June 19th – Peter’s Birthday

After sleeping in till 3, the next day after the party was Peter’s birthday and we were invited to his parents place for a BBQ. Unfortunately, there were to many of us for him to come get us by car (as what usually happened). Instead, we had to take an hour bus ride to his parent’s house (in another city/town/village). Unfortunately, since Branka arrived, it has been unusually hot in the Netherlands (30 degrees). I’m not very good in hot weather and I sweat as much as George W Bush taking a geography test (or Michael Jackson in Disneyland – depending on what you think is funnier).

Anyways, the bus was hot and stuffy and I was still quite dehydrated from last night. I’m not the type of person to get car sick, but I almost got sick. Thankfully, we arrived before I had a chance to perform my gastric pyrotechnics. There were already a lot of Peter’s family at his house, and I got to meet many of them (I have already met Peter’s immediate family on several occasions). After finishing 5 drinks in a relatively short period (non-alcoholic), I was re-hydrated and ready to be the master chef =)

As the only Canadian, I volunteered to BBQ.

Note: Technically, it’s called Grilling. Barbequing involves cooking meat at low temperatures for long periods of time with specialized equipment like a smoker or a barbecue pit. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bbq/

It was nice since they had a gas BBQ, not one of those slow charcoal ones (although I also had an electric grill to play with). There were a lot of different kinds of meat for me to cook. The most popular were the burgers that went really quickly as I used my experience (flip once only, keep the lid down) to keep them nice and juicy. I also got lamb chops to grill, and I really enjoyed those. As the BBQ guy, I got to meet a lot of people from Peter’s family.

It was a good time, and I had a good meal. We returned home in the evening to prepare for the new week.