Gisteren werd er getrouwd op Schiphol, maar in plaats van warm onder de palmen verblijft dat stelletje nu in het koude Amsterdam.

Ikzelf zou onder andere omstandigheden ongeveer op dit moment in de ontvangsthal mijn visite op staan te wachten, maar door de eruptie van de Eyjafjallajökull liep dat anders. Dat worden voor mij dus geen bezoekjes aan de Keukenhof en Hermitage de komende dagen.

hhjdmme

Some things never fail to amaze. Not even 5 years after they happened.
Exactly 5 years ago, my brother and I conveniently strolled the streets of Panama City, where we noticed a cheerful crowd of people leaving a church named Santuario Nacional. Yet, the people outside the church didn’t look Panamanian. Their tone of skin was lighter, and there were even raid haired people amongst the crowd.
This reminded us that only a few days before we spoke to an Irish girl whose name was pronounced as Mary (possibly spelled Mairi?) who was in Panama to be able to attend her brother’s marriage. Would this be… that person’s wedding?

This indeed turned out to be the case. As we held our pace on the sidewalk to watch the newly weds leave the church, a man smiled wide and said ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this’… as it turned out, on our way to Panama, we enjoyed a cold beer at the same pub during the stopover on Newark, were aboard the same plane to Panama, waited in the same queue to pass the border, spent some days in the same beach resort, and then, fate brings the same people to a sidewalk outside a church. Coincidences can be fun…

All this happened exactly 5 years ago, today. If fate didn’t pull any nasty tricks, an Irish man and a Panamanian girl have got something worth celebrating today. Congrats.