Just had a tasty plate of Poffertjes in Laren
Month: July 2014
Wind Mills, Wind Mills And Wait….. Another Wind Mill. By Ben Niven
So today we went to the KinderDijk. We saw over 15 wind mills it was awesome. The Dutch name for wind mill is “Molen”. PS. I had speculas cookies that molen. Seeing the wind mills wasn’t the highlight of my day. We finished off our day by driving to the world court in “De Hauge” where war criminals are tried. It was also interesting seeing all the embassies. To complete our day we went to a Pannekokeken Huis ( Panakooken house). I had bacon and cheese it was delicious… 🙂
PS. When we are on the road there are a lot of roundabouts/traffic circles. Ethan and I have counted 86 that we’ve driven through since we got here. The most, so far, was when we were driving to Kamp Westerbork we counted 53 traffic circles.
Another windmill at KinderDijk
Excuse me…I think I ordered the large!
A boy named Leo at Kamp Westerbork
Today I met a boy named Leo. When Leo was almost 7 he was taken from his home and placed, with his mother and father,in a transit Camp better known as a concentration camp, Kamp Westerbork in the north of Netherlands near the German border. He is made to think that life will be normal…school, Synagogue, other children to play with, they even had a visit from Sinterklaas. But life wasn’t normal, September 1944, Leo and his parents are put on a train and sent to Theresienstadt, a NAZI death camp. Leo was just one of 102,000 souls who were murdered by the germans. The picture below is a memorial that is on the grounds of Kamp Westerbork with a stone tile placed for every victim…it made me feel sick inside that so many people died.
I am thankful to God for being in a safe and free country.
Memorial bricks in honor of the 102,000 victims
Friesland,My home and Native Land by Ben Niven
Today we went to the province of Friesland, Netherlands. Friesland is where my Grandma and Grandpa Visser are from. Today we got up bright and early and headed north to see where my Grandparents lived. Our first stop in Friesland was the McDonald’s in Joure. Then we headed further north to Nijland. Nijland is where my Grandma Visser (Bootsma) was born. When we were in Nijland we saw my great great Grandparent’s grave while we were visiting my Grandma’s old church which was built in 1596. Another highlight was seeing my Grandma’s Grandfather’s old house. Then we drove to the habour town of Makkum. While we we there we found a fish kiosk called ” Vis Par Mare” where we had our daily dose of kibbling(Breaded bits of Cod). Ethan and I where also daring enough to share Smoked Eel which tastes better than it sounds. In the words of Ethan Niven ” It tastes like bacon!” The next stop…. Grandpa’s home town Parrega. In Parrega we stopped by the old bakery and home the Visser’s owned. In Parrega we dropped by Grandpa’s church which was built in the 1300’s although there are many relatives in the cemetery the head stones are no longer there.
Tot ziens!
(all photos were taken by my Mom-Gloria Visser-Niven)
Flag of Friesland
Viewing my great great grandparents graves
Grandma Visser’s Church, Nijland
Fish Kiosk, Makkum
Smoked Eel on a bun…smakelijk!
Ethan, Grandma & Grandpa, Ben in front of Visser home in Parrega
The Church in Parrega
Anno 1300
Day 3….oops we seem to have slept in!
We’ll the 8 hour time difference still has a bit of a hold on us on day 3. We had grand plans of getting up and on the road by 8:30am and heading North to the homeland-Freisland. Well that timeline came and went and we all woke up around Noon local time. So we gave our heads a shake and decided a shorter trip to Spakenburg a nice little fishing Village about 10 km from Soeste where we are staying. We walked around and enjoyed the local shops, the boys and I ate kibbeling, which is a local delicacy of small chunks of Cod lightly battered-lekkers(delicious) Gloria and Gramma had Kroketten , which is ground up pork and Dutch spices and then breaded and deep fried. Grampa had a plate of Patates Frites(French fries). The deal of the day in the picture below is the Lion Hat for €1.50 Ethan got to help cheer on Holland in the World Cup.
In the
Niven The Good Life 