Finally finished sorting out all the pictures I shoot in Venezuela and on the way there and back home and uploaded them all to my Facebook. Now I got to upload them here, label them and publish them :). There is so much I could tell about Venezuela and at the same time not so much. I don’t think Caracas is a pretty city I have not seen much real nice places with nice  architecture and such. We visited a zoo but I felt sad for the poor animals who sat all by them self in a too small cage for my opinion. The peacocks they had there where nice and seem to have all the space in the world. I shoot some pictures of plants n flowers we keep indoors here as houseplants. The many malls so crowded with people and the big difference between poor and rich. The Barrios with their always colorful paint on the houses was a strong contrast with the grey city that’s covered in dust. Antonio’s family was real nice and they tried to serve  food what even I like. The beach was nice but small because the other beach was not very safe to go to so we where told. It’s too bad I don’t speak spanish and had no clue half the time what was being said. That also limited my experience to understand what  was happening and what was being said. We went to a  movie and although it was in Spanish it was easy to follow. Its too bad that I could not just go out on my own n go see places because that is just too dangerous there. The barrios looked so interesting to me  and made me think i would find and see much more culture there but again too dangerous to go there. I don’t know if we will go back again to Venezuela, the tickets are very expensive and although Antonio’s parents paid for them I cant expect that to happen everytime. I am goign to cut this post short cause I got to go out n get some groceries n things taken care off. Maybe tonight I will start uploading the pictures. I’ll edit this post n post the links when I did :).

I will post updates with little descriptions. If it gets too long I will make a separated post.

Edit: Uploaded 2 folders with pictures so far.

23-12-2012 The pictures we took on the way there and the pictures I took at the first day at. The house of Antonio’s Parents, where we where staying. In between flights on the way there I could not take any pictures because we literally had to run allover the airport to take the next plane. Someone was waiting at the gate when we came out of the plane gathering everyone who had to go on the flight to Caracas. Our plane from Amsterdam to Lisbon had delay so we landed late while we originally would have had already only 1 hour to switch flights. Well now we did not had anytime at all. They delayed the flight to Caracas for us and the others who needed to switch.So out of breath and sweating allover we sat down on our seats in the plane to Caracas. The plane was very luxury with a touch screen monitor. We could choose out of many movies and games and music channels. We had no window view chairs unfortunately but that’s because there where 4 seats in the middle and on both sides another two across the walking path. Sleeping was impossible for me but Anarosa did got a little sleep. She made a little friend in the plane.

24-12-2012 The day we arrived it was already dark and I did not took any pictures till we where home. My dates on the pictures are a little bit off because of the time zone differences so some pictures are actually from the next morning though I kept them on this date because that’s the date of our own time zone. You can see a typical Venezuelan food Hallacas. It was not bad but its too unusual to me to really like it a lot. I was told it take 5 days for everything to get to taste and stay packed in. Then after that and when its being bought/sold you prepare it by simply boiling in water for 5 minutes.

25-12-2012. Today we opened the Christmas gifts that where under the tree. Due to the fact that I got sick in the last week and had to go to the hospital on the last day before we left, there was no time for us to do more gift shopping for Antonio’s family. We had no time to buy anything on the airport in Portugal. We did buy somethings at Schiphol but needed two more things. We had bought parfume for Antonio’s mom that I had ordered ahead of time. For Antonio’s older bro we had an aftershave  that we boguht at Schiphol, For Antonio’s dad although that was not directly meant as Christmas gift because it would have to be refrigerated, we bought a little dutch windmill in Delfts blue with a little Edammer cheese. So we did not had anything really for Antonio’s youngest brother and the chocolate we took with us from Holland I had without thinking already given to Antonio’s mom lol. So we could not wrap that up anymore either. Well we just going to have to make up another time for that. I am sure we will travel there again some day or that they will come to us. Since everything was closed most of the day, we just went to the local bakery and the parc where Anarosa had a load of fun.

