Saturday, June 28, 2014

Friday - This was a stay at home day, or at least no traveling. Linda attended the garden club party at Jose's house. Everyone rode bikes.  They started at Hans and Jose's garden. They have been working on it for years and its amazing how much can be placed into such a small place. It is built up and that allows a fountain to channel water down over rocks that Hans collects.

Then it was onto a house around the corner and a couple of blocks away. We had walked by this house with Joke and Kees on our way to visit John and Nel when we first arrived. This house has a large nail embedded in the facade of the house. When the couple was dating, he gave her a nail as a silly gift. So, when they built their house, the romantic fool had the nail placed there as a token of his love for her.

I passed the time by walking to de Lindehoff for coffee. It was a bit cool, so I found a couch inside in front of a gas fireplace. Cozy place to read. As I walked in I was greeted by Lana. She waited on us a few times during our first and second summers here. Lana is a teacher and moved to Australia for the last two years, but now she's back. It was nice to see her again.

Linda was finished with her party before I returned and went looking for me at all the places in town that we go for coffee except de Lindehoff. After some sax playing by Linda, we went out for a walk to find a music school we had been told about that might provide lessons. The sky was questionable but we headed out anyway without an umbrella. We cut through the community instead of going directly down to the main road. Along the way we saw a sign for an event on Saturday and Sunday in the fields in Soest that included a tractor pull, helicopter rides and a couple of other things. It sounded like a mini county fair. We may check it out. Down past the church at the roundabout and then stopped and asked for directions. After the second person, we turned around and found it right next to the church. It was closed but a sign gave us a website to checkout.

On our way back the rains came. We ducked under a roof at a bank and waited it out. Much like Florida, in five minutes, the torrential rains stopped and the sun came out.  Later, we had two interesting visitors. I went to the door and found Noor and her friend, Rosa, I think that's her name. Noor was holding a plastic basket full of cut up pieces of what looked like newspaper. I invited them in. Noor put the basket down on a chair and dug down and pulled out a small gift she had obviously wrapped herself. I called Linda down from upstairs and Noor gave her a gift too. I think mine was a bookmarker and Linda's was a small plastic round box. Linda decided it was perfect for her art eraser. We thanked them, they giggled and left. Cute.  

Saturday - Jose brought over her desktop size painting easel for Linda to use to hold her music. Linda practices in Kees' office on the third floor and needed something to hold her music at the right height. This worked perfectly. 

The day was cloudy but bright. So we took off aiming for the river. First stop was for me to have a coffee at the DLC (cafe by the train station). Linda had a fresh mint tea. Our waitress turned out to be an airline attendant and was chatty. She gave us a card with their website on it for us to check their specials. We looked at the menu for future reference. 

We walked through some of the Soest houses and encountered this car celebrating Dutch soccer.

A little farther down the road we came upon this house. It struck us as an example of the old and the new. 

This house looked so charming, we just had to take a picture.

After we passed the houses, we were in a farming area. What is this? It was in a horse pasture.

Down the paths that cars also use, we eventually turned to the right and walked parallel to the train tracks. We got close to the tracker pull and saw the helicopter overhead, but decided to head back. Alongside the road was an area that looked like a zoo for children. There were several swans in this pond.

We ended up walking past the house where Linda fell off her bike and broke her elbow in 2011. By the time we got back to our part of town we were hungry and decided to go back to the DLC and have lunch. With the same waitress, we both had carpaccio and I had a very tasty dark beer and Linda had a sparkling water.  We requested that they not put the parmesan cheese on the meat and please keep the wonderful looking freshly made olive bun away from us. We met the owner/chef who has her own garden and uses it to provide fresh ingredients for her dishes.  Linda really likes this idea.  We will go back.

We actually walked for an hour and a half then I came home and mowed the yard.

Linda started planning for a baby blanket for Brynleigh, Leigh Ann's baby in the tummy. I worked on a grid using Excel for her to get the proportions right and she started drawing a design. That took up the rest of the evening.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Wednesday - This was a rest day. We do alot of that - Linda on the sax and me reading. Linda went for a walk and then we walked down to town for an espresso and four really delicious truffels at Jon Mets Chocolate and Wine Cafe. A stop at Erko, our new organic grocery store - tomatoes, sprouts, avocados, and watercress - for dinner. Yes, Frank Adamson, I love watercress too. With that we prepared a light and healthy dinner followed by a Netflix movie - Serendipity. But, before the movie, Jose dropped by to invite Linda to a garden club garden tour on Friday. She also wanted to know how we enjoyed our Amsterdam Garden Tour on Sunday. After she left, Hans came by to suggest we visit Dordrecht. He convinced us.

