Roos and I married yesterday! We had an excellent day, and we're still
trying to remember all the great things that have happened. We had a cool
ceremony at town hall in Leiden, with family and friends present. Among them
were Joost, Robert, Kaz and Mary. It was so cool to have Rusties there to
share this moment with us. The foreign Rusties were mentioned in the
speech by the civil servant, welcoming them to the country and to the
ceremony.

At the party after the official ceremony, Roos and I cut the cake, drank
some champagne and everybody could come and congratulate us.

After a while, the Rusties there came to me and said they had a special
present for us. Joost gave us a short introduction to the present and said
it would be nice if we open it right there. Of course we did, and it turned
out to be a beautiful, custom-made painting made by Mazzeo! It's called
"Love Is A Rose", and features not only a rose, but also a heart (love),
and plenty of Mazzeo's trademark bird, mountains, sea, pyramid and cacti. As
you would have guessed, "Roos" literally means "rose". I was simply stunned
when I saw the painting, it's so beautiful!

Joost told me that a number of Rusties have chipped in to get the painting
made, and I would like to thank all of them here! Thank you all, you know
who you are.

I understood from Joost that there will be prints made of this painting.
Joost, could you explain the details about this? We have forgotten the
specifics of it during last night's party :)

After this reception we had dinner and finally ended the night with a party,
showing off our disco moves :) It was good to see more Rusties there,
Cornell, and Mario and his wife Rita. Thanks for coming!

Thank you all, we appreciate all the kind e-mails we have received in the
past few weeks. Pictures will come later, we're leaving for west-coast USA
tomorrow!

Thanks again,

--
Roel - rdvdijk@...
"Obviously Doing Well, I'm A Married Man"

PS pictures will come later, I promise!