Home at last...

Cows, cows everywhere!

So, here Mom and I are back on good old Canadian soil after 10 short days... enjoying a lovely day of sunshine and beautiful temperatures... laundry on the line... suitcase unpacking and finding places for all the old things and some new things besides which have managed to make their way across the wide Atlantic to our fair homeland.... yet there is still something inside me that misses Holland so much, misses our family... misses our cousins and the connections we made, I hate distances sometimes... i hate that it takes a year or two before we see our family again.... i hate that goodbyes have to make you so sad. I trust we will meet again somehow somewhere... but in the meantime, i miss everyone. Though i'm glad to see my friends again and my dad and siblings. Travelling is so busy and thoughts are always twirling around in your brain and seemingly not getting anywhere, not having any time for expression and meditation about the insightful things that we talked about, that we cried and laughed about, that my brain cells sometimes stretched themselves to understand. So in lieu of further words, here comes a battery of photos to enjoy.

Happy viewing!

The Statue of Liberty?? Did we accidently stray into New Amsterdam??

Nope, it's a person sized duplicate of the superhero of freedom... right in the

middle of a Dutch farmers field!

A typical Dutch scene... the windmill, symbol of the ever-present struggle

between the Dutch and the sea.

All the family gathered in the barn on Sunday for a barbeque... and man,

was that ever barbequeing (how do you spell that word?) Eet smakelijk!

We visited Oma and Opa's gravesites, left flowers, said hello and

i learned more about family history during our tour of the cemetary.

It is such a lovely peaceful place.

The Afsluitdijk, the barrier which was completed in 1932??

I did have the date memorized at one point... the great marvel of engineering

which split up the sea and make a lake and created the right conditions to create the polder lands.

Een lekkere cappucino op de Afsluitdijk... heerlijk!
One, just one, of the delicious meals which we were privy to on this trip...

our family are fair culinary giants so we ate very well!

Part of Panorama Tulipland... a huge round painting of tulip growing and culture

in Voorhout... a very interesting and intriguing thing, panoramas...

Oh, how i love flags!! The Dutch tricolour flies proudly above the beach in Noordwijk! It was a cold and windy day...but we enjoyed it thorougly!

The three sisters united again! An, Mom and TinekeMom eating some lekkere kibbeling by the sea... it was hit the spot...

Mom and I went to a fancy "high tea" at her cousin's place

in Nieuweerdinge, we had a nice time with all of her cousins and sisters

and relaxed in the garden with a nice cuppa!

Drinking tea again, but this time at a tea museum in the north of Groningen.

Did you know you could order up to 8 kinds of rooiboos? I had no idea.
The sun sets again in the west and spreads its dying rays over the landscape, painting the sky with spectacular colours and breathtaking beauty.

Hallo again

Hallo
Thoughts are running around through my head like a bunch of wild crazy runaway rhinocerusses/rhinoceriii?
Why is Dutch bread so yummy? For all of you who share the same sentiments, i ate two slices of brood for you this morning with relish (not real relish in a physical sense but internal relish and enjoyment) and with kip kerrie on it.
Why does time fly so quickly?
Why does our family live so far apart from each other? Dat is heel yammer, eh? I wish we could teleport ourselves from one place to another with ease... but i suppose that'll be the next step on the world's ever increasing pace of life... so maybe it's a good thing that we have a nice long plane trip to consider what it is that we just did or to ponder and anticipate what comes ahead.
Can i still remember how to work? Do i still want to work in the same place? Sometimes my head would like to explode with all the exertion of thinking about what to do in my life... and then i just leave it all and go on vacation... solves everything right???
Anyways, i should probably leave off now cause we are going to go to the centre of Groningen for a little bike ride to poke around and then we leave to go to Woubrugge...
How time flies when you're having fun!!!

