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Family Reunion

Family Reunion

On my solo trip on Barney in 2004, my goal for coming north was just to see where Helmer had come from – I wasn’t expecting much in the way of meeting people, especially since I then had absolutely no idea about the size of the family and only had those two email addresses – I thought I’d be there a few days, see the house, meet the family at the other email address and be on my way. I…

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Under the Tuscan… Rain?

Under the Tuscan… Rain?

Maybe buying a tent called “Waterfall” wasn’t such a hot idea. Maybe it somehow cursed us. Ridiculous idea maybe, but hard to avoid when Libertario tells you this is the most rain he’s ever seen in May in all of his 60 years. The trip started well. We made it from DutchBoy’s parents’ house to Italy much the way we’d planned, with an overnight in Colmar, France. Around Lugano, Switzerland, DutchBoy remembered that his aunt and uncle had very much…

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Lier, Antwerp, Herentals and Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog, Oh My!

Lier, Antwerp, Herentals and Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog, Oh My!

We headed for what may be our last weekend away without Sprocket before the little one comes. Sprocket was more than happy to spend time with Oma and Opa. We got caught in horrendous Friday afternoon rush hour traffic and the GPS, in an attempt to avoid one jam, routed me through most of the rest of the Netherlands, including two other jams it hadn’t known about. I left the Utrecht area at 3:30 or so and got to DutchBoy’s…

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The Zuiderzee Museum

The Zuiderzee Museum

Again taking advantage of our museum memberships and a lovely late September afternoon, we headed off to the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuisen. It’s another outdoor museum, a collection of old buildings and other heritage stuff. You take a boat from the parking lot to the museum and then get to wander around in buildings and such. I can see going back there when the kids are older as there was a lot of cool stuff for them, including dress up clothes…

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Weekendje Weg

Weekendje Weg

How could we not take advantage of the grandparents’ willingness, even eagerness, to take Sprocket for a weekend, his first away from both of us, so we could have a weekend away together? This first time, we planned on just one night of separation to see how it went. I went down with Sprocket on Friday afternoon, in order to spend a little time trying to get the motorbikes going – after many delays and traffic, I didn’t have enough…

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Open Air Museum

Open Air Museum

The Openluchtmuseum (literally “Open Air Museum”) is a collection of restored historic buildings, staffed by people in traditional costumes. They do traditional crafts (and naturally, sell the products) and have activities for the kids. But mostly, it’s just a very pleasant place to walk around in, with lots of interesting things to see. We’d been meaning to get there for a while – we bought these museum year cards (free entrance to many museums for only €35 for the year…

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Home for a visit

Home for a visit

We had a wonderful three weeks in Canada seeing friends and family. Of course, there’s never enough time to see everyone or do everything that we’d like to do while we’re there, but we did the best we could and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Of course, my major regrets were that I couldn’t have sushi or the lovely microbrewed beer as I’m pregnant again, but I’ll just have to wait until next visit. The first week we spent time with my…

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Camping in Switzerland and the South of France

Camping in Switzerland and the South of France

There’s a reason we tend not to make reservations. The plan was to spend two days getting down to the South of France, spend a week there and spend two days coming back. Only that last part ended up being true. (see the map at the bottom of the post for our route). The reason for this vacation was that DutchBoy had Thursday and Friday the 21st and 22nd of May off because of Hemelvaart (which sounds cooler than Ascension…

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Keukenhof

Keukenhof

A very traditional Mothers Day. We went with DutchBoy’s parents to the Keukenhof. We’d won tickets in the bank lottery he plays and a lovely sunny Mothers Day seemed the perfect day to go. It was beautiful, and though busy, not so busy that it was overcrowded. And by around five, everyone had gone home for dinner so it felt almost deserted and we got to wander through the flowers at leisure. I took quite a lot of pictures and…

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Kinderdijk

Kinderdijk

Today we went with a visiting Canadian friend to another World Heritage Site, Kinderdijk. Again, while nice enough, it was hardly on the scale of an Angkor Wat or some of the other sites I’ve seen. But it was pretty enough, and quintessentially Dutch, with windmills and dykes and polders (the areas of land inside canals), as you see here. Sprocket quite enjoyed his time in the back carrier, as he usually does. Me and my friend. A swan in…

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Muider Castle

Muider Castle

Off to the medieval castle of Muider, the Muiderslot (slot = castle) today. The occasion was a visit from our friend A, who’s staying with us a few days – she’s American but since she’s a flight attendant it’s easy for her to come visit. She arrived early in the morning and made her way down to Utrecht. After a quick nap for her, we headed off. Signage to Muiderslot was a bit confusing (as always, you can click on…

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Weekend in Limburg

Weekend in Limburg

Maastricht is commonly held to be one of the loveliest cities in the Netherlands, and Limburg is the only place with hills, so when Dutch Boy got a night in one of a chain of hotels as his Christmas gift from work (he actually got to choose out of a catalog), we knew where we wanted to go – Houthem, a small village two train stops from Maastricht. We reserved for Saturday night and then added Friday at the last…

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