Lucky us, we come back to Europe and we arrive just in time for Jandirk's family reunion. Perfect opportunity to meet the Dortmundts for the first time in their (what it turned out to be) epic vacation destination- Rotenburg. I took prep for the event really seriously and requested a genealogical tree from Jandirk so that people don't have to repeat their names a thousand times. Especially that Dutch names are always unique, uncommon and on the edge of being pronounceable. The first people I met as soon as we arrive had to repeat their names because they were not on my tree... Some of them I still don't remember...
But it was still amazing and a very colorful weekend. 45 people and all sorts of personality. The crazy, the colorful, the typical dutch, the warm aunt (not even one in that category), the quite, the travel lover. All of that on one party. It all kicked off with a barbecue out of this world. When the meat from the grill got watered with some beer and German Riesling (wine) ambitious dutch music from tapes arrived. Hits like "beer and tits" and "I wanna have sex with the bold one" were reviving its glory. And even the oldest senior on the party stayed up till at least 1.30 am (that's the time we went to bed). The next day the whole family went by bus on a revival of their old vacation to see the pool, the campsite, the town. All the old stories were coming back and even to me (an outsider) it was a really heartwarming experience. We ended up in "their" restaurant. Unfortunately over there they got scared with our small group of 45 people and we could only order schnitzel, schnitzel or schnitzel and for the daring ones a salad. There was also a very limited Donald Duck dish for kids that only a few very special people managed to get. Even coffee or ice cream was out of reach for the guys in the kitchen. But even so it was a charming place, full of history. And they did have beer:)
Since we had a big house rented all for us we transferred the party over there. The senior of the family even gave a singing and dancing performance. Looking at him I was only hoping JD got some of those genes and he's gonna have that energy when he's that old and when its that late. I guess we will have to wait and see till we are the seniors of a reunion in a very far future.