Dear Holland,

Thank you for a great time. Sorry to hear about your problems with politics, crime and the economy, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out eventually. I could suggest you to stop spending money on silly things and start investing it in education and research, but you’ve never really listened to me before, so why start now? I’m drifting off, sorry for that.

The last 28 years have been a blast and if I could do it all again in any other country, you would certainly still be in my top 3. The last few years we’ve grown apart and I’m afraid that the time has come where we each much go our own way.

Take care.

Warm regards,
Bernd

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Well, this is it then, our last day in the Netherlands. I’d say we’ve had a good run, but all good things must come to an end, or, in this case, must be replaced by other good things. In the last few weeks we’ve eaten a lot of typical Dutch food (raw herring, smoked eel, kibbeling, osseworst, Friese nagelkaas, roggebrood, grillworst, Hema rookworst and kroket) and participated in a lot of typical Dutch activities (such as complaining about the weather, getting stuck in traffic (a lot) because of bad weather, complaining about the weather, getting drowned while walking the dogs (due to heavy weather), complaining about the weather and getting sick, which is definitely related to the weather we’ve been having, but I’m not one to complain).

Last sunday Kim (my sister) and Iris (a friend of ours) threw us a farewell party. It’s amazing how many people turned up, you somehow don’t realize how many people you know until they’re all there in front of you. The party was fantastic and we had ample opportunity to talk and say goodbye to our friends and family.

Our personal possessions will leave the port of Rotterdam tomorrow and will arrive in Adelaide in November. The apartment is empty and we’ve turned over the keys and all that’s left now is to pack our suitcases and leave. Which is exactly what we’ll do tomorrow. Depending on internet availability, we promise to post some travel blogs during the next four weeks.