Quieter Times

Things have been a little quieter lately, but in a nice summer evening relaxed kind of quiet. The weather has been, as the Dutch would say, heil mooi, very beautiful! 27 degree days topped by powerful flashing storms at night.

The Maclean's left two days ago, and I think are probably having a spectacular time in America! Today a Philipinne classmate came for dinner. She brought along a coconut pudding with corn for dessert... it looked really quite nasty but was tasty enough to keep the leftovers!!. The night the Maclean's left, a friend was over (whom she would probably adopt if she could), and he took me to the Kinderdijk on her orders to make sure this girl ( ahem the word 'naive' I found out is pronounced the same in Dutch and in English:) stays out of too much trouble... We went by scooter (similar to a motorcycle), and in the warm summer air it was absolutely beautiful! Driving I think it was about 50 kms instead of about 30 while getting lost didn't even seem such a bad thing!

And tonight the kitchen is kind of desperately calling me to clean it, so I came to find this distraction before putting on some nice music and doing that :) And then a much-needed early night is definitely in order for tonight!

Enjoy the pics!

So peaceful every time!

 

One of De molens

We really had issues with both smiling nice on the same photo, so for both our sakes (and maybe for yours ;) I cropped the pics.

 

 

My 'tour guide'. Except that I had been here before, it was his first time. Plus we got pretty lost on the way there... But these people are really amazingly kind in a very genuine way (especially if it involves free food :) Wait, is that genuine...? More and more they make me realize how Canadian I am, but they have a ton I can learn from! Being in a different culture in this way is really a character-shaping experience.

 

On the way back we noticed that the area was pretty much deserted. This was probably due to the rapidly approaching darkness behind us. Along with the thunder and lightning came a heavy downpour. Even our shelter almost got flooded. So finally we were able to leave I think around 11ish. The air was still so warm, it was quite amazing. While in bed last night I was awoken around 1 am with a huge crash, and constant flashing white light that even came through my window covering. Seeing God's power like this probably would have been more amazing if it had not been 1 am, but it was absolutely incredible :)

 

Playing piano in church on some friend's Profession of Faith. Quiet guitars and drums accompanied beautiful voices, it was a very nice service.

Hello summer, woohoo!

Sunday afternoon relaxing

These two also came for dinner and this happy tourist had to take a picture :) They have beautiful smiles, very kind hearts and great personalities.

 

  God is good, life is beautiful!

Cologne

 

Last weekend we went to Cologne, in Germany. The first day was quite nice, but it rained pretty hard the second day. We stayed at a Couch surfer's place, and they showed us around a bit the next day. Our general impression of Colgne was that it was a very nice city to live in. It wasn't so much of a tourist city, but still very nice to walk through, especially along the river.  Here's the pics!

German. beer. is. nasty. I don't know how people can drink enough of this stuff to get drunk, but on our way home while we were waiting for our train (of course we missed it, so had to wait an extra hour) we just watched all the drunk people go by. I'm not sure if it's just a Saturday evening thing for everyone to be drunk, but it sure was amazing how many people could hardly walk!

The famous Dom tower, which is Cologne's biggest attraction.

We visited the 'stadhuis' museum (town house). This is a candle inside a car light. I guess it's pretty ingenious!

A real star, worn by a real Jew only 70 years ago.

A copy of the Torah

Dom Tower

Again here's all the 'lover locks'

A beautiful evening!

We found a playground. 'nuff said :)

The next morning we visited an Ancient Roman museum. I always thought I didn't like museums, but these two were amazing! I think I was the only one in our group that really thought that though. The first museum I found Kaia sleeping on a bench upstairs, and the second one the other two were mostly standing in one place looking only at eachother...

This is the statue of Appolion. I recognized the name from the Bible as well, an ancient Greek god from Paul's time.

 

The river god of the Romans. It is unreal to think that people used to pray to and worship these hunks of stone, now chipped and worn with time and sitting lame in a museum.

More gods. The one on the left I believe is a coffin for a famous military general or something. Most of the coffins had altars on top.

Even though it is blurry make sure you take a second and appreciate this :) It took a very long time to take this shot!

Hope you all are having a good week!

Kim

Paris!

