Month: May 2006

I decided to spend the day listening to Neil Young's newest album called Living with War, over and over for as long as it takes to sink in.

Right now it's nearly eleven in the morning and I've heard it more than five times. The songs keep getting better and better. That guitar playing of his sounds as great as ever, even though like me he isn't getting any younger.

This is a long-and-winding political statement containing various snapshots of the real world at which my hero Neil has always been exceptionally good. His lyrics and the various sounds they make are right on target.

Thousands of children scarred for life
Millions of tears for a soldier's wife.

According to the digital readout of that exercise contraption thingie, I had run a good distance and burned up 437 calories by huffing and puffing and sweating away the excess energy.

That's about four beers, meaning I have almost broken even for the day.

Those kinds of pants are the ones I really like, because they stretch nicely over your belly giving you the false impression that you are not really getting fat at all.

So it has been a long wait, but it has finally happened. This is how the official-looking letter I received last week Friday starts:

"Hierbij treft u aan een bevestiging van de verkrijging van het Nederlanderschap door optie."

Meaning that I am now officially a Dutch person as well as an American, having acquired dual nationality. Now I can be treated as a full-fledged European, able to work and live and play in any of the EU countries.

Something to celebrate tomorrow evening with a fun dinner with the whole family.

Here's a little quaint bridge right across from a smallish village called Burnsall where I took my family when they visited, way off somewhere quiet and remote in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales.

Driving on the left side of the road takes a bit getting used to, but actually it is not that bad after all. Managing the stick-shift with your left hand is a little bit like trying to cut paper with left-handed scissors, but before you realize it there you are zipping around all over the place, lost in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales, speeding along those winding, narrow country roads just like yet another everyday driving bloke.

What a pleasant surprise it is to walk outside of the office and see my family coming up the road to greet me. Strange but true. Now I will have four days off to show them the area and discover many new places that I have not been to yet. Finally with a car I am a hundred times more mobile and can search all those places which until now have been just tiny dots on the map.

Figuring that I would return home one day later this week on Saturday, I could have a day extra to check out the area and prepare myself better for the family visit next week Thursday. My plane didn't leave until the evening, so the plan was to check out from the hotel early in the morning, dump my luggage at the airport, rent a car and look around, returning at the end of the day in time for my evening flight.

I arrived at the check-in counter around ten in the morning, only to discover that my well planned itinerary had one vital flaw in it.