Friday, July 26

We're off to the Netherlands today. After a nice breakfast buffet at the hotel we board a shuttle bus to Gatwick airport. We check in at the kiosk and then move to bag drop and then on to Security. There are lots of lines but we find one that has NOONE IN IT. Amazing. On the other side, we are stopped by a young lady taking a survey. I expect her to ask us 2 or 3 questions - try 25. It gets to the point that we're running out of time. We finish and quickly walk to our gate. The big screen is telling us that the gate will close in 5 minutes. We hurry but we're not sure we really believe it. When we arrive they are boarding but there is still plenty of time.

On the plane, an hour to Schipol Airport at Amsterdam. The plane arrives a few minutes early and we easily get through customs and bag collection. Dan and Sue meet us, we get cash at the ATM, add money to our train cards (testing my British Air Visa with a chip to make sure it works), and  pay for parking. Dan drives us back to Soest. Along the way we decide its time to eat. After talking about possibilities and digressing a few times Linda remembers we had eaten at a place in the woods near Soest that had really good hamburgers. But exactly where is it? We make one attempt down a side road and decide we have gone too far. We make a U-turn at a gas station and I get out to ask a customer if he knows where we are tying to get to. He thinks he does and gives us directions which take us back up the road about 2 miles and with a couple of turns we're there. We sit at a picnic table outside and drink our beers and eat our fat burgers. We decide  to leave the other way which takes us through a cute little commercial area with shops and restaurants. We drive a little further and realize we were very close when we stopped at the gas station. Oh well.

We decide we need a few things at the store, so before going to the house, we continue down the road and buy a few groceries and Linda and Sue go into a health store. Dan and I buy a couple of things at the grocery store.

Finally we head to the house and unpack. After sitting around and nattering, we hear the Liesbeth and Peter next door, so we walk over to say hi and give the kids (Noor and Duko) the presents we brought them - a stuffed Manatee and a pink scarf. A mini football for Duko. They all seem to be hits. Duko invites me to jump on the trampoline which I do and do not hurt myself. The boys throw the ball around for a little and then we leave so that they can eat their dinner.

We can't decide what to do about dinner so Linda and Sue walk down to the Batavia carry-out and bring back various meats, green beans, egg foo young, and yellow rice. We ate outside to stay cool. Its abnormally hot which translates into low 80's and humid,. After watching a little TV, we head for the waterbed.