VISITORS

We did not have time to go to Brussel, but we did have many guests/visitors who came to see us from Holland.

 After leaving Granny & Grandpa we had our first visitors Juunie , Pieter & Jean Pierre; you may know the names already since we met them in Beijing. Mom’s friend –Marga- came with her daughter Lena and a friend of Marga, Fred and his son Dax. We had 6 kids so Steven and I decided to have a Sport’s Day. A boy’s team against the girl’s team.  It was much fun! We did hockey, football, running, ping pong, badminton, Rummikub & jumping rope. Dax taught me a few tricks on the jumping rope. The parents talked and we played different kinds of sport. After dinner Jean Pierre, Juunie & Pieter left. The rest slept over. We left the next morning for Antwerp where we went to the old city centre. Walking, listening to street musicians, people singing and dancing and acting. We visited the Peter Paul Rubens House. Rubens was born in 1577 and died at an age of 63 in 1640. In Rubens big house we saw his artwork, bedrooms and the lovely green garden.  Mom & I where talking about the Antoon Van Dyck painting when a museum guard who worked there was explaining  us about the Antoon Van Dyck painting and told us that 2 weeks ago it was discovered that the portrait of Van Dyck was not painted by Rubens but by Antoon Van Dyck himself. He painted his own portrait at the age of 16!!! It is still officially a secret until they have confirmed this in the art lab.

Afterwards we took a look at the cafe The Pilgrom, where my parents went in the 80-ties when they were studying in Breda. It was very dark with a few candles. Then we went to a cafe near the Cathedral where we had mussels for dinner. It was a very special restaurant because hundreds of eyes were watching (over) us........ it  where............ church statues!!! The name of the restaurant is “The 11 commandments” Het Elfde Gebod. There were 5 portions mussels left and that was just enough for us all. On the first day without rain they left and we had school, went to a WIFI area to send mails and do our homework and we watched a movie and ate my dessert which I named “Loes’ fruit forest”.

On Friday morning Dad left to go to Holland for meetings and he had to pick up some things. Mom, Steven and I had our whole day planned. We first had school, played Rummikub, had lunch, walked for an hour to a small village where we had apple pie with hot chocolate. We went shopping and all bought something!!!

We walked ... NO.....RAN back home. It was raining again (or still) very badly. We were just in time home to hear the Storm. Watched a movie. Slept.

Saturday no change in the weather and the whole day was darkish and cold until the evening when the Rosiers from Amsterdam surprised us. Just before they arrived we saw the sun and we could all sit and play in the garden and have a wonderful picnic. We played with Bas, Willem and Stijn soccer & hockey and had dinner across the street. After our delicious apple pie with mocca ice-cream we were tired and went to bed. The next morning they went back to Amsterdam and we left too to go to Holland to meet the Vonkjes -  Hans Vonk, Annelies Vonk, Tieme, Josephine & Susan. We went with them to Woudrichem, and old town on the Maas with old houses and a ferry across the river. We ate a ” Kroket” ( very traditional Dutch course) and walked around and saw Annelies’ and Hans’ first house that they lived in. The neighbours were still the same neighbours- who were fisherman (Paling – eel) and many many years ago had a friend who moved to Cape Town to fish and who stayed in South Africa.  We finished the sightseeing tour at the ICE-CREAM SHOP and they had... STROOPWAFEL ICE-CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all had much fun together.

So, with all the cold and rainy days this week, we did have a very very nice week full of surprises and fun.!!!!!!!

(next week London)

Loes

The Video on the right is the Vonkjes and the Kreefts eating an ice-cream in a very cute village. 














The video on the left is in Antwerp where we saw a very old wagon