Back home and back at work.

The ‘Lucky Four’ trip of a lifetime will be part of my memory for a very long time. What an awesome adventure Pieter, George, Art, and I had. And what a wonderful opportunity it was to get closer and more connected with family. It is this type of trip that makes you realize just how important that sense of family is. Does all of this sound like we had a good time? Let me tell you something, we had one GREAT time!

I think that I only got maybe 5 or 6 hours of sleep over the whole length of the visit – no worry though, this just allowed more time for enjoying the weekend. Nor will I spend time on some of our more juvenile enterprises such as a serious water fight involving about 1 liter of water, at +130Km per hour while returning from Enschede, all inside our brand new Audi-A4 rental unit. Want me to go on? Lets just stick with the best of all; time with the whole clan at the hotel New York. We had a private dinner in what had been the Holland America Line’s Board of Directors room. The food was the best and the company the greatest. Cousin Guillaume, who with his family made an 8-hour drive from Besançon, France, gave a wonderful interpretation of the origins of the Pastoor family name. Did the origins of ‘Pastoor’ really involve one Guillaume Tell from Switzerland, and is it true that he never used an apple but only ripe tomatoes?

The visit to our birth city of Enschede and the home where three of us were born [Richardholstraat 7] completed the adventure. We walked about the old neighborhood sharing fragments of remembrances of that long forgotten time – now really, haven’t we turned into a bunch of over-the-hill sentimental geezers. Once again, we were able to make this time more special by having dinner with an old family friend Wim Spek. Wim wat leuk dat je goed genoeg was om even met ons te dineeren.

And how amazingly special it is to have a cousin with huge pull to manage getting four cheap travelers upgraded to business class for the homebound trip. George, whose chair back had been kicked the whole night on the outbound by some out of control eight year old, had begun to fidget worrying about eight and a half more hours of similar torture – he was in heaven. A thanks doesn’t even come close to my appreciation Jacqueline – brilliant (as the Brits would say).

By the way, some of you have flat out stated “boring“. “Dirk, what is this constant reference to food, meals, snacks, dinners, feasts, etc. while on the ‘Lucky Four’ trip”, they asked. Apparently this food discussion has become a bit boring. So, rather than listing a bunch more detail on the ‘staff of life’, I consolidated it all with a music background, just click on the audio button above.

Cheers, Dirk