Sunday:
It is our final day in the Netherlands and we make it a family day. Lots of laughter and talking in Dutch and Jonna surprised us once again with: “Oh my gosh”
Here are pictures of Opa and Grammy with Jonna and Nancy.
With 31 Euro worth of spices and foods, we head for America.
Doei
Saturday:
A beautiful day with sunshine, we don’t have time to hurry. Yes, you read that right. It is one of Blips favorite quotes, “I don’t have time to hurry”. Think about it….it makes sense. Taking our time, we strolled the streets of Zierikzee. Established in 1248 as a city, there are 10,000 residents.
Some old time musicians played in the city center and it really seemed like 100 years ago. (except for our cappicino of course). It is also Monument Day. This is where there are free open houses at momuments and historical sites all over Holland. In Zierikzee there was a very old mill, post office, orphanage etc. We toured it all. We also ran across many flowered gardens. Here is a pic of Blips and me sitting at a flowered garden between streets.
We had many laughs as we saw a lot of these midget cars. We figured out there must be a gathering close by since it was too much of a coincidence to see dozens of these Italian Fiats. One car had 5 people in it going down the road in front of us. Unbelieveable, these are the size of a toy Barbie car for children in America.
Our plan was to watch the sunset over the sea, but it got cloudy and the desired restaurant on the beach was closed. So, all four of us, being very flexible, went for Chinese buffet. Blips and I noted we miss the free refills.
We ended our evening by watching Mr and Mrs Smith. It was alot of laughs. Sleeping late tomorrow….I can’t believe it is our last day tomorrow.
Friday:
I woke up and heard the clock bong 10. I had slept so good that I was surprised by the time. We started the day with looking at some of the best pictures followed by coffee and breakfast. The food just kept coming, I thought we were back at the buffet in Amsterdam. One special item here was leverpastei, a nice old fashioned liverwurst type treat.
Then on our bikes for a ride through the city to the fish auction. The boats are now in the harbor and sea gulls are everywhere searching for any fish that escaped the nets. The men seem glad to be back on land after 5 days at sea. Back on our bikes, a bit farther to a rarely used (except by locals) walking trail along the shore. We have the trail to ourselves. A beautiful day with perfect sunny weather so there is no need for our jackets. It’s windy of course, but not cold. There is an abundance of black raspberries which we can pick along the trail. Blips warns me not to touch the “itch weed” which is nasty but not quite as bad as poison ivy. I suddenly notice the itch weed everywhere.
We meet a dog on the beach whose owners insist she is not a pit bull but an American Staffordshire Terrier. Pit bills are banned in Holland, so “of course” she is an AM Staff. On our bike ride home, I notice Els watching the traffic for me. I appreciate that since I have no clue about the bike rules here. Sometimes the car and sometimes the bike has right of way. It is good NOT to get those mixed up. And now a reward for our 4 hour bikeride-walking tour: a magnum ice cream followed by coffee.
Mar arrived home after a busy day at work and we had a nice talk between dog lovers about how they own a piece of your heart forever. Mar made a wonderful chicken dinner with rice. She added leeks, peppers and a salsa type sauce. We all had seconds!
It is Friday night and some shops are open so we go to pick up some Dutch treats for the family back in the USA. We have tirimisu ice cream because it is the only thing I can read in English. Everyone else walked right by the sign, but when I said…”hey, look at that”…all four of us ordered it and really liked it. The people watching was interesting. I noticed everyone under 20 is wearing blue jeans, including the toddlers. In just a few years a whole generation will have switched to blue jeans = no longer the American uniform.
Tuesday:
Breakfast with 15 items on the buffet and Dutch coffee and an omlet made with chives from her garden. We were joined by another international couple. A guy from San Francisco and his wife from Iran. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota (small world). We had a fun conversation for an hour about our traveling experiences and different cultures. We walked back to the Dam where we had a smoothie, strawberry for me and banana for Blips. 
