Memory lane, mountain biking and pension plan

August turned out to be a very active and surprising month. It all started relaxed with Sanneke, who came by to make official school photos for Noa’s new school in Switzerland. Noa will start at the International Management Institute in Luzern for her Master in Hotel and Event Management.

In August we celebrated Mathilde’s 50th birthday (our friend and neighbour in Nigeria) It was a huge surprise for her organised by Nick and Kim. Dennis her husband is still in Lagos and therefore he couldn’t be there. Mathilde and I also visited beautiful Delft, very nearby our home, but this is probably only my 3rd time I’ve been there.

On Saturday August 8th we left for our holiday break, it was such a beautiful sunrise, that we had to stop and make some nice photos. Zoeterwoude is a beautiful little village in the west of the Netherlands.

The plan was to bring Noa with her two suitcases to her new school in Luzern, Switzerland. But first we would visit our old homes abroad in Germany and Austria. It was like driving down memory lane. First we checked out our house in Ammerland at the Starnberger See. When we lived there our neighbor’s plot was for sale already (2005). It was a risk when we choose for this house because we could ended up with a lot of noise when they were going to build next door. However luckily this never happened. It is still available for sale so if somebody is interested?  We ate in our favourite Italian restaurant, Pinocchio in Munsing, where our children played football, when they were young. We saw Morgan and Kirsty Zuill and Ann and Joep Peeters. Really great to catch up and be outdoors, with some social distancing, but nevertheless it always feels good to see them. Hugo left with Morgan and Kirsty to see his friend Angus (their son). The next morning we picked him up and drove to Vienna our next stop.

Hugo was totally useless on this trip in the car. He did an all-nighter with Jack when we left the Netherlands, so he slept in the car. He did something similar with Angus, so he slept the whole way to Austria. We took Ayo with us, that’s the benefit of a small dog. We had a two floor apartment in Vienna, with some outdoor space on the edge of Prater Park. In Vienna Noa and Hugo saw their friends from when we lived there. In Vienna we saw Eric and Ulrika Gothlin and their children Elvira and Elon. They have a second dog, a puppy, an Irishdoodle, cuter then cute. Ayo wasn’t in his best mood, maybe a bit overwhelmed by the two big dogs, especially Bailey who’s very energetic. He also got a little bone, but then he gets extremely possessive and growls the whole time when you come near him. But it was so good to catch up with the whole family, they are very dear to us.

In Vienna we used the electric scooters (steps in Dutch) with Ayo in his rug sack. He is super easy and loves anything we do as long as he is with us, except for one time… We went boating, with an electric boat on the Alte Donau (the old Danube). These are funny boats with all kind of themes. We had a boat with a palm tree, some artificial grass and a big sofa. So we left the harbour and Noa was the captain. Ayo was standing in front of the boat, next to the palm tree. You must know that he hates water or swimming. But this time he did not like this little very silent boat, so he jumped overboard and swam fast to the shore. Rob was shouting to another boat, that they should grab him, which they obviously didn’t do. I told Rob he had to jump in to get Ayo back, he said I had to jump in, but I replied that I have bad ears and swimming is not good for me. In the meantime Ayo was doing his own thing and this was swimming as quick as he could to the nearest shore. Long story short; Rob jumped in and took Ayo back. When Ayo’s wet there’s not much dog left.

One day we were in the city centre of Vienna in a shoe shop when I heard my name; guess what? I saw Sabine, a friend from Lagos. It’s a small world after all, isn’t it?

We also went up the Ocean Sky Restaurant at Haus des Meeres. What a stunning 360 view. It was wonderful to see Annemiek, Michiel and Audrey. And so we said goodbye to Vienna, until we meet again.