26-12-2012 Today we went to the mall. I had a new haircut and Anarosa got a balloon. Thats where I saw also an awesome dress but didnt buy it because I thought it was a little expensive. The balloon that Anarosa got we did not take it with us back to Holland because we thought it would break for sure in the plane. At lunchtime we went to a restaurant where we had a fantastic meal. its pretty close to the house where Antonio’s family lives. We had a mixed grill and ordered Sangria. It was delicious and Anarosa loved the decorations in the restaurant. She even started to kiss the poles that was decorated with cow skins LOL.

27-12-2012 It was just a lazy day where we stayed at home and played arround the house, I read a book we played games on the wii, talked some and Anarosa played with the ball. We also went to the movies called Wrecked Ralph. It was a good movie and although it was in spanish I could follow the story easely. Anarosa liked the movie too she had a great time.

Here is the folder where you can find all the pictures.

So the post from my brother on my time line totally surprised me. My first reaction was shock after I read his words. WTF got into him suddenly? Seriously, my brother who barely cares about the things I write or say or do, suddenly comes onto my Facebook after our half sister is looking for us thinking he can order me around and tell me what to do after his insults to me. He might be in the army in his job and be my older brother, but he is still not in charge of me even if we where close together I would not allow that. So I call him upon that and ask him why hes not minding his own business and to explain himself why he goes all ape shit in public on my Facebook about something he claims not wanting to be involved in.

My half sister who had read the comments as well responded too, wondering where his sudden strong reply came from(at least that’s how her post came across to me) I forgot the rest of the conversation but eventually my brother apologized while still insulting me on the same post all be it a little milder. My half sister posted that she thought she took the wrong moment for this family search and walked away from it. (I cant blame her, I would not have wanted to open such a can of worms either! thanks bro really) She removed herself from my friend list and a day later he removes his post. Well that really made me go like WTF is going on? I don’t like drama and I did not ask for all this drama!

I have send her a privat message where I explained to her that I did not know why my brother responded the way he did and that I only have a small idea of why but that it had nothing to do with her really or me actually for that matter but that because he did not wanted to get involved that I would respect that and that for that reason I would not explain my thoughts about it. I also told her again that I don’t mind having contact with her and that I wont hold it against her anything my dad did or did not do, after all shes not him. Also wrote to her that I even discussed it with my mother even before my brother responded on my Facebook and that she was all right with it. I gave her my email address and told her not to take my bro’s reaction personally.

I never got a reply to that message, though Facebook told me that she did read it. That’s okay though.

Even if the things I had written that my bro claimed where not true, these things where things from over 20 years ago. He was not even present when some of the things that I wrote about happened and neither did I told him about them at that time as far as I remember because as mentioned before we simple have never been that close. Aside of that, he could have send me private message and told me I was mistaken on some parts and correct me where I was wrong. Or even post that in public, I would not have minded that either. Though, I did not lie, IF and that’s a HUGE BIG IF I was mistaken on anything that still would not have been a reason to attack me like that and put me down publicly as a liar and someone who makes up stuff.
So when he made a post about blowing of steam on his own Timeline, I posted that he should do that more often then people might not remove them self from my Facebook friend list because of him. Well he of course ignored my little sting, like I expected. That would have been the wisest thing to do anyway and he didn’t responded to it, at least not publicly. In a private message he was a lot less silent.

That would have been okay if he was not continuing calling me a theatrical person and claiming to have apologized. The apology that he removed along with the whole conversation because he did not wanted anyone to see the childish bickering, as he explained later. When I call him upon the fact that he still had not explained himself to me about what things I supposedly had lied about I still got no answer until a few private messages later that where accompanied with more insults. The things he said that I had lied about, he was wrong about, I did not lie. I think his anger about the conversation between my half sister and me has more to do with the fact that we have different opinions and feelings about our stepfather who passed away some years ago. I respect his opinion and that his experience was/is different then mine, however I don’t think that is mutual and that hes holding things against me and that with this contact with my half sister I maybe don’t give my stepfather or maybe my mom enough credit or something like that. That is the only reason I can come up with.

