Monday, August 19

The one objective for today was to meet Jinny, Janie's high school friend who she hasn't seen since her marriage (49 years) and who lives about 1 1/2 hours from Soest and has been married to a Dutchman and living in the Netherlands for most of that time. We are meeting her and her husband in Houten at 6:00 for dinner. What to do before then? Again, we don't have a well-defined plan - just head down the road and  see what happens.

A little place called De Lage Vuursche is just down the road and it has a couple of boutique shops that attracted the attention of the girls. Once parked, we walk up one side of the two block commercial district and down the other side. In one of the shops, they learn that the prince who has been in a coma for the last 18 months and died last week, has been buried in the churchyard here. We decide we should walk over there. Its in the back of the cemetery with flowers covering an area the size of about 6 or 7 normal cemetery plots. There is a constant flow of people coming by to pay their respects. We walk around this small cemetery and see some very different burial plots: several looked like they were trying to be "green". The tombstone on one was a slab of slat with a branch propped against it and grass and large rocks placed on top of the grave. 

Back in the car we decide to drive to Houten and hope its a cute town where we can walk around and have a snack and coffee. While we are on the A27, the girls are bored and take pictures of themselves.

It only takes 30 minutes and Louise delivers us to the Hotel Houten  where we are to meet Jinny for dinner. Then Louise takes us to the center of town. The buildings in the center of town look very modern to us, reminding us of Reston, Va. or Columbia, Md. (planned communities from the 1960's). We pick an outdoor cafe and the girls go off looking for a sweetie. They return with apple pie slices and we order coffees to wash them down. 

Finally its close to 6:00, so we drive back to the hotel and wait in the lobby. At 6:00, a couple walks in and Janie recognizes her friend. If we didn't know that she was from Mississippi, we would have said she was Dutch who spoke very good English. She's been in the country for a long time.

This is an upscale hotel and restaurant with reasonable prices. We thought the dinner was going to break the bank, but not so. Each of us had a very nice meal. We were given menus in English. Linda had a carpaccio salad, and I had an oriental chicken and rice dish. It was all good. The conversation bounced around the round table with Jinny and Janie catching up and Linda and I talking to Andy, her husband, on things we had in common like sailing. It was an interesting 3 hour dinner.

We say goodbye and drive back to Soest in 1/2 hour. Linda rubs Janie's feet and then its time to bed. We have to be out of the house at 10:30 tomorrow to go running around with Jose and Hans - neighbors.