Post 1: Flying To Amsterdam
Post 2: The First Morning
After watching TV and having breakfast, we headed a few doors down for tea. Both the parents of this family spoke English, as the mother was actually from England.
For a political type, Europe is paradise. Topics covered over tea included European integration, Belgium's internal turmoil, Afghanistan, Turkish entry to the EU, and the damn Greeks.
An invitation was offered to go to the lake. The two younger boys, Thom and Job, were eager to go, and so I went with them.
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Holland has 16 million people and about 2 million boats, I was told on the way. If true, that's one boat for every eight people in a country 1/15 the size of Manitoba with 16 times the population.
The drive through the Dutch countryside* was terrifying. Anyone who's driven with me knows I'm not timid in a vehicle, but that's when I'm on roads that look like they were built for cars, as opposed to horse-drawn carriage. There are expressways all over the country, and they're very nice, but the rest of the roads are a death-defying experience. When I got to the lake, I felt how a skydiver must feel when he hits the ground.
* I use this term loosely; you hit a new town or village every five minutes (and when I say town or village, in Canada we'd use the word "city" to describe them).
If I thought the roads were full, they were nothing compared to the lake. It is hard to get a sense of it from these pictures, but I've never seen so many boats on one body of water in my life. Driving the boat, you can't relax for more than a minute or you'll run into somebody.
After a couple hours, we came back ashore. Me and Thom, the five-year-old, went for a swim.
And this is Thom and Job on the playground. Job is seven. On the monkey-bars, they kept hanging upside down and saying "take a picture!"
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