Hommies, I'm Home!

Okay, so that doesn't sound right, but "Honey, I'm Home" didn't sound right either. When I arrived yesterday in Calgary, I wanted to yell like Fred Flintstone. I am so happy to be home!

Today I am reminded of a quote a girl translated for me, while I was on the road: "Foreign lands never become home, but home becomes foreign." It's so true! I never felt truly at home over there, but it feels strange being back. (Especially because of the time difference.)

I can't believe it's been 6 days since I posted last! A lot of stuff has happened so I'll try to give you the highlights.

1. Apparently anything over 45 minutes is a "long drive" for Europeans, so we stopped 3 times on our way to the boat.

2. Yachting can be done one of two ways: the old-fashioned way (young/fit person's way) or the lazy man's way. The first involves raising the sails manually, and there's a good chance to be knocked over board. Then the other is my kind of sailing. Within a few minutes out side of the harbour I could raise both sails by myself, while sitting down. Don't get too excited here. All I had to do was press a button, and then the sails went up.

3. I didn't get seasick! The waves were quite high the whole weekend, but I didn't get sick!

4. London was expensive, and there was too much to see! The average cost of a private museum was 13 pounds or 26 CAD, so I opted for the free walking tour instead. Between my own wandering and the tour I saw:
the Tower of London (Kind of creepy at sunset...)
London Bridge (plain and simple...Rocky's looks more interesting.)
Tower Bridge (This is the one everyone think of when they hear "London Bridge" and even Fergie got it wrong in her music video.)
Millennium Bridge (wobbly and expensive - 18 million pounds!)
The Globe Theatre
The OXO factory
"The West End"
Leister Square
Trafalgar Square
Westminster Abby
Parliament Buildings
Churchill's War Bunker
Hyde Park
St. Jame's Park
Buckingham Palace

5. Changing of the Guard
Each troop has its band there for the ceremony and they entertain the crowd during the ceremony. I say entertain because "Copacabana", "James Bond" and Barbra Streisand's "People" are not songs I would pick for the Changing of the Guard! They were well played, but seemed totally out of place! They did start and end with nice British Marches, so the tradition was kept up for part of the time. (Did I mention the Bands' spacing was crappy? AE or the Red Deer Royals could have done better! -okay band geek complaining done now.)

Well I want to write forever, but I have to go to a year end BBQ for my parents' school. I guess I'll just have to write the rest in installments so you'll keep reading... Stay tuned for my top 10 lists...

Love you all!
Andrea

Great Aunt Ans

Yesterday evening we travelled to Einhoven to see Ans. She is such a sweet lady! She bought me some true Delft Blue ceramic clogs as a small souvenier I could take home in my backpack. Her English was terrific! I am constantly amazed how EVERYONE here is fluent in at least English and Dutch, and most can speak French as well. Another great part of Holland: English menus. Everywhere else, I've had to ask if they had one, or just made due without. But here every little restaurant has an English menu, and they will just bring it too you as soon as they hear you speaking English! Last night at dinner they could tell from my accent that I was the only native English speaker, so they brought one for me. It was so nice to know what I was ordering! (Altought at lunch I ordered grilled eggplant sandwich as it seems to be THE thing over here. ...it was actually quite tasty!)

Today Jan (Ninke's father) and I will bike to a small village, whose name translates to the "White Village". As a part of the marching band world I had always heard legends of a village with 2 marching bands, and all of the villagers supported either one or the other so much that "Romeo and Juliet" could have taken place there. Well it turns out that those legends are of the White Village! Carin and Jan think it is the perfect place to take me today, as I have seen so many cities by now and I love music!

Anyways, I'd better go and unfold my bike. Yes, that's right. UNFOLD A BIKE. Some of the bikes over here fold into a suitcase size so they can be easily transported in a car or on the train! I so want one! I could keep it under my desk at school...

Love,
Andrea

Utrecht, The Hague, & Roermond

Dag!

The last couple of days have been action packed! Wim has been busy haying this week, so I've had the opportunity to go traveling. Monday I saw Amsterdam, Tuesday was Utrecht and yesterday was the Hague. Every night I came home and we had a fancy 5 course meal with a lot of wine. If you know Oma, then you know how she ignores you when you say "no thank you" and gives you the food anyways. Well Wim is no different... especially when it comes to wine. I was pretty close to being drunk every night because they kept refiling my wine glass.

Aarnold took me to Utrecht Tuesday via the back roads so I could see all of the lovely summer homes that were built in the 1700s. They were so beautful! He then showed me what he does: shops all day! He is the interrior decorator/designer for 5 clothing chains in Europe, so he is constantly shopping for furniture and new ideas for the layout. It was fun to shop with him for a little while, and then I spent the rest of the day doing a walking tour of Utrecht. I loved the trees next to the canals in Utrecht! It was so beautiful to just sit there and eat my lunch.

The Hague was very interesting! My guidebook failed to mention THE most interesting aspect of the city: The M. C. Escher Museum! I spent a good 4 hours there looking at all of his works, and how he made them. Did you know that it was a Canadian who was the first to realize that he was using mathematical concepts to create pieces of art? My favourite part was the interactive level of the museum. Using a computer program, you could create your own "Filling the Plane" piece of art, or travel into his works via the virtual reality headsets, or try to recreate his pieces using 3-D blocks and camera tricks! The Peace Palace was also very cool. (Internation Court of Justice) They had an intersting sculputre there that is the only one in the world that every country contributed something towards. Every country contributed a rock or precious stone, and then they were placed in a circle around an eternal flame lit with 7 torches from 6 continents. Granted it's not the most beautiful work of art, but the meaning behind it was very powerful.

