just rock.

Thanks everyone for reading my blogs!

Let the games begin..!

It’s officially that time again. That time of madness where everyone goes crazy, get’s dressed up and drinks until they drop over a game of soccer. I’m from Holland and the Dutch are big into their soccer. Everyone seems to watch the matches and everyone pretends to know everything there is to know about soccer and our national team. The Dutch go crazy when it comes to soccer championships. They practically move to a camping spot in the country where it’s held, overruling everyone else with their overdone orange appearance, beer crate towers and loud singing in broken English. But not only abroad they’re making an ass of themselves, try to avoid Holland during the FIFA if you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of a drunk orange crowd, thinking you got sucked into a fanta soda.

There are a few different kind of viewers. There’s the die-hard fans, who claim to have the exclusive right to say anything about whether it’s offside or not and push you away from the screen while shouting s-s-h-h!! when you put down the peanuts. Then there’s the gamblers, who don’t even care that much about soccer, but just find any excuse to bet over and don’t stop sending e-mails to join their poules. The most annoying would be the emotional viewer, who drinks until he drops when his team is winning but ruins your party when they lose. Last but not least is the kind that most women belong to; the accidental viewers, who watch because there’s basically nothing else to do. Who enjoy dressing up in sexy orange dresses, having the table full of orange snacks, have a few drinks and watch twenty-two hot men running around a field in sexy shorts, waiting for them to take off their t-shirts. That last type of viewer is often not appreciated by the die-hard fans, who often tend to get annoyed with the last named and throw popcorn at them.

Even though I’m part of the last group and I usually don’t give a tiny rats ass about soccer, during the World Cup / European Cup I reveal a whole new side of me. Out of nowhere I change into the die hard fan and find myself shouting soccerterms at the tv that until recently I’d never heard of before. I’m the one that pushes away anyone who even dares to come close to the screen and I end up knowing all the names, birthdates and relationship statuses of the players.

What I also enjoy is the solidarity that comes with these championships. I love when ones every two years our nation becomes one, everyone is supporting the same thing and is out to have a good time and celebrate together. I love to see foreigners also dressed up in orange and finally feel like they’re a part of it. Once every two years there’s no racism, but we all love eachother because we’re all part of the same team: Holland.  Also for that reason I hope we will last a bit longer in championship, so we can enjoy all the happiness that comes with it.

I don’t want to be thinking about the horrible match we played against Denmark yesterday, but I’m getting all pumped up and reading for the match against Germany. I don’t know if I dare to watch, since we’d rather eat our own hands than losing from our biggest rival. It’s not like we hate the Germans, we just don’t like them. 😉

Let the games begin..!

 

Who do you reckon is gonna win the European Cup?

My reverse Bucketlist

As you know I’m keeping a bucketlist. I’m trying to be active, but there’s still a lot to do this year. Today I came across a weblog where the owner made a reverse bucketlist. You know, instead of making a list with things you want to do, making one with things you’ve already accomplished. I thought that was pretty cool, because often we forget the things we have already done and should be proud of. As I was making my bucketlist for 2012 I searched through many other lists for inspiration. My intention was to make a Day Zero list, 101 goals in 1001 days. As it turns out, it’s not easy to think of 101 goals.  What I noticed was that a lot of things others had on their bucketlist were things I had already done before. I kind of felt extra proud of myself. So after reading the reverse bucketlist today, I decided to make one myself. Here is goes.

–          Graduate college
June 2010 I graduated Social Work. In the four years that stand for it. Have I got a job in the field? Eh.. no. Turns out I prefer to goof around and try lots of different things. Maybe this is why I got to do the things that are on this list. Sometimes you should just go for your dreams instead of just thinking about how nice it would be. Everything is possible.

–          Travel the World
From November 2010  until July 2011 me and my boyfriend travelled the world. We started off in India (1.5 months), then took off to Nepal (2 months), through Singapore we travelled New Zealand (3 months) and finished off in Indonesia (1.5 month) It was amazing! Every one of these places had something unique and special about it and everywhere I went has been an experience on it’s own. When can I go again?!

