Amsterdam with friends and family

I was delighted to hear that my friend Lise Brake was also in Holland.  What a co-incidence!  We made an arrangement to meet up - us driving from Mildam and Lise and Chris from Amsterdam, to meet at Zaanse Schans.  I programmed the GPS and we set off!  It took us a bit longer than we anticipated and we missed the agreed meeting time - Lise and Chris didn't have their mobile with them so we were operating on the old fashioned system of arranging a time and place :-)  The day was overcast and drizzly and while Zaanse Schans is very, very touristy we still enjoyed looking around.  And - we managed to find Lise and Chris!  We enjoyed a pancake lunch with them (cheese and bacon was the pancake of choice) and it was lovely to spend time with them.

We then set the GPS (I'm getting pretty good at it now and Greg's driving is improving!) for Mijdrecht, the home of my mum's cousin Anneke.  She has the welcome sign out for us!  We re-met Anneke's daughter Noushka and son Denis, his wife Ank, children Joran and Anneke, and Anneke's boyfriend Martin.  Anneke senior took us all out for dinner at a local restaurant.  Bella sparkled in the company of other teenagers!

 Today was another sunny day.  We seem to alternate between sunshine one day and rain the next in Holland, but we really appreciate any day with blue skies - we know they are few and far between!  After a leisurely breakfast (with an enourmous range to chose from, Nouscha kindly went shopping and stocked Anneke's fridge for us!) we drove into Amsterdam with Casper as our guide, to visit the Rijksmuseum - which has just nearly re-opened.  Parking was 26 euro but Casper thought it would be cheaper than train and metro tickets!  We had to line up for 45 minutes to get in, but it was worth it - a beautiful museum and lots of gorgeous art to enjoy.