Got up and had a very leisurely morning. I needed to pay bills so John sent me the
info I needed and I paid some of them.
Checked my work email (ugh…why did I do that??!!) and discovered a few
fires that needed to be put out. Tried
to delegate a few things since I don’t know how consistent my internet will be
for the next week. Then closed the
computer.
Fons and Ellen read their papers while I worked and it was
very nice. But, then it was time to get
up and do something :o) We hopped in the
car and started over to Germany. The weather has been blissfully chilly
here! Since VA is having a hideous
heatwave, I am quite happy to be here.
It’s been in the low 60s during the day.
As I mentioned, I only have one pair of jeans. And no jacket! Fons found one that Michele had given
them. Too small for Fons, too big for
Ellen, just right for me :o) Now I
wasn’t going to freeze to death, haha!
We drove through the back roads into Germany to find a windmill and a
castle. It was pouring down with rain,
so all we could do was to look at them.
No one wanted to get out and tromp around in a downpour. The castle is from the 13 or 14th
century I think. It was in a town called
Bad Bentheim.
After 3 or so, it went into a gentle rain and stopped
occasionally. We then drove to a small town where we could go into the church
and then walk around town. We had a
mid-afternoon snack of coffee/hot chocolate and apple strudel. Scrumptious!!
I asked Fons if he had remembered the herring and he said no, so we went
back to Losser.
 |
| Close to the cache! |
Ellen and I went over to Edith’s new home. It’s gorgeous!! It is about a 2 minute walk
from Ellen and Fons’ house. It’s so nice
because their grandkids (Peter & Fleur) can come over when they want. It opens onto the back of the Brick Factory
and their back yard is also quite large. Edith and Koon had not planned on
living right around the corner, but the lot became available and the price was
too good to pass up.
 |
| Peter (3rd from left) |
Ellen & I then went to look for a geocache on the ground
of the Brick Factory. We tromped through
a little wet field and then got to the coordinates. Ellen pointed at the cache and asked, “Is
that it?” Voila! My first Dutch cache!! We were both very excited and Ellen asked if
they were all that easy to find. I wish,
ha!!
 |
| Floor in pink! |
From there, we went to an outdoor theater where Peter and
Fleur’s school (which was also Karin, Edith, and Carla’s school) was presenting
an end-of-year musical celebrating the 100th anniversary of the
school. It was really cute. They did a musical dance for most of the
decades and the kids (4 years to 13) were all so stinking cute! And Floor is a little ham :o)
 |
| after the play...just missing Hein! |
Karin has a new job, which is closer to her parent’s house
than to her house, so she stays over every TH night so she doesn’t have to get
up so hideously early. There were four
of us for dinner and Floor came over to see Karin and be spoiled a little
bit! Fons cooked a perfect beef
tenderloin for us and we ate the veggies and potatoes we bought from the
market. But before all that…the
herring! Floor doesn’t like them, but
she helped sprinkle the onions all over them.
She shyly practiced her English with me.
Her pronunciation is excellent!
The next time I visit, her vocabulary will be quite big I imagine!
We ate quite a feast and then had a nightcap. It was fun to catch up with Karin. She gave me a couple of book recommendations
and I sent her our bookclub website (http://saratogabookclub.wordpress.com
in case you’re interested) and she also told me about a few places to stay in
and around Florence. Then, so quickly,
it was time for bed! This week has flown
by….hard to believe I’ve been here three days already!
No comments:
Post a Comment