Holland - condensed

23-28 June
I'm sooooooooooo behind, that for the sake of my sanity, I'll have to condense 6 days into one entry. So, here goes...
We nearly missed our plane to Amsterdam, as there was no boarding call. Both Gordon and I were very impressed with Schiphol - the airport at Amsterdam - very attractive and efficient, with trains departing from the airport building, just as in London. My cough had become very persistent, so as soon as we arrived in Heiloo, I went to a doctor (not as straight-forward as it sounds!) and got put on antibiotics for a sinus infection.
It was great to see my father's sister, Tante Guus, again. She is a real sweetie and we get on really well together. She came to our hotel in Heiloo (the town where she lives, about 30 minutes' drive north of Amsterdam) - The Golden Tulip - and had dinner with us. The house where Tante Guus lives is right next to a large shopping centre, and about 25 metres from a very old church that my father's family used to attend manhy years ago. It's three stories high, but so narrow, there is only enough width for one room plus a passage. Tante Guus can no longer climb the stairs to her bedroom, so the government funded the installation of a chair that glides up the side of the stairs - eat your heart out, Mary Poppins! I even had a go on it myself.
Apart from one day, we had breakfast with Tante Guus each day, and we used her washing machine and dryer to catch up with our washing - there were no laundry facilities at our hotel. She showed us where my father's family used to live, and have their bakery - just around the corner, and also gave us directions to find the farmhouse where my Oma (Dad's mother) grew up.
The second day in The Netherlands, we hired bicycles from the hotel, and had so much fun riding them, first to Tante Guus' house, then to a beach about 5 kms away, called Egmond Aan Zee. We enjoyed the sense of freedom - no helmets needed here, as there are special bicycle paths everywhere, with their own traffic lights, and they almost have more rights than motorists, so you feel very safe, as you're not competing for road space with the cars. However, I have to say it's a bit disconcerting that scooters, and even motorbikes are allowed to share the cycle paths. It's really easy to cycle here as it's almost completely flat.
We hired a car from Alkmaar, with Tante Guus putting us onto a car hire company that has the same name as I did before I was married - Middelbeek. In fact, the man who founded the company looked very much like my grandfather, and his name was Kees (my father's name). We got this cute little dark aubergine-coloured Ford Ka, and had a great time, and only a few arguments over directions, as we tootled around the countryside. On the first day (Thursday), we visited two fishing villages on the coast just up from Amsterdam, and were taken with the quaint little houses, all beautifully neat and tidy. Volendam, the first of the two, was a lot more touristy, and had a parade of huge tour buses trundling through its narrow streets, while Marken seemed quite unspoiled in comparison. I got my photo taken in traditional Dutch costume - sorry about the pose - I just did as I was told! I was also thrilled when we visited a lovely old church in Marken and inside it were two of the sweetest little old ladies in their local costume who graciously allowed me to take their photo.
We got into trouble a couple of times, firstly when we tried to drive onto the wharf area at Marken and were told off in no uncertain terms by a very grumpy man, and the next time when we were halfway dwon a very narrow street in Marken, and a lady at a street stall started waving her arms at us and holding up her index finger, which I assued meant this was a one-way street, and we happened to be driving up it the wrong way! Actually, there were two other rather more scary incidents - one when Gordon was driving at around 90kph along a highway, and suddenly had to pull off the road onto the grass verge to avoid an oncoming car hitting us head on as it overtook three cars in one go. The second incident occurred when a scooter suddenly swooped in front of us as we were exiting a roundabout. If I hadn't called out to Gordon to stop, the rider would certainly have come off worse for wear. We are thankful to God for His protection - especially since we forgot to take out any insurance when we hired the car!
After the two fishing villages, we headed up north and crossed the 30 kilometre long dyke across the water between North Holland and Frysland, then called into a port to have dinner, before returning to Heiloo for the night.
On Friday (26th), our journey took us in the opposite direction, as we drove south to see an amazing model village called Madurodam, where all the buildings and models are exactly a 25th of their original size. It was a great way to see a lot of the beautiful buildings from all over The Netherlands without having to drive all over the country to see them!
Both Gordon and I think this country is really beautiful, and I reckon Heiloo must be the most gorgeous town I've ever seen. It's just so perfectly well-kept, with such interesting house designs and lovely little gardens set in tree-lined avenues. As you might have guessed, there are windmills everwhere, but not just the traditional kind you see on postcards - there are in fact more of the modern type you can see in the photo. The countryside is all very neat and tidy, and nearly every bit of land is used. We thought it every interesting that there are even buildings that straddle roads, and airport runways that go over the top of roads. On one occasion, the cars had to stop as a section of road lifted up in the air to allow boats to pass through along a canal.
On the day we laft Heiloo, we purchased tickets that would allow is to take the train to Apeldoorn, which is where we would be picked up and taken to the start of our "Share the Heritage" tour. What we didn't know was that it wouldn't be quite the straight forward journey we would have expected. It was very fortunated that Gordon asked an official on the train about our journey, and found out that we would have to change three times and catch a total of four trains to finally reach our destination. That meant a lot more heaving around of our luggage, plus a box of gluten free food I stocked up on for the tour! We were quite tired by the time we finally made it to the dinner where the others were waiting for us.
There is only a small group of people on the tour: a couple from Canada in their late forties, a photo journalist lady who is only doing the dutch part of the tour, a girl in her early twenties from Norway (who has an English accent from working in England), two young guys from Holland, a man in his fifites from Switzerland (and who grew up in Holland), and Gordon and me, plus the head of YWAM in Europe - Jeff Fountain - and his wife. They're an interesting mix of people and personalities, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better on this tour.
Today (28th) is Sunday, so we attended a most interesting church service in the heart of Amsterdam at a Scottish Reformed Church, where the congregation is made up of English speaking Amsterdamers. There was a large group of young people from Scotland playing their violins during the service, although the hymns were accompanied by an organ. I was very grateful to have the melody line of the hymns in the hymn book, as I didn't know any of the songs we sang. It was a very structured service, but at the same time had lots of variety, including the baptism of a very cute little girl. We hung around for coffee afterwards, while Jeff explained some of the features of the church. Just across the path from this church was another service being held in what is know as a 'hidden' church - this one being a Roman Catholic service in French. Am getting very tired now, but I'll try to remember what else we did today. Most of the time was spent in Amsterdam - a very busy city, with heaps of historic buildings, and alongside them the ubiquitous "Coffee" Houses, which are in fact marijuana cafes! After we left the city, we spent quite a while in a lovely town called Naarden, where Comenius is buried. We also watched a movie on his life this evening. He was an amazing man, with a passion to educate the people of Europe, and to see the advent of God's Kingdom. He is know as the father of modern education, as he sought ot teach young people through not just listening, but by allowing them to use all five senses.