Argentina plays tomorrow again.... VAMOS ARGENTINA TODAVIA!!!!!

Following my recent trend of Argentina-related titles, haha, I'm excited for tomorrow's game! Argentina can DEFINITELY win.

Anyways, now to tell you guys what I've done the past 4 days.

On Friday Esmee was feeling a bit better by the afternoon, and so we ended the week by going to buy groceries and Esmee getting some fresh air. We went to a supermarket called Lidl, and it looks exactly like Aldi in the US from the inside, I don't know about Aldi here because I have yet to go to one, haha. After that we went through the small city of Rijswijk (I think) and Esmee showed me her high school, the bookstore she used to go to, the church where her graduation was, and the bus stop where she used to wait to get back to Rotterdam. The evening was all very nice and we went back and had dinner and went to bed. Too bad Esmee felt very cold and that night she was cold too.

We have eaten pizza a couple times now, and the last time I got a Mozzarella one, kinda like Margarita pizza, and it was DELICIOUS. But for the most part the Dutch diet includes potatoes, lots of vedgetables, licorice candy, marsjepein (spl?) cookies, and other such things. The candy stores here are amazing, you go in and you can pick all the candy you want and put it in bags and you can mix and match as much as you want. I keep getting the Menthol drops, delicious, haha, while Esmee gets all her bitter licorice, with which she makes "necklaces" at night before eating them :-P

Saturday was truly an AMAZING day. We woke up around 10, well, I did, and I woke Esmee up at 10:30, mostly because I was bored and excited for the Air Force show. Then we went to have lunch downstairs and by 1:30 or so we were leaving to go to the Air Force Open Day. The road was pretty empty, and I asked Ramon how most products were moved through the Netherlands. Apparently they are moved mostly by trucks, like in the US, but most truckers don't work on weekends, which clears the highways up for the weekend traveler. Its truly an awesome thing. Of course the highways were empty for a second reason on Saturday, Holland was playing. We got to the Air Force Show and then realized that there was a TON of people. On Friday, more than 100,000 people had gone. On Saturday, almost 200,000 people went apparently. Yeah. There was A LOT of people. As we were entering the parking lot, we saw some helicopters flying above us, Ingrid called Ilona (Esmee's aunt) and apparently one of the helicopters was being piloted by Arie (Esmee's uncle). We parked and walked to the makeshift Helicopter hangar for the Allouette III's that were flying up above us. Then one landed and out came Arie. Bjorn and Kristen (Arie and Ilona's children) went running to their dad, and then they all came towards us and said hi. Arie was on a break, sort of, and he would show us the things he had been working on lately. Then came a guy with a suit, and Arie presented us to him. He was one of the top people from Eurocopter (the manufacturers of the Allouette) and Arie had to show him some things too. So we all walked by some US, Belgian, German, French, and Turkish helicopters and small planes and then went to a room next to a Jaguar helicopter. There Arie showed us how he had been calculating some different things with the Jaguar to land on a ship at sea, and other things about the different helmets they used, more experimental ways to record data, ways to let the control know what the pilot was doing, it was all really cool. Then we went outside and into the Jaguar helicopter. I sat in the cockpit, it was sooo cool!!!! It was just like the ones in the video games, haha, but I see how much more difficult it must be in combat situations to control it all. Arie explained all the controls, then we went outside, I stood and looked at the Eurofighters and F-16's flying above, and then we went walking back towards Arie's other "office". We walked around to some other helicopters, saw some Black Hawks, some russian helicopters, and then as we were going to the Allouette hangar something incredible happened, haha. Esmee was playing with her cousins and they were drinking some coca cola cans, so they were playing that game of taking the tab thing out of the can and then on the letter that it ends up you have to say a name of the person you will marry. So Bjorn got an E, and Kristen said "You have to marry Esmee!" and poor Bjorn was blushing and then I wrapped my arms around Esmee and looked at Bjorn and with my best Dutch said "Bjorn, zij is mijn!" (Bjorn, she is mine) and then we were all laughing, poor Bjorn a bit embarassed went to his dad and said "I already know she is his, and he can have her" it was so funny! I really like Esmee's cousins, they are all so cute and cool playing around!

After that we arrived at the "hangar" and we were offered some snacks. We sat down but then went outside to wait to see what the flightplan was. Then it started raining so we went back in, and finally it stopped raining and we went outside by the helicopters. After some flight and pilot changes, Arie said he would pilot and that there were 3 more people coming. We were all briefed on the safety and procedures of the Allouette, and then we went in to the helicopter.

Let me tell you. Taking off on a helicopter is a bit rough and feels very weird. The helicopter veers to the left, stabilizes, and then goes up and out. After that, it was all just amazing. We went around the base, were in the air show, and hovered like 400 meters in the air, getting a 360 degree view of the area. On the very far Southeast we saw Eindhoven, but closer to the east we saw Tilburg, and to the west Breda. Its so amazing to fly. It just made me wish that I was a pilot, haha.

After the flight all around the base area, we landed. Esmee then got a couple pictures with Arie's helmet (I'll post them on Facebook, they are very funny) and then we said goodbye and left.

That night we had dinner and then Ingrid and Ramon went to Appeldoorn to get a new table they had found on Marktplaats.

On Sunday we woke up around 12 and then after lunch we walked to Oma and Opa's house. There, Gerard and Karen, plus their children Bregje and Thom, were drinking some coffee with Oma and Opa. We all hung out there for a couple hours, then Arie and Ilona came, and after some minutes we all left to go to Rotterdam. We went through the Blijdorp neighborhood (where the zoo is at) and got to the Euromast. I still find it so weird that you can "rappel" down the Euromast, and slide down a line too. We went up to the very top on the Euroscoop and got the best view of Rotterdam. I saw De Kuip (Feyenoord's stadium) and some really cool buildings, and of course The Swan (Erasmus Bridge). After that we went to a Pancake boat, where we all sat down and ate pancakes while the boat went up and down the Maas river. The pancakes were DELICIOUS. Esmee drank a cocktail, I had some Passoa, and then we went back to Berkel en Rodenrijs. We all got ice cream at the Dorp (which on a Sunday afternoon is COMPLETELY empty) and then went to sleep.

Today Esmee went to the Efteling theme park and I stayed here. I am now finishing this blog post, finally!

Tomorrow I hope we will go to Zoetermeer, maybe I can buy my Messi shirt then, 15 euros I think it was.

Later this week we are going to a Twilight marathon with Julia and Romeo, hopefully it doesn't make me puke :-P just kidding!

I also hope to go to Toy Story 3 maybe this weekend or something, would be awesome.

Anyways.

I'll post back later.

GO ARGENTINA!!!!

Dag!

El Tano.