We drove to the mountains with Noa. Next stop was to find Rob’s long wished retirement plan, a house in the mountains. Hugo spent one more night with his friends in Vienna and he followed us the next day by train.  We arrived around 11:00am at the local townhall of Bad Kleinkirchheim. We had a lot of questions about building a house there. After this meeting we went to a few real estate agents. One showed us a cute little house on a stunning location. But this would need to build almost like an extra house to fit our family. This would mean building from a distance during Corona from Nigeria. Slowly we got the picture that this was going to get pretty challenging. Another real estate agent said first she didn’t have anything, we were looking for a big house, with minimum of 4 bedrooms and a good view. It is hard to find in the area, there are many small apartments available, but we don’t want this. Then out of nowhere suddenly came a brochure with a house. We weren’t thrilled, because it wasn’t in Bad Kleinkirchheim, but just around the corner in Patergassen. Noa liked the house on paper already, she said this would be perfect. We made an appointment to visit the house on Monday.

Sunday we had booked four Mountain E-bikes to do some biking of the mountain. This was really cool, we took the cable car up to start biking high in the mountains, but the tracks got smaller and we weren’t the only ones, we were probably the slowest ones.

Anyway, I stopped to let some fast going bikers pass through, but I am short as you all know, and it was in a corner, so I fell on my face, my teeth went through my lip and I had a few scratches on my knee. So nothing serious, off we went again. But not long after my fall, Noa fell and this was not a good fall…She was the last in our group, and screamed so loudly, I knew this was not good. I threw my bike on the side of the mountain and run as fast as I could to her. She laid on her stomach and I could see her elbow was double, this was totally and utterly dislocated and broken and I don’t know what more, but seriously wrong. Right behind us were three people, two men and a lady from Czech Republic and the men were trauma surgeons and the lady a paramedic on an ambulance. How lucky can you be? They helped Noa up and when she got cold she got an aluminium foil blanket. We were nearby a ski hut, maybe 100 meters away. We took her there and she set down on a luxe relax chair. There was also an Austrian guy and barowner around us, very helpful and kind. We had to wait for the ambulance and as we were still high up the mountain it took a while. In the meantime we heard there was an other accident nearby. An Austrian lady fell and had serious injuries and needed an helicopter. In the end Noa could get a ride on the helicopter with this other patient to Klagenfurt. It wasn’t a free ride, no the invoice was specified about how many minutes she was in it, 21 minutes, costs, 2600,-Euro. We drove our bikes off the mountain as fast as we could, too fast to be honest. Hugo could see he went about 48km per hour. Down in the valley it was another hour driving to Klagenfurt, to see Noa. Someone from this mountainhut brought Noa’s bike back in the evening. Everyone was so kind, helpful and friendly. At the hospital only one of us (covid 19) could go to Noa. We were hoping for the best, but from the two trauma surgeons I already got the impression that she certainly needed surgery. So what had happened: she dislocated her left elbow, she broke pieces of bone in her elbow and the ligaments were torn. Conclusion; surgery to fix it with screws maybe on Monday otherwise on Tuesday. Due to the many accidents she got her surgery on Tuesday August 18th. She never cried, she was very brave and took it as it was. The morning after the operation she saw a physiotherapist on the side of her bed, saying, "now we are going to move your arm". Noa replied, "well I think you have the wrong patient in front of you because I had surgery yesterday". "You need to be at someone else’s bed". "Nope" he replied, "you are going to move your arm", and so she did, little movements though, nevertheless movements. 

The day before her surgery,  on Monday August 17th, we went to see the house that Noa liked on paper. In the meantime Robin had arrived in Bad Kleinkirchheim to support us and Noa and to be with us. The four of us went to Patergassen to see the house. We put Noa on FaceTime screen so she could ‘walk’ with us through the house. We came, saw and fell in love; you know the feeling when something is right. Although not everything was perfect, the house has so much potential, we fell in love and Rob almost bought it straight away. On Wednesday we went back for a second view, this time to be more precise  and to check everything, but the feeling grew over two nights. We didn’t want to leave it behind, it was meant to be ours. The living floor is not huge, but very cosy. The kitchen will be replaced in the future, but it's only three years old, but simply not our cup of tea so to speak. It has 5 bedrooms and plenty of space and two plots of land and a stunning view. The house was built in 1989. We put everything into motion to buy it before we left Bad Kleinkirchheim. We went to the bank for some financing, there is no better way to spend your holiday.

