Two Weeks in Heaven

My dear, departed mother used to say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Since the day I arrived, I started counting the days until Gwaz would visit. The big, big numbers only made me depressed, and the small, almost-time numbers made me anxious. I couldn’t win—until she arrived.

Happy Hour at School? Ummm...

No. 1 on Gwaz's list was Happy Hour at school (no kidding; it's hard to explain and real easy to understand!) Besides that, there were more things to see and do. I must admit (and she’ll back me up) my A-typeness was in rare “let-me-fill-every-minute-of-every-day-with-Dutch-stuff” form. For example, we had dinners with local Dutch families (apologies Jim, but when you marry a Dutch girl, have Dutch kids, and buy a very-Dutch house, you qualify as Dutch). Many thanks to Lisa, Mark, and Mariella Verkerk for a fabulous evening in the beautiful village of Moulderberg. We visited Zaanse Schans along with a dozen buses filled with enough international tourists to know we weren’t the only ones who wanted to see real windmills. We spent an evening at the Van Gogh Museum admiring the often-astounding brilliance of the troubled Dutch genius.

at Zaanse Schans

Joined by Jesse and Marissa in Amsterdam, we went with Jim and Eveline, and our French connection, Nicolas and Valentine on a canal cruise. (Hey, tourists do tourist-stuff—that’s the rule!). There is nothing more Dutch than the Keukenhof Gardens, where we saw more flowers in one place than most people see in a lifetime.

I brought my own flower to Keukenhof

We spent parts of four days in Paris. (It took Heart-attack Harry to encourage the others to climb the almost 300 steps to the roof of the Arc de triomphe!) We toured the magnificent Musee d’Orsay, and we all but mastered the public transport system!

A view from the top!

Watching the light show at the Eiffel Tower I couldn’t help remembering our first taxi ride in Paris almost twenty years ago. I told the driver that the only thing I learned from my high school French lessons was the inquiry “Ou est la Tour Eiffel?”

“Ou est la Tour Eiffel?”

In his best tourist-friendly English the driver replied, “But you must never need to ask where it is. Just look up!”

I doubt seriously if any of us will soon forget our two weeks together—our two weeks in heaven.