Thursday, August, 28 - Friday, August 29, 2014

Thursday - Slow day. Frank, Kees' son, came by with a friend to move out all of the stuff he was storing in the kitchen and the garage: boxes and flooring for his house in Hillversum. 

That was about it. I went for a walk this afternoon to see the chickens at the farm a few blocks away and watched a lot of Netflix. I have rediscovered House of Cards with Kevin Spacey. Its all about Washington, D.C. Pretty good.

Friday - Another slow day - I don't have anything planned. That's a nice thing for a few days, but I'm getting a little tired of this and ready for my wife to return. Still a few days to go.

I thought I might go for a bike ride. I even put on shorts. But, it never got quite warm enough, so, that didn't happen.

On my BBC2 history program, they are in Norwich, just north of Cambridgeshire, and the home of Coleman's mustard. I grew up with Coleman's dry mustard that you had to mix with water to make a paste for dressing pork chops. I can't remember using it for anything else. On the program, the guide, Michael Portillo, is told that the ready-mixed product in jars was only made available in the 1960's. Wow!! that dates you. But, maybe I'm old fashioned, I still like the powdered version and you can still get it. Yes, I am old-fashioned.

Linda, in France, drove with Joy to Port Frejus to visit our friend: Chantal. She has a beautiful condo that looks out on the Mediterranean with an expensive marina in the foreground. We stayed there for a week, a few years ago and it was great.

Chantal and Linda on the sofa. Chantal was born on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and worked as a translator, among other things, in Washington, D.C. She used to spend some of the year at her condo at Riverside where ours is. Now she spends all of her time in France near her children.

Lunch on the French Rivera with Joy, Linda, and Chantal. This is called living. Yeah for them.

Tuesday, August 26 - Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Tuesday - It was a rainy looking day. Not a rainy day. It never actually rained, but looked like it would. I stayed in most of the day but did walk downtown for some grocery shopping. Lots of TV and Netflix. I guess this is what old bachelors do?

Wednesday - Today started bright and sunny and stayed like that. I waited until about 12:00 and then headed out. I thought a train ride to Utrecht for lunch would be a good idea. It was. 

When I arrived, its a really big station, I walked out the wrong side. Therefore, when I exited it, I had to walk all the way around on the outside to get headed in the right direction. The right direction is toward the old cathedral. I walked around a lot of construction and finally got to the main square where it was market day. Just off that square, I found a nice little alley-way and stopped for a Montepulciano and a shrimp salad. Just right for a still, nice day. 

I walked back to the station in the most direct way and came back to Soest. Lana, our contact with de Lindenhof is leaving tomorrow, so I stopped by to see her and have an espresso. She is leaving for Greece tomorrow for a holiday and we will be gone when she returns. We chatted and she gave me my espresso for free. Nice. 

Back to the house, I mowed the lawn. Liesbeth came by to say hi and maybe we can get together this weekend. 

Most evenings I watch a BBC 2 program about the history of the railroads in Great Britain. He uses a travel guide by a guy who wrote during the Victorian era. Its very interesting to see how the railroads affected Brit communities. This episode was about Newmarket - a place where our friends Jill and Jim used to live. He told about how it was a very posh place to go in Victorian times. It was originally just a place for the wealthy to go to watch the horse races. They wanted to keep it that way until they decided they could make more money if they let the "lower classes" in. And the railroads facilitated that. The host stayed in the Rutland Arms Hotel - I'm sure Jill and Jim know where that is. I think we may have eaten a dinner at that hotel. The special thing about Newmarket is that the grass has not been touched since the 16th century.

Later, I got some pictures from Linda from the south of France.

It looks like Claude is trying to train Joy on how to row a boat. That is probably not what is happening.

Claude and Pierre.

Claude and Pierre's house just outside of Gordes has four different places around the grounds to sit, eat and drink. Here's one of them with Joy and Diane getting used to one of them. Life is good.

Joy's place is in a place called Riboux. That's all I really know.

And looks like this from the outside.

And here's the living room and Linda's bedroom.

Here's two girls who are obviously having a good time. 

And then here is the hostess doing just fine.






This is called a compact and efficient kitchen. You don't have to walk back and forth to get things. Joy calls it a "one butt" kitchen.