Carrying an umbrella to keep away the rain, we spend 3 hours walking the Jordaan, one of Amsterdams most elegant neighborhoods where slightly older yuppies reside. This is a delight to see a real city without the entertainment area.
We are looking at the American Book Center. We stop in and Lynn, my classmate from highschool is behind the counter. I stand there just tickled pink to listen to her speak Dutch and see her success as a Dutch business woman(she owns the place). She notices me and we are both a little surprised we recognize each other since we have not seen each other for at least 25 years. Our conversation is short but very nice, sharing laughter as we update our lives. As we leave, she refuses to let me pay for a book I want, stating….”your money is no good here”…an old Minnesota saying 
It now was 3:30PM and our lekker breakfast is wearing off. Blips is hungry for chicken satay and I am hungry for muscles. We take a chance on Petit-Restaurant De Rozenboom. Our lunch/dinner is excellent and we enjoy it very much until we get the bill. The waiter had given a Dutch couple across from us free coffee but ours was 3.80 Euro. So, this ticked off Blips which equals NO TIP! He was also ticked off that we were charged 1 Euro for mayo and ketchup, but I convinced him that is normal around here. Again it rained while we had dinner but the entire day I have not needed to open the umbrella.
Looking for a t-shirt souvineer shop, we found ourselves in the red light district. We both noted that the women in the windows looked older, fatter and to quote 
Blips, “ugly”. So much for a sexy high paying job.
Tomorrow the Van Gogh Museum.
We got back to our room and “As the World Turns” was on the TV with subtitles in Dutch. How funny! This is the soap opera that my mom has been watching for over 50 years. I could tell by the story, that they are about 1.5 years behind the story in the States.
No tatoo yet. And BAM,we still have our fake wallet. You know the one that the pick pockets are supposed to find while your real one is somewhere else.
Monday, acting real Dutch, we walked to the Waterbus which took us to Dordrecht where we walked to the train station. Blips got tickets to Amsterdam Centraal Station from the machine. Our train was in the station and leaving in 12 minutes. Woo Hoo, what luck. We took the upper deck seats with a lovely view of koeien(cows), schapen(sheep) and grafitti. We stopped at Rotterdam, Den Haag, Leiden, Schiphol-airport and finally Amsterdam Centraal at 12 noon.
We checked our map and headed for our hotel. There were so many things and people to look at, that we took two wrong turns but still arrived at the hotel 25 minutes early at 1:35PM. Our hotel is all no smoking(yeah!) A warm friendly welcome and we head to the third floor. I had forgotten that zero is the bottom floor, so we are going up 4 flights of stairs. Good for our fitness We unload our backpacks and head out for coffee. Stopping at a terrace on the Dam, where the waitress was blunt and snotty, our coffee and apple pie was 14 Euro or $19.00 Yikes!!! Coffee was good and pie was mediocre.
A beautiful sunny afternoon calls for a canal tour on a boat. Blips had a great picture taking marathon, 216 pictures. We got outside seats but while waiting for the boat to go, the fumes were making me sick. So, I waited inside until the boat took off. While inside, an American couple sat down across from me. There were discussing their day so far. He told her, “I lost more than the map. I took my watch off my wrist and put it in my pocket and BAM, it was gone!” I had to hold back my giggles. It is called pick-pocket, NOT pick-wrist.
There were some great looking Indonesian and Shoarma restaurants but we have had quite a lot of that lately, so we pick Italian. Blips orders lasagna. It had ham in it making Blips quite happy. I had chicken pizza with the thinnest crust ever making me happy. We sat in the no smoking area. Since there were no ash trays, the table next to us asked for one and promply lit up 3 cigarettes. Welcome to Amsterdam! It rained while we ate but again was beautiful as we walked 10 minutes to our hotel. Up those 4 flights of stairs to our third floor room.
