Hotel Restaurant De Holterhof Enschede

... a wonderful repast of cakes and coffee/tea (very good tea!). And then we visited the pen room! One can only view this room with admiration. Later, as I sat down and dug through Biggy’s duplicates, Pete and Bert went off on their own. Pete doesn’t speak any German and Bert not much English, but Pete said they had a very nice conversation and told me later about how Bert ...

... and let him find his way home alone. Can you imagine that happening today?

In the interests of history, we explored the small Hengelo museum, which had an unusual cellar full of pickles and a Singer sewing machine. I bought an old photo postcard of the town, then we walked back to the van der Poel ice-cream shop. It claims to have 120 flavours, but we couldn't try them all. We certainly enjoyed the ones we did try.

... my sleeping bag, only to hear the whine of a lone mosquito in the dark of my room. The kids had chosen to sleep together under a mosquito net, as if Overijssel was the last bastion of malaria. I pulled the hood of my sleeping bag round me, so that only my nose was showing. Half a minute later, the mosquito flew straight up my nose, causing me to writhe and snort ineffectually in my mummified, trussed state.

I don't know how the mozzie found me, but it stopped whining after that.

Heute um 5:00 Uhr ging es los zur ersten Urlaubsetappe nach Deutschland. Der Flug hatte Verfruehung, und so war ich nach Taxi, Flug, Zug und Auto bereits zum Mittagessen in Havixbeck! Nachmittags waren wir dann auf dem Havixbecker Karnevalsumzug... At 5:00am this ...

... and some chocolates at a bakery and headed back to home base. There we were amazed to find Carly still sleeping! An unprecedented 4 hr nap. Easiest babysitting job ever for Wout. (A windmill we saw on the way home) After lunch for the grownups, we headed out to play in the snow. The snow wasn't very sticky, so our snowman is kind of pathetic. Elly ...

... potatoes. It wasn't too bad. Ben was nearly falling asleep at the table. Elly ate her best meal yet. And Carly hung in there for while until I nursed her at the table and she fell asleep. Got back home and put the 2 older kids to bed right away around 8:30. No arguments there. Carly went about an hour later. Russ and I stayed up a bit later with the help of coffee (that seems to flow very freely here) but finally crashed ...

Before leaving on our trip to Europe, we traveled to Houston to stay with friends from college. Their daughter, it turns out, has just become engaged, so we spent most of the weekend celebrating. Hurricane Gustav didn't make it to Houston, so we spent time in their pool soaking up some sun. This was the beginning of our vacation, which I'm calling "eating our way across several time zones." The plane ride was uneventful. During the flight I noticed I could watch someone else's TV ...

... ll get a good head start. This also means that I am busy, which is a good thing... I'd rather be busy than bored! The people at work have been really great in regards to the challange of having to talk english with & around me. I am really enjoying my job, but haven't written much about it, I suppose, because you all would probably think the subject is boring! Okay, I'm going to start getting ready for bed. Hope everyone is doing well! --Nate

... gen, b*t with more people *nd to the so*nds of the D*tch *ndergro*nd h*rd h*rd d*nce m*sic. Yo* c*n he*r the BOOM BOOM BOOM everywhere ro*nd d* Nederl*nds, *nd * D*tchie isn't * D*tchie witho*t * so*nd system more expensive th*n their c*r. Yet *g*in, it w*s *nother goodbye to Roel. He loved the Brits so m*ch when he w*s tr*velling tho*gh, he's coming to live in the UK for * bit. So for s*re we will meet *g*in very shortly.

... and I don't quite remember the precise year), but -- this is important -- it had built into the front of the house for a keystone, another stone that had been inscribed: BOELINK 1473. This implies to us that the Beulink family has been in that area at least since the 15th century! Wow. This will give us some more genealogical leads. I think I'll try to look for that spelling of Boelink in early records. Without this clue, I might have passed over ...