The Suitcase Kids

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Back to Vlietland...

The following day we took a long walk around the big lake at Vlietland. While Veronica flew her drone...

…and Brett took some photos with his old-fashioned 120mm film camera...

…Kati, Ashlynn and Bjarne laid in the grass.

It was a beautiful day!

It only took a few days before the boys saw their first Dutch windmill.

Check out this video that Veronica put together from some later drone footage she took from this same spot. It still amazes me to see how much water we are surrounded by.

We were greatly thankful to be living in our peaceful little village while COVID-19 rapidly spread around the globe and was eventually declared a pandemic. The Dutch government declared an “intelligent lockdown,” meaning restaurants, schools and museums remained closed and we were not supposed to use public transport. Luckily there was plenty of nature within walking distance of our house.

Our first group outing was to our local city park where the cherry blossoms were in bloom.

Veronica enjoyed working on a lockdown self-portrait project—more images to come.

It was so cool to see Ashlynn with her first boyfriend.

Arriving in Holland...

Early on the morning of March 17, Jimmy, Kati and I headed to Schiphol to meet Ashlynn’s plane. It turned out that I had chosen the correct flight, because many of the other options were indeed cancelled.

We were all so happy and relieved to have Ashlynn home!

Four days later, The White House Commune was complete. After less than two days in Berlin, Bjarne was chomping at the bit to be reunited with Ashlynn and booked a train to head our way.

It was a huge risk on our part to welcome this unknown fellow into our house, but after meeting him, we had no regrets.

After Ashlynn graduated high school, our plan was to downsize into a smaller house. However, due to Jimmy’s unstable income as a consultant, we’ve stayed in our large home rather than trying to move. We never would have guessed that we’d eventually be grateful for all of that space when we started living together with our two adult daughters and their boyfriends for an unknown period of time. What could possibly go wrong?

Monday, September 28, 2020

Final Days in Vietnam...

After a few days of exploring Ho Chi Minh City, which they loved much more than they expected, it was time to catch a bus north to a national park. It was only a three-hour journey, so they were surprised to discover that instead of traditional bus seats, their bus had loungers.

Even more surprising was that the loungers were long enough for them, especially considering they towered over the locals.

After exploring the park for two days, they caught another bus for Da Lat, a popular tourist destination where they rented the scooter. After a few days there, they realized that Bjarne needed to get his tourist visa extended and that would require taking a flight to Da Nang, the closest city where he could get his visa sorted. Ironically, that unexpected flight actually was a blessing in disguise as otherwise they wouldn’t have arrived there for another 1.5 weeks.

Things changed drastically after they arrived in Da Nang and they realized that the locals were now afraid of them because the first cases of coronavirus had been brought in by British backpackers. Soon I was frantically working on finding Ashlynn a flight home and was so thankful that she was already in a city with a major airport. After one night in an AirBnB, they realized that they were going to have to cut their trip short so they splashed out on a luxury hotel which had ridiculously low rates. They seemed to have the place to themselves as they didn’t see any other guests until they were checking out.

Their room rate came with foot massages, which they really enjoyed, and a visit to the spa.

On their final morning they ate breakfast in bed; Ashlynn was thrilled that they were delivered tofu and rice.

Plan A was for Ashlynn to fly home via Singapore and Bjarne to fly to Brisbane to deal with selling his car. After living together for four months, they were sad to say goodbye forever a few weeks earlier than they’d planned.

Originally Bjarne had planned to travel around Australia with his brother throughout the summer, but that clearly would not be happening. While in line at the airport, he found out he would have to quarantine in Australia for two weeks, so he scrambled to book a flight home to Berlin instead. (Luckily, he managed to sell his car a few months later without needing to go to Australia after all.)

Spotted in Vietnam...

This is definitely my favorite photo that Ashlynn took in Vietnam. Beyond ducks on a scooter...

…they saw cows walking down the street...

…and monkeys running around a temple (it was Bjarne’s first time seeing monkeys in the wild).

They also saw several beautiful temples.

Meanwhile in Vietnam...

On March 8, Ashlynn and Bjarne flew from Sydney to Ho Chi Minh City with plans to explore Vietnam for four to six weeks. They immediately fell in love with the country, which had cheap cocktails...