A nice little cottage on top of the mountain. They can see the Mediterranean from the house. That's got to be good.

Sunday, August 24 - Monday, August 25, 2014

Sunday - I was abandoned by my women today. All three of them were packed and out of the house before 10:00. I didn't think they could do it. Everything packed into Joy's car and off they went.

At 11:00 I walked over to have coffee with Margaret and Andi. They wanted to have us both over, but waited too long. So, it was just me. We had a nice visit talking about all the normal things: the weather, kids, and grand kids.

Later, I walked down to Albert Hijn and bought a few things and then it was inside for the rest of the rainy day. It has been raining every day for most of the day for the last week.

Linda called and reported they had arrived in Dijon, France, at their budget hotel.

Each had a basic room that was just fine for a one night stay. En-suite bath.

Diane drinking. I'm sure she was not doing it by herself.

Here is a person making mustard. It is Dijon.

Monday - Our architect friends: David and Johnny, who live in London wanted to meet for lunch in Antwerp. They are staying with David's brother, Rob and his wife Barbra near Brussels. Rob is a Navy pilot who is assigned to NATO.

We met at the Grote Mrkt. Rob was not able to come because of work. You know, after I retired I came to understand just how much work gets in the way of having fun. Anyway, Barbara came and brought Fala: a beautiful pure white German Shepard who is not yet one year old. Still a puppy. 

Lunch was under an umbrella in front of the Stadhaus on the square. A beautiful setting. Rob and Barbara have 4 teenagers - I think 3 from his previous marriage and one from hers. One just started college, but that still leaves 3 in the house.

Everyone had a fish dish, mine was mussels. I always need to have mussels when I'm in Belgium. There is a good place on 8th Street, SE, in Washington, D.C. named Belga's that serves Belgium mussels that are very good too.

After we parted, I walked round the corner and purchased some chocolates made by the shop. What do you do in Belgium - eat mussels and chocolate. Yes!!

I had a little problem getting out of town. There was construction on one of the streets that the Garmin wanted me to take. But, she rerouted me and then I missed a turn and took the wrong ramp onto a highway and had to go over 4 kms out of my way in heavy traffic. Then it was clear sailing until I got near Utrecht and stopped on the A27. After about 20 minutes, I was able to move over and exit onto the A28 and come into Soest from another direction. So, a 1 1/2 hour trip took almost 4 hours. I was tired. It rained the entire time.

A vodka and some Netflix shows: Weeds, Mad Men, and Orange is the new Black, filled out the evening.

Saturday, August, 23

Saturday - It was time to introduce our visitors to Amsterdam. We took the train down to the city. 

We started the tour with a one hour canal tour of the harbor and some of the canals of the city. It is always a good introduction to the ships in the harbor, the leaning houses along various canals, and the people and bikes traveling up and down the streets. Once off the boat, it was catch the #5 tram and get out to the Rijksmuseum. Before touring the museum, we took them over to the Hanse and Gretel cafe that we had found a few weeks ago with Lynda and Frank. It was crowded and the weather was cool and threatening, so we went inside where it was crowded. But, there were 4 spaces at the bar and that turned out to be just right for us. Even when, later, they offered us a table, we stayed put. 

After lunch, we got the girls into the museum and Linda and I hung out at the museum's cafe. After the tour and visiting the gift shop, we started a stroll down toward the Dam. Lots of shops and people to watch. We ended up at the Dam, turned right and came upon the smallest bar in Amsterdam - which was one of our objectives.

The deal here is to have a shot of Jenever (Dutch gin) and a beer. You need to chug the gin and then drink the beer. Joy and I got right to it. Linda didn't participate and Diane didn't want to but finally got talked into it.

We had fitted ourselves onto four stools right at the front window. It turned out the owner and a Brit from the Manchester area were sitting there. A natural conversation started and Diane got friendly with the owner.

Or maybe it was that the owner got friendly with Diane. Who knows? Anyway, we all had a great 20 minutes of diversion.

Then it was off to get some Belgian chocolates and some weed. All of the above accomplished.

You go into one of these coffee houses and even if you don't buy anything, the second hand smoke will get you.

A slow walk through the Red Light district with all of the curtains closed - too early, and then down to the train station and back to Soest.

So, that's Amsterdam.

Thursday, August 21 - Friday, August 22, 2014

Thursday - OK, so its been a few days - we've been busy.

