10/9/14 • Written by Nancy So tell me, is this how it’s going to go? This blog is our main record of our trip, but so much is happening that never gets into it. It would be frustrating, were it not just how life goes – most gets missed and sinks into oblivion. So many […]

I haven’t given the Netherlands its due on this blog. Sometimes I would put entries into Facebook without thinking that they are immediately lost in the avalanche of new postings. Then I couldn’t figure out how to copy them to the blog, and ultimately, I just couldn’t. Oops. This was a lesson about Facebook. I […]

Rembrandt, Van Gogh, windmills, canals—this is what comes to mind for many when thinking of visiting Netherlands. Me, too until now. But–Oreo Cookies? I have now come to understand that Holland, specifically Wormerveer and Zanse Schans in Zaanstadt, where we are staying, is the center of the universe for the chocolate that is used for […]

On Sunday, 9/28, a shocking realization – tomorrow is our last full day in Holland. Somehow we really settled in, but the end is coming. Tuesday morning we take off for Barcelona. So on Sunday afternoon, our last hurrah, very satisfactory – an archaeology boat trip into a nature preserve just north of our town […]

Charming views of old-fashioned technology. Life is sweet and days are bright. We went to look at windmills at a sort of reconstructed town on the Zaan River, called Zaanse Schans. This kind of windmill was developed over time in a triangle of eastern England, Flanders, and northern coastal France. First mention, 12th century, used […]