Because I am working on Fridays until 20:00 hours, it is not possible for me to fly to Holland on Friday evening. So this Saturday we woke up at 4:30 to be able to catch the first plane to Holland, which is not funny if you have a birthday supper the evening before.
We arrived in Harmelen at the beginning of the afternoon, and watched how my father and the neighbours were busy with the enlargement of their houses. The last weeks they haven’t been able to work a lot, due to the freezing cold in Holland (there are some things that I definitely don’t miss…). Work is making steady progress, and in a few months my parents will have 2 meters more living room (which they need urgently now that Sven is visiting them once in a while).
After this we went with my mother to the center of Harmelen city, to see the carnival wagons. After being a participant for many years and missing the carnival last year, it was a pleasure to see it from the side. Of course half of the village was on the streets (with the other half standing on one of the 20+ wagons), and I met a lot of old friends.
After seeing all, we went for a quick shopping round, to buy the things we miss most (cheese, peppermint, brylcream,…), quickly brought everything home and went to the carnival party to have a chat with my friends.
That evening Esther, Terry and Sven came for supper. Sven has changed a lot since I last saw him two months ago. He has grown a lot, is smiling and even trying to talk. It was great to see him again.
At night it was carnival time again. I dug up the old box with clothes and took out the pharaoh suit. Maria José chose my old clown suit; since it was already too big for me, it looked great on her. You can find a photo of us on my image gallery.
At twelve o’clock the music stopped and I heard Berry’s voice through the microphone. This is what I already feared! I had to come to the front, and Berry explained in public that I came from Spain to celebrate carnival and my birthday in Harmelen. He gave me the present on behalf of the ‘brothers’: some Belgian beers, ‘dropjes’ and nuts (glad we didn’t buy those that afternoon).
After waking up on Sunday and receiving the congratulations of my parents, we still had some time left, so we went to Montfoort to see the carnival over there…
