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.

Tuesday, September 3

Today was mundane except for the dinner. We spent the day cleaning, washing, packing, and a little shopping. We have invited Liesbeth and Peter and the kids, Ducko and Noor, for dinner. So, we pick up a few things to make that happen. We stop for an espresso and some chocolate at Jon Mets and say goodbye.

The doorbell rings at 6:00 and its not them but a woman and her daughter collecting for cancer. When she asked us where we were from and we said Bradenton, she said "isn't that where the outlet stores are?". We all laugh and she is embarrassed because it seems so superficial. We think its interesting that so many people over here know so much about our area.

Noor is standing behind the cancer lady with a gift. We welcome her in and she is followed in a minute by the rest of the family. Duko also is carrying a gift. Hers is a coffee cup with Dutch scenes on it and his is chocolate from Jon Mets. Both excellent. The kids sit right down and start devouring the nachos that just came out of the oven. We thought they might like them and we were right. Duko is learning English and practiced a little. Linda went upstairs and found a full-size football for Duko to try to learn to throw. Later, after we ate, he and  Peter and I threw it around in the street in front of the  house. Duko is 10 and a future athlete. He was throwing spirals within about 4 tries. Very impressive.

We had wine outside while the kids watched TV and then went inside to eat dinner. They ate almost everything and Linda gave a little chili to Liesbeth to clear out the kitchen. 

After the boys finished throwing the ball around, Linda and Duko planned getting together on Skype. Mom and Dad don't know how to do that, so he's on his own. After they left, Duko returned because Linda was not answering because she wasn't in the room with the computer, so they worked it out and plan to stay in touch.

We always have a good time visiting with Liesbeth and Peter and this was no exception. This was a good way to end our visit.

Tomorrow morning, Hans and Jose will drive us to the train station in Baarn where we will catch the train to Schiphol Airport. In London, we will meet up with David and Johnny for dinner and a free bed. Then, the next day we're back to Gatwick Airport for our flight to Tampa and picked up by Kees and Joke.

So ends a lovely trip.

  

Monday, September 2

When Janie and Dan were here and we were visiting with Jose and Hans, we talked a little about making chili and eating Tex-Mex food. We wanted to have Jose and Hans over to show our appreciation for the nice things they had done for  us so we made tacos and a pot of chili and some rice and they came over for lunch. As I said yesterday, we already made the chili and played around with the spices. We were afraid of making it too hot, but I think it came out all right.

We sat at the table and talked and explained how to eat a taco and that it was alright for you to make a mess and eat with your hands. All very American. They ate everything we gave them and I went into the kitchen and filled several more tacos for Jose and me. We always have a wide-ranging discussion with them. In fact, that is true for the other two sets of neighbors. We asked them where they kept their poor people in this country. We don't see any evidence of them except in Amsterdam. They told us that 10% of the population is under the poverty line. That seemed alarming but, I don't know what our percentage is in the States. There must be public housing around someplace. They told us that the poor people are embarrassed that they cannot afford to go on vacations or enroll their children in sports so they keep a low profile. There are recycle bins for clothes (textiles) and the sign looks like our Goodwill signs. These bins are next to the other recycle bins for plastics, glass, plastic, etc. However, we think that Soest and Baarn are very affluent towns, so its not a good place to look for the poor.

After they left, we cleaned up and I mowed the lawn for the last time. Linda put in some wash so we wouldn't arrive home with a bunch of dirty clothes. (Isn't this interesting stuff?).

Tomorrow we will have Peter, Liesbeth, and the kids over for the same food.

Wednesday we fly to London for an overnight layover. The adventure is almost over. How time flies. But, that's the way it always feels at the end of a trip.

Sunday, September 1

Its Labor Day weekend in the States and here we are just plodding along in rather cool weather. Last year, we had a massage every Sunday and we've only had one so far this year. Well, we agree, its time for a final one. We walk over to Soest Zuid, through the cornfields and past the windmill. We don't have reservations but they can take us in about 15 minutes which gives us enough time to walk further down the street to the bank to get some cash. When we return, they are almost ready for us. I get the owner this time instead of Linda. It was cold to me outside and I overdressed for walking. I'm sweaty and my Thai masseuse doesn't really like my skin that  way but she deals with it. She's tougher than the other girls I've had in the past and actually hurts me. Linda gets the same treatment from her girl. This may be my last time.

Now comes the hard part. After an hour of being beat up on we have to walk back home. We retrace our path across the cornfield and then run into trouble. This has happened before both walking and driving. We get confused how far to the right we should turn and don't turn far enough. After walking through a complex that looks like a retirement community we emerge onto a large park with a flea market. Just before that we pass a dad and his two sons (probably 7 or 8) shoveling sand from a trailer into wheelbarrows. The smaller boy has his own small wheelbarrow and its attached to a bike with 3 wheels. Real cute. Linda is interested in the market until we get to the entrance and see that we need to pay. We buy an order of french fries and sit and eat them. 

Now comes the problem - we think we know what we're doing. As we learn later, we walked away from the house, around a very nice looking farm and then back into a residential area. The farm contained chickens with feathers that went all the way down their legs. Made them look fat. Several roosters were struting about too. There were also cows, horses, but no pigs. Now, we're sure we have made a mistake. We find a couple working in their yard and the woman tells us we need to walk about three blocks over. Once we get to the first turn, we see the flea market. All we had to do was to turn around and walk in the opposite direction from the market and we would have been home in 5 minutes. So, we learned a little more about our community.

Linda cooked some tartar meat for lunch with mixed vegetables. Then we put together a large pot of chili. We're having Jose and Hans over for a Tex-Mex lunch on Monday and Liesbeth and Peter and the kids for dinner on Tuesday. The chili needs to 
"age" a bit. 

Later we walked over to the van Loon's for coffee and wine. We had a nice discussion about traveling, food, and the Dutch language.

A little TV when we returned and then to bed.

Saturday, August 31

Today dawned overcast and dreary. Are we in the movie? We say goodbye to Veronica and walk around the corner to the private garage where we are parked. Its part of the building where we stayed and has a private entrance from the living space, but we enter through the garage door. As Linda gets into the car she notices a water pump in the corner. See picture below. Wonder what that's used for.

We have all day to travel the 3 hours back to Soest, so we decide to drive to the "beach" at Brakenburge, about 30 minutes away. Its an easy drive through some drizzly rain. When we get there, its windy and still drizzly and not very inviting. As we approach the city center we drive past at least 2 KMs of  a flea market on both sides of the road. It looks like everyone in the town put out a few pieces of junk that they hope to sell. We don't stop. Just keep on going but down the coast instead of the way we came that had a lot of traffic on the other side of the road. We thought we would be able to see the water, but large sand dunes or dykes prevented that.

Eventually we are on A27, an interstate-like road and on our way home. As we get close to Soest we decide that the Peking restaurant in Baarn is the perfect place to have lunch. We will be able to have  some hot soup and that will do wonders for my throat and my cold. By this time, the sun is out and blue sky and big puffy clouds. We sit outside in the park, I have sweet and sour soup and Linda has wonton soup and we share an egg foo young. We are not very good at deciphering the menu, so we decided to just describe what we wanted to the waitress and hope for the best. We got all we wanted. That may be our new procedure.

We're having some of the neighbors over for Tex-Mex food on Monday and Tuesday, so we need to shop. We stop at A&H and buy our supplies. We'll cook the chili tomorrow and let it "age".

Back at the house we read and watch dumb TV. We find one of those cartoon movies about animals in the forest. Its cute but we don't know what the name of it is.

Time is getting short and we're thinking about what few things we need to do to get ready to leave on Wednesday.