Thursday - Today's mission was to take the train to Dordrecht. A little research at an Internet site for Netherland's trains and we were ready. It gave a complete story on how to get from Soest to Dordrecht and back again. Turns out its pretty simple: one leg to Utrecht, then to Rotterdam, and then, finally to Dordrecht in 1 1/2 hours. Since we have a special train card that we have loaded with a LOT of bucks, we just swipe at the start and the finish of the trip. It makes things real simple.

Once in Dordrecht, we follow the crowd to Centrum and find a cafe where we can sit outside and have an espresso pick-me-up. Hans had told us to walk around some and then take the boat tour of the city. So, we walked around some and then took the boat tour of the city. That worked out really well. While we were walking around, Linda did a little shopping and found a very Dutch scraf. We both liked it.

Walking down one of the main streets we came upon this perfect sign for my cat loving sister.

The boat tour took us all around the city to see the canals, lots of houses and lots of boats.

 

 







 During the boat tour, we saw a lovely hotel restaurant at the end of a point where one river joined another. We walked back over to it and had a carpaccio dish and a proscuitto salad, french fries, and a glass of wine each. One of the waterways led to Rotterdam, but since our waitress wasn't sure of her geography, we don't know which one it was. Most of the traffic was composed of barges.

It was good fun to see these tugs push two and three long barges around the curve into the other river. 

On the walk back to the train station, we happened by a chocolate cafe and could not pass it by. Nice espresso - I know, 2nd today - and some very nice truffles. We even bought some chocolate to take home. 

Linda found a music store and bought a book of Gershwin sax solo's. Practice, practice, practice.

When we returned to the train station, the train was ready to leave in about 5 minutes. The connections were all close and as easy as the morning travel. We were back home a little after 6:30 which left time for Linda to practice some more before we watched some silly TV.

 

June 24, 2014

Monday - Linda and I grew up with our mothers washing and cleaning on Mondays. I don't know why, it just was. Maybe for that reason, Linda announced on Sunday evening that the next day would be cleaning day. I took care of the vacuuming and she mopped, cleaned the bathrooms, and I helped with clothes washing. She walked and mailed a letter while I vacuumed and then she did the rest when she returned.

Since we had our exercise out of the way, I read and she practiced the sax. In the afternoon, we walked to the de Lindenhof for espresso and sparkling water. This is the closest and nicest spot for lounging. We bought some sprouts and watercress at Erko for a small dinner. We have discovered that watercress has all the nutrients you need to lead a healthy life. So, eat your watercress.

The event on TV this evening was the World Cup game with the Dutch and Chile. The first half was uneventful and looked to me like Chile had the momentum. That continued into part of the second half, when, all of a sudden, as these things happen, the Dutch scored with a pass and a header. Then, not too long after that as Chile was trying to get their act together, another Dutch score and that was that. This is three games in a row for The Netherlands team. They look very good to us. At the end of the game, we could hear Noor blowing her long orange plastic horn. Thank you Joke.

We ended the night with Netflix on the computer - Madison Park.

Tuesday - For the past three years we have driven over to Muiderslot (castle) and every year we arrived too late to take the tour. We were determined to get there on time this year and today was the day. A short drive without using the GPS and we were at this very traditional castle. It looks just like a kid would want a castle to look. It is square, with matching towers at each corner, and it has a moat and drawbridge. When we purchased our tickets we were assigned a guided tour time (in Dutch) an hour and a half away. We decided to guide ourselves.

As we were entering, we came upon a young lady dressed in a 1700's-looking dress. We asked her why she was dressed like that. It was her wedding dress. We eventually met her fiancé who was also dressed in period garb. They are getting married tomorrow and are having their pictures taken today, so at the end of the ceremony, everyone can go right to the reception without delay. We thought that was an excellent idea.


Inside and outside of the tower. On the ramparts there were plenty of places to shoot arrows. There was also a game set up for kids to see how good they were at tossing  stone balls onto invading troops. We tried our hand at it and discovered we weren't very good.











After climbing up one of the towers and looking in rooms along the way and walking the ramparts, we came back down and watched a falconer show off falcons and owls to a group of children. The falcons were beautiful and the owls looked much larger than I expected an owl to be.

Up against one of the inside walls we came upon this cute little hut. It looks like it should be in the middle of the forest waiting for Hansel and Gretel to show up.

Guarding the drawbridge.

By this time it was after 2:00 and we walked into town and had espresso and sparkling water beside a water lock and watched the boats come and go and be lifted up and down. It reminded us of our two tours driving our chartered boats on French canals. One of the boats that came by was a Le Boat like our French boats. The young people driving it had a bit of trouble getting it into the lock.

