Walking in the Rain and Eat, Drink and be Merry!

A few days ago I was walking home from grocery shopping when I ran into one of our "old" neighbors. It was raining  and we were standing outside of a little cafe sharing an umbrella. Her dog, Tommy, was waiting inside the doorway of the cafe when the owner of the shop took this picture, which he posted on Facebook with the phrase "Slim om onder het luchtgordijn 
te wachten op het baasje!" ("Smart to sit under the curtain waiting for the owner"!).

Thursdays I usually wash sheets and towels and hang them to dry in the kitchen (right next to the washer/dryer). Last week we had changed to the flannel sheets. Well, the washing/drying cycle takes three hours, then I hung them to dry. It took over 12 hours to dry!  Washing/drying sheets should not be a 15 hour process!  So, now I've moved the drying rack upstairs where it is warmer in hopes that it will accelerate the drying time in the future...we shall see!

Saturday Andrew and I went over the Mediamarkt in Cruquius so that I could look at cameras. I had done quite a bit of research and "talked" to friends (via Facebook and email!) about all the choices out there.  I decided on the Sony Cybershot DSC-HX10V. These pictures are the first ones I've taken with the new camera. So far, so good!  It seems to be very user friendly. While I was sitting on the couch, wrapped up in my blanket, reading the user's manual Sammy came up to say "hi"!

Yesterday, we started to head out to go to Amsterdam, but I started coughing so much we decided to stay home. We had gotten to the train station by bus, and chose to walk home as I needed to stop and get some cough drops on the way at Etos.

We decided to stop for breakfast at Doria Cafe. It was nice and toasty warm inside the restaurant. We both ordered ontbijt (breakfast). 

We went home for a bit, then thought we should get some fresh air, so we took Sammy for a walk in the woods. 

"My" tree (love this tree!):

Mushrooms growing on a tree stump:

A few weeks ago I took pictures of these. At the time they looked like pink berries. But now! They burst open and have flowered!:

Afterwards I took a little nap (still trying to recover from this cough...).  

Last night we went to the Pathe bioscoop (the movie theater) to see "Skyfall", the new James Bond movie with some friends. Good movie......typical "Bond" movie!

After dinner we went over to the Woodstone Pizza place across the plaza from the move theater. There was a 45 minute wait so we chose to walk to another restaurant. We went to a couple of familiar restaurants, which also had long wait times, or no availability at all. We found that Stempels had an available table, so that's where we chose to have dinner. 

Louise and I ordered "skate":

and Andrew and Gary ordered the veal.

We chose to have a beer rather than order a bottle of wine (wine selection was "pedestrian"). The beer (Texels) on tap was quite good:

Dessert was white chocolate with cinammon and vanilla ice cream:

and a caramel dessert:

The food was good, but unremarkable. Could have had a little more flavor.

About a half hour after we got home there was quite a storm. Lots of thunder, lightening and hail. This morning there was still hail in pockets of the yard....pretty chilly this morning!

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Our flowers this week:

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This afternoon we went over to our neighbors' house and planned out a Thanksgiving dinner, deciding who will bring what, etc. Should be fun to celebrate an American holiday in Holland!