Apeldoorn

This morning I'm sitting on a tiny balcony of our second floor room in a huge old house in Apeldoorn. The stone tiles under my feet are covered in moss - which is kind of neat but also a bit messy. Yesterday after I finished blogging, Dave and I went to the Hema which is a department store. We needed to pick up a lot of tea towels for the kids - and some for me and Kathy (a good friend at home). She's never experienced a Dutch tea towel so she's in for a treat. :) We picked up a toy for the grandkids while we were there.

Then we met Kees for lunch. He was able to get away from work for a bit. We walked to where the cafes were. Many weren't open as it was Monday. One wonderful thing about Europe is that you can choose from many outdoor cafes. At home, they're really quite rare. After a nice lunch of good food and conversation, it was time to leave Eindhoven. We said goodbye to Kees and headed toward Apeldoorn - where Dave's dad is from. It was only 1 1/2 hours away.

This is a beautiful town. Again there are bikes everywhere. We didn't see many bikes in
Eindhoven. We went to the tourist information center and got some more gifts for the kids. One of things I remember from when I was a kid was when mom and dad came back from Holland every year, they always brought something for us. This was very important to us kids and so I feel it's important for our kids as well. Besides, before we left, Mark told Dave to bring home lots of gifts. :) We're doing our best, Mark.

We found the house Dave's dad grew up in. It's a large house - even by North American standards. It's very beautiful. We took lots of pictures. If fact our total pictures count is about 230! Just now the church bells are ringing. Another wonderful experience in Europe!

We found a huge park nearby and tried to decide what we're going to do for our final days here. (The only thing we had planned was sleeping in Amsterdam on Thursday night to catch our 5:30 pm flight on Friday.) We talked about it for a few minutes and then gave up. It was so incredibly hot yesterday that we just wanted to rest and cool down. As you know the weather for the first week was quite cool - low to mid 60's. Sunday afternoon it really warmed up. Yesterday it was in the low 90's but not humid - thankfully. Today will be even warmer. The upside is I'm starting to wear some of the new clothes I bought for the trip. Amanda and Laura, today I'm wearing the white and pink sun dress. :) It's going to storm tonight and then the temps will be in the 70's. Much more comfortable.

So we asked Flo for some suggestions for nearby hotels (she really is handy!). The one we're in was a few blocks from the park. It's on Canadalaan Wey. It was given this name after the 2nd world war. There's even a Canadian flag on the street sign. The room is large with the best bathroom we've had yet. It's just been updated and is quite large. We rested for awhile. Our days are very full and as you've noticed, we often aren't finished eating supper until 9 pm so the day's are also quite long. The busy schedule is starting to catch up with me.

About 7:30 we headed out for supper. I wanted one more Dutch pancake before we left so we found a pancake place nearby. Dave had fritters with oranges and whip cream. Was that ever good! After supper we headed back to our lovely but hot room - no air conditioning - and ended another day of our trip.

Today we're off to Friesland. Looking forward to old buildings, windmills, and farms.

One thing I learned today - it is possible to go the wrong way on a one way street and live to tell about it
One new thing I experienced today - giving our waitress tip who then immediately turned to her boss and gave it her
Most powerful moment of the day - seeing where Dave's dad lived
One pleasurable experience - sitting in an outdoor cafe having a very leisurely supper with
the love of my life