Easter weekend (Pasen)

My Easter weekend started on Thursday when my friend Joop, who lives in Spain, came to visit me with his son (Thomas) and his friend (Pedro). You can see all of them on the picture. We had a nice dinner and it was sweet to see how shy Thomas can be (he is turning 18 this year). Pedro is an amazing guy. Very intelligent and funny (like Joop). So we had all ingredients for an entertaining dinner. Too bad they all had to leave far to early on the next day (right after breakfast).

On Saturday morning I went to Deventer where I met Leo at the station. We had agreed with my friend Pino that we would accompany him a little at his move back to Berlin. Leo had bought a box of sweets from Leonidas (yummy) and we had the chance to sit all together in the train and talk. I was stunned when I heard that nobody of his friends in Amsterdam had gone through the trouble to bring him and his luggage to the station (something he had organized for Berlin). I felt guilty that I hadn't done it myself as I had planned initially. Leon and I had to leave the train at Hengelo, while Pino had to travel stil for an other four hours on the train.

Leo and I went to Enschede for some light shopping (we didn't buy a lot of things, we just were looking around). The best shop we found was "China 1000". It was such a pity that I didn't bring my camera. So many tasteless, tacky things in one shop: UNBELIEVABLE! We were laughing so much about the goods that the owner was relieved when we finally left his shop.

What's better then to visit a sauna when it's cold, windy and snowing. So that's what we did in the afternoon. We went to 't Bölke and dove into the steam bath, the hot tub and the swimming pool. I learned to know a nice older gentleman (Kees), who was there with his future husband. He told me about his interesting live and it seemed that he had been the main character in a documentary a few month ago.

On Sunday, Leo and I went to an other gathering of the Netherbears in Amsterdam. On our way there we met Leo's good friend Hans in Apeldoorn. The tree of us went together. The gathering started out very slow, but in the end it turned out to be a very interesting evening. I met interesting people and heard interesting stories. I am amazed how easy the atmosphere and the people are those gatherings.