–          Ride an elephant
This I did in Chitwan, Nepal. Celebrating the orphanage’s fifth anniversary we took off with the children to Chitwan, a national park. Here we did lots of fun stuff, including the elephant ride. I enjoyed it, Sabin who sat next to me on the other hand, had looked pretty scared the whole ride.

Sabin was not too happy about the wobbely elephant haha

–          Bathing with an elephant
This I also did in Nepal. Although the picture seems to tell you otherwise, this was one of the most fun things I have ever done! I’m very very lucky to have experienced this! Also since they don’t do this anymore due to someone dying during this. But because of the lovely adorable children from Swarga, they decided to make an exception. Thanks a million to Swarga Orphanage!

–          Boatride in crocodile river
Also in Nepal, pretty scary when you’re responsible for a couple disabled children, there’s crocodiles next to you in the water and your boat is low and unstable. But in one word: Amazing. We went quit early in the morning, you could hear the Kingfisher chirping and the dawn hung over the water while we moved slowly through the river with rainforest all around.

–          White water rafting
Our travels ended in Indonesia. In Bali we went wild water rafting, awesome! It’s really going fast and is definitely rough. But so much fun! I must say it’s not without any danger. The boats are small and unstable, and apperently are not suitable for overweight groups. This we found out after a group of Australians barely surviving this trip by ending up in the rough water and being dragged away by the strong current. They were lucky having a pretty strong lifeguard who could drag them out of the stream just in time. Luckily they were positive people commenting just after being rescued: ‘Did it at least look good?’. Wild water rafting is not for pussies! 🙂

–          Snorkling
In Bali we got some snorkling gear and took off on a small fisherman boat onto the crystal clear sea. Somewhere a bit out of the coast we jumped into the water and began snorkling. It’s a bit of getting used to, to keep breathing when your body screams YOU CANT BREATHE WITH YOUR HEAD DOWN, but after a bit of practising you’re getting the hang of it. After two seconds in the water I get the fright of my life, out of nowhere there’s a shark coming towards me, at least three meters long and with his massive jaw and rows of teeth showing! He is clearly hungry and goes for my leg!! Ok, this didn’t happen, but this was the first time snorkling and I was scared to death this would happen. I’m terrified of fish (all sizes, I realise it’s rediculous but I can’t help but freak out when I see- or worse, feel one) and expecially sharks. So at first I hung on the the tiny boat (with an annoyed Indonesian man who clearly was getting anno) and tried my best to relax and to keep looking down. After all, it’s better to see it coming than being caught (haha) by suprise. Anyway, after 20 5 minutes my boyfriend finally convinced me there’s no sharks there and I enjoyed seeing all the beauty of sealife! Definitely a must-do!!

–         Swim with a seaturtle
After overcoming my fears of scary sea creatures I went snorkling again and not even two meters from the beach we saw a massive seaturtle hanging around at the bottom of the sea, right underneath us! Hanging around I said, because turtles are very much like.. cows. They just stand there, chewing for ages on a pieces of gras / seaweed. Bit wow, so amazing, I could even touch it when diving down!

–          Volunteerwork abroad
In Nepal I did volunteerwork for two months. I worked in an orphanage for disabled children. Had an fantastic time, how could I not with all these beautiful kids?!

–          Celebrate New Year’s abroad
New Year’s 2006-2007 I spend with one of my best friends in London! It was a messy trip, we didn’t have tickets for any clubs so we ended up spending New Year’s with a million people on the streets after also missing the countdown, we met a lot of people, walked an hour back the hotel seeing all of London by night and ended up missing the ferry back to Holland. Nothing worked out as we had planned, but it was one of the best and most memorable New Year’s I have ever experienced.

–          Be a vegetarian
When I look at the most common Bucketlists, I often see people are trying to dine without meat for three weeks, and find it difficult. I have been a vegetarian since I was seven years old. I read a comic book (Jan Jans & de kinderen) where the oldest sibling is becoming a vegetarian and I decided to become one too. Ofcourse my mum didn’t expect me to actually stick with it, but it turns out it’s not that difficult and I really don’t miss eating meat. 

