August 30

We woke early this morning at 5:30am, dressed and packed briefly then headed to the train station.  We got to our train with no problems, got our luggage stowed, and found some good seats.  Everything was going fine until 9am, when we were notified that there was a problem between stations, and we would be delayed.  After quite a while of waiting nervously, and a lot of praying for me, we were eventually told that we would arrive at Frankfurt Flughafen on time…they thought.  We just stayed on the train then, because that was all we could really do.  It ended up not taking quite as long as they had thought, mostly because we were moving at around 300km/hr, which is faster than typical, even for an ICE.  So, with plenty of time, we entered the station, found the place to go and then went through Passport Control.  I should say here first though that we had to drink all of the CapriSonne that I was bringing back for Brian, because my suitcase was over the limit.  I was quite sad about that L.  About Passport Control then.  Marc made it through just fine, then Joe and I were stopped because we had apparently been in Germany for a week too long.  Technically I was in Germany for under the three month limit, but due to me saying "we", referring to Marc and I, what Joe and I were saying did not match up, so we had to sit for a while so they could check things out.  Eventually we ended up having to sign a paper saying that we acknowledge that we were in Germany for too long, for legal reasons I presume.  The officers said that we shouldn't worry about not getting into Germany again though.  I hope they are right.  The summer in Europe has turned me into an international criminal!  That was our last big hiccup, which was good.  Eventually we met up with Marc after the security checkpoint and boarded.  Of course I had the last seat in the plane, but it was an aisle seat, so not so bad.  I also got to talk with a girl from Wisconsin (Amanda), who had been in Europe for a month, mostly in the Ukraine with TeenChallenge, hanging out and loving Methadone addicts and kids in orphanages.  She was really cool and it made the flight go a bit shorter.  We had some pretty good meals on the flight, including a nice little soft crust pizza.  Getting into Chicago went well.  Customs was a breeze in Chicago as was Passport Control.  We had plenty of time to spare and arrived at our gate with some time to wait.  The flight back to Grand Rapids was very short and quite uneventful to boot.  We arrived back and I was met by the wonderful sight of Mom, Jeff, Katie, Aunt Linda, Aunt Shirley and Steve.  It was pretty great.  We got our bags, said brief goodbyes to Marc, Joe and their families, and were off.  On the way home we drove to Calvin and said hi to Dad as well.  It was nice to see the whole family again!  At home I unpacked very few things, went online for a while then went to sleep.  Home sweet home.  Deutschland war schön, aber ich bin glücklich wieder Zuhause!

August 29

We got up a bit earlier this morning to take another walk around the city.  We actually didn't do so much walking today, because we were visiting a museum.  It was the Amsterdam historical museum, which had a history of the city, pretty much in its entirety.  There was a lot of history and culture to take in, and it was actually a little overwhelming.  At that point, there was no chance that we were going to see another museum either.  We were in there for quite a while, most of the day in fact, until we headed back to the hostel to get things packed and in order for an early morning departure.  It was mostly not too difficult, just required some reorganizing, and packing away of dirty clothes.  We are planning on getting up and walking to the train to leave on the 7am one to Frankfurt Flughafen.  That will put us there at 10:30, with plenty of time to get settled.  That is if everything goes well, and the train has no delays.

August 28

We woke up pretty late today because it was a late night last night.  Today we did some walking tours that Joe's guidebook had in it and got to get around the city pretty well.  It was a lot of walking to be sure, but I took comfort in the fact that I had lunch at a 'Wok to Walk' restaurant, which was similar to Mongolian BBQ, but as takeout.  It was delicious, and we ate, sitting behind the 'I amsterdam' sign/sculpture.  Like I said, our day consisted of a lot of walking and seeing the canals and houses, which start to look a lot alike.  Joe tried some herring on a bun as well.  We visited the Anne Frank house later in the evening to avoid the line, which only kind of worked.  It was quite amazing to see the place, even though the tree had fallen down a couple of weeks ago, which was unfortunate.  Following that, we found a Dutch grocery store and got some sandwich stuff, as well as some yummy waffley things that have a caramelly inside, like we had at Rob's house.  It was a pretty cheap meal, and quite filling actually.  We went back to the hostel and went to sleep around 12 tonight instead of 4 for the first time in 3 days.  Probably a good choice, because the day before was pretty dreadful until I took a nap.

