Container and boxes

Wednesday, July 1st, today the container will arrive which has already been in the port of Rotterdam for just over a week. Customs has released everything, apparently they still needed to view what comes into the country, but our imports, oh no property may enter The Netherlands again.
The first movers arrive at 7 pm, the big 40 foot container arrives not much later. Now it's waiting for the foreman from The Hague to arrive, but apparently the Tom Tom did not have the right address??? Around 8 o'clock the complete team, 5 of them, start unloading the container and within 3 hours they have it empty! Most furniture is unpacked immediately to be put in place. But when the truck and container leave around noon the house seems to have turned into a warehouse. Due to Aram's coloured sticker system the majority of boxes has gone into the right room, now it's only the unpacking of them!!

Teacher day

Carmen and Kirsten have been going to school for a week now and they both seem to be fine. Carmen still knew some classmates and has had several play dates. Kirsten is making friends and for the moment she talks a lot about Nena. So we'll wait for the play date.
Today The Kindergarten classes celebrated teachers day, once a year all the teachers birthdays are celebrated at once. The current theme is circus and all the children were to come dressed as they were part of the circus. Kirsten didn't come up with a figure that she wanted to be so I propose her to dress as an acrobat, and she loved that idea. It was easy to assemble, some tights, a bathing suit with a skirt and a lovely flower hair band were the essential clothings needed. The finishing touch was the lipstick and the glitter blush. During the day they did all kind off games and she was very excited about the whole day when I picked her up.

Weather

We are truly back home, we can't stop talking about the weather! This is a tipical Dutch topic and we love talking about it. Maybe that is because there is quite a bit to talk about. It's been a week now of the most different weather one can imagine. We arrived on a relative warm and sunny day, but soon we saw the rain clouds. That meant drizzle and sometimes a good summer shower. We can even experience a sunny morning, a cold and dark rainy afternoon and with lots of luck a clear evening followed by a warm sunset. It's really unbelievable, but it is the type of weather we are used to and have grown up with, but... We can always complain about it and that is just typical for Dutch people!

Last bits

We woke up for the last time in Mumbai, tomorrow by this time we are back in Holland. Strange idea that within 24 hours we will be in a complete different world, climate (brrr only 10 C)but also very known to us.We started the day with a lovely breakfast together with a dear friend and are now packing up. Kirsten will have a play date with a friend and Masjka will take the other 2 swimming, while Aram packs the suitcases.
Yesterday the air-shipment went, with lots of school stuff that was send home these last couple of days, so we think we'll manage with the leftovers...
Yesterday we also had to say goodbye to Prescilla and Juliana, our nanny and household help, that was a sad moment, specially for the kids as they are now starting to realise that goodbyes can be for a longer period or maybe for ever! Who knows what the future holds...
Coming night at the airport we will meet friends whose eldest son was in Kirsten's class and are heading out to South Africa, that will be the very last goodbye to the lovely people we met here. But as we say our goodbyes for now we hope to meet many off you somewhere around the world in good time. We take off at 3 am to arrive at Brussels 8 hours later!

Lots of fun at school

Today I ate chips and a chocolate and I ate pizza and a lollipop. The chips and chocolate was because I was doing such a great job at being quite in the tech-room. The lollipop was from art, where I could also get popcorn, but I don't like that. And the pizza I got from choir party. I am having all these parties because it is the end of school. I am leaving for ever and I will have all these parties so I can remember all my friends and teachers. I played with my friends in the playground, I had lots of fun at school.

Kirsten

End of year party grade 2C

It was a good time at school today because it was the day that we were going to have a pool party and my teacher ms. L-T came to swim too and that surprised me a lot and I spend lots of time with ms. L-T my teacher. In the pool, I went out and then I jumped into the pool and then I did it again, but then with a noodle. After we went to the pool and we came out of the pool and got to eat pizza and ice-cream. At the end of the day I got to give everybody a card with the a keychain with it. And on the keychain it had a Dutch shoe.

Carmen

Life being wrapped

We moved to the Grand Hyatt about two weeks ago in order to have the apartment ready to start packing. It has given us some extra rest to have a sain place where you are still able to find what you want. Monday May 18th the packers came and they took 3 full days with wrapping up all our belongings. We are shipping 303 boxes with a 40 foot container! After the packing they needed one full day to get all the boxes downstairs into a truck ready to go to the warehouse. There they will be shifted into the container to get on it's way to Rotterdam. If all goes well the container will sail coming Monday, it takes at least 5 working days to get custom clearance.
It gives one a strange feeling seeing all those boxes basically filled with lots of memorabilia of your life and knowing, or hoping, that you will see them again in about 6 weeks time at a complete different place.
I have been asked what we are taking home with us and even though we ship a lot, the really big Indian style furniture is not what we took. Just a nice big wooden box, a couple of chairs and some bookcases.
What we do take with us are many good and some lesser memories of India.

Below are pictures of before, during and after packing the apartment.

Start

For almost a year we have been keeping a blog in Dutch, www.mockaram.blogspot.com. Now with our upcoming move we feel it is time we create one in English as well. Hopefully we can give our English speaking friends some insight in our life. The blog is also created so Carmen and maybe Kirsten can write their stories they want to tell.