–          Learn to knit
My mum taught me to knit last Christmas and I definitely want to try do it more often. How proud was I when I made my first knitted headband?!

–          Go to a concert
Three years ago I went to Bruce Springsteen performing in Arnhem. So great to see him performing live, such an entertainer!

–          Join a multiple day festival
Two years ago I went to Sziget festival in Budapest, Hungary. I just love the atmosphere at festivals, Sziget was fantastic! A week long of chilling in the sun with a (cheap!) beer listening to good music, eating lovely junkfood and hanging out with different kinds of amazing people.

–          Pierce yourself
This I tried last year, when I wanted to get my ear pierced but was absolutely broke. How difficult can it be, I thought, to do it myself? Turns out, very.  The first thing is
bashing the needle through your ear, which is not as easy as I may sound. Ok, it
doesn’t sound that easy at all, but I didn’t think it would be that difficult. Just do it in one go, I thought. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that probably would work if it wouldn’t feel like your trying to stick a big fat nail through your ear. It hurts like crazy. But when your already in so much pain and putting in all that effort, you can’t really go back. And I didn’t. It took me an hour and a half to put the needle though, trying to replace the needle with an earring, then again the needle because the earring didn’t fit, and so on.. But the result is there, after not having slept for a week (ofcourse I hadn’t realised I slept on that ear so my ear looked like someone had seriously abused it) my earring is still there and I’d say it looks quite nice 🙂

–          Dance in the rain

Summer 2011 

–          Visit: London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Amsterdam, Prague, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Bratislava, Budapest, Dublin, Belfast, Stockholm, Brussels, Auckland, Singapore, Kuta, Brussels..

–          Visit: Wales, Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Chech, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, Greece, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Singapore, Bali, Lombok, Gili Islands

–          Make a snowturtle
When you’re bored and it’s snowing you get wacky ideas. Why would you built a boring snowman when you can make a turtle? It took a while to convince my brother to make a snowturtle, but it turned out to be a lot of fun 🙂 This photo was taken in December 2009.

–          Experience drugs
I studied about drug addiction and I believe there’s nothing wrong with knowing what you constantly talk about. In Holland it’s legal to smoke marihuana, so I could say it wasn’t so weird to try this. I must say it’s alright sometimes, it just makes me very tired and hungry. And gives you some pretty good ideas and inspiration sometimes 🙂  XTC and Magic Mushrooms on the other hand were fun for one time, but too crazy for me. MM, insane shit.

–          Have a professional massage
I must say I didn’t like massages at first. I’m very ticklish so when some stranger touches my feet or fingers I just feel uncomfortable or start giggling. This was the point where my first and last Turkish massage ended. But after Turkey I’ve had some pretty good massages in Bali, Holland & Slovakia and I’m convinced. Massages are incredibly relaxing 🙂

–          Go to a buddist temple
In Nepal I went to a buddist temple and joined a ceremony. B-E-A-UTIFUL. And peaceful.

–          Live abroad
I live in Slovakia since September last year and I must say, it’s pretty cool to live abroad. I live with some really nice and cool people from all over the world; Israel, South Africa, America, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Malta, Greece, Ireland, England.. I love it!

–          Get a henna tattoo
I’ve seen this one on a few lists and this one I can also cross off! I got a henna tattoo in India for about 5 euro, way too overpriced since I found out a day later you can get the henna stuff for 5 cent in a local shop and do it yourself!:)

This one I got done. Looked very nice! After a week or so it started to look like I hadn’t washed one foot for a long time 😉
After I did it myself 

–          Send anonymous valentines cards
This me and a friend did in secondary school. We sent cards to a couple of guys who still don’t have a clue it was from us. If they even knew who we were, we took secret admirers very seriously.  (and thanks to one of the guys’ dad who was so kind of sending us back a poem about how nice he found our card, clearly thinking it was for him)

–          Tree Track
I did this in Wales, quite a few years ago. Despite my fear of hights I loved it!

