Friday Evening in Friesland

We are so spoiled! We drove straight to Friesland without a wrong turn anywhere. This also includes driving straight to Oma’s cousin’s house. This is a brick 5 bedroom home with gardens and art all over! Oma’s cousin went to school for art. (Ali definitely gets it from Len's side of the family.) She also was trained to teach art but since she is almost deaf she was never able to work in that capacity. Her home is filled with her work. Much of it she made for church and then took home afterwards. I plan to go around with my camera and take pictures of much of it. She is multi-talented. She draws, paints, makes sculptures out of plaster of Paris and some out of wood. She knits and crochets and incorporates them into her art projects. This is like living in a museum! We were greeted here by Oma’s cousin, Etje and her husband, Andries Peterson. (Andries is a teacher in a Christian school. However, the Christianity has all but disappeared so he is one of the few that still teach religion.)They had made home-made soup for us to have for lunch along with cheese and bread, strawberries, grapes, yogurt drinks, coffee, and a fruit tart to celebrate Oma and Opa’s 50th wedding anniversary. Etje and Andries are camping right now but they returned home to do all this for us. They are also giving us the run of their house while they are gone. They stocked their refrigerator for us so well that we could hardly fit in the little bit of food we brought from the cottage! They have also offered us their computer but they do not have wireless so Len is going to figure out how to transfer what I’ve already written on Len’s computer to Andries’ computer so I can post it on the blog.


After Andries and Etje left to go camping again, Oma and Opa and Leonard and I walked a couple of blocks to the nursing home to see Etje’s Mom (who was a sister to Len’s Beppe.) She remembered Oma and Leonard but not Dad and, of course, not me. Etje’s sister was also there. Deafness runs in Oma’s side of the family and Etje, her sister, and her mother are all either deaf or very hard of hearing. The sisters wear hearing aids but they really need to be looking at you to catch what you are saying or to realize you are talking.

Once we returned from the nursing home, we all decided to walk into Dokkum to do some shopping. BONUS!! There were sidewalk sales and a market in every street with people selling things. The vendors won’t be there tomorrow but the stores still will be. I bought a bracelet and Ali and I found a store where EVERYTHING was $2.50 (Euro that is). I bought a skirt and shorts and a shirt. Ali bought 2 pair of shoes and tons of clothes. We were very late meeting everyone else at our assigned meeting spot! Half of us decided to go home and half decided to shop some more since most of the vendors would be there until 9 p.m. Ali and Michael and I inadvertently lost Leonard almost immediately but we shopped our hearts out. We returned to the original meeting spot and sat on a bench until Leonard arrived. (Keep in mind this was an hour and a half after we had lost him.) We returned to the house and had mac and cheese for dinner. (Some of the earlier group got mac and cheese and some got leftover soup.) I wonder how we are going to fit all of this stuff into our suitcases!