August 27

We woke up this morning with not a lot of sleep (3,5 hours), and walked over to the Van Der Sloots for breakfast.  It was a nice breakfast as always (til yet, every meal in the Netherlands has been fantastic).  Oh, and by the way, Rob's family is vegetarian, but you really wouldn't even notice it.  We had a spaghetti sauce last night that had what you would have thought was meat in it, but it was actually something else with the same texture, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten.  After breakfast we said our goodbyes, then Rob took us to the train station.  There he bought us a ticket to Amsterdam, because the machine would only take cards and we had only cash.  I cannot overstate at all how generous Petra and her family were to us while we were in the Netherlands.  We arrived after about 45 minutes in Amsterdam Centraal station and then walked to our hotel based on directions that Leonoor and Marie-José had given us.  We were able to check in early, then take a walking tour of the city to get a sense of things.  This was our third walking tour by the same company, given on a tips only basis.  They have all had colorful funny guides, and this one was no exception.  Marc and I also went looking for jerseys again in Amsterdam, and the two places that we visited, which were recommended by Petra's son Marco were closed, but we talked to the people inside, who said they didn't have anything left.  That was unfortunate, but near the last one we bought some 'Rijstafel' for dinner, which was quite tasty.  We met Joe later that night, because his train was a bit mistimed with our arrival, but we found him nonetheless.  Later tonight at midnight we went to another club, this time in Amsterdam to meet Leonoor, Patrick and Roxy again.  It was a bigger one, and there were a lot more people, almost exclusively Dutch, so no tourists.  We danced for about 4 hours there, which was pretty tiring, and not something that I would normally enjoy doing.  There was a pretty good mix of American and Dutch mixes that the DJ was mixing (too many uses of the word 'mix'? maybe.).  So after that, we were pretty tired and fell right asleep back in the hostel. 

August 26

We headed out this morning around 9:45 to go to Petra's brother Rob's house in Lelystad, which is closer to Amsterdam.  Petra had to pick up her goddaughter from Amsterdam airport, so we stayed in Lelystad for the night, at some friends of the Van Der Sloots, who have kind of a small bed and breakfast type of place.  Marc and I went with Rob in the afternoon to see the Batavia, which is a boat that was constructed in the old ship building manner, to be a full scale replica of an old merchant ship.  It was pretty amazing to see, because aside from using some modern methods to produce old looking things, the entire ship was made exactly like it would have been.  I guess they learned a lot in the building of it, because no one has done it that way for many many years now, and really no one knew how to do it.  They are in the process of building another ship, which was actually a military boat.  It will take 15 years instead of the 10 for the Batavia, because the man who made the Batavia isn't really involved in it, and they have already made some more mistakes that cost time.  We took the tour of the ships and saw the video entirely in German, because there were only German tours going on at the time.  It was pretty easy to understand the Dutch tour guide's German, and I only had some difficulty with some of the more technical ship anatomy and industry terms.  We also tried again, in vain, to locate a Dutch national team jersey at the Outlet Mall right by the dock.  Back at the Van Der Sloots, we had some food, then hung around, played Cluedo (Clue) with Rob and Marie-José and then later went out with Leonoor and her two friends Roxy and Patrick to a club where we danced until 4:30 in the morning!  It was pretty fun, and definitely my first time at a disco like that one.  It was a quieter night because it was a Thursday, but there were still quite a few people there.  I should mention here that I am a terrible dancer, but had fun anyway.

August 25

This morning was another restful and delicious one here in Blijham.  We headed out a bit before noon again, this time just with Petra, to see a cool fortress in the shape of a 5 pointed star, surrounded by two moats.  It was a pretty important defense in the past, but now it is for historical purposes rebuilt, and actually, people still live in houses inside the fortress.  The walls are just made of dirt, but they are quite high and steep.  It was pretty cool to see, and even cooler because we could walk atop the walls all the way around it.  We had some coffee and cookies when we got back, then headed out later with Petra and Edward for a drive to the sea, to see a sluice system that regulates the water level in the canals there.  It had a lock in addition to the sluice, and was of course very windy there.  The landscape reminds me so much of West Michigan, down to the variable weather patterns and clouds that we have been seeing the last few days.  I could find myself at home here pretty easily, aside from the Dutch language of course (learning German helps you read some of it maybe, but it is not really close enough all the time for meaningful comprehension (maybe for Germans it does, but not me)).  After seeing the sea, we headed back into town to get some food stuffs for dinner, and to look for a Netherlands national team jersey from the World Cup, which no one had unfortunately.  After that we headed back to the house.  For supper tonight we had Edward's famous pumpkin soup, which was quite delicious indeed.  The main food was a stalwart meal of potatoes, beans and beef though and was quite tasty with some red wine.  We always have very interesting talks with Petra and Edward about a variety of things too, which is always fun.  They are full of interesting stories.

August 24 Pictures