Groeten uit nederland

Hallo everyone
Groeten uit Nederland... Yep, here i sit in the land of my parent's birth... the land of milk and honey, nope, oops, of droppies and chocopasta and everything else lekker. We have had a whirlwind trip so far, seems like a different bed every night and not enough time for all the things that i would like to do. We have been in Woubrugge, Smilde, Stadskanaal, Nieuweerdinge, Emmen, Groningen and all sorts of kleine dorpjes inbetween. We have eaten so much that i believe i will need to starve myself for a good week (impossible really) when i get home so that i will once again fit into my clothes... it seems our Dutch family always wants to feed us good things and being good guests, we don't refuse either!! That would be so rude. So sure, i'll have another stukkie koek, or sure, i'll take another schep of soep. Aaah, we are such good guests... eating everything that is put before us.
It is so nice to drink in the sights, smells, sounds and tastes around us. To spend time with family (i do miss everyone at home though), to see places you remember so well from childhood, to hear the birds singing, to see the canals, cows, windmills, cheese, cows, small little cars, crazy driving, cows, the Afsluitdijk, the bikes, cows, droppie winkels and so much else that is Dutch. But mostly to catch up with family whom we haven't seen for a while, we had a "nichten"dag gehadt met mij mom's cousins gister and that went well... she got to see all eleven of her direct cousins on her dad's side of the family and i got to meet them all as i came into the door, one after another... hello, i'm tante allie, hello i'm tante dinie, hello i'm tante ardien, hello i'm tante dinie... yep, there were even a couple of double names since there were four cousins named after the same oma! Confusing enough to have all these tantes coming at you but then to have the names the same... i'll confess to sitting in the car later on and asking my mom "so who was the one with the big hat"or "who was the one who was smoking" cause it was so hard to tell everyone apart.
Anyhow, ik geniet ervan en i will be sad on Tuesday when we leave here.
Pictures to come... but i have biking to do now!
Love you all!

12:03.. where are you?

Well, for all of you out there who have thought that the writer of this blog had possibly accidently been sucked out of the earth's atmosphere into a black hole in deepest darkest space, or that she might possibly have been run over by a runaway ostrich or been eaten by coyotes (Lauren!! heehee), i'm here to let you know that there is life in this neighbourhood. It's just been a little on the odd side in the last few weeks. Hmmm, for a quick synopsis of what i've been up to, okay, hmm... i could tell you that i won the $10 million dollar lottery prize, have settled up all my debts, bought a mansion on Georgian Bay and have decided to live the rest of my life fishing for trout (or whatever sort of fish live in Georgian Bay) and eating marshmallows. Or that i have finally found my prince charming and he turned out to be a baker and now i live in above a bakeshop on James Street downtown and decorate cookies with icing all day long.

The truth is actually much less fantastical and more down to earth. I'm suffering from a severe lack of inspiration. It seems everything that comes out of my mouth or head as ideas for this blog have severe flaws, too dull, too factual, too run of the mill. I love reading other's blogs so much more than i enjoy trying to think of what to write here. To be honest, i haven't even written in my journal book for an age (i seem to only write in there whence i am very distraught or emotional, and i seem to have been suffering from a severe lack of emotions for the last year and a half). So what is a girl to do?

But as there seem to be a small core of loyal fans and friends who find an iota of entertainment herein... i will endeavour to be more faithful.

So news flashes:

- My car is making clunking noises again - i do believe the mechanics feel i am overly paranoid and make a lot of fun of me behind my back when i describe to them yet again exactly what is going on with the car... i feel like a broken record sometimes, playing an nonsensical recording. I feel like just asking the mechanic to just come for a ride each time to hear for themselves what i am hearing firsthand. Maybe then they would believe me! I believe going back to the good ole' days of horses and carriages (i have to be very careful of how i word that since i was once pounced on as a girl for wanting to be married in a "horse-covered wagon" as opposed to a horse-drawn wagon/buggy. Is there no mercy for the grammatically inept?

- I am leaving for Holland in less than a week! Joy and gladness fill my soul... i love love going there and seeing family and friends again... the time will fly, it is only 10 days but it will still be a good time - i'm travelling with my mom and i'm excited about that - the last time we travelled together, we drove to Boston! So no freak rainstorms this time and ... i'm falling asleep... pretty soon, this post will involve a whole lot of nonsense and gobbledygook dribbled from the saucepot of my mind to the cookstove of the internet.....

So i'll try to finish this up on the morrow complete with pics....

Sorry bout that... but it'lll give you hope to keep you posted