TinTin goes Darwin

First of all: HAPPY CHRISTMAS!! Christ is real. Even if you don’t believe in Him, He believes in you, which is why he came to this earth about 2000 years ago, if you’d like some more info about that feel free to message me.. we’ll talk :) December 25th was never his birthday, I’ll admit to that straight away, so Christmas is not half as real Christ is, but I know most, if not all of you enjoyed this time with your family. I know I did. I enjoyed the time with my host family. This morning we left around 7am to celebrate my very first Christmas on the beach :) It was grant. We made two stops, the first one at a beach that had red flags all over, meaning the ocean was so angry we weren’t allowed to swim. So we looked at the ocean, I took some pictures of it, and then after that we had brunch. The second stop was at a place where we could actually swim. Here in Australia there are public barbecues all over the beach. So we, or rather, Tetka Maria, barbecued brunch and then we all ate.

Qeren, I found a potential candidate..While Tetka Maria was still barbecuing, this young man and his girlfriend joined me at our table. He explained to me that both of them were homeless and that they were hungry. Tetka was already planning to hook them up with some brunch at our table so as we waited for her to finish we spoke some more. At some point in the conversation he starts asking me all sorts of questions; Are you single? Do you live around here? No? Ok when do you think you’ll be around here again? How old are you? Would you be interested in a 21 year old? Can I have your number?

UH WHAT???? So I think maybe I misunderstood the relationship between him and the girl RIGHT NEXT TO HIM (who, by the way, is still smiling at me and him). So I ask her, ‘excuse me, what is your relation to each other again?’, and she answers me, with her sweet 17 yr old girlie voice; ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’.
OK.. So then they explained to me that this extra girlfriend think was actually her idea. I asked them why and they couldn’t answer me. I told them that I don’t share boyfriends, so it wasn’t going to happen with me. And that if he really wanted to he could still have my number but that I live in The Netherlands so it would cost him a lot of money to call me. Both of them didn’t seem to have a clue where The Netherlands were, and when I explained to them that it was in Europe they still seemed confused as to why it would cost extra money to call me.. We spoke for a little while, they told me a little bit about their lives and how they got to where they were and just when we were about ready to eat, they had to leave, because apparently the boy’s mum was meeting them somewhere.
So there you go Q. This one wont be ready to pay for your flight anytime soon. But I hear Ines and Dolls got you covered ;)

Anyhow, I’m clearly no longer home alone which is really good. The first few days living the solo life were ok but after about 5 days I was starting to get lonely. I hate cooking for one person. Maybe I wouldn’t hate it so much if I was any better at it; I always end up cooking for 4 or maybe even more people. So I ate a lot of the same last week :) Also the thought of Home Alone scenarios flashed through my mind. After all, it is the Christmas season, and I was left by my (host) family who went on a holiday.. I’m pleased to tell you that I spotted no burglars or anything. Plus, I wasn’t completely alone last week. I had Viva, the cat, and Spotty , the dog. Viva loves me. She’s always trying to rub my legs and feet. Being allergic to cats I can’t love her back like that and I tried to stay away from her. I think she thinks I’m playing hard to get or something though because the more I tried to get away from her the more she seems to be interested in coming near me. She reminds me of the cat that we had when I was in secondary school. My mum hates all animals, so a cat was not on her wish list. However, she’d spotted a mouse in our kitchen one day and the week after we got a cat. Off course we picked the wrong one. Our cat was well lazy and I’m pretty sure that she never caught any mice. My sisters and I loved the cat and wanted to play with her and stroke her. But the cat was not interested in us. Instead, she would seek my mums affection, who didn’t care for that at all and would spray the cat with (cold) water from the iron if the cat came near her. And still the cat loved my mum the most.. Silly cat.
Spotty, the dog, wouldn’t come near me before last week. I’d bring him his food and if I would take a step towards him he was gone. After about a week of getting him his chicken every day he fully thinks I’m his BFF. On the last day I had to feed him he brought me his tennis ball so that I could throw it and he could fetch it. And you know what?? (this one’s for Aileen and Cody) he then brought the ball back :), released it into my hand and waited for me to throw it again, none of this putyourhandinthedogsmouthandfighttogetetheballback-business. When I came outside again later that day, both the cat and the dog followed me around the garden as soon as I was more then 2 meters away from them. Twas quite endearing I must say.

Tintin
I spoke to Andreas (my friend from Andrews University) last week and he’s renamed me Tintin. His reasoning is that Tintin is a guy of whom nobody knows exactly what he does in life or how he gets his money but he’s ALWAYS on some kind of adventure in some place far away. Funnily enough Tintin was born “Kuifje” and his first language is Dutch :) . When I met Andreas’s friend at church last week I had sent him a picture of myself and his friend. When he got it he thought to himself “how did this happen.. and where did this happen.. Zippora doesn’t have money for Australia..” :) Gotta love Andreas.

My next adventure starts tonight! Tintin goes Darwin. The road trip I’ve been telling you about starts in Darwin. We fly out to go there tonight. It was a bit unsure whether or not we could actually get on the flight since there’ve been forecasts for a cyclone in Darwin. You know I’ve been praying for that to not actually hit Darwin, so that it wouldn’t mess up peoples lives and my holiday? Well it seems that the cyclone is not doing what the meteorologists thought it would do. It’s not actually hit the land yet, it’s still zigzagging on the ocean (far away from Darwin) if I understand the website correctly. We need to leave the house soon so I will bid thee farewell. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to blog during the trip.. we’ll see.

I hope and pray you’re all doing well!

Zippora