We have been spending most of our time simply living life in Friesland. We are enjoying the fresh vegetables, breads and meats that the local stores offer and window shopping in the many small shops in our neighbourhood. We have been taking leisurely coffee breaks here in the Leeuwarden centrum and in some of the smaller villages nearby.
The Dutch love their bicycles and boats just as much as western Canadians love their RVs. We're not sure we will use the bicycles supplied to us as the city traffic is much more daunting than that of our previous house exchange location in nearby Grou. However, we are looking forward to taking our first boat ride tomorrow with our friend Annemieke and her partner and her dad and his partner.
Discovery of hills in Friesland!
While we thought that all of Friesland was a flat as a pancake, we were surprised to hear that are there are hills or terps. Terps were built by monks in 500 BC. The terps were made up of very fertile soil and over time farmers have taken much of the soil away leaving only small hills, some of which still have the ancient churches on top. We visited one Hegebeintum.
We have a house guest
On Thursday, our friend Husein came to visit us for a few days. He loves to cook, so it was a treat to have him in the kitchen, Delmer was his sui chef, and I put my feet up and just watched. Gosh, men can use a lot of pots and utensils when they cook, but not to worry, everything was left neat as a pin when the meal was done :)
We took Husein out to the sea at Harlingen where we checked out the haven, wandered in the centrum. We introduced him to our favorite porceline shop where artists make hand painted tiles. Our next stop was south to the famous 30 kilometre dyke which separates the fresh water Islemeer from the salt water of the Wadensee. Our next stop was Hindeloopen, a small beach resort town along the Islemeer. After supper, we went to Grou to our favorite ice cream shop, Scoop, for an ice cream cone.
Our sweet ride has a tooth ache!
We received some bad news earlier this week. Our 1978 VW needs a new clutch so we have been reluctant to take any long excursions with the car. We have decided to rent a small car for a few weeks to that we can venture out a little further.
We'd rather go to Heidelberg
We are starting to finalize a trip and have settled on a drive into Germany, visiting Kassel, Bamberg, Regensburg (old historic German capital) and Heidelberg, then west into France and up into Belgium to the Flanders Fields area and back to Leeuwarden. Our plans are to leave on Wednesday, July 15, returning on July 24 or 25. Should be fun.
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