Random act of Kindness, magic IS around!

Magic is around! As a dreamer I like evidence of magic. Nowadays there is not much place for magic in adulthood. Maybe that´s why a lot of people like playing with children.

What happened to us a couple of weeks ago felt like magic to me. Klaas and I were sitting in a restaurant having dinner. A nice night together. The waiter approaches us and asks if we know the guy that sat just behind us.  We didn´t  I didn´t even notice there was somebody sitting there and Klaas´s short term memory only went as far as ´ it was a man´. ´Probably didn´t pay his bill,´ we said to each other. How wrong were we.  We finished our dinner and asked for the bill, only to find out that guy had paid our dinner! Thank you for giving us some magic.

The next thing I´m going to talk about is in the adult world way more important than magic and should have been first in our post. Blame me for being a dreamer, but we are residents of New Zealand. During the process we thought it was all taking a long time. However looking back on it, we collected the right documents, handed them in and got the good news. Yesterday we picked up our passports, and here we are!!!

Photo: residency

Storm. A monstrous storm hit WGTN about three weeks ago. I saw it coming while I was at home. A massive black curtain approached the land with amazing speed. Never have been so close to the forces of nature. Klaas was presenting something at the 16th floor with his back to the window and noticed nobody was paying attention. Only when he turned around and had to hold himself to the wall to keep standing, then he realised.  See for yourself!

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We had a lot of visitors already this year. Friends from NL. Friends of friends. Couples, singles. Different nationalities. It looks like we already have our little hostel. It started in September with Katja. Then Arjen and Frank came to visit. Thijs and Anniek dropped in soaking and cold and we had to save them Then Annet and Boudewijn (Merel´s parents) came to stay with us several times during their 3 month visit. We also went out to have dinner with the parents of Ilse, which was great fun. Sylvia was here too. Bart and Ilona (brother of Ilse) stayed with us. Esther & Roeland came for a few nights .  Xavier (work friend of Klaas) came to visit us and him and Klaas went on a long weekend to the South Island; relaxing of course. Yannick and Eelke spend a couple of nights at our place. I had been looking forward to seeing Yannick again after such a long time. We had this marvellous weekend together with spirituality (of course), good food and relaxing.  And after our visits to Raglan Ilse en Maurice were able to get time of from work and visit us.  We were very happy with that. Coffees, dinners, fixing cars, looking at brakes, walking, sailing in the harbour. Our last visitors were our friends Antje en Peter. We met them here in Wellington and they are living now in Taupo. They came to Welly for business and pleasure and stayed at ´the Dutch Inn´.  As we call it now.  At the end of April our windsurfing friends couple (Thijs and Anniek) comes back from the SI and will stay at our place. Like they did many times if the weather was to &$”%&$#”( to stay in the van. The counter sits at a solid 22, when I think of that I am amazed.  We new we have travel-junkies as friends and acquaintances, but that they would be able to make it all this far.

Last weekend we went up to Taranaki for the Wave Nationals. Camping on the beach side waiting for wind and waves. Cooking on the wood fired French beach oven and smoking your clothes and yourself. Perfect! Some waves, but no wind all weekend. Had a really great time though with the Frenchies Fabrice and Thierry, Itaj from PK who works in Auckland came to see us, nice to catch up. On Monday morning, still no wind, we decided to go down and visit Norm and Matthew in Waikanae. Only to learn after three hours that the long awaited wind finally picked up and they held the competition. It sucks to be a windsurfer sometimes! Decisions, decisions. We´ll live. Pictures here.

Yes, we are quiet! But as we get settled in here, live becomes more and more normal. The same old, same old things are not left in NL. Guess what, you take them with you where ever you go. Going to work, kick you own but to get out of bed, doing the dishes, the washing, getting used to wintertime…. It means we are ok, and we finally get rested. Time to really enjoy the consequences of the big step we took.

´It´s the everyday things that make you happy, not the occasional ones.´

Love joes,

Klaas and Merel

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