Another weekend - July 27 and 28
Saturday again
This time we know enough to stock up for whatever we may need for the weekend, so if they close up the country again this Sunday we won't have to worry about starving until Monday morning.
It started out to be a quiet, do-nothing sort of day. I started a load of laundry, checked my email, spent some time working on my websites.
Then Carmen reminded us that Saturday is market day in Dordrecht, and we really needed to go there. So we had some lunch and headed over the river to Dordrecht.
When we got to the same drawbridge I mentioned a few days ago it was open, and someone was just closing it. This time I watched more closely, and the man finished cranking the handle, removed it from the hole in the "floor", shut the little door over the hole, and put the handle at the side of the bridge. So anyone can just walk up and take it.
I managed to find a couple of books about what we should be seeing while we're here, and a souvenier or two. I admired a replica of the Mayflower, and Carmen bought it for me! What a sweet girl!
We bought all sorts of fruits and vegetables from the stands, and all 3 of us were loaded with stuff when we headed back to the boat to cross the river and head home. Now I guess I'll take the laundry off the line, and go read my new books. That will give me all sorts of ideas about what we will be doing next week.
More about this Dutch language:
When I try to get 3 stamps on my travel pass, so the 3 of us can cross the river, I tell the guy three, and he repeats, three? and I say yes, three. So he stamps TWO lines on the pass. I say THREE and hold up three fingers, and he says oh, three (just like he said it the first time) and stamps another line.
There's clearly something I don't understand here, and after that happened twice, I stopped trying. Now I just hand Carmen my pass and let her worry about it. When she tells him three he understands.
Carmen fixed us another wonderful dinner, and then we went out to where her bicycle is, the one with the flat tire. She mentioned a day or two ago that it was flat, and she was going to her sister's and it would be fixed. But it wasn't fixed for some reason, so we offered to take a look at it. She knew what was wrong with it, and how to fix it. We "helped" and I'm not at all sure she couldn't have done it better without our help. But now it's fixed and she has gone to see a friend on it.
Sunday - Living outside the dike
I don't think we'll do much today, so I'll show you where we are staying.
We're just a few steps from the river Oude Maas, outside the dike. Not too many years ago being outside the dike would probably have been a big problem, but since they have put locks (gates?) at the outlet of the river, to keep the tides from coming in and innundating us I guess it's OK now. I can only assume it's a very slow river, since closing the gates would also keep water from going into the ocean.
In the first picture you can see mainly the restaurant that was recently built between our house and the river. If the second and third story of the building were to vanish (and wouldn't Lucien be happy) you could see the bedroom windows overlooking the river. Since the restaurant was built the windows look out on the brick wall, about 6 inches away. When I took this picture I was standing at the edge of the river, remembering not to take a step back.
We are looking at the back side of the building we are staying in, down the alley. Toward the back part of the building you can see a brownish roof and wall, with the top corner of a black rectangle. That black rectangle is the window I'm sitting near as I type this.
Here's the front side of the buildings. The first one you see is the restaurant, followed by 2 white houses side by side (looks like all one building). We're staying in the first one. After the second one is the taller white structure, which is the studio I'm in. From this angle it looks even narrower than it really is. It's probably about 20 feet wide.
The sidewalk in front of the house and studio still has chalkmarks from when the kids and I played hopscotch the day before they left. I haven't played that for close to 50 years, and I'm no better at it now than I was then.
Just past the front of the studio you can see about 5 steps up toward the dike, then a level area and another 12 steps up to the top of the dike, with the street on top. The big crane in the picture is across the street.
Here's a picture of the outside of the dike, taken from on top. As you can see the street slopes away toward the river. To get this picture I just walked up the steps shown in the previous picture. The street is the one on the other side of the alley in the first picture.
And here's the dike from the inside, where I guess they don't have to worry so much about getting their feet wet when the tide rises.
Well, I spoke too soon. Carmen just came in with a plan for today. So I guess we'll be having an outing soon, and I'll let you know all about it when it's over.
WHAT A HOT DAY!! /first time it hasn't been pleasantly cool.
We hurried to catch the waterbus, and found that I had misread the schedule, and we had missed it by about 10 minutes. We didn't really understand that for a while, and by the time we had it figured out the next one would be coming in another 30 minutes. So we waited and waited. It was sure a hot wait.
She took us to a national park, Biesbosch, which is a 20 minute boat ride from here. This was the first time there wasn't a boat or train ready and waiting when we wanted one. We had to wait about 45 minutes to get the boat there, and another 30 minutes to catch the one coming home.
The waterbus was full of people going to the park with their bicycles, baby carriages, wheelchairs, and whatever. Daddy got a good picture of the Waterbus coming to pick us up, as well as pictures of the bikes stowed in the front, and the passengers stowed in the back.
Biesbosch was full of vacationers, with bicycles, tents, and travel trailers. There is a swimming beach there that's mobbed with kids and adults.
In the park there's a beaver dam, complete with a beaver house, and supposedly a pair of beavers in it. We went into the darkened room beside the beavers' house and peeked into the window, but we didn't see anyone inside.
We took a boat ride through the park. I've had a lot of boat rides the past week or so, but they are all a bit different, and all interesting.
Yes, I took pictures on the boat ride. See them here.
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