Today was mostly resting and staying around town. Its market day in Soest. So, off to town the girls go and I meet them at The Proef for espressos and other coffees. Diane keeps asking for caramel lattes, but that's not happening.

The weather was iffy: clouds and intermittent rain. Back at the house, Joy and Diane wanted to ride bikes. We found two of the four that could be adjusted to fit and off they went. Within 30 minutes, they were back - drenched. It poured most of the time they were riding. Dutch weather you know. They looked like drowned rats.

Later, the girls went shopping and came back with fish. Drinks and vodka and wine works.

Raw herring and paling (eel). This is very Dutch.


That was day one. We'll do better tomorrow.



Friday - We had talked about Giethoorn, a town north of us with mostly canals and walkways with no driving of cars in the town. We drive for about 1 1/2  hours and with Linda's help and her iPhone's GPS we ended up at the exact place where Kees and Joke took us in 2011. The rain was threatening and there were not very many people around, but we persisted and got onboard the rented an electric motorized boat. This was the plan and we were going to do it.

There were no crowds, so the only boats on the canal were the guided tour boats. 

There are beautiful homes along the way in addition to some shops and restaurants. Its a great looking little town.

The girls seemed to like the view.

Lovely lawns and ducks.

On the way to the restaurant we were out on the open water. Its some kind of lake, but we don't know a name.




We docked the boat as the rain was starting and scooted into the restaurant.

As we ate, this was the scene. Not encouraging. During lunch the waitress told us that the town was boggy and the canals were dug out of the peat that had formed. During that digging, they found goat bones. That's where the name came from. Geit = goat, I think.

We ate slowly and waited, but the rain continued. Eventually, it seemed to let up and off we went.

Umbrellas up and the little electric motor turned up to full power. Instead of continuing on the open water in the one-way direction that we were supposed to go, we decided because of the weather, we could go the wrong, protected way up the canal. That worked except when we met a tour boat. At that point, I had to stop, back up and sometimes turn a bit to let him pass. But, no one yelled at us. After a half hour of constant rain, we arrived back at our rental spot where there was a restaurant that we could dry out and have a coffee. The nice guy didn't charge us for being a 1/2 hour late. It was wet, but great.

An 1 1/2 hour drive back to the house and we were in for the night.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Wednesday - This was arrival day for the "girls": Diane and Joy. We got up a little earlier than we're used to and picked up Diane at Schipol Airport. On our way to the airport we found this rainbow on the A9. A product of the rains.

Her flight was right on time and since we're getting pretty good at estimating the time it takes to come through customs, we didn't need to wait more than 20 minutes for her to emerge.

She had taken Ambien for the flight. When she walked into the Arrivals Hall she was a zombie. She told us the crew had to wake her up to get her off the plane. 

Linda stood her up in front of the main terminal to get her welcome pose.

We took her home and put her to bed. She slept for 5 hours. Once she got up she seemed to be in pretty good shape.

While we waited for Joy to arrive and Diane to wake up, I drove downtown to buy some groceries and then drove on to Muidenberg to return Linda's rented saxophone. All done without the Garmin. More and more, we are divorcing ourselves of that crutch and driving around "naked". So far, so good. The nice thing is that if we need it, we can pull it out and tell it to take us "home".

Shortly before Joy arrived, Diane awoke and the drinking and the Internet surfing began. I guess its a sign of the times but when people come to visit, within the first hour they want to know how to connect to the network.

Joy pulled up at 5:30 and was ready for a glass of wine. Her drive up from Metz, France, (where she spent the night) took longer than she expected. She spent some time "touring" Belgium. But, she was coherent and we all started to "catch up", even me.

Dinner was one of our staples from van Ash (the butcher): chicken breasts wrapped in bacon with a nice sauce on it, a salad, broccoli, and leftover rice. And, of course, processco and red wine. Both women brought me bottles of vodka - so we're good.

Joy and Diane getting ready to eat.

After dinner, the women walked over to the windmill through the corn field and then circled around on the main street to return. 

On the way over to the cornfield there is a tunnel that takes you under a main road. They found these "artists" working and were allowed to take a picture.

On the way back, they found this other art work of a Shepard and his sheep.

We showed them some of the TV shows that are available here and then it was time for bed.

