The Other Side

As it turns out, it takes a long time to edit and ensure proper species identification on 1,200 reptile photos from the insanely humid, wildlife-rich jungles of Madagascar.

Also: that activity turns out to be wildly incompatible with mounting a major international move.

So in lieu of any photos to demonstrate, I'm happy to report that Madagascar was amazing.

Everything else — meaning the five weekdays we left ourselves for packing, loading our shipping container, cleaning out our apartment, and getting rid of all the stuff that didn't fit in the container — was amazing, too.

Though more in the "Wow, I was just run over by a UPS truck" sense of amazing than the "Wow, when can we go back and do that all over again?" sense of amazing.

We returned to Nijmegen late on Sunday night with two backpacks full of filthy hiking clothes, one damp tent, and a lifetime supply of vanilla beans from the east coast of Madagascar.

On Monday, we incinerated our laundry, including the pair of pants that John and I shared for a week in the jungle after Air Madagascar lost his luggage.

Me, once it became clear that *my* wardrobe was going to have to serve as *our* wardrobe for the better part of the trip:

Hey John, isn't it great that I always wear such non-girly clothes?

John: Uh...yes! It's awesome that you wear such non-girly clothes.

On Tuesday, we packed up the stuff that we needed to bring with us as luggage on the plane.

As I write this, our shipping container is either making its spectacular journey by boat across the North Atlantic, OR, it's sitting patiently on a dock in the fine city of Rotterdam, waiting to make its spectacular journey by boat across the North Atlantic.

Either way, we have a whole household's worth of stuff that we won't see for another 6 to 10 weeks.

So we needed to select 4 suitcases' worth of essential belongings for the two or three months in which we won't have all of our non-essential belongings.

The result?

I'll have to get back to you on how these choices are working out for us.

On Wednesday, a team of professional movers descended upon our apartment to wrap and pack everything at a speed that is still blowing my mind.

As an added bonus, the Dutch moving company used white cardboard to box and wrap all of our stuff, including the furniture.

By the end of the day, our apartment had a definite late-1950s insane asylum vibe.

Which, frankly, was a refreshing change from our everyday early-2010s insane asylum vibe.


TTFN!

We're winding down our last few days in the Netherlands in general, and our last few days before we abscond on our trip to Madagascar in particular. 

This means two things:

1. We're really looking forward to doing nothing but taking a million photos of giant land snails.

2. At least for purposes of higher reasoning and sentence formulation, I'm feeling quite a bit like a giant land snail.


(This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Andasibe National Park)


Also, I'm really sad about saying goodbye to Peanut Cheese anytime soon.

Also, I'm in the middle of baking 15 dozen afscheidskoekjes — which translates literally to goodbye cookies — which I'll bring to work on Wednesday to mark my last day of gainful employment in the lowlands.  

Like most of the activities I'm engaged in these days, baking 15 dozen cookies at 10:00 on a Monday night seemed like a good idea at the time.

As a result of all of the above, I've allowed my evil procrastinating twin to take over.   

I'll be signing off until late March, when my swan song of notes and complaining from the Netherlands will be cleverly disguised as a photo essay on millipedes and giant snails...

...and a whole host of other critters with whom you might not want to share a tent! 

The Grocery Rapture

No trip to the U.S. for us is complete without an hour-long orgy of grocery shopping.  

Technically, it's less an orgy of shopping and more an orgy of browsing, but that doesn't quite have the same ring. 

Not every American grocery store is well suited for this.  

If it's too small and dumpy, we feel robbed of our God-given right to infinite brand selection and grime-free shopping carts.

If it's too big and glamorous, we feel overwhelmed. And slightly nauseous from the strident classical music piped into the olive bar.

There's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle: the store needs to be big enough to have 47 sizes of Ziploc bags, but not so big that I need a GPS to find the pickles.

Our obsession with wandering down the aisles just to glide our grubby expat fingers along miles and miles of oatmeal, hot sauce, mayonnaise, or Pop Tarts is difficult to explain.

Particularly to principled Europeans who care deeply about things like responsible food production, good nutrition, and the environment.  


I too care deeply about responsible food production, good nutrition, and the environment.  

In this particular instance, however, those principles coexist peacefully with my desire to be surrounded by brands that are both infinite in variety and comfortingly familiar.  

It's a little bit like falling back into a soft pillow of...

...the fifteen extra pounds I gained on our 10-day trip. 

I get the cognitive dissonance here. 

Trust me. 

Do I think the world is a better place because Jalapeño Pringles exist?

No. 

Do I think the world is a better place because Pringles in general exist? 

No, not really. 

Do I love that the Kroger in Aiken, South Carolina carries at least 19 varieties of a potato-based snack so artificial that it can't legally call itself a "potato chip"?

Yes. 

I can't explain it, but yes. 

I love that everything in this photo is a Pringle.