Abe's Autobiography: Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

The issues basically started as soon we got to the airport. It was hard to say goodbye. With our dear friends surrounding us, including our Grandpa and Grandma, we set off to security and to our gate. But there was a problem: our flight got delayed for a long time, and I needed to save all the interesting stuff to do for the flight. What was a guy to do? We waited in the waiting room until we couldn’t wait any longer.

Finally, my mom took us to get a snack and by the time we returned we were beckoned into yet another waiting room and from there we landed onto a depressingly large plane. I ate candy that my faithful grandma had packed me and was (so my sisters tell me) more involved with it than the dramatic exit a chapter of my life was taking. It was fun at the beginning (by that I mean the first ten minutes), and the candy helped but after that, we were all so tired that we fell asleep.

As soon as I woke up, I got my first view of the Netherlands, and I thought it looked wonderful. An hour later we landed at Schipol, the main airport in Noord-Holland, and we were greeted by not much security, Daddy (who had left three weeks ago), and a Real American Starbucks. We picked up our luggage and went outside to wait for a cab. Due to circumstances beyond our control we had to wait a little bit for the cab and finally we reached Melkpad: the home of our dreams.

I thought it was perfect for us. All the doors were shut, and it was very dark inside, but Daddy explained that he wanted all the rooms to be a surprise. As we walked in through the door, Daddy showed us the small room on the left: a tiny toilet room with a minute sink. Ahead of us were two doors, and the right was the kitchen. We went into the kitchen and they were dazzled, I was anxious to see my bedroom.

Finally, after we toured the main floor, we got up to the second floor and we explored the toilet room, the bathroom, Ella’s room, and FINALLY mine. My first thoughts were “It’s so small!” and “Why do I have girl bedding?” and I had good reason to think these! My bed-adorned with a flower printed duvet- was rented but still, I wanted my masculine essence at least acknowledged! And as for my bedroom size, if I tidied it everyday it would suit my purposes, but it was small!

The exploration of all the trivial or “other” parts of the house was rather dull and so was the unpacking of all of our baggage, the air shipment arriving not ten minutes after our arrival. The really interesting part was when we went into town, which was a three minute walk. We snacked on “gevulde koeken” (round cakes with almond paste in the middle) and admired everything. The first thing that we admired was ABN Amro (the bank) which we found out to be pronounced as Ah-Bee-En Ahm-roe. In one word? BORING. And it took FOREVER. 


By the time we had walked around the whole of the town central, we were all exhausted (from the plane and from the walk,) and we were thoroughly tired of discovering new things. Every inch of the country seemed to scream at us "Welcome to the Netherlands!"