Rogier’s Road to Recovery

Today I drove to Princeton to meet up with Sian. We bought lunch at Panera’s and sat in the sun in the beautifully kept garden at the back of the Faculty Club. We walked around campus and so many memories came back to me seeing Blair Arch, Robertson Hall, 1903 … It was really like Old Times.

It’s bizarre that it is exactly a year ago I was diagnosed and shipped off to the Netherlands. Especially since the last thing I did at Princeton was attending the Reunions (alumni returning to Princeton to celebrate) and Commencement activities (graduation of bachelors, masters and phd’s). These ceremonies this year are held precisely… now. The campus is exactly in the state I left it last year. They have put the same fences around 1903 as last year, they have set up the same tents to let the different class-years party all night long, I saw the same alumni today on campus with their class-outfits and today, I even heard a speech to the 2005-class with the same statements as last year about how great and important they will prove themselves to be. Sian remarked that it is just as if I’d vanished for a year and now returned. Deja vu, really.

There was a nice family dinner at Restaurant Nona’s, but before the family gathered at Chris and Tracey’s Palace in Monroe. I’ve seen their house been built up to the level of concrete slab, but now it’s completely finished. Seems like the rest of the world kept on going here while I was away :). And then Emma, she has definitely kept growing! She has very deep blue eyes and wonderful red hair. She’s adorable! Mummy and Daddy clearly love her very much. We went to a fancy restaurant, where Emma showed us she can already eat with a spoon :D. It was very nice to see them all.

Chris and Tracey’s house is actually a palace, really - big and spacious, with a wonderful living room and kitchen next to it. That’s nice. The neighborhood is filled with houses like this… rather impressive.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 at 2:50 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.