–          Go to Disneyland
I went to Disneyland Paris when I was about 12 years old. Ha, can cross this off the list as well!

–          Hold a monkey

Bali, 2011

–          Have an auraphoto taken
This I had done a couple of years ago. I didn’t really take it seriously but it was quite fun to do. My aura wasn’t the best one though, it was mostly red with a bit of pink. Red stands for action, passion, impulsitivity and change. It also says anger and revenge. Right. The pink clearly stood for love. With these kind of things I tend to just believe the positive aspects 😉

–          See dolphins in the wild
Unfortunately it was difficult to take photos of the large group of dolphins due to my shitty camera. But we saw a lot of seals chilling on the rocks at the side of the road which was pretty really impressive as well!

Kaikoura, New Zealand, 2011.

– See a pinquin in the wild
In Oamaru New Zealand we saw a little blue pinguin on the beach. I tried to take a  photo, which you can see didn’t really work out because the pinguin must not have thought of himself as photogenic. I didn’t want to disturb him too much so I didn’t push it, so here you have it, half a pinguin. Better half a pinguin, than no pinguin at all 🙂

–          Drink Guinness in Dublin
I’ve visited Ireland many times. The first time in Ireland I travelled with a friend.  With backpacks on our back we travelled through Ireland in the pouring rain. At our first night in Dublin we tried the most expensive beer I ever paid for: Guinness. I don’t like it. It’s discusting. But adding a bit of black current and we turned it into a girly-beer. Jum!

–          Eat sushi
I tried sushi a couple of times. I fall for trying it again every time because I keep telling myself it’s healthy. I’m not a sushi-fan. Cold rice and a bit of cold fish on top with seaweed, I can’t get used to the taste / lack of taste.  But once in a while I just give it a go. Because it’s healthy.

–          Get your driver’s licenceI got my driver licence in 2006 after paying for over fourty lessons. My driving instructor and I were a good match, but there were a bit too many laughs in the car instead of really paying a lot of attention. Nervous as I was I didn’t want my driving instructor to join me during the practical exam. This might have been a good idea because I passed on the first go.

Here I took my driver’s licence to the airport instead of my passport. Luckily I also got an IDcard. My brother was not amused. 

–          Skate on natural ice
This is on so many bucketlists and I can proudly say this is something that I was able to do for years and years when I was growing up. Every winter the lakes and canals froze and we took the skates from the attic to take them for a ride. I loved it, even though my toes were freezing and I had fallen down a couple of times.

–          Dine & Dash
Ok, this is really not something I’m proud of and I’m not too sure whether I should actually admit it to the world. Let’s just keep in mind I was a teenager, the waitress had been ignoring our request to pay for over half an hour and we wanted to go get an ice-cream. Enough said.

–          Date a Robert Pattingson look a like

Haha this is a joke ofcourse, but don’t you think they kind of look a like? 😛

Lots of love,smiles and happiness,

Evalina

Please don’t use any of the photo’s. Thanks!

Who’s next?

I’m on the metro, shall I stay on another stop or shall I get off here? In a split second I have to decide what to do. I stay on, more because it’s now too late to get off, the metro has moved on. It’s late. I don’t have a ticket, because the security guy told me I’m too cute to get a ticket. I really hope the other security guys agree.

At 9.00 PM I arrive at Keleti station, Budapest. My train to Slovakia leaves at 6.30 in the morning, so to sleep in another couple of minutes I’ve decided to get a ticket now. I’m lucky, it is quiet at the ticket center. Two desks are open and the two women behind the glass are helping the people in front of me. The only other people in the room are a guy reading a book on one of the benches, and me. I wait behind the girl in the white shirt, as it looks like she’s the one that’s nearly finished. Just as I think she’s finished, she has to ask the woman another question. Another ten minutes go by, while I wait patiently behind the girl in the white shirt. The door opens and I see a guy come in, I suppose he’s in his mid twenties, carrying a huge Israeli flag. As he comes in the girl in front of me is finished, and automatically I take a step forward. To my surprise the woman behind the glass doesn’t look at me, but at the weird looking guy with the big flag, who had just stepped in the door. He’s comes towards me, but ignores me and starts talking to the woman behind the glass. The confused  look on my face must’ve let her to tell me the following: ‘ticket, you need to get a ticket’. As she sees I have no clue what she’s talking about she points in a direction behind me.

