Day 14- Huizen

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I woke up on my air mattress, but just lay there for a while, too tired and lazy to get up. Then Dad came in and said to get up and have some breakfast, then afterwards we would go for a bike ride. So I fumbled downstairs and said hello to Leidy and Nana, and ate breakfast, again cereal, museli, while having a conversation with Nana, Dad and Leidy, with Nana translating everything from Dutch to English and back. All of the food in Leidy's house is organic, or Biological as it is called in Holland. She had to pay a little more for it though.

After breakfast, Leidy took us outside and showed us the bikes that we could use. She did have two bikes, hers and her late husband Wim. I used Leidy's, while Dad used Wim's bike, which had a flat tyre, so we had to pump it up again which took longer than expected. We waved goodbye and rode out and around the village of Huizen for a while, not going anywhere we hadn't gone before because we didn't have a map and knew it would be easy to get lost. So we just rode around the village square and through the paved streets of Huizen, then went out to the Harbour where we had eaten the previous night. Dad had been told that there was another harbour, so we rode around the edge, with the newer buildings.

One of the problems that we had was riding on the right side of the road. There were bike lanes on either side, but Dad seemed to think that they were two way, which they weren't. Instead, he lead me the wrong way several times and I had to call him back. We made our way to the harbour and looked at the boats for a while, before heading back. We rode along the same route that we had gone to get home from the restraunt, and made it without any troubles.

We both sat down and relaxed for a short while, before filling our water bottles and getting the camera to go out to see the days sights. Leidi drove, and it didn't seem that she would make it out of the driveway, because it was very shaky, and jerky and it felt like she was going to hit something. Fortunately she didn't, but it definitely wasn't the safest car journey that I had had. We left Huizen, but didn't go far until we pulled into a cemetery. We got out, with the camera, and Leidy led us into the cemetery. She seemed to know which way she was going. We had already been to a cemetery on our trip, in Paris, but this one was different. In Paris, it was hilly, with few plants and lots of small tombs where the family is buried. Here, there were many many plants, and open areas and grass, and in some places, seemed more like a park than a cemetery, There were hedges leading off around all the graves, and they probably could have put in double the amount of graves than they had. They still used the idea of a family grave though. Also, in some of the graves, there was a sign, which Nana translated for us to say that if the family of the grave doesn't ring a certain number in a certain time, the grave would be taken away, because they only had a 25 year lease on the site. I didn't like that idea, I thought that the graves should be there for as long as possible to let grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren find out about their ancestors.

Leidy lead us to a certain grave. She and Nana both explained that it was the grave of my great grandparents. The grave read:

Johannus Petrus Geijtenbeek, 6/5/1895 to 5/10/1953, Ps. 116

and

Jannetje Geijtenbeek-Vermaas, 10/2/1902 to 13/11/1994, Ps.32:8 (ONB)

It was an amazing feeling to that I was standing infront of my great grandparents graves. Saddening, yes, but also weird. The Ps. part after the name refered to a Psalm, which we assumed, was instead of the message that we put on the graves back home. I was also amazed that my Great Grandmother lived to be 92, because I had always assumed that she lived for much less. Dad explained to me as much as he could about my great grandparents, but because they had always lived in Holland, he didn't know them very well. My Great Grandmother had the last name Geijtenbeek-Vermass, because Vermaas was her maiden name.

we walked to another part of the cemetery to another grave. This one read:

Gert Geijtenbeek, 16/8/1960 to 13/10/1982, Psalm 23

and

Geradus Geijtenbeek, 19/11/1923 to 17/11/1998

Again, it was a weird feeling to see your family name on a grave overseas, knowing that you are related to this person. I found this harder to understand than the previous grave. I was not a direct decendant from either of these two, instead, Gert Geijtenbeek is my cousin of some sort which I couldn't work out, Dad's first cousin, and Ben's (the Ben who we had stayed with in Andijk) brother. And Gerdaus Geijtenbeek was his father, so my great uncle, and Dad's uncle. It was weird, because I had never known about them before, yet there they were. We stayed there for a while, and payed our respect like we had done for my great grandparents.

There was one more grave in that cemetery that we had to see, and this time it wasn't a family member, but Leidy's parents Hedrik Kerkmeester and Jannetje Kerkeester- van Amstel. Leidy explained to us that when she dies, she will be buried in the same place. We left the cemetery, talking about what we had seen and how it relates back to us.

We got back in the car and drove a little further to the Naarderstraat, where my Grandfather had grown up. We drove along the tree lined road that links Huizen to Naarden. Many of the houses along it are from a higher class of society, and it was explained to me that there was a large estate behind the houses. We drove along to house 244, and parked and got out, thinking, my grandfather used to live there. Nana walked up to the current residants and had a talk to them in Dutch, while Dad and I talked about the World War and this house. We were allowed around to the back, and I was shown where Grandad used to live and play. It was an incredible experience, and for me, somewhat more exciting that some of the monuments that we had seen, because I had a direct link to this place, but with the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, I didn't.

There was one more cemetery which we had to go to, and it looked very similar to the previous one. Inside, Leidy showed us where her late husband, Willem Munnik was buried, but the rabbits had attacked the gravesite and eaten or messed up some of the plants. Other graves had special rabbit nets but Leidy said she didn't want one.

From there, we drove further, and over a small bridge where it was said to me that Grandad used to go fishing, then arrived at a restraunt that sold pancakes, for lunch, but it was closed so we went somewhere else. Nana and Leidy knew all of the best restraunts in the area because the went to them together every time Nana visited. It was only lunch, but it was massive. I had a Dutch hamburger, with a massive meatball in it, with heaps and heaps of salad, and I just managed to finish it. There was alot of food, and we couldn't eat much more, so we headed back to Leidy's house, where we took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.

It was a hot day, and Nana wanted a swim, so we got changed into our bathers and made our way to the swimming pool in Leidy's car. We left Leidy to mind our things, because she wasn't going swimming, and went to the big pool and swam around for a while. Dad jumped in off of the diving board, but I opted to just swim around. It was fun, but it was in a swimming pool and there were heaps of other people and I have had better swims.

For tea, we just had sandwiches. Leidy had gone down to the shop to get some food, but we hadn't done much. At about 7 o'clock, we left to visit my Great Aunt Leise, or my grandfather's sister, and Ben's mother. We were greated at the door by Auntie Leise, who was very old looking and shaky, because she was 86. We were invited inside and given a drink. She talked and talked in Dutch, with Nana translating to English. She seemed very happy to see us, probably because she hadn't had any visitors in a week. Dad and I sat and just listened to her talk, mostly to Nana, but we got eye contact quite often. She wasn't very mobile, but she managed to show us around her house, including down into the cellar and up to the second floor. The steep steps didn't seem very good for an 86 year old, and she probably could have had a better house, but we were allowed upstairs and found that the children's rooms had been left largely untouched since they left. They had been cleaned a bit, but none of the posters or books had been taken down.

We went back downstairs, and said goodbye to Auntie Leise. We had been there for nearly an hour, and after a photo, we left and walked back to Leidy's place. In that evening, we didn't do much, and got to bed for some much needed sleep.

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