| Bas Huijgen, personal |
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| Lookbackletter 2000 The year two thousand was, without a doubt, the year of travel. Over 100.000 km! Beginning in Napier, New Zealand with Antoinette and Dave. I got there by way of Bangkok which was immediately included in my top 5 of places to be. Then passing through Sydney, without a doubt one of the best places to party on earth (thank you Mike), I got to Windy Welly. New Zealand is extremely pretty and very green. Just browsing around there is fabulous, great places like Rotorua and the rimutaku incline and of course the Urewera national park where I almost lost my life, where absolutely amazing. I am not surprised A&D want to live thee part of year. travelling around was fab as was the company. Singapore was scary and cold but the airline wanted me to stay or pay them 200 USD. I stayed, and luckily so, In those last days I met Mo, my best friend in Asia now, we still ICQ almost daily, he makes Singapore a better place. Back in the Netherlands I worked several jobs and started my own business, then in April I was hired by Mediamatic, definitely one of the coolest companies in the country (they let me continue with my own company also). All the special people that work there make the 3 hours of daily travel worth while. In May we all traveled to Berlin together, a fabulous city that was so much nicer than I expected (why do I like Germany more and more, the Expo2000 and Hanover were great too). My lovely colleague Ines accompanied me to a great trip to Prague in October... I am sure I made some friends for the coming time I want to keep seeing even if I might leave the work floor there. The summer sort of went by working. Visiting Prague often was one of my intentions when I left the city to work for more money and better career prospects in 1999, and so I did... 7 times in 2000. Dusan, Eva, Monika, Veronika and Coleen are people I will hopefully never loose contact to. I must admit part of my heart remained in Prague, and I doubt I will ever get it back... Somewhere in September 2000 I joined Havana swim team in Amsterdam, now finally working out again with a bunch of great people... thank you Wijnand. Because David and Jennifer decided to get married after running into each other in the Czech republic, I got to visit their wedding in October in Seattle, still my favorite city within the US. This time I even actually did get to visit Vancouver, which was really wonderful also thanks to Greg who showed great Canadian hospitality ;-) Of course visiting Antoinette and Dave in Cincy completed my trip to the US in a fabulous way, and grabbing 4 days of Chicago with Randle and Simon was very nice even though the city was not all that superb... a bit unrelaxed if you ask me. Anyway, the whole thing was an experience. Visiting Cuba with Peter the last 3 weeks of 2000 was a very special experience. Cuba is after New Zealand the prettiest place I have ever seen but has a much more vivid population that makes it more interesting in the end. We have met so many cool people and sweet people, the Cubans really are a wonderful lot. Somehow we have a talent for running into the right people. Even though I don't envy some parts of their lives, I will definitely go back to see more and experience more of the place. The Americans really are foolish for boycotting the island. New Year in the air concluded the trip. I hope 2001 wing bring you all great events and lot's of fabulous moments, may we meet again, stay friends and respect all things and people around us. Bas | |