In the corner of the room I see a machine, most likely where you can take a number. The guy has a number and I don’t. So he can go first, those are the rules. Even though there wasn’t anyone else in the room waiting, and she also saw he just came in, while I had been waiting for what felt like an hour. I tell her this, but neither she or the dude with the flag responds. Shaking my head I walk towards the ticket machine and take a number. I take number 589, well, who could be next with no one else waiting? I sit down on the bench, next to the guy with the book. Another ten minutes go by, and two more people come in. I’m not worried, because I have a ticket. I’m next. And so I thought.

A man comes in, with what looks like his son. They get a ticket and wait. They don’t have to wait too long, because to my big surprise the number appearing on the screen is not my number 589, but 590! They just skipped me. The guy next to me can’t stop laughing at my dismayed face. What just happened? Another screen on the side happened. Apparently there are three counters, I hadn’t seen the one around the corner. The woman behind the glass laughs at me, but starts to help the man and son who just came here. I really can’t believe my eyes, in Holland this would never happen, because in Holland there is such thing as thinking outside the box. I’m getting a bit frustrated, not only I want hit the weirdo who all started this in the head with his own flag, I also just want to cry because I’m so tired and still need to find my hostel in a now dark Budapest. But I can also laugh about this stupid situation a bit. And about the guy who’s now showing his flag to the woman behind the glass, making twirls and everything. The guy next to me stands up and walks towards the ticket machine. He comes back with in his hand five tickets. ‘Well’, he says, ‘if this doesn’t make you go next, I don’t know what will’. Within five minutes I’m standing outside, with my trainticket in my pocket.

My big inspiration

With tears rolling down my cheeks I’d like to tell you about someone who was a big inspiration for me, as well as for many others that were lucky enough to meet him.

Today, May 25, we had to say goodbye to my uncle Herman. He fought against leukemia for four years, but unfortunately he couldn’t win this battle. He was just 43 years old.

My uncle once told his sister: ‘You have to play with the cards you’re given’, and that’s how he tried to fight his disease, with the cards he had. But even when you play the game right, when you don’t have the right cards, it’s impossible to win.

My uncle was an inspiration to many, a friend for life and a dad who would give everything for his children. Everyone liked him and enjoyed being in his company. His children were his reason to keep going, to keep fighting where others would’ve given up. He wasn’t ready to let go, it wasn’t right. His children and wife needed him and he needed them. He would’ve given everything to see his little princess and his big boy grow up, get married and have kids of their own. He wanted to grow old together with his wife, who after seventeen years of marriage, he still loved to bits. It breaks my heart thinking about my aunt and those way too little kids in so much pain putting three candles on their dads, her husbands, coffin and really having to let him go.

Life is not fair, loved ones are taken away from us too early, too soon. Every day is a gift, tomorrow is never certain. My uncle lived his life to the fullest, always enthousiastic, positive and full speed. When he wanted something, he would go for it. He wanted to learn, get better, know more and everything with a big dose humor and self-mockery.

When you loose someone close to you, it hurts. But apart from the pain, I’m truely glad I got to know him, no one will take away these memories. Out of sight, never out of my heart.
His death has inspired me even more to make every day count, to be happy with everything I have, the fantastic people around me and the opportunities I got. I want to live my life to the fullest, love, really go for things, learn, surround myself with wonderful people and laugh as much as I can.

Thank you Herman, for being a great uncle, a great inspiration.

See you on the other side. Goodbye favorite uncle!

Always remembered, never forgotten.

1968 – 2012