This and That.

Today is the first day I've actually felt completely satisfied about my whereabouts and activities since I've been here.

My Egyptian cousin and aunt have been here a week now, and I've been acting through out. Literally. Acting cheerful, acting as a maid, acting as a tourist guide, acting as a translator, and acting as company. If I'm not acting, I'm sleeping.

Till today, all we did besides visiting the petting zoo once is "shopping". Shopping being the female sort, which means specifically scrutinizing every single blouse, shirt, skirt, jeans, shoes and bags in detail, sticking like sugar candy in every single shop, and having to be literally pulled out.
Personally? I dislike shopping. Very very much. Unless it's things that interest me. I know it's hypocritical that I can spend hours in a library or bookshop, or anything with loads of accessories, but otherwise shopping should just be done the "manly" way. You need something, you go to the specific shop, look for it, buy it, and get the heck out of there. :3

We also went sightseeing in Den Haag on Thursday, which meant we finally saw something other than the insides of shops. Unfortunately, my relatives were not too interested in the historical background of places, so we kind of rushed it. Oh well, we might do it again after they leave, in more detail.

What then, you ask me, was so good about today?
I finally got to see members of my family is what.
This morning we went to my younger uncle of the two, whom we had last seen roughly two years ago. His two children, Nina and Aya (aged 14 and 10) hadn't seen us since our visit to Holland before tha last one, which was about four years ago. Man, have they grown!
I've always heard people saying that about me xDDD But I've never gotten to actually say it about anyone. Pretty special, this is. Also, I feel old ;-;

We had lunch there, which was very.. interesting, to say the least. See, my uncle is not so much a talker. You literally have to pull words out of his mouth. Keep on asking, or he'll keep his mouth shut tight. Strong and silent type? His kids are much like him. It took us a while, but we influenced them enough to actually have them chasing my brother with lots of squeals and giggles for about five minutes. Boisterous much?

On the way back, we visited one of my personally favourite cousins in hospital. She has CF (Cystic Fibrosis), which is a chronic lung disease. Things haven't been going so well for her these past few years, but last Monday things got even worse.
She has been on the national Transplantation waiting list for about two years now? Or well, I'm not certain about the time, but she's been on there for a while. Her doctors have been trying to get her on the High Urgent list for transplantations several times already, but up till now she was always "too well" for it to be highly urgent, even when things went crappy.

Now, however, stuff has downspiralled since this last weekend quickly, she got a lung bleeding and caught a cold (which though not dangerous normally, is a torture for CFers) .
To cut a long story short, her doctors decided to skip the whole national High Urgency list, and her name is now officially down for the High Urgent International. Which means she'll be the first (together with others on the same -short- list) of the whole of West Europe to get new lungs when suitable ones come in.
Being on that list brings mixed feelings. Partially it means something's finally happening, she's been waiting for a long while. On the other hand there's the fact that she's now so bad she met up to the high standards of that International list at all, which sucks hard.

ANYWAYS. We went to see one of my favourite cousins today (Tamara). Which I'm glad about, I missed her, as I miss her twin [Judith] (whom I haven't seen yet, but probably will, soon enough).
When we went home, we ate, and then their younger sister[Susanne], the third of my favourite cousins (Gosh, they're all from the same family?! Ah, oui, haven't I told you? They're my favourite relatives, parents and children. So now you know~ ) came for a short while, with her very cool boyfriend[Jelco]. And this is me being critical, so hey. He's coo'.

When they were about to leave, my aunt and cousin came back (they were out with the son of my Egyptian uncle, who lives here) with that cousin. Am I still making sense, or are the number of cousins finally getting to you? xD
There's tons I never mention, so don't you dare complain ;D Rawr.
Anyways, this cousin [Hamada] had taken them out the whole day, because he missed his Egyptian family (he's been living here for.. 6 years now?). Which suited us just fine of course, they with their relatives (ours too but eh) and we with ours. Dad came home from work and it was a Full House.
So Susanne and Jelco left, and Hamada stayed and chatted for a while before leaving as well, and we were back to a total of seven.

And now I feel entirely exhausted, but totally content at seeing so many loved ones in one day. (Meanly as that sounds, I just mean my dutch relatives)

Oh, just one more thing I need to mention before finally stopping teh rambling:
Thursday, after we came back from playing tourists, my very first friend ever came by. Janine has known me since we moved here 18 years ago (since I was 3) and we've been played together all out childhood. Then we also ended up in the same class, and didn't split up till I left that school to attend a year of Internation Education to learn some English before going to Egypt with just Dutch on my resume. xD
Funny thing with her is that no matter how long we don't talk, whenever we meet up it's like we've never been apart. She hasn't changed a bit either, in the two years that I haven't seen her in. That's positive, in a way, because I know what to expect. xD

That's it for today.
I'll try to post more often so that the posts don't get this long anymore.
Pictures later, haven't even uploaded them to my laptop yet ;D

xxx
The Gypsy.