ELODIE 2007/2008
After our trip
to
Nepal, I
celebrated my 11th birthday. My mother had to go to
Bangkok
for a tooth implant, and she decided to take me along with her, so that
became my main birthday present. I had to pay a visit to the dentist as
well, obviously, to justify my absence to the school. Luckily, I may wait
another 2 years to get braces, even though I would have preferred to get it
over with now.
In and
around Bangkok, we did a lot of fun things. Obviously, shopping,
shopping and shopping (yes, I got my long wished for Ipod apart from a few
other things); furthermore we went to the cinema, and we did a cooking
class. I managed to scare the teacher, as he had never had anybody in his
classroom under 18. We also went to the floating market and the bridge over
the river Kwai. And my mother let me eat MacDonalds rubbish three times, she
even allowed me to take it to the hotel and eat it, while sitting on the bed
and reading a book. That made it possible for her to have her own meal,
which consisted of sushi, or French cheese.
Two
days too late, on the 7th of December 2007, Sinterklaas arrived in
Dhaka. Obviously, it is a long journey coming from the Netherlands. The
poor man sweated his head off, dressed in his usual thick read coat, the
Black Peters were dressed in long sleeved sweaters and black woolen tights,
even though the temperature was at least 30 degrees Celsius. Our Dutch
ambassador decided to host the party in the garden, which did not help
either. Also, I got no presents, because Sinterklaas decided that I was too
old. So next year, lets skip this party.
By the end of 2007, we moved
from
Bangladesh to
Meerssen in
The Netherlands into a house with a big
garden and swimming pool. After we had a considerable amount of snow in
March over Easter, the weather improved a lot and we could start enjoying
it. The water is, even though we have a solar cell to heat it, still a
little too cold for my taste and I only hop in now and then and climb out as
fast as I can.
On my 12th birthday, I organized my first sleep-over party with six girls
from school. They did not take the "sleep part" to seriously as by 5 o'clock
in the morning, they were still talking. When the parents came to pick them
up around 11 in the morning, most of them had barely gotten up, let alone
had breakfast.
As my grandparents have
been married for 50 years in February 2008, they took us out for a weekend
in May, and then my mother wanted to make a picture on top of that - for
publication on the internet of course. We have so many discussions nowadays
about children's rights and how she is offending them by displaying our
whole inner world to everybody, but she keeps ignoring these complaints. She
says we are funny and interesting, can you believe it. Just wait, until we
will take our measures and put a picture of THAT on the internet.
NO PICTURES PLEASE!!
