My mum was finally lured by her cute grandson to come and visit for a week. It was great to have her here – she got to spend a lot of time with Liam and get to know him. And I got a bit more sleep. And it’s funny, having her here seems to have made me more at peace with the idea that I live here now, something I hadn’t known I wasn’t at peace with.
Mum arrived on Thursday, August 7th and I got to make my second trip to Schiphol within the week. She had no problems with her flight and still had energy, so to fight jet lag we went to spend the afternoon in Amsterdam, leaving her bags in the luggage lockers at Amsterdam Centraal. Shortly after we started walking around it started to rain, and hard. Liam was fine – he has a great rain cover on his stroller, but despite umbrellas, we got soaked. After much wetness, we decided to check out the Westerkerk (unsurprisingly, lineups for things like the Anne Frank House were long and wet). We got there just as they were closing up, but had a nice chat with the volunteer about free public music programs that were going on that week and for the rest of the summer. Then we headed back to Utrecht and got Mum settled, and tried unsuccessfully to keep Mum up the whole evening. After Mum went to bed, Ivo and I were startled by a large BANG. We looked everywhere – something in the kitchen? something outside? something Mum had brought that had didn’t like altitude changes? Couldn’t figure it out.
The next morning (or early afternoon really – the Olympics make it hard to get going) as Mum and I set off to explore Utrecht, the mystery was solved. We had overfilled the stroller tire and blown an innertube. I got to carry Liam in the front carrier (which he was just getting to big for) as we went to look at old churches. I had never known that my mother really likes old churches. The rain finally let up while we were in the first one and we had sunshine. We also saw part of the Summer Darkness festival – a goth extravaganza. Interesting. And I bought a new inner tube.
Saturday, we again got started in the afternoon. We (including Ivo) went to The Hague to see the Escher Museum, the beach at Scheveningen (I had known that Mum loves beaches) and Madurodam. The weather was great as we set off, and I wore a cute, but very light top. I think you know what happens yet – no sooner did we get to the beach after the very interesting museum (what fascinating works!) than did a storm blow in. By the time we left the beach the rain started again in earnest, but we still went to Madurodam, which is an outside attraction. As we entered, the ticket taker made sure we knew that we couldn’t get a refund because it was raining. I did have a light rain jacket, but it proved less than adequate. Despite being cold and wet, we had a good time, even Liam, who slept through a lot of it.
On Sunday, Ivo and I celebrated our birthdays again with his family (we had a party the previous weekend for our friends). It was also a chance for them and Mum to meet and for Ivo’s aunt and uncle to see our place for the first time. It was gezellig.
Monday, Mum and I spent the afternoon taking a walk around our nice green neighbourhood, and then to round out the Dutchness, in the evening we all went for a bike ride through the countryside. Liam even fell asleep on the bike.
On Tuesday, Mum drove the car out to Kasteel de Haar. Partly because our internet stopped working that morning, we planned poorly and only had a stroller for Liam, which means we couldn’t do the tour since too many stairs are involved. We still had a nice time wandering the castle grounds. In the evening, Mum and I tried to get to a concert in one of the churches, but here bad planning saved us – we got there late and heard the music from outside and decided it was too modern and atonal for us. The instrument had looked really cool.
We headed back into Utrecht on Wednesday to see the Cathrijneconvent – the Netherlands’ museum of religious art. We ran out of time to see the Nijntje Museum, so I’ll still have to go there.
Thursday, it was into Amsterdam again for the Van Gogh Museum and to meet Mara for dinner. Van Gogh’s works are some of the best to see in person since they have so much texture, so it was nice to see them again. I also got to catch up with a classmate from my Dutch class who works in the gift shop. Then we met Mara, took a canal tour and had a lovely dinner – I had fondue and they both had goat cheese salads – yummy!
On Friday, it was time for Mum to head home and prepare for the new school year. We took her to the airport. Liam and I then went into Amsterdam to meet Mara – we had a lovely lunch before I took off to go shoe shopping.
Pictures are in an album – you can access it by clicking on the picture below.