Tuesday, August 19 , 2014

Tuesday - Hans and Jose (neighbors) invited us to go to Haarlem today. As these things go, we start with coffee. I think that is a very Dutch thing to do. We had to turn down the pastry because of the gluten and dairy. While we were explaining our dietary requirements to Jose it came out that she had planned to feed us a quiche for dinner. She always goes to great lengths to get everything right for us and our revelations were messing her up. We didn't realize that the day would end at their place for dinner but, she and Linda eventually worked out a plan.

It was a cloudy, rainy day and we decided to drive Kees' car instead of taking the train. There was a specific walking tour of old houses, churches, and museums that Hans had found and it started at the train station. After an initial pass and a loop back we found a parking garage across the street from the station. The problem was that the parking spaces were small which made it difficult to pull the car in. After try to wedge the car into one and deciding to look for a better location, I found one I could just pull straight into. Don't want to scratch or dent Kees' car.

We start down the streets and find two or three interesting buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. We found a door with a plaque on it. 

Opening it, we walked down an open air alley into a beautiful courtyard surrounded by former nun's apartments and later converted into an alms houses. Now, I believe, its private residences that probably are a little pricey.

The small fountain was the centerpiece of the garden but beautiful plants and bushes surrounded it. What an oasis.

Dodging rain storms, in and out of doorways, we made our way toward the center of town down one of the canals. 

At the Grote Markt, we stood under a tree for a few minutes and then ducked into St. Bravo's Great Church. 

I'm not really that fat - I was protecting my camera.

This inside of the church is soaring as a cathedral should be. The ceiling is wood and makes a nice contrast with all of the stone. Construction of the present church started in 1347. Who knows who St. Bravo was but he died in 653. 

Lunch was determined by cuteness factor and rainfall. The rain started again, so we ate. Charming little cafe that was warm. Very good. I had a plate of meats, Linda ordered an egg sandwich and Hans and Jose had an open-faced salmon sandwich.

After lunch, and checking the rain situation, we decided to start walking back toward the train station. We walked past several old buildings including the the Frans Hals Museum and the Teylers Museum. We'll need to check those out at a later date. We remembered that we had been here before on our own, but missed some things, that Hans and Jose explained. Very helpful to have Dutch around to assist you in your visit.

After arriving back in Soest, they treated us to wine and snacks. Then a non-gluten, dairy free dinner of melon and ham, and salad with some wonderful chicken. I think Jose purchased the chicken from the chicken-man who comes to Soest one day a week. I forget which day, but we're going to need to remember how this works.

It was a wonderful day visiting Haarlem with our friends, even though it was wet. Another Dutch adventure.

Sunday, August 17 - Monday, August, 18, 2014

Sunday - Here is how a cool, rainy Sunday goes in Soest:

• Get up late, sit around and read, practice the sax, and eat a snack,
• Linda washes the clothes,
• Drive down the road to find a farmer who sells organic vegetables,
• Find farmer who is closed on Sundays and Mondays,
• Drive to the Hilversum train station and add money to our train cards. While we were driving out of Hilversum, we passed people walking down the street. They seemed to be going somewhere together. We asked one of them what was going on. She said the town was having a "silent walk" for the 15 victims of the Malaysia plane shot down over the Ukraine. Fifteen victims from the same small town in Holland.
• Walk down to The Proef for espresso in the rain, talk to the staff, and buy chocolates. One of the chocolates is called a Bittle: a hard ball of chocolate that you suck on in your mouth while drinking coffee and let it melt slowly. Not allowed to bite or chew.
• Cook and eat dinner,
• Linda finishes the jigsaw that she and Frank have been working on for the last 5 days,

• Watch TV and go to bed.

Monday -   Another cool, rainy day. We drove over to Muidenberg to return the sax but he's closed on Mondays. We knew that was a possibility. That is a common practice.

I ran the vacuum around and Linda mopped. Did some grocery shopping at Albert Heijn looking for capers. There were two types. Who ever heard of different types of capers? As we're studying our jars, a nice looking Dutch woman comes by, hears us talking and rips off her glasses to help Linda read the label, as if that would help with the language. We asked her if she knew what the difference was in the two types. She didn't know but seemed eager to talk to us. We decided to pick the less expensive product. Then she asked where we came from. That was followed by, "Why are you staying in Soest?" with a funny face. We told her about the home exchange and that we like it here. She just looked at us and grinned. 