The inside of the tavern that we were being served from reminded me of an English pub. I talked to the bartender. He told me it was very old. He also said the fort was originally built to guard and collect tolls not for Amsterdam but, Utrecht. In the 1500's, that was where the bishop and many of the people lived. Many more than Amsterdam. I quizzed him about his liquors. He showed me some of the Dutch alcohol and let me taste one. A little sweet, but very nice. I only remember two of the names. One was Ketel 1 - a jenever. Another one was Rutte & ZN. The only reason I remember those is that they happen to be in our freezer.

We found our way back home using some of the back roads instead of A1. Just as we got inside the house it started raining for 15 minutes. Perfect timing.

Linda prepared a hamburger dish and almost made a BIG mistake with a yellow curry from a local Chinese shop. She put just a little in the frying pan and that's all we needed.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Saturday - This morning we watched Duco play what we would call Little League baseball. The kids were 7 to 12. Duco's team is named the Knickerbockers and they all seemed small compared to the other team. Duco started at catcher then was moved to center field and finally to 2nd base. He scored a run and tagged a runner out at home while he was playing catcher. His run was originally ruled an out but later the pitcher who tried to tag him out at home admitted he didn't actually touch Duco. Duco was happy with that.

The tactic for these games seems to be: get on base and then steal a base on each pitch. The kids seem to know a lot about general baseball tactics but lack the skills to perform. They need to continue working on throwing and catching. But, they're just beginning and every time they are on the field they are learning so much. At this age they play for 1 1/2 hours. When time is up, they finish the inning and stop. A good thing to do on a cool Saturday morning.

After Liesbeth drove us home, Linda practiced her sax for a couple of hours. Normal routine.

Then, after a little snack standing at the kitchen sink - elegant huh? - we walked down town to a flea market called an "outlet". Lots of vendors lining both sides of the main street for about 2 long blocks. In the middle of checking all of this out, we stopped for an espresso and a wine for Linda. She doesn't like to drink so much coffee, so she's going to become a wino.

Once we had passed by every table at least once, we stopped by the Batavia for dinner. This place is an Indonesian take-out place where you have them build a dinner from a buffet-like counter. We had stuff like chicken satay, meatballs, cabbage, broccoli, sprouts and spicy green beans. When we got home, Liesbeth invited Linda over to play duets. They enjoyed themselves for about an hour.

After we ate our take-out dinner, we drove over to the Cabrio amphitheater in the woods on the south side of Soest to hear a jazz concert. We had done this in 2011 when we were first over here and decided it was time to do it again. The first act was called The Locals and they were the local group: three saxophones, drums, bass, and an organ. We thought that was different. Instead of a piano like brother Alan's group uses, it was a Hammond organ. Different.

After about an hour of The Locals, and a 30 minute break, the starring group came on with the same lineup of instruments plus a xylophone. The group is called Casey's Tenor Madness or not. Its hard to figure out these kinds of things when you don't speak the language. I'm listing the seven names in the event one of the musicians in the family recognizes them: Cees Schrama, Hans Dulfer, Alexander Beets, Boris Van Der Lek, Erick Barkman, Gus Dukhuizen and Lodewijk Bouwens. One of them is a famous sax player from Holland.

There were a lot of high notes and long notes, but they finally got around to playing actual songs that we recognized. It was a good time.

Sunday - How do you spend a sunny, low humidity, day in the mid-60's in Holland. One option is to go on a garden tour in Amsterdam. Yesterday, Jose, our neighbor, told us about a garden tour in Amsterdam this weekend. It's a once a year event. Twenty-nine private homes and some hotels and museums open their gardens to the public. This gives us a chance to see what is behind some of those beautiful homes mainly in the Jordaan neighborhood.

We took the train into town. During the 55 minute ride, at one stop I watched a small, older white-hired woman with a baseball cap and a medium size suitcase, hop on and pull the suitcase up onto the floor of the train car without any effort. Here was a woman who presented herself has independent and confident. Good to see. Once at the Amsterdam Centraal station we walked over to the Pultizer Hotel where we thought was the place to buy tickets. Nope. They sent us back a few blocks from where we came.

For the price of 15 euros apiece, we were each given a pamphlet that showed a map of the location of all the gardens, a brief description of each (in Dutch and English), and a grid for each place to stamp our pamphlet to show we had entered. Amnesty International was where we purchased the tickets. It had a large garden to tour to get us started. It had three sections and was a good start for our tour.