Today I met up with my Great Aunt Ans' daughter Carin and her daughter Ninke. The train was delayed an hour in Utrecht, and 3 phones ate my money... Luckily the 4th one worked so I could tell them that I was delayed. They have a SWEET house! It's really modern, and has been featured in on TV and several magazines! The front door is a wall that rotates in the middle, the whole front of the house opens up... I think this is one time I definitely will have a hard time describing, so you'll have to stay tuned when I post the pictures of it next week.

Tomorrow we are going sailing in the lakes north of Amsterdam on their 40 foot (45?) sail boat. Depening on the tides, we might go to Texel (an island in the north near the dyke) or along the shore. Either way, I'm looking forward to it! Well I'd better go now, as we are going to go see Ans for supper.

Wim, Rita, Willem and Aarnold

Hello there!

I successfully made it to Wim & Rita's house yesterday. At first there was some confusion as to what day they were expecting me, but I finally got a hold of my busy relatives Saturday morning to clear things up. (FYI -I spent Saturday in Brussles as planned then.) Once I arrived at the station yesterday, there were no pay phones! I had to ask one lady who was gardening if I could use her phone. She was so nice and let me into her house to make the call, and even asked if I would like to come back later for supper!

Last night I had a delicous gormet meal cooked by Rita outside on their patio. The wine was sweet, and also very good. (Yes I actually found an alcohol I liked!) Willem (their son) and Aarnold (his friend) joined us. They told me tons of stories about Willem's competitions in Dressage, and how they had to block two lanes of traffic yesterday because his motorhome/horsetrailer blew 2 tires! (The front half of the unit is a motorhome and the back can house 4 horses.) One daughter is working for Eggerding (their company)in Hong Kong, one is vacationing in France, and one lives two towns over.

The guest house is the size of an average garage, but has a small dinning room, bathroom then a living room/bedroom. Their farm is 1 km long and about 250m wide, with two very nice stables, and an indoor riding ring. Yesterday I helped feed the 10 horses that a kept there, and found out they have 4 others kept in other parts of the Netherlands.

Today I am writing from Amsterdam, because this morning Willem showed me around the processing plant and their office, which is just outside of Amsterdam. I had no idea they owned plants in South Africa and Germany as well! Willem's sectretary says they are a nice family to work for, and said they are so humble about owning it all. I would definitely agree as Wim kept saying that it was a SMALL business. I can't even imagine what a large one would be like!

Tomorrow Aarnold has a cat show (he breeds Persians) in Utrecht, so I will get a ride there with him. Then he has meetings in Amsterdam on Wednesday, so I might come here again with him. Then on Thursday I will travel to Roedermond (in the South) to visit Ans and stay with her daughter Carin's family. Then on Friday or Saturday they will take me sailing on the lakes north of Amsterdam! (It might be an over-night trip.)

I might not be able to email you again until I arrive in London next Sunday, so don't worry if you don't hear from me! I can't believe I'm home in 9 days! I'll let you know how my first sailing experience goes in my next post.

Be back soon!
Andrea

I´m safe... so no worries

The last couple of places haven´t had internet cafes so this was the soonest I could update you all. I am currently in Gent typing on some Turkish keyboard, so you will have to excuse any weird spellings or random punctuation. I think I´ve caught most of them though...

The last couple of days have been cool. Luxembourg was pretty! I think Salzburg, Switzerland and Luxembourg would be the places Dad would enjoy as they seem to be the most scenic places in Europe that I´ve seen. But before I continue, let me answer some of your questions:
I watched someone go zorbing (I could not get myself to pay 300 CHF to be pushed down a hill in a ball.)
Yes that is me in a tye-dye dress. (And yes I am wearing a bra!)
Yes I´ve been on the look out for Dennis...
No chocolate from Switzerland survived the last heat wave in Stuttgart and (darn) it had to be eaten. But if you ever see a hot Chilli chocolate bar from Lindt, they actually are quite yummy.
Yes, the sink has a good story but that will have to wait for later.

Okay so back to wassup.
Frankfurt: cool to see the mix of old and new buildings, but it rained all day, and it was a holiday. (No one could explain what they celebrate on Pennecost Day... Do any one of you know?)
Luxembourg: had a sweet BBQ for Neighbour´s Day and is a beautiful city
Vianden: the castle has been rebuilt and the movie George and the Dragon was filmed there, but other than that there was NOTHING TO DO! I met a writer from Let´s Go!, there and he said it was a nice place... to skip. But it was the only place free in Luxembourg that night.(the country only has 5 hostels)
Gent: cool city! Lots of second hand stores, backeries, Aussie Ice Cream Stands (even the Aussies don´t know why their ice cream is so popular when the stuff here is better and cheaper), and canals. My hostel is right next to an old castle/torture museum! The sketches were way too graphic for my taste...

I sent post cards to Ans and Wim from Basel. They both had people email me! It looks like Wim´s secretary thinks I´m coming June 2 instead of June 3, so I might go there tomorrow. I will look at some train schedules, and then call Wim tonight. He gqve me pretty good directions via train to get there.

The store ower is starting to give me weird looks, so I´d better go.
Love you all, and I promise to update you again soon.
Andrea