Last week the movers came, packed up our house and loaded all our things on a big truck. (Or two trucks, but who's counting?) Then, I cleaned, washed, packed, cleaned, whimpered and whined, and then cleaned some more. And Ben cleaned, organized, yelled at Army people, packed, yelled some more, tied up all our loose ends in the Netherlands, and collapsed in a sleepy pile in our empty house.
Finally, yesterday we gave the house one final and very thorough wipedown and handed the keys back over to a friendly man from housing, got into our rental car and drove away. We are now temporarily installed in a hotel here in Brunssum and tomorrow we head to Amsterdam where we will spend one night in an airport hotel before getting on a flight to Minneapolis.
We're exhausted. Excited, nervous, happy, and really exhausted. As we take our last walks, see the fuzzy ponies for the last time, enjoy our last cartons of banana milk, and say goodbye to our baristas at Starbucks ("You're leaving? Damnit! That sucks! Damnit!") and the owner of our favorite Indian restaurant ("Good luck! Safe travels! Tell your father hello!"), we can't help but be a little sad. This has been an amazing experience - we've gone so many places, done so many cool things, and met so many wonderful people, so of course leaving makes us a tiny bit mopey and wistful. But mostly we're happy to be done with all the tiring little details on the European end of our adventure and ready to move on, go home, get some takeout from one of our favorite U.S. restaurants, and start a new chapter.
Okay, and in all this talk about moving and change I know I haven't mentioned Wes at all. And a certain segment of our audience pretty much only wants to see pictures of him. So, wanna know what Wesley has been up to? Well, he's been staying out of the way as much as possible. We've been taking many walks, going to Aachen, and on one fun day, Wes and I spent the day at the zoo.
A few pictures from our day:
Off on a new adventure! Wish us luck!
