Duko had kept score showing the details of each at-bat and told us all about it. He uses Google Translate to help him but he does fairly well on his own. He had to draw a diagram showing us the number assigned to each position on the field. Linda and I knew there were numbers but could not remember which number referred to which position. He also showed us his signed baseball - 3 or 4 American players signed and 5 or 6 Dutch. He was very proud and careful with it. If your hands are moist, the ink smears.
Toward the end of his visit, Noor showed up and we watched her play her games on a special game consol, like a small ipad. Noor stayed for a little while after Duko left. These kids seem to like us.
Now its time to catch the train. The first train was to Utrecht as planned. But, when we got to Utrecht, we couldn't find the train to Nijmegen. Some young people from Norway who were headed for the 4 day walk at Nijmegen asked us if we knew where the train was. We ended up helping each other and asking people. It turned out there was track work going on and the train we wanted wasn't coming. But, we could take another train to one stop and then find a train to Nijmegen. We didn't need to wait long for this detour train. The young people with their huge backpacks were easy to follow onto the train. Once we were on the detour train we started talking to a biker who had biked from Nijmegen to Amsterdam (about 100 kms) in the morning and was returning. So, everyone was headed for Nijmegen which helped.
We arrived at Nijmegen just a few minutes later than we had expected. Coming out of the train station there was a band playing. It was a big band, maybe 40 musicians.
We stopped and listened for awhile and then walked about a thousand feet over to our hotel - The Mercour, nice and modern.
There were people everywhere. A lot of young people in yellow were stationed around to help the arriving walkers. There were even two guys sitting atop lifeguard-like stands with megaphones. We followed the crowd up a main street directly in front of the train station. There was a big sign over the entrance - Ramblas.
The street had been turned into a pedestrian walkway with vendors on both sides. We stopped to have an espresso. There were couches, big stuffed chairs, and a band playing.
We selected the first couch we came upon - a very low slung thing. As we sat there, an older guy came by and asked me, kiddingly, if I thought I would be able to get out of it. I told him I hoped. Funny.
I asked the server why the street had been temporarily named Ramblas. She said the organizers wanted to create a version of the famous walking street in Barcelona. Once she said Barcelona, I understood. This was a nice effort to create that atmosphere for a week.
As we walked down the street there were odd things hanging above: purses, vinyl records, stuffed animals and on and on.
The food vendors were offering Surinam, Thai, Bar BQ, fried chicken, and hamburgers and hot dogs. We had to search for where Surinam was. For those of you who are geographically challenged, its a former Dutch colony in north South America.
We continued walking toward the Grot Market which was where the band that Stan organized and conducted for 20 years was going to perform much later - our main reason for coming to Nijmegen in the first place. On the way, we passed two separate bands that were playing and jumping all over the place. Lots of horns, like 5 bass saxophones in one.
As we continued our walk, we were handed 2-4oz cans of a drink called Bavaria with no alcohol. One was a berry flavour and the other was some kind of citrus flavour. They tasted like a lemonade. It was ok.
In the next block we came upon an old-fashioned automat just outside a store with chicken and burger sandwiches in it. People were actually buying this stuff.
There was always a group performing on the stage. Since it was only about 5:00 and Stan's band would not perform until 10:45, we found a vacant table and had a drink: vodka and white wine, guess who had which? When it came time to eat, I noticed the café next to us had schnitzel on the menu and the one we were sitting at didn't. We were very lucky to find a table at the other café and moved. I had the schnitzel and a dark beer and Linda had chicken on a stick, not a satay. We were trying to kill time, so we sat, ate slow and watched the parade of people walking by. For dessert we had an Italian coffee - brilliant. Now we were feeling very good.
As it started getting dark, we got up and walked over to a couple of streets we had missed earlier. We passed two more bands. The first was playing big band music, again with lots of horns. Linda really liked listening to the saxs. The second band was rock and roll and had the bigger crowd. We were probably the oldest couple in town. There were many military people in town for the walk from several other countries. With all that beer drinking there had to be a lot of toilets and there were for 50 cents. But, we came across some free ones too, on the sidewalk that the guys could just saddle up to let it go.
Males do have advantages.
We walked back to the Grot Market and tried to find a screen that was showing the World Cup final game, but the bars that had it were too crowded. So we missed Germany beating Argentina.
At 10:45, the band, arrayed on the front steps of a large, old building, hanging out of windows on the 2nd floor and the windows of another building to the left starting playing.
They played what we think were traditional Dutch songs, because the crowd was singing along. We looked for Stan and we were probably very close to him according to a selfie that Kees passed along to us later. But, we missed him.
A slow walk back to the hotel and to bed, because we had to catch a 6:57 train to Schipol in the morning.
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