During the next 3 1/2 hours we wandered up and down several canals and visited eleven gardens. Some were large with sculptured hedges, statues, and arbors. Others were made up of herbs and vegetables and looked more "wild". Many of the places offered drinks and pastries, but we stuck to our water. One of the nice attractions during the afternoon was the large of number of short skirts among us. We went to Oscar Hammerstein's house. At the front door they had a book about him for sale. I asked them what the connection was and I was told he lived there. Oops. This is a lawyer, not the guy who wrote musicals with Richard Rogers. The young guys at the door had no idea who I was thinking of. Another house belonged to the Lord Mayor of Amsterdam. At the front door was a large portrait of the beautiful couple.

This picture below shows a typical row of houses along a canal. Its hard to see because of the lighting, but many of them are leaning. Most blocks have at least one building that is leaning. We saw one that had a large tapered wedge inserted between two houses.

This is Bill in one of the last gardens - The Waldorf-Astoria of Amsterdam. He's tired and ready to drink and eat. Which one is the flower?

The tour closed at 5:00 and we were ready to quit anyway, so it was not a problem. Walking a few blocks and before hitting a heavy tourist area, we found a corner cafe with outside seating with a view of a canal. I ordered chicken satay and a glass of red wine. It was served on a small board. The frites came with mayonnaise. Linda had a steak salad with a Presecco. There was steady traffic, on foot, on bicycles, and cars. We saw one young couple skate boarding down the street pulling a suitcase behind them. At one point a car pulled onto the one-way street beside us and the canal and then backed up across the busy four lane street so he didn't have to drive around the block. That took nerve. Was he an experienced native or just crazy? When we first sat down, there was an American couple with their grown daughter sitting next to us. After they left a Canadian family sat down. So, we were hearing English for a change.

I wanted an espresso after the meal but Linda said we should wait and have it on our way back to the train station. We had to walk a few blocks to find the tram stop and when we did, there was a nice floating cafe across the canal.  It made for an interesting place to watch the boat traffic and drink coffee. When we were done it was almost seven but the sun was still high in the sky. Sunset is just after ten in June.

We took the tram back to the station and caught our train to Baarn. At Baarn we transferred to the train going to Utrecht and arrived home at the first stop.

A little TV - I found the Austrian Grand Prix and watched Louis Hamilton come in second.

And that was the end of a busy, for us, and delightful weekend in Holland.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

This is the year for the World Cup and we feel its necessary to watch games that the Dutch team play. So far, so good: they have won their first two games.

We're getting closer to the two children who live next door - Noor and Duco. Duco who is ten is learning English and is very eager. We Skype with him a little. Liesbeth, their mother, plays the piano and sings in several groups. She and Linda are picking out music that they can play together. Peter, the husband, and I are eagerly awaiting the recital.

On Thursday, we drove to Nijmegen, close to Arnhem. We were invited to come for a visit by Stan and Karin, friends of Joke. Nice people with a beautiful house and a large blooming garden. They were both very easy to talk to and welcoming. Lunch was served on their glassed-in patio with a panoramic view of their beautiful garden. Stan plays the trombone and built himself a basement studio where his group comes over each week and plays. The basement was constructed after the house was built so it is actually under the side patio, not under the house itself. Clever. For 20 years, Stan has conducted a group at the annual "vierdaagse" which is a festival that people spend 4 days walking 40 kms per day to get to. We think it has religious origins. This year will be his first where he will just be listening and not participating. We are thinking about going to the last day to hear the concert. There will not be any walking 40 kms.

They did a very nice job of showing us the countryside which is, get this - hills. Across the Rhine, you can see German mountains. This is the area portrayed in the film "A Bridge Too Far". There was very heavy fighting in this area during WWII.

The town is on the Rhine. Roman ruins are mixed with those from the Middle Ages. You read the names of Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa and Charles Martel. This is where these people really lived. We walked around the inside of a chapel that was part of the castle complex here on the hights overlooking the river. A docent showed us the part of the walls that were Roman and then the later parts that had been added by the Germanic kings.

Here is one of the ruins. Beside this they will be reconstructing the tower in the next 3 years.

We walked across the road and up to the Belevedere Hotel which is an ancient looking tower and was originally created to be a men's club. Its a great place to have a drink and look out over the river. Below is the city's crest in flowers.

Next, we walked through the cathedral. Originally a Roman Catholic cathedral but it was stripped of stained glass windows and fancy wall coverings during the Reformation. As is usual in cathedrals, nobels are buried in the floor. Stan told us that many times the lids did not fit completely so, they called this part the "nobel stinkers".

We ended our tour of the town at the Blue Hen - the oldest pub in the country. Good local beer (Rosie Flip Top or something like that) and sausage. We're feeling more and more European by the minute. Now, if we could just speak the language, we'd be in.

