Vacation has begun...

Finally another post from me! It's been a little while I know and I'll try to post more frequently. You'd think that it'd be easy to post since I'm on vacation, however, internet has not quite been as accessible as I expected. But here we go...

I arrived in Holland Saturday evening after a 25 hour journey. There was no reason for it to have taken that long- we're talking an 8 minute helicopter ride, a 5 1/2 hour plane trip to London and a 45 minute plane trip to Amsterdam. However, it really did take me 25 hours. It started with a 5 hour wait at the Lungi Airport. However, I met a South African lawyer there and converation about poverty, corruption, legal aid (or lack of it), etc. in Sierra Leone was quite interesting. I arrived in London at 445am! There wasn't much else to do except find a bench and lay down and try to sleep. But the fear of waking up and finding out that I missed my flight or seeing that my bags were gone kept me up. I shopped around a little- but that's not the greatest with a suitcase either. At least there were interesting conversations taking place around me :) I was happy to finally board the Easy Jet flight at 1pm and make my way to Holland. On arrival in Amsterdam I was surprised to see my mom there to pick me up! She was in the area visiting her mom and thought she'd meet me so that we could make the 2 1/2 hour train journey to Middelburg together. It was nice to have some company. And she brought a 1 liter pack of milk for me- so I enjoyed lots of REAL (versus powdered!) milk on the train.

When I arrived in M'burg I was picked up by my almost 2 year old niece, Zoey, and her dad at the station. I have to say that Zoey was more interested in seeing the train, nevertheless it was fun to see her! She's so cute and quite the toddler now; very chatty and playful. And of course I met Esmee, my new niece. She is very small but precious. Obviously the picture posted is of me and Esmee. I'm sure I'll be posting more pics soon.

Anyway, I am having a good time in Holland. And I'll be writing more about that. I have to be honest- culture shock is a reality and I'm still trying to give things a place. More on that later.