I consulted my mom about the whole thing and showed her even all of the private messages because it really did hurt me how my brother was talking to me and calling me a liar and how he insulted me. I just don’t understand why he does that to me when I have done nothing to him. I don’t understand it at all especially not because now HE has her in his Facebook friends list while he didn’t wanted to have anything to do with it. Its so confusing.My mom could not really help me and advised me to just ignore him, to write him an email and not talk about it on Facebook and let it go. But that’s easier said than done. My bro hurts me and is a complete jackass and I am supposed to act like everything is fine and that I don’t care and give him my other cheek to smack. But that’s not me.. I don’t like play games and pretend I’m all right, I do care and it does hurt me and if you’r apology is not sincere then you can keep it. It is worthless and only makes it worse.

As a kid I used to be the person who, when being kicked on purpose under the table, would smack you back above the table, just to get punished for it. And yeah I would kick a scene for that not being fair. And I am still that person. I don’t hide and cheat. When you are being a dork, I’ll tell you straight in the face(book) and I don’t care who sees it or what other people think about me for that and if you are thinking that two wrongs don’t make a right, then you are absolutely right, but that’s okay, I am not and don’t have to be perfect. I don’t try to hide my mistakes, and remove posts to cover up my errors for the fear of others to form an opinion about me (don’t mention the spellings mistakes I correct or when I use type-ex, that would be just lame LOL) instead I try to learn from them and try to keep my sense of humor. I don’t like to pretend to be something or someone that I am not. I have but only one life and I prefer to live it myself instead of being lived by others. I try to live without debts, as well as financially as emotionally and I am pretty good at it. I pay my bills, I have no loans, I care for and help other people without expecting anything in return and I enjoy life. I don’t go around hurting other people  and then act like I didn’t do anything wrong and that its their own fault.  My self respect is worth more then respect or acceptation from and by people who are the opposite of all the above. I just wonder what those people see in the mirror, I guess I will never know.

My brother, right now, I don’t really want to have anything to do with him at the moment. I have been through enough bullshit in my life and really don’t need people to add a new portion of drama to it. Going back now to just do my own thing and to my peace of mind, hoping that no one is going to bother me about it anymore.

My baggage or actually our, because the suitcase did not only contained my stuff, was delivered to our house at exactly 11:15 this morning. The suitcase was  dry thank goodness because the plastic it was covered in for its protection was no longer around it so I assume it was checked by customs. When opening the suitcase my assumptions turn out to be right, my suitcase has been searched through. Everything was packed differently then I had placed it. Well, I don’t really care about that but a little note would be nice. In the USA they put a standard note in my suitcase to let me know my suitcase has been checked by customs. To me that’s a decent thing to do and it takes away the thought that it could have been someone else as well with less decent intentions. Oh well maybe I should bring it to their attention, they might not be aware of the fact that people would appreciate that. I can’t be the only one right? Upon further investigation I found out soon that all of my candy and cookies where still there. Again, a little beaten up but all there and unopened. My fairy was still in one piece too and I don’t think anything else was/is  missing either. So hooray for that!!!

Facebook is an amazing medium that in many ways is very powerful. I could write up a list of all the ways and reasons why people use Facebook but that list would be endless and still incomplete, so lets not go there :P. Lets just stick with the reasons why I use Facebook, although that list can be stretched endlessly too if I want.

I use Facebook to play games on, I use Facebook to stay in contact with friends and family nearby as well as afar. I use Facebook to promote my cupcake workshop in the community center where I am a volunteer worker. I use Facebook to be silly, funny stupid and to get things off my mind. I use Facebook to share things, such as  pictures and little updates in life about myself with friends and family and whoever else is interested. I use Facebook to learn about others and read about whatever they wish to share with me. I think that little list will cover most of it so I will leave it at that.

