Life in Almelo

It's official - our life in Utrecht is over. On Sunday we said goodbye to our apartment on the Good Street in the White Women neighborhood of Utrecht (which sounds weird in English). Jochem was being quite the sentimentalist while Bic was a downright cry baby. I was doing remarkably well, I think. It had not been fun at all to stay in that emtpy apartment, while being forced to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor left my right shoulder with quite an impressive collection of kinks that my favorite Moby look-a-like masseur in Almelo kindly massaged away for me this afternoon. It was time to go.

Although it is kind of weird to be back at my parents' house in Almelo after all these years, I've actually been enjoying the stay very much. I spend some time every day on our world trip preparations, but my main responsibility is to buy groceries and cook dinner. This means that my parents are now also eating vegetarian every day. I am still a vegetarian, but I must admit that I have been thinking about not being so hard on myself anymore. Don't expect me to buy a Bic Mac anytime soon (or ever again, for that matter, as I already imagine Jochem's face in horror because he hates fast food chains with the same passion that I hate dusting the apartment), but I might allow myself a nice steak when in Argentina. But for now, I am still eating the greens without any meat, poultry, fish or sea food whatsoever.

One of the things that I'm enjoying most about life in Almelo is the abandonment of my routines. For example, when it comes to breakfast, instead of having cereal on weekdays and eggs during the weekend, I now wake up and ask myself: what do I feel like eating? This may seem perfectly natural to you, but to me, it's quite the revolutionary change, not to mention liberating. And I'm proud to say that not only did I finally figure out how to get coffee from my parents' insane coffee maker after 5 years, I have also become quite skilled in making scrambled eggs. I've been making scrambled eggs for years, but as anyone who has ever watched Top Chef knows, making eggs is quite hard. Past experience is not a predictor of future success. But I finally figured it out: add one tablespoon of full fat milk to each scrambled egg. This is essential! Other tricks I've learned are: adding butter to the pan before it is hot, but waiting with the scrambled eggs until the pan is searing hot; using a tortilla instead of a bagel or slice of bread because it's much lighter; and warming the tortilla in the microwave and adding cheddar cheese straight after before adding the scrambled eggs so that the cheese melts a little but the tortilla can still be folded easily. I've had this meal for days now. I love it, but I must be careful - the last time that I got so hung up on scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese was at UCLA in 2004 where I added quite a few pounds that are yet to come off.