And tomorrow is Tuesday
Well, it felt like Tuesday again today.But it turned out to be a nice family day.So, Sunday it is.It started when Nancy and mommy arrived for some fun in the garden.The weather is again beautiful and so we went to a petting zoo in town.It had lots of goats, so a big hit with me also since I adore goats.I almost got locked up inside the rooster house. 
They were closing and we did not know it…….all of a sudden, in Dutch language everyone was saying to get out.I was busy staring at a periwinkle colored parakeet.So, beautiful and so unusual.Suddenly, Blips rushes in the bird house and says…hurry, hurry, they are closing
Our lunch was one of our favorites, saucijzenbroodjes(sausage inside a buttery baked flaky bun) with salads and homemade breads, cheese, ham…….
We played in the playhouse and on the whip/wop (teeter totter).Nancy has her own language but also a few American words….WOW… is one she uses.She is a very active girl who is easy to smile and give out kisses.She smiles with her whole face.It just makes you want to scoop her up in a big hug…..but she is gone doing something else before you can wrap your arms around her. Jonna and Nancy play very nice together and are considerate of each other and share the toys.
It was a content and happy day to just spend watching our granddaughters play together.
We had Chinese take out for dinner and our favorites were included…curry pork and satay chicken.Tomorrow we are off to Amsterdam for 3 days.It is supposed to rain on Monday but we don’t care because it seems like Tuesday anyway 
Ok, it took us an hour and a half but here is how we did it. We were on our way to Scheveningen (the very nice tourist beach on the North Sea) and we took a turn into a parking lot. I was a bit surprised but Blips decided to take me to Madurodam, known as the smallest town in the Netherlands. Everything is 25 times smaller than in real life. It is all reproduced exactly as in real life with a birds eye view of such things as the Reformed Church in Maasdijk, Town hall of Gouda, an Amsterdam canal, Rijksmuseum, Royal Palace in Dam Square, Anne Frank House, flour mills, Peace Palace (International Court of Justice) in the Hague, clog factory, tulip fields, just to name a few. In this shot, I am overlooking the cheese market in Haarlem. If you look close, you can see the yellow cheese wheels all lined up(low center of the shot).
We then drove through my favorite city for just looking and that is The Hague. I love the archetecture and the lifestyle. Next was the beach where we had a perfect day.
The sun was shining and the waves were wonderful. Blips took me to our favorite restaurant on the beach, Masada, for shoarma. I had shoarma with pineapple and almonds and Blips had shoarma with onion, mushroom, and red and green peppers. Of course our coffee was perfect. During our walk on the beach we noticed a change in the style. Now along the beach where there used to be tables and chairs, there are couches with colorfull pillows. At the center of each grouping of couches is a fire pit. And here I am in a typical tourist shop on the beach (see the clogs hanging on the left). My ancle is all better, thank goodness.
I keep thinking each day is Tuesday. So, I can’t really say which day we did what because I would just say on Tuesday we did that. We have gone for some very nice neighborhood walks, visited relatives for some wonderful conversation and coffee. A favorite kibbeling(fried fish) we have had twice from the little neighborhood shop. I think that was Tuesday. I DO remember that on Friday we went to Stellendam where after enjoying muessles with onions, we went to a Summer Fairytale of shells on the beach. Somebody made glass shells with a story and music coming out of about 60 shells. With the waves crashing and the wind, you can use your imagination for any fairytale you want to make up. You needed to put your ear to the shell to hear……as you see Jonna demonstrating. It was a great day and we slept very good that night. 
Today, Saturday, we walked up to the little shop and had kibbeling again. We also stopped at the bakery and got two of almost everything. We made shoarma again and just enjoyed the nice weather outside in the garden . I have been reading , “The Diana Chronicles”. It is 500 pages and I am almost done. I should have brought more books along. It is so nice to just be here and enjoy. Sunday we get to see more of Nancy and then on to Amsterdam on Monday….or is that Tuesday???