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.