We have a nice and full week and we can't manage that with one car. That's mainly because Marinthe has a different schedule at the tennis school with two appointments at the physio, and Toine is on the road two days before Jack's boats. Luckily in this case we can use Jack's car as a second car. By the way, it's 'quite normal' here to have more than one car per family. It's even 'quite normal' to have three or four cars on the driveway, also for the children. We try to do it as long as possible with one car and otherwise just get on the bike a bit more often (Mira to fitness and english class). Which, by the way, almost nobody does and is not harmless here in traffic.
This week the driving schedule is quite exceptional and we spend a lot of hours in the car, but strangely enough it doesn't feel like a lot of driving at all. Certainly not if we divide it up and also the girls drive when we're next to it. Besides that, the driving itself is very varied with many different roads, nice neighbourhoods we drive through, almost always nice weather and occasional slower driving but no traffic jams. Except on Wednesdays, when the pickup and drop off comes down entirely to Mira, then at the end of the day I've had enough of that car 😂.
Besides driving, the week is filled with fun activities. Mira starts with the english class and that's great! Every day between 11.30 and 13.45 hours in a group of 12 people in which I am the only Dutch among all other Brazilians. Especially women and two men, all with school children and also some of the same age as our girls. All Brazilians follow this course to learn english via an F1 visa to have a residence status in the US for themselves and their family. The total visa period can take up to 4 years and most of them have been here for more than 1 or 2 years. By the way, there are obligations because they have to be present 1.5 hours earlier in addition to the group class for independent study in the 'lab'. All presence is carefully checked and not being present without good reason has immediate consequences for the residence status.
Why all Brazilians, I wonder? Well, there seems to be a fairly large Brazilian community in Boca Raton. They are nice people who are immediately nice to me. Besides learning more of the english language every day, I am also immediately in a nice social group. In class we regularly talk about everyone's background and also about different social themes. The other free hours are filled with sports at the fitness centre (on Thursdays even to the class of 7.30 am 😉) and making the website for the Hallberg-Rassy Connection with an occasional skype appointment for tuning in.
On Wednesday Toine goes all day to Fort Lauderdale for the 'seatrial' of the motorboat on which Jack has made an offer. He embarks for a day with an experienced skipper and three experts who check the boat on all sorts of aspects. They sail from the harbour in Fort Lauderdale to the sea for an hour, up and back again. A very instructive day!
And Thursday afternoon together with Marinthe back to Fort Lauderdale (with the Uber taxi) to pick up Jack's sailboat which had been there for a week for maintenance. Pretty exciting if all this is going well because on the way there the engine soon turned off. Fortunately everything is going well! They sail back home in 3 hours, past a large cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale, through 8 bridges which all open just in time. At 7 pm they moor in the dark and the boat is back home again familiar behind the house.
Marinthe has an appointment at the physio on Monday and Friday at noon and Toine goes there with her. She is making good progress and the physio is very satisfied. She notices that herself, because on Friday she can play a full hour of tennis without pain for the first time. Next week she will also be allowed to play tennis in the afternoon. Besides that she can continue with muscle exercises and cycling in the fitness hour and the recovery lesson, and then she can go to the tennis school until 17.00. On Thursday she has the last fifteen minutes of lessons from Chrissy Evert herself. That's very special.
Eline has a full week with 1.5 to 2.5 hours of sports every day. On Monday, Tuesday and Friday lacrosse and on Wednesday and Thursday swimming. Wednesday she swims for the last time in Deerfield Beach (she won't continue with that in any case, because too few peers) and Thursday for the first time with her school's swim team (and she likes that very much). Will it be swimming or lacrosse? She will make that choice at the end of next week after first trying out whether swimming is still as much fun after going swimming every day next week. In both cases it is a lot of work to train 5 times a week for 2 to 2.5 hours, so it is important that both the sport and the group are fun.
At school, there is still something new every day. She is still getting to know new people and expanding existing contacts. They interview her for an article in the 'yearbookYeah, she's in high school life and she enjoys it a lot. I recognize a lot of things that I experienced myself in 1981/1982 when I was at school. Briarcliff Manor High School sat. Very nice!
No wonder she's dead on Friday night, with tired muscles. Meanwhile both girls are doing daily stretching exercises 👍👍.
After such a busy week, the weekend really feels like a weekend. Toine works on the boat and installs beautiful new batteries of the American brand Lifeline. They are more than half cheaper here than in the Netherlands and have more capacity. The old ones aren't good anymore (takes too long to charge them). The battery house is getting a lot simpler, we now only have 4 large batteries instead of 10 smaller ones. A second job is giving the dinghy engine a winter service. We barely used it this year and it's a tough job to get the lock open.
Mira goes shopping with the girls on Saturday. In the morning with Eline to the big shopping mall of Boca Raton. A nice mall with a lot of shops and especially in Macy's we succeed well for clothes. In the afternoon with Marinthe. The girls drive themselves and that is immediately a good exercise.
On Saturday evening the four of us are going to Deerfield Beach for the 21.30 film. Murder on the Orient Express ... a beautiful film with a good cast and beautiful images. It is a very small room with few chairs and the chairs themselves are large and comfortable.
On Sunday afternoon Harrie and Lily come to visit and stay for dinner. We know Harrie from the sportswear shop and the help he gave us to get Eline into Boca Raton High School. Lily is his daughter of almost 16 years old. It is a very pleasant afternoon and evening with nice conversations. Harrie has lived in Boca for almost 20 years and can tell us a lot about life here.
The surroundings are becoming more and more Christmassy. Many houses are nicely decorated with lots of lights. But also public areas and residential areas with palm trees are full of lights. In the Netherlands it looks a bit kitschy, but here it is in the streets with all the palm trees. Especially the garden of the neighbours is very beautiful.
