I was in Holland over the past couple of days for business meetings. My original plan was to just stay from Wednesday to Friday, because I had been away from home way too much (because of that this blog is almost becoming a travelogue). But when I saw that I could save EUR 800 by staying 2 days longer I decided to spend the weekend at my parents place.
I had a nice couple of days with them and now I am sitting at Amsterdam Schiphol airport waiting for my flight back home. On Friday my dad picked me up from Amsterdam and we drove to their place. My sister also joined us later, she had had her last day in her current job before moving abroad to a completely different position. She is very excited about it, and I am very happy for her. This means my parents will suddenly be “alone” in Holland, so I am sure we’ll see them often in Shanghai.
Friday night we had an excellent dinner at De Groene Lantaarn in Zuidwolde, one of the better restaurants in the Eastern part of Holland. Very good food and nice wines and of course good conversations with my family. After the dinner was over I fell asleep in the car. I didn’t have too much of a jet lag, but after the big dinner with copious amounts of alcohol I just couldn’t stay awake anymore. At home I went straight to bed and had 8 hours of sleep, I needed it I suppose.
The next day my sister had to go to a wedding, so I spent the day with my parents. The weather was very nice, with temperatures up to 25 degrees, very unusual for this time of year. We spent most of the day in the garden, working and reading a bit. I also went for a run with my dad, but that didn’t go very well for me, especially the first few kilometers. We still managed to run about 7.5 km, but I had wanted to run much longer.
Saturday night I mainly spent reading my book Water for Elephants and I went to bed quite early (11 PM or so). Sunday morning I felt great, so my dad and I decided to go for an early morning run. This time it went much easier and we ran about 12 km over trails in the woods. I loved it, I wish Shanghai had some more nature so I could do this there as well.
The rest of the morning I mainly spent working on emails (once again I am far behind on them), before taking a train to the airport around 2 PM. I am now in the business lounge at Schiphol, enjoying my last few minutes of fast Internet without having to use a VPN. That’s one of the other few things I miss in China. You can’t have it all.