Week of "unorganized Socializing"

Apple Valley  Sunday June 11

Arriving at aunt Willy is stepping into a warm bath. She goes always like "sweetie" and "meisje" (girl) and she loves feeding me. She recently turned 90 but that's only a number, she looks much younger. She's the sister of Peter's mom, living in the US for already sixty years and we 're talking a mix of English and Dutch. And we talk a lot;) I love to walk her dog, crossing golf courses, exploring the neighbourhood. Then, on a walk, as we were waiting to cross a road, the dog all of a sudden jumped on the street, loud barking at a car. I hold her leash but she slipped out of her collar, in front of the car. I didn't think, just jumped on her back, on the middle of the street- fortunately the car was able to stop on time. From that time on I only walk her with a choking collar!

Of course we visited Jacky (Willy's son) and Monica, where we played their favourite Dutch game "Kezen". I actually never played that in the Netherlands. But it was fun.

San Diego  Wednesday June 13

The drive took me more than three hours, due to slow traffic but Sonya was running late too, coming from work. She'd made a reservation in an Italian restaurant where we caught up sharing what we'd been doing the last year and a half;)  The next day I joined her to work at "my" Language school. Mike, one of my teachers was still teaching there, he immediately remembered my difficult name;) I told him about my new diploma, that we' re colleagues now. I asked if I could join a class and help a bit that morning and he liked that. He put my name on the board and introduced me to the group. They were at level 7 (out of 10) and honestly, I was not very familiar with the ins and outs of the grammar they 'd to learn... Glad I'm teaching Dutch, haha.

Redondo Beach  Thursday June 14

After being in the States for almost two weeks I finally could hug Lotte! She picked me up at LAX where I'd returned my car. Had been driving a thousand miles which is 1600 km. Paid only $100,- gas, that's not bad! I was late again and we had to run for not missing out on happy hour in the expensive restaurant down under her apartment;) I stayed for the night and moved to an Airbnb the next day. Lotte had a lot of nice ideas for us to do but I was ruining her plans....

A "little bit" unorganized..

When I went to bed in San Diego I found out that I'd left my E-reader at aunt Willy's... Bummer. I was lucky that she was going to Huntington Beach, the next day, which is an hour drive from Lotte. Lotte had planned to take me to Pasadena, to meet her boss and colleagues and to have dinner in a famous Chinese restaurant close to her work. Nice! We supposed to be at the restaurant at 3pm. However, we had to pick up my E-reader first, (which was a detour of at least an hour and a half). Meanwhile I'd noticed that I'd left a piece of my travel adapter at Sonya's... Now I had to ask Sonya to crawl around on the floor, find it and to pop that thing in the mail...which she did, thanks Sonya:) In stead of having a nice time hanging out with mom, Lotte was busy getting my stuff back and hard trying to show up on time at reservations. (I'm glad she could still laugh about it;)

Friday traffic brought even more delay and then I needed a pie-stop. I rushed into the restrooms of Starbucks, rushed back to the car, and we rushed onto the road again. After driving for five or ten minutes...my heart stood still: shoot, my phone.. still at the restrooms! Lotte is very good at "thinking on her feet", in two seconds she'd pulled over and was already with Starbucks on the phone. YES, they found it, oh that was really sweating for a moment. It's not only my phone, it's my creditcard, debitcard and drivers licences as well. You don't want to lose that, especially not when you're traveling (alone).! Thank God He took care of my belongings.

We missed the reservation, so we first went to her work, where she works as a paralegal. Her boss complimented me for a daughter who's so independent and that she's such a good employee. I'm glad he's also a good boss to her. I liked seeing the place where she's spending many hours a day. Afterwards we tried a walk- in reservation at 5 pm at the restaurant, explaining that we came all the way from Los Angeles, but were stuck in traffic, which was true. We got a table, delicious dishes, only thing was that I didn't get any food between my chop sticks:) It were those fancy sticks with metal on the top, really not doable. It made Lotte almost roll under the table laughing, since she's a skiled chop stick user. She called the waiter and asked for the child version chop sticks that go with a plastic yellow thing that holds the sticks together, hahahah. I was happy, 'cause it worked perfectly!

On the plane to Toronto  Sunday June 18

We'll be landing soon, Toronto is three hours ahead on LA, so it's suddenly 11.20 pm. I will be staying in a hotel, for one night, taking a shuttle to get there. Ready for Episode 3 of my travel adventure!

This blog was also delayed, haha. I'm at the Ministry school now, will be writing my last blog on the plane home;)

Thanks for all supporting comments! Love, Marieke