During the week Hugo, Rob, and I spent sometime, in the morning, together because in the afternoon one of us went visiting Noa in hospital in Klagenfurt. Unfortunately for Noa, her holiday was over, but we tried to make the best of it and explore the beautiful surroundings of Bad Kleinkirchheim. On Thursday we had dinner with our dear friends from Villach, Anna and Thomas Santler. In one of the photos, you can see Robin climbing out the trunk of her car because the parking garage at the our hotel was too tiny for her to get out otherwise.

After 7 days in hospital Noa got green light to leave the place. We left straight away to Switzerland with our heads spinning around with lots of thoughts about the house and Noa. We arrived in Luzern on Sunday and drove straight to Noa’s school. There we installed her, unpacked her suitcases and because she was still in pain and needed some help with things she slept in our holiday appartment instead of at school. We had rented a nice appartment as described on the website ‘off the beaten track’, but very close to Luzern... We had to drive up the mountain for kilometres, the road became steeper and narrower. Surprisingly there was a tiny little village up the mountain, Wirzweli, absolutely off the beaten track. There we learned from the owner that the road we took was going to be shut down the very next morning. But luckily we could still get off the mountain from another side, this took us longer to get to Noa’s school. So next morning we left early, Noa had to start her introduction week at 8am, she needed to be dressed accordingly and I needed to help her of course. After we dropped her off we did some grocery shopping and went back the long way up to Wirzweli. Rob started working again, because this always continues. I decided to sit in front of the house to do some crocheting. Then the phone rang, it was Noa, in tears, her hand was swollen and painful, she felt awful to ask for help like cutting her meat for example. She wanted to leave with us to the Netherlands. Rob and I had before decided that I would stay in Luzern as long as she needed me. But this changed things. We drove off the mountain again to see Noa at her school and speak and discus the possibilities with the principals at the school. They were very helpful. Everything is online now so she could easily be in the Netherlands. I could much easier help her under one roof. So we decided to take her home. We drove back, with a small bag of clothes and for the 4th time we drove up this bloody steep, long mountain road. It was a very narrow and curvy road and you could not look around the next corner. Suddenly we got coming around the corner a huge tractor and no place to move. I reversed down the mountain again and suddenly the tractor overtook us on the valley side of the road at full speed. We all believed it would fall down the mountain. Luckily it didn’t, of course they know exactly what they're doing. Last part of the road was through the meadows where the cows were walking freely with the bells around their neck, for the fourth time blocking the road and time on their side. We did some speed packing as Rob decided if we leave early we could drive to Schwarzwald in Germany. A place very dear to Rob. This is where he spent 15 Christmasses in St Peter. He wanted to show Noa and Hugo where he learned skiing. So we drove off the mountain for the 5th time that day.

We arrived in Schwarzwald when it was dark, all the kitchens in the hotels and restaurants were already closed so we ended up at a kebab place. But we had the best wine with it, Weissherbst, an orange coloured wine. For Kleinjan Family members known for consuming it during the evening by the liters. The local storeowner always started smiling at christmas when the Kleinjan family arrived. The next morning Rob showed us which hills he had to climb with his ski boots on and skis in his hands, there were no lifts. And lunch was not on the mountain, no they drove back to the appartmetn to eat lunch there. The children were quiet and bit surprised about how skiing went in the old days. Especially Hugo was very amused, ‘where are the skilifts?’ ‘are there any steep slopes?’, ‘how do you get up the mountain?’ and his favorite ‘why is this called Black Forest?’ Before we drove off we picked up a case of Weissherbst to give to Rob’s parents . When we arrived in the Netherlands Noa learned that her school went in some sort of lock down due to the fact that one of the students got ill and got tested so everyone had to do online school and needed to stay in their rooms for 10 days. Perfect timing for Noa that we left on time.