Then it was lunch at The Proef.

Linda fixed a nice salad with bacon, watercress, sprouts, and onions. We wanted to eat lite so we could try the Bittels (chocolate balls) that we purchased yesterday with our coffee. Don't you know they worked out just right. Surprise, surprise.

Linda found a romantic comedy on Netflix for us to watch.

Friday, August 15 - Saturday, August 16, 2014

Friday - The Adamsons left us today. The girls fixed us a nice breakfast of eggs, sausage, and pancakes. We didn't need to leave for the airport until 12:00 and while we were waiting, Hans came over to say goodbye to the Adamsons and invite us to visit Haarlem with them. He talked to us about his yearly trip to England to dig for fossils. Hans and Jose, just down the street, have a beautiful garden in the back of their house designed around boulders and fossils they have collected. The inside of the house is almost like a fossil museum. This hobby became Hans' main interest after he retired. And then Liesbeth came over as we were loading the car. Nice.

There was heavy traffic on the A1 and A9, but it only put us about 5 minutes behind schedule and we still arrived at Schipol 2 hours before their flight. Hugs and kisses to a beautiful couple. We really enjoy having them around.

When we returned to the house, Linda spoke to Joy on the phone and we realized that the girls would not be showing up until Wednesday. That would free up Tuesday for visiting Haarlem instead of going tomorrow. So, I went down to tell Hans and he agreed that Tuesday would be better. The rest of the day was spent goofing around and Linda playing her sax. The movie for the night was The Painted Veil.

Saturday - We can go pretty slow when left to our own devices. By noon, we were getting hungry and Linda said we needed to eat our fresh mushrooms before they went bad. We agreed an omelet would be nice. She started cutting and frying onions, mushrooms, peppers, and leftover sausage. It was smelling really good. Then, we opened the refrigerator to get the eggs. No - just hardboiled eggs. Hmmm.

I volunteered to walk down to the Eko Plaza for eggs and other stuff. I also stopped by van Asch (butcher) and bought some chicken breasts wrapped in bacon for dinner (thinking ahead).

The omelet was excellent. But, that was about it for the day. Reading and watching a little TV - Trading Places. This Frank, was the silly movie you were looking for. 

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Thursday - The last day of the Adamson's visit. Time flies - it just seems like a few days ago we were picking them up at the airport. 

Anyway, the plan for today was to visit Kinderdijk. Kees and Joke took us to this place when we first arrived this year and we thought it would be an interesting place to show Frank and Lynda. We left in the rain but arrived to partly cloudy and dry weather. So Dutch.

On the drive Frank treated us to one of his puns as we looked out onto the fields by the road: "Frank, out standing in his field". We get these from time to time.

Along the major roads, you see these "BOB" signs. We believe they have something to do with promoting using a designated driver when you've been out drinking. Each one has a different picture in the "O". Can you see what this one is? A couple of weeks ago we drove through a BOB checkpoint coming out of Spakenburg. They didn't stop us but the young people with BOB vests on looked like they were working with the police.

There were people all over the place when we arrived. When Kees and Joke brought us it was June and almost deserted. Now that its August (holiday month in Europe) the tourist were out in force. There were tour buses parked near by and a Viking River Cruise boat anchored across the road. 

Kinderdijk is a complex of 17, formerly 19, windmills that were used to pump water from one section of land to the other. Now, they use this big Archimedes Screw.

The windmills are surrounded by canals and fields. They create a nice picture opportunity. We walked around the complex to take pictures.

Two girls on a bridge.

Two guys with hats.

Two guys without hats.

We stopped at the nearest cafe: The Buena Vista and ate lunch. I guess because of the tourist attraction, the menu included English. Always helpful.

This very stiff guy was holding the menu for your perusal. 

The cafe's building dates back to the 1600's and was charming inside.

We drove straight back to Soest so Lynda could select her airline seats for tomorrow's flight. 

A late dinner of fish from the fishmonger on the main street and salad. The Robin Williams memoriam continued on TV with a showing of Awakenings with Williams and Robert DeNiro. Sad plot and sad to watch someone act who you really liked and know is no longer with us.