It tastes really good. Stan had a second, so I did too.

It was a lovely day in a part of Holland that we had only visited once before. And, Karin sent us away with a jar of homemade berry jam. I tested it and it tastes wonderful.

June 16, 2014

Monday, June 16, 2014

We're back in The Netherlands and finally over our jet lag. We will be here all summer, returning to the States on September 5th. For the first time of the 4 years that we have come over, we came straight here to our little town of Soest without stopping somewhere else first. And, we will be going straight home when we leave. Our plan is to have a boring time here and not do much. There are a few exceptions planned: Lynda and Frank Adamson will arrive on July 29 for a couple of weeks and we'll drive to Hamburg Germany and also explore the area around Bingen where St. Hilldegard lived; later in August two women from Anna Maria Island are coming for a few days and then Linda will leave with them and the three will drive to a cabin near Marseilles, France. Linda will fly back a few days before we leave for home.

Because I don't expect to be able to say anything worthwhile every day, I will be posting only when something comes up worth commenting on. I'm sure you don't want me to tell how many chapters of my book I read each day.

Having said all that, there are a few things to report for our first five days. Because we didn't have enough British Air frequent traveler miles to get a discount this year, we booked on a Dutch airline called Arkefly. We had returned from Holland on one of their planes previously and it was just fine. There is good news and bad news about this airline. The good news is its a direct fly (almost), the bad news is it flies in and out of Orlando. So, we rented a car and drove three hours over to Orlando Sanford Airport - nice little airport. We flew down to Miami and unloaded and picked up new passengers and then it was straight to Amsterdam. We had a aisle and window seats. Nine hours from Miami.

As you know Linda is learning to play the sax and wanted to practice during our trip. Instead of bringing her sax with her, she found a shop in Muidenberg (about 30 minutes from the house) where she could rent one for a couple of months. Kees, our host, stopped by the shop on our way home from the airport on Wednesday. It was amazing to see a small shop solely dedicated to selling, repairing, and renting saxophones in such a small town. The owner was very welcoming and picked a nice b flat instrument for her. So, we arrived at the house with her instrument and she was ready to go practice.

The afternoon was spent visiting, eating a little, and trying to stay up as long as we could. The next day Kees took us over to a place called Kinderdyke. Yes - that's the children's dyke. Its a series of dykes and 19 old fashioned windmills that pump water in a two stage method. We walked up and down the dykes and watched a short film where they told us 3 different versions of how the place got its name. It turns out no one really knows.

On Friday, we were up early to take Kees and Joke to the airport. Later in the day, after Linda practiced her horn, we walked downtown and sat outside at Jon Metz's chocolate, wine, and coffee shop. I had an espresso and Linda had a glass of wine. They sell Leonides chocolate from Belgium. Yum, very good. We, of course, bought some.

From time to time little problems arise when you're traveling. Even though I had visited a Verizon store before we left and signed up for their international plans, my iPhone was not seeing the local mobile network when we arrived. I called the helpline and found that my phone and Linda's had been set up incorrectly. After about 5 minutes, the rep was able to fix it and we were operational with the correct plans.

Another problem was Linda's Nook. While we were on the plane, it decided to reboot and load an update to the software. After that she couldn't locate any of her stored books. After we arrived at the house with its Wifi network, I was able to use the computer to log onto the Barnes & Noble site and then log her Nook on and restore her library. Just a few glitches but all handled using our modern tools. Yeah for computers and the Internet.

On Saturday, we were invited over to Jose and Han's house, just a few doors down the street, for coffee in the afternoon. They take good care of us. We have toured several places with them in the past and they want to take us to Haarlem on the train in the next week or two. They can't do it right away because they are babysitting a cute little fat dog for the next week or so.

We found ourselves sleeping a lot. There are little birds that sing all day and into the night. The sun doesn't go down until about 10:00 so its hard to realize when to go to bed. Sunday was a very slow day, but we were finally able to get ourselves over to the park about 1:00 for a small festival of entertainers and a few food items. We met a young lady who rents out her small apartment in the middle of Amsterdam on Airbnb. She told us her mother was singing with a group over at the restored windmill and we could take the horse drawn wagon over there. So we did. On the way over there was a commentary on the history of the area - in Dutch. When we arrived at the windmill, the singing was over but we accidentally met the mother of the young lady we had talked to at the festival. She gave us details on how to contact her daughter directly to rent her apartment which is: elenoor.meijer@hotmail.com. It was such a pretty day - temperature in the 60's and blue sky - that we walked back to the house.

Be back in touch when something happens.