July 12
We got up early today and drove north about 140 km to an island named Texel, pronounced Tessel. First to the Port town of Den Helder and then a 20 minute ferry ride to the island. It actually took me longer to park our van and then walk back to the ferry. We rented bikes and did about 15 km round trip. We stopped in a place called Den Berg and had some lunch and a beer. The weather was incredible and we enjoyed an awesome bike ride out in the country.
Today we took Grandma and Grandpa to Evert’s(Grandmas Cousin) in Laren for his 81 birthday. We left all of them to visit and the Niven group headed back to Soest. We stopped at the C1000 which is a grocery store and got some nibblies for lunch. After lunch we grabbed some bikes and went for a little tour of Soest.
Day 3 Paris – it was a short day in Paris and a long day on a bus……
Yesterday we went out to a great little French restaurant by The Moulin Rouge. We had raclette, which is beef,pork,fish,etc and you put it on a grill and cook it yourself. After supper we browsed around all the souvenir shops, kinda like Mexico. We then went to the Starbucks and people watched.
PS. Always keep an eye on your purse/wallets. Pit pockets are all over the place.
We are waiting for our bus to take us to Paris for three days…
We had a slower day today…slept in, a little breakfast and lots of rain! That seems to not bother the locals so much, they are used to the rainy weather and not made of sugar(like me)…lots of people out and about doing their regular Saturday stuff. The skies kind of cleared up in the afternoon and we headed to Laren to go to the Kermis or carnival. A little more rain but mostly nice, the boys enjoyed bumper cars and The Fun House, pretty much universally the same around the world, Kermis, Stampede or Calaway Park. We also went to the Poffertes Tent(see previous post)
In about an hour from when I am writing this we are going to watch the Netherlands v Costa Rica Match in the World Cup.
Tot Ziens – Jud
Just had a tasty plate of Poffertjes in Laren
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
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
Niven The Good Life 