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.