[password]waiknot
[position]17 45.292S 168 17.770E

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Watched the Independence Day parade this morning and the parachute jumpers. Celebrations go on all day. Meanwhile we are gearing up for a few changes as we head to Europe. More about our Europe trip is in the blog.

[blog]
title:Honeymoon in Europe
On Saturday we will be flying out of Vanuatu, we will briefly touchdown in Auckland before flying to Tokyo for a few days stop over and then on to Amsterdam. We are picking up a campervan and touring through The Netherlands, Belgium and France, meeting up with several friends along the way. Karl will introduce his new bride to his family in The Netherlands. There will be a family reunion as Karl's two brothers plus his sister from Toronto and respective partners will all be getting together. This will be the first time that all the siblings have been together in 11 years, so it is a very special occasion.
We will have some adjustments to make as we leave our yacht behind for 5 weeks and adapt to life in Europe. We will miss the paw paws and coconuts, but will be quite happy if we don't see any more bok choy for a while. We will trade our tuna meals for salted herring, which Karl is looking forward to. Of course, we might have to remember not to eat with our fingers while we are in Europe - the table manners are a little different in Vanuatu!
We are not sure what to wear! After living in swimming togs and sarongs for three months, I guess we will need to find some other clothes now, which will be a bit strange. The landscape will be a little different too. We are used to silver white beaches in Santo, jet black beaches in Ambrym, chocolate brown beaches in Ambae and the golden sands of the Maskelynes - all fringed with palm trees and tropical jungle. Not just that, but after a small area of sand, volcanic mountains rise straight up to 800m, or in some cases 1800m. The landscape in Vanuatu is like a child's picture book of volcanic peaks. We will trade this scenery for the flat low lying fields of the Netherlands - I think the Dutch Alps are only about 8m high?
The people will be a little different too. In Vanuatu, most people are small in size. Heather can look over the tops of most heads in a crowd here. Once in The Netherlands with all those tall people, Heather will probably feel like a midget. There will be an adjustment in the language we speak as well. Heather has been learning Dutch, but has picked up more Bislama in the last 3 months. Bislama is the local pidgin English and the national language of Vanuatu. It might help to speak a little French when we are in France, which will be a struggle for both of us!
For the next 5 weeks we will leave our watery world behind and be land based. We will have to adjust to driving at more than 6 knots I suppose and get used to traffic again - there are no traffic jams on the ocean! But the world will be less wobbly and we won't need to check the weather forecast every day. We might need to remember not to jump out the back of the campervan to go for a swim!
So this will be our last blog for a while. We will return to Vanuatu on 5th September and resume our cruising life - and our blogs. Tomorrow we leave Aradonna in storage in Vanuatu, awaiting our return.

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