I don’t like drama, not in my life and not on my Facebook, I’ve had enough bullshit (excuse my french) in my life to deal with all ready and I’m perfectly fine without it.

While I was in Venezuela on vacation, I got a friend request from my half sister. I have never met her in real life as far as I know and I have only seen pictures of her and her two sisters that I found when looking them up on Google. After accepting her friend request She asked on my timeline if I was her half sister and told that she had been looking for her brother and sisters for a long time and would like to get to know us. I saw no harm in answering it and did not think I would bother my brother by answering her because my sister in law, I noticed, also had her in her friend list (I did not look that up, just Facebook tells u if you have mutual friends and shows profile pics of them right on top of the Facebook page.)  I answered her question and replied to her post sharing with her some things I remembered as few as they are. We where both online at that time and we replied to each other time after time. She talked about her dad and I gave her a link to a post on my blog that I wrote where I posted some of my memories n thoughts about that part of my life. She still wanted to get to know me better. She’s not my dad and she’s not responsible for his actions or the lack of it and  I told her  that and that I would not refuse her because she’s his daughter.

At that point my brother posted on my timeline in a new post, attacking me about  the things I said, according to him, I romanticized things, was being theatrical as well in the Facebook conversation with my half sister as well as the blog post from months ago. He called me a liar without any explanation.  Told me he did not wanted me to write about him or be involved in it. He said it was wiser to not bother with them (my half sisters) because it might cause problems with their relationship with their dad.

My brother barely ever responds to the things on my Facebook, we are not that close and never really could get along well. I could come up with all sorts of reasons for that but that would make this story that’s already going to be long, a lot longer and honestly I would not know where to start :). As kids we where like fire and water and as a kid I did not expected that to change ever even when we where grown up, because well that’s because I was a kid. As an adult I think we should be able to restrain our self and talk with each other as adults. Accept each other for being different  and respect that we both have different opinions. So basically, agree to disagree.

Pffff this post is getting longer and longer, I like to keep it short and simple but I don’t want to be blamed to have left things out or that I did not explained things right later on while also trying to get my feelings and emotions across at the same time without losing myself in them. I’m gonna take a break, will post a follow up later on or tomorrow.

As far as those things that had upset me and that I needed to get my head straight about. I gave it some thought, I gave it a lot of thought. I thought about it when I was still in Venezuela, when I was on the plane here, when I arrived here and I am still thinking about it, yet I did managed to get things in my head straight enough to compose a post about it without letting my anger getting the best of me.

I don’t have the need to point at people just for the purpose to expose others, I just need to get it off my chest. Writing, I have learned, can be a very healing medium for me, composing a post about a subject in my head helps me to look at things from different perspectives. Other then a journalist who writes for a newspaper, I don’t need to be objective, as this is my personal blog, about me and my family and the things I like and want to write about. However, I do need to be correct, after all I am the one who has to answer to myself in the first place and further more I do not only write about myself but also about my family, like I said before. I have always liked writing, and have started in my life  many diaries, that I just was not competent enough for to keep at. At one point it even crossed my mind to become a journalist, I just never had the self esteem to go for it and it might just not have been the thing for me, so now I am just writing for myself and the very few that stumble upon my blog through a link I post on Facebook or by accidentally running into it after a Google search. Some of my posts are very long and too boring probably for other people anyway, and this might just be another one of them. And that is cool. Some posts I get reactions on and people post replies and that is cool too 🙂

This blog does not have many visitors, most of them are crawlers and spiders and bots from search engines. (They might actually be all the same thing, I dunno I’m not that much of a geek lol). The few visitors and readers that are actually people and read my posts, I hope I can present something valuable, something that can enrich their own life, in one way or the other, not necessarily because of what I write but because it may put them to thoughts that may help them to get the best out of them self. And what that is, only they truly know.

Getting tired so I will post a follow up tomorrow…