London Christmas Visit

London Christmas Visit

After two weeks of visiting friends and family in London during the Christmas period I have returned to Holland. During my visit I:

– Had a flight cancelled and rescheduled due to fog, a meal at a restaurant cancelled and rescheduled due to a power cut and several trains cancelled and rescheduled due to British Rail. I started to sense a pattern.

Spent an evening telling my friends the story about how I nearly got arrested while out jogging and tried to explain to them that I am not really a criminal.

Became a real criminal in London after I walked out of a bar and forgot to pay for my drink. I only realized my mistake 20 minutes later. I am still at large and now hiding in Holland from the British authorities.

Was lured into a Macintosh shop with much trickery and deception by a Mac loving friend who I have been in a Mac vs. PC argument with for some time. I had to admit that the store looked very stylish. However, it did not have what we needed and turned out to be unhelpful…. just like a Mac.

Received a red fire truck for Christmas from my mum because of a joke I made in a previous post about Sinterklass.

Had a few drinks with my usually sober Dad. To cut a long story short, the next time he tries to lecture me about over drinking all I will have to remind him of a few things he did that night.

Celebrated my 30th birthday a year early because a friend gave me a flashing ’30’ badge to wear while we were out drinking in London. This was either because he could not find a ’29’ badge or because he can not count. I also suspected that it was a badge intended for a girl since it was pink and read, “30 and Flirty.” I wore it anyway.

Spent some time testing the authenticity of a Dutch theme pub in London just because I could. It didn’t really pass the test since the bar man did not understand what I was trying to communicate when I shouted, “Biertje.”

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

12 Responses

  1. Keith says:

    So all in all it was a pretty humdrum sort of a Christmas then?

    Nothing much happened to me either, apart from a drunken brawl in a pub which resulted in a stabbing, a bus ploughing into a queue of people, a smash and grab raid at the Launderette and the dog kennel collapsing on the dog and killing him. Then I woke up in a sweat and found that Santa had forgotten me yet again!

  2. Wezz6400 says:

    I love your mother’s sence of humour. :-D

  3. Bemused says:

    Like mum like son, hey? ;)

  4. meghnak says:

    Hi STu,
    This was funny! LOL!:D
    Looks like things have been going really well,(eh?) since the last few weeks!
    Keep writing!

  5. Dragonlady says:

    You never told us about forgetting to pay for your drink, I wondered what the wanted posters were about. You will have to wear a disguise next time you come home.

  6. Ana Luisa says:

    Yay, new year, new stories!
    P.S.: When I almost (I said almost) changed my mind about Macs, two friends lost every single thing that was on their computers and I decided to stick with my dear old PC…

  7. Tess says:

    You are bad… so bad… *tuttut*
    I spared you but perhaps I should post that picture after all
    In fact you are begging in a way :p

  8. sophie says:

    happy you came back! :-)

  9. zed says:

    You are definitely a liability! You have no idea how much I worried about you coming down to Brussels …. It looks like it’s the UK that you can’t cope with. (And A’dam ….)

  10. BlondebutBright says:

    Sounds like a fun holiday! Don’t treat the flashing 30 badge lightly – it will be your turn before you know it. :)

  11. Invader Stu says:

    Keith – Sorry to hear that

    Wezz6400 – You should see the invader stu birthday card she made me.

    Bemused – We’re still trying to work out who is more accident prone.

    meghnak – It was fun.

    Dragonlady – I’ll be laying low for a while.

    Ana Luisa – It sounds safer.

    Tess – You know I’m just teasing you :p

    sophie – Thanks

    zed – There is still plenty of time for stuff to go wrong during my next visit to Brussels.

    BlondebutBright – I know. Less then a year to go now.

  12. Manictastic says:

    Hey, does this mean you can celebrate your 29th birthday next year. By golly, I think you could be the first man ever in succeding to actually get younger. Congrats.

    A red firey truck, too cool.

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