Tuesday, the day of my big journey, I left from home about 06:45, and the goodbyes felt heavy. Larissa kept me company until Lillehammer, where I dropped her off at school and said goodbye to her. And plops, then you are all alone in your car, knowing you have a long journey ahead of you.
It was about 4 hours driving from SF to Oslo. I arrived in good time, and got aboard the ship at 14:00.
The boat trip was maybe the worst. Sitting all alone in the cabin, going a bit around like a chicken without a head and not feeling at ease with all the people around. So, I wen`t out of my cabin, when necessary and spent the rest of the trip in my cabin with the Norwegian TV, fast food and drinks, I went to sleep early.
The boat arrived at about 10:00 and we got of the boat around 10:15, and as soon as I left the deck, the trouble started at Kiel, I drove the wrong way for about 3to 4 times before I finally found the 215 to Hamburg.
And I drove, drove more, and even more, music high, driving around 100/110KM an hour and suddenly, keeping myself to the route planner and finding the right way, wasn't a problem anymore. I did not drive wrong one single time again, hallelujah!
Otherwise the trip went well, had a lot of maintenance on the German highway but otherwise, fine. And I arrived at the boarder around 15:23, where I took a pause at Twente and filled with LPG for the 2th time.
The weather in Holland was horrible, as soon as i crossed the boarder. Rain, and a lot of wind. So the driving was intensive, and at Apeldoorn, the traffic got kind a...uuhm... stuck, so I ended up into two traffic jams. There was movement though, but anyway, knowing you have 2, 2,5 hours of driving ahead, to get to your destination, any hold up would be hell. And just to complain even more about the traffic, there was A LOT of traffic on the roads, happy I handled it so well, as I never had done anything else before!
Well, finally at 18:00 I arrived at Brakel. Drove up the drive way from Van Baalen and parked. I met the team at once and 10 minutes later I sat in the kitchen of Coby`s place eating dinner, with my new college`s, and where I met Coby, Marlies and Marrigje. Everything went so fast from there! And meeting both Coby and Marlies but also Marrigje in person, made me feel like a little girl meeting the spice girls or something, for just 10 seconds I felt penny again, haha. I packed out my car after dinner, and putted all my boxes in my room. Oh I`m so happy that I putted all my stuff into plastic boxes, because I have to spent my room with a roommate. And the room is small! We live in a sort of trailer. It need`s a bit of imagination to figure out how it looks like.
So I took a shower, and went to bed kind a early. The clock would wake me at 06:45 the next morning.
Just for illustration
First day at work, the clock waked my at 06:30, and I didn`t sleep too tight. I took my clothes on, and went out with my roommate. The day started with stable work, cleaning around 50 stables, getting in new straw, feeding and mopping. Then we ate breakfast at 09:00. After that we started to work the horses, lunging, brushing, saddling, washing, and of course cleaning bridles, etc. I felt a bit like a stupid 10 year old, asking for everything, being the last one finished with the stables, and not knowing where to start. But it`s good to know that everyone here has gone through that fase.
At 13:00 we ate lunch, and at 14:00 the group lesson from Marrigje would start, and I was going to ride the sport pony stallion Dancer. Beautiful little horse, with a lot of character, exactly the things I was used to know. I entered the big arena with the other`s. What an impression!
It took a while before I had Dancer where I wanted, and I felt kind a stupid for the first couple of minutes, also because Caby was looking at me with Marrigje and Marlies was riding arround, but I was happy that things got into place and I finally got him where we wanted. Good to hear compliments than. And even better to hear Coby saying, that it`s looking well, and managing my hard work an red/sweat face, haha. So I look foreward to the lesson tomorrow!
The rest of the day, was a bit the same, saddling horses, feeding, cleaning, lunging. And just as my back was about to give up, we where done for the day and got to eat dinner. I took a shower after dinner, and got right into bed, where I`m still sitting by the way, skyping with Mom and Larissa, and writing this blog.
Tomorrow the day will start again at 07:15. And therefor I`m going to sleep soon now. My college`s and room mates, also asked me to go out tomorrow evening, because the girl I took over from here, has her birthday and we all go out for dinner. I just need to ad that I`m happy with the team I ended up with. So far it`s of course hard to say which you fit best to, but everyone is so helpful and I don`t get any impression as if they won`t like me. So I`m happy for that! It`s a lot of hard work, but so far I feel it`s gonna be worth it all! My dream finally came true.
Coby and Olympic Ferro
Well, I end this blog now, and go to sleep! Good night :)
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