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AUGUST 4, 2003
Now it seemed we would be about a half-hour late meeting Nadine in Amsterdam Central because we had no time between our train arriving in Amersfoort and when the next train left for Amsterdam Central. At least we knew we would have to wait only a half-hour in Amersfoort, but I hated the thought of Nadine having to wait for us at the train station. Very tense.
Fortunately, we got to Amersfoort about 5 minutes ahead of schedule so we made our train to Amsterdam Central. We got to Amerstdam right at 7PM and walked out back to where we thought we were supposed to meet Nadine. We hadn't picked a specific place to meet so we stood on the street for a while and then I went in to see if she was in the station anywhere. I also tried to call but as usual I had no luck with the phones. In any case, I walked back to where Shari was waiting outside and she was just coming in to tell me Nadine was there.
It was so nice to see Nadine. She took us to her apartment which is lovely, and we sat and had drinks and visited for awhile. Then we walked through the park up to an Italian restaurant that Nadine frequents and we had a great meal.
8/03: We got up about 8 and made some calls to hostels in Germany and to the train station, and used Nadine's computer to check out a few things about boat rides on the Rhine. She had all sorts of food for us - fruit, cold cuts, bread, eggs, juice, coffee, salad stuff, and I had a great breakfast with juice, eggs, toast and ham. Nadine called Renee Gilmer about meeting us later in the day for drinks or dinner that night, and she decided to meet us for dinner. Nadine then drove us to the train station to pick up our train reservation tickets for Berlin, and then she suggested we got out to visit Delft.
Delft is a lovely place and is known for its beautiful blue and white hand painted china. We walked around a bit and took some pictures, and then Nadine treated us to delicious Dutch pancakes. They are small, melt in your mouth pancakes and we had two different kinds, one with butter and sugar, and one with strawberries and cream. Delicious!
Next we went back to Amsterdam to take an hour's boat tour. It was so pleasant sitting on the boat looking at all the interesting houses and buildings along the canals. Amsterdam is a city of bridges and canals, and the buildings along the canals are all multi-storied, narrow buildings, because they were taxed based on the frontage of the buildings on the canal.
After the canal tour we went to meet Renee and we had drinks sitting outside at a cafe before we went over to an Indonesian restaurant for a Rijsttafel (Rice Table) dinner. Holland is known for Rijsttafel which came from trading in the Duch West Indies. I had it 23 years ago when I was in the Netherlands on a business rtrip and I still remembered it as one of my favorite culinary treats.
The restaurant was another favorite of Nadine's and it was very upscale. Rijsttafel consists of a variety of dishes (e.g., beef, pork, chicken, tofu, vegetables, fruits) in different sauces and bowls of rice. Nadine also ordered extra dishes of prawns, fried rice and noodles. What a feast, and I certainly did my part (more than my part) in polishing off the food. It was a great evening with good food and good conversation. Nadine and Renee entertained us with stories of the many vacation trips that the expats in Breda and London have taken together. We got back to Nadine's fairly late, watched some news on TV and went to bed around 11:30.
8/04: Nadine went off to work this morning but she left us a set of keys so we could go out and do errands and sightseeing and then come back for our big packs before we went to the train station. We did a lot of walking today from Nadine'sapartment up to a shopping area, then we user the internet and then we visited the Anne Frank House.
It was the house where Anne and her family (mother, father and sister) and 4 other people hid for 25 months from July 1942 to August 1944, when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, and it was where Anne wrote her famous diary. The hiding place was betrayed on August 4, 1944 and all 8 people were deported, and only Anne's father survived the concentration camps. We spent about an hour looking at the house and the exhibit, and it was all very interesting and quite moving.
We went back to Nadine's about 4PM, made some more calls to reserve places in Germany and then left about 5:30 to take the train to the train station. We got our 7PM train to Duisburg and arrived at 9:15PM, and then we had to wait 2 hours for our train to Berlin.
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