Good afternoon to all my dedicated followers!
I must say Kudos to you for putting up with my sporadic (or nonexistant...) posts lately. I lost my camera two weeks ago, with all my Paris pictures on them. I was able to snag a few pics off Tante Joke. It just turned up, actually just about an hour after I began writing about the places, trying to bring pictures into your head.
I won't tell you that I found it attached to my computer. The cord is quite long, and the camera was hidden under some papers, so I had the cord in front of me these past two weeks... But I won't tell you that.
But here are the word pictures the two cities that I started writing before the camera decided to show up.

1. Paris
Looking from the highest point overlooking the city different shades of tan and white colors stretched to the farthest horizon. There is a city law that states that no other colors can be used, in order to preserve the ancient rich elegance of the city, pronounced Par-ee with a slightly upturned nose.
Upon first entering the city, we were directed to a parking garage. Of course Val had to go to the bathroom :) so we followed the WC signs through a dimly lit narrow concrete corridor, the kind of thing horror films are made of. Then we entered a tiny greenish room marked 'Toilet'. There was however no toilet to be found, only a hole in the ground with two concrete steps for your feet. One had to squat in order to use it. My bladder muscles were exercised quite severely that day, as this barbaric hole was not really my style!
Walking through this area of the city was quite sketchy. Beggars lined the streets with cardboard signs, at some point Val even had a man reach inside her pocket after telling him she had 5 euros on her. Thankfully Om GertJan was more observant than my naive friend as to what he was doing ;)
We entered one of the thousands of tiny cafes lining each side of the street. The interior was red silk type of material, and the waiters dressed in black suits, were very formal and opened glass coke bottles over thier shoulders standing at attention.
We also rode the metro. While on the metro I tried to talk to someone who was about 30. I thought for sure he would know English. But no, either he didn't know it or he refused to speak it. The French are quite well known for their slightly obnoxious way of refusing to speak English. One of my French friends tried to convince me the other day that French is soon going to be the language that the entire world will learn. We'll just have to see about that :)

But here's the much waited for pictures!

A bike ride to Leiden, 35 kms away (plus a lot of extra upon getting lost on the way back... actually this picture is taken in the middle of nowhere, way off my route. It was sure beautiful!)

A cannon in Paris. It really struck me how each of these scratches came from a real cannon ball a couple hundred years ago.

Metro station... Doesn't this remind you of Les Miserables? It's not even edited! It was quite amazing to see!

Getting close to the Eiffel Tower...

Getting closer to the Eiffel Tower...

And there it is!! I wonder how many of my friends from across the globe have stood in this exact spot!

Typical French houses. Appartments were everywhere, most often with a cafe below.

This is the place where Napoleon is buried. His statue is half way up, quite a ways off the ground. This is so that standing from above one must bow down to look at him, and standing from below one must look up to him. Also there is a massive organ in here, and gold everywhere. It is an incredible building!

The soldier's hospital

Chapel in the soldier's hospital. Actually this is the same building that Napoleon is in. Through the window at the back one can see his massive coffin and statue with all the rest...

The flags that you see hanging from the roof are from the captured territories that France has taken in the past.

Arc de Triomphe!

It is in memory of all the fallen soldiers I believe. An eternal flame burns in the middle to remember them.

A massive (kind of ugly actually) thing with Egyptian symbols and carvings all over it. It was taken by Napoleon from Eypt.

Palaces that stretched on and on, displaying huge riches to the world.

Some famous gate, I forget what it was called but I did not recognize the name.

If you were touring Paris with your true love you would pay 3 euros for a lock, and write your names on it and attach it to this bridge. We've seen this in several places, it's very much a European thing.

Notre Dame!

The famous window of Notre Dame. At 6:00 when the sun is shining through apparently it is very beautiful.

One of my favorites, taken inside the Notre Dame.

I cannot delete the second one, so you will just have to look at it again :)

Our beautiful and pretty awesome travel partner Renee!

MacDonalds in Paris

Notice all the tan colors. There was very little color, except for the glass buildings in the modern part of the city.

The Sacre Coeur. Absolutely stunning in its detail.

 

I believe this is inside the Sacre Coeur.

An ancient gun from 1624 used to guard the city.

At the top of the city here three men were trying to sell souvenires in front of the Sacre Coeur. It was really crazy, because we were looking at their stuff when all of a sudden they quickly hustled all their things into thier bags, and tore off into the bushes down the hill. When we looked around there were three men in camo uniforms holding huge guns in their hands. These men even had dog-tags around their neck (I think that's what it is called) that had their blood type, in case they were taken wounded to hospital. We hurried pretty quick into the safety of the church!