Sunday, February 5, 2012

Arrived in the Netherlands!

Yesterday I left the house in California at 1000hrs. To get to the airport I had hired a ride from a local transportation company. On the way to the airport the driver told me a few stories about his family and life prior to coming to the U.S.A. from India. Oh my, I found myself sobbing in the backseat of the car....His family has endured so much pain over many generations......He told me his feelings about the differences between the Muslim and Hindu religions. He feels that most of the problems on both sides are caused by religious zealots, and that the problems in India have been caused by both sides.  He is very intellectual (he trained to be a doctor for 1.5 years in India, but had to quit and now supports his children's desire for higher education in the U.S.).  Prayers to him and his family...and I hope he'll put those stories in writing-people need to know what has and is still happening in India!

At 1430 hrs., Netherlands time, my plane landed at Schiphol Airport. Did you know that Schiphol literally means "ship hole" or  "ship grave"?!?  Many ships were lost at sea there and are buried below the Airport which opened in 1916.

We went straight "home" from the airport.  It's great to be back together with Andrew-I sure missed him!  The house looks great and feels very cozy!  We went for a walk downtown Haarlem......a few pictures of what I saw along the way:








The canal is frozen!



People pull their children around town on their sleds:

A local bakery with a Barbie Taart!


A tradition in Holland!  When a woman is to be married she and her friends go to the town and wrap each other up like a mummy with toilet paper and ask women passing by to kiss the t.p to put kiss marks on it! Oh yes, I gave her a kiss!


Another sled!


Dulcimer being played by a local:



Yep, that's right, people still bicycles here in the snow!

At around 1630hrs we headed across the street to our neighbors' house. They had invited us and several other neighbors over for pizza and wine. What a group of nice people!  I feel so blessed to have found such a wonderful place to live with a beautiful home and wonderful warm neighbors.

We went to bed at around 2100hrs (9:00 p.m.), I fell right to sleep and slept till 0700hrs!  I was so exhausted...I had been working hard the past couple of weeks getting the house ready to put on the market. It felt so good to sleep!  Today I've had quite a few caffeinated drinks to keep myself going!


This morning we headed to the woods!  The Haarlemmerhout (Haarlem Woods) is within walking distance!





We stopped to look at this monument, but because we don't know the language we had no idea what we were looking at. A kind Dutch gentleman stopped and explained it to us.  This memorial was erected in honor of the man the Dutch believe invented the printing of books Lourens Janszoon Koster who rivals Johannes Gutenberg as the alleged inventor of printing.



Another frozen canal, where they have a reserve for animals:



We continued walking through the woods and came upon this "pannenkoekenhuisje" (little pancake house). Isn't it sweet?!?!?  We had to go inside!!! We had some yummy apple pie and nice hot cup of coffee...


One of the city buildings:


This is a gazebo in the park next to the woods. People here packed the steps with snow so the small children could take their sleds down it!  Because the land is very very flat, they have learned to improvise!

Another hill made for sledding!!

A "coffeehouse" in town:


Later on in the day we went shopping for furniture. We still have the master bedroom to furnish and we need a few other items for the living room area. Here are a couple of the furniture stores we went into. Things are very convenient for shopping here. There are at least 10 furniture stores within walking distance of one another, so it made it easy to look!



At one time this was the entrance to the town of Haarlem:


We stopped for another cup of coffee...more fuel!  Andrew was able to smoke one of his cigars while we sat outside under the heaters!


Another bicyclist!


A couple of early evening pictures of Haarlem. When I rounded the corner and saw this I felt like I was in the middle of a fairytale!



The temperature today:  -5 degrees Celcius, which is equivalent to 23 degrees Fahrenheit!  It was tolerable, but chilly enough to need gloves and a hat!  Quite a change from the 65 plus degrees Fahrenheit I just left in California!!!






1 comment:

  1. Beautiful pictures Steph. Looks like a lovely country.

    BTW- people bike year round here in MN also. Crazy! :-)

    ReplyDelete