Nijmegen
Tante Mien on her balcony
Photo of the Willems sisters
Tante Mien and Jose admiring the neighbours garden
Tante Mien showing me her Wall of Family
Looking at photos of her 85th birthday party (but she's now 88)
Baby clogs
Maya
May and Jose
Maya in her and Jose's apartment, Nijmegen
Super cute birdhouses in Jose and Maya's neighbourhood
This weekend I caught the train down to Nijmegen for a long overdue visit to see Jose and Maya and also Jose's mother (and Oma's sister) Mien.
I stayed with Jose and Maya in 2002 when I first came to the Netherlands and Maya was only about 8 then. Now she's 14 and taller than me! Maya is into street dancing (hip hop dancing) and is apparently doing really well at school. Her English is really good- and once again I felt a bit silly that despite my Netherlands passport- my dutch is niet zo goed!
Jose drove us to Tante Mien's place- and we had coffee on her balcony- and enjoyed the sunshine- we actually had lovely weather (very exciting) and Jose patiently translated for Mien and I. We talked about the NZ family and Mien showed me photos from her trip to Morocco that she went on this year with Jose and Maya. Tante Mien seems to be in very good health, both physically and mentally. She has great spirit and energy!
We had a lovely dinner on Jose and Maya's roof terrrace- and Jose and I went for a bike ride around the city. Nijmegen is really pretty and we had the perfect weather! The country side across the river from Nijmegen is so picturesque.
On Sunday we were all super lazy and had a big late lazy brunch and Jose and I talked about all the family. We decided to do some further investigation by digging out some relatives over here. I'm keen to go and meet Tanté Jose who I haven't met yet and her children.
I had a lovely weekend and big thanks to Jose and Maya who were amazing hosts! They send their love to everyone in NZ!
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