HOME AT LAST!

On 3 December, Jan’s 70th birthday, we arrived from South Africa in Holland, where we stayed in Rotterdam at the bank of the river Maas in the apartment of Gerard and Wil who have stayed in our house on Bonaire for the last two months. From the 13th floor we had a nice view over down town and the river.

During the weekend of 12 December we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary with the entire family in a hotel in a beautiful part of Holland. On Saturday we visited the royal palace “Het Loo” and enjoyed a good diner until the early Sunday morning!

Two mothers, both 93 years of age!
Winter came early this year and since many years we could practice how to walk and drive on snowy footpaths and roads. As we had visited cold places during our trip, we were prepared for the cold and believe it or not, we enjoyed the winter.

We had a White Christmas with Jan’s mother and like last year, Margreth arranged a marvelous Christmas Dinner.








The entire family came together once more on Boxing Day, at the house of Annelies en Cees (Jan’s brother) were we had another gastronomic meal!
Before we left for Bonaire, we spent the day with our daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren in Den Helder (another great diner, we have gained at least 5 kg during those last three days) with whom we have evaluated our journey.

We arrived on Bonaire in the early morning of 29 December where Gerard picked us up at the airport. After 109 days, we could finally step into our own bed!

We end this blog with some figures:
During this trip we had 15 flights, covering 51.500 kilometers.
We drove 9.800 kilometers by road (RV and rental car) and 200 km by train, together a distance of 61.500 km.
This trip we have visited only seven countries (USA, Argentina, Brazil, S. Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Holland), stayed overnight at 37 different places and travelled 3 nights in an airplane.
During 2009 we have travelled more than 139.000 km, almost 3½ times the circumference of the earth, we visited 20 countries and stayed overnight in about 90 different places!

With great pleasure we are looking back at our third worldtrip, it was (almost) never too tiring and even at our age, we got a lot of new impressions.
We are not planning a new trip for the year 2010 and like to enjoy our beautiful Bonaire for a longer period.
We like to thank everybody who visited our blog, especially those who sent us their reactions.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL