The first time for everything.

Tomorrow, my parents go for the first time in their life on a holiday abroard. To get there, they have travel by plane for the first time in their life. And altough day have visit Germany on many, many, many occaisions this is diffrent. They live only 5min away from the German border, so I've been alot with them and my sister to Germany. We went there for shopping, amusment parks, swimming, to restaurants and so on. Because in Germany everything is much cheaper then in the Netherlands. I've been so much in Germany and I live so close to it. It is hard for me to regard it as a foreign country, altough it is.

But now they go to a country further away then the 5km Germany is. They are going to a place which is 1500km away. So the first time my parents go on a holiday abroard they make sure it is pretty far. Also people have to take into account that their English skills are not the best, it more closely comes to the worst. They are a brave people to go that far away with poor English skills. Also they not really the holiday kind of people. I've only been a couple of times on a holiday with them, and that was only in the Netherlands itself. Now the go to Finland, to the mysterious land of the mysterious Finns. They stay in Turku and to be more precise, my place. While they are here they go also a little bit hardcore. We also go to Estonia according to Finns land of the cheap booze,  populated by the unknown Estonians.

I'm realy looking forward to have them here, because they where never in Finland before. I'm curious how they find Finland. But also it becomes a sort of a test for me. How assimilated am I already by Finnish culture? I already take my shoes of in my own place, go to sauna every week, always complain how expencive everything is (ecspecialy the booze), have a somewhat strange disaffection with Sweden and I like icehockey. But the big test comes tomorrow when they arrive. So I'm curious how they find how Finnish I already am.

My parents already know two Finns, those two are far from stereotypical. I shall never forget I warned my parents that Finns where a silent people and very on their own when two of my Finnish friends where visiting me. Happy for them they are the complete opposit. My parents shall never forget the in the meantime legendary outburst of their Dutch language skills in our kitchen while playing a game. My parents came to love those two girls and I can't blame them, I love them as well. I also like the Finns in general so I hope my parents also like the typical Finn who matches my description of the Finn more then my awesome friends who visit me in the Netherlands before and I hope they will visit the Netherlands again in August to see one of the best side Dutch culture have to offer.

Speaking of it, yesterday and, because it was a sunday, today in the Netherlands is National Comming Out Day. A day where we hope to encourge (young) people to take the daring steps out of the closet and live a free and happy live as they are. And to make them notice you can be who you are. In many cities in the Netherlands, they have litterly closets standing where you can jump out and come out of the closet litterly. In the Netherlands, it becomes more and more popular that straight people also come out of the closet on comming out day to support the homosexual fellow human. With the opening of mariage for all two persons who want to marry coming closer with the day, it would be awesome to visit Turku next year on 11-10 and see all kinds of closets on Kauppatori. So all the Finns and Dutch can come out of the closet, and we have a special they to encourge that a little bit more then on other days.