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Oegstgeest Town Hall
This is where I had to go to register my paperwork for living in the Netherlands. Since Bernie was by then an Irish citizen (which didn't happen for me until several years later), his re-entry was seamless. It was such a beautiful place and the people so nice that it was a pleasure to go! In the bigger town of nearby Leiden where we registered in 01, townhall was a mad house.PUT YOUR CURSOR ON THE ABOVE MAP, CLICK & HOLD AND YOU CAN MOVE THE MAP AROUND TO BETTER ORIENT YOURSELF.
YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT, THEN GO BACK TO THE JOURNAL OR GO THROUGH THE PHOTOS (CLICK ON THE NUMBERS AT THE TOP) IN THAT ENLARGED FORMAT.
Again, this is part of my attempt to chronicle our five years of living outside the USA (June 2001 - June 2006). I've already done our final year, which was South Africa (click on "Previous Entries" top left of this blog page and you can see other blog entries). Now I'm going back, looking through old journals and photos to put our adventures, one by one, into blog form.
Originally Written 2004 - 05
The Netherlands
We left Germany in May 2004 and returned to the village of
Oegstgeest, which abuts
Leiden, The Netherlands, where we had lived in 2001 - 2002 while Bernie did his LL.M in Public International Law. He is pursuing his Ph.D. here now, after teaching for two years at a German university. He so loved the teaching that he decided to go for the Ph.D. with the hopes
Fish Vendor
Fresh herring are eaten raw - dragged through chopped onions (foreground) and then eaten whole. The Dutch say they invented Sushi that it would help him find a position teaching in the States.
We hired a van in Germany and moved ourselves to the village (dorp) of Oegstgeest. We love it here. While the canal house we had our first time in Holland was old and wonderful, this is a different experience. It is in a quiet neighborhood with friendly neighbors. Our next door neighbors, an elderly couple and two of the few people we were to come across in the Netherlands who spoke no English, came out and immediately started helping us move our furniture in. Several other neighbors introduced themselves and lent a hand throughout the day.
The surrounding area is full of lovely homes, canals, ponds, and windmills - great for walking. We can bike everywhere - which we love, so the car we bought in Germany doesn’t get moved for weeks sometimes.
Fresh Markets
Our apartment had a perfect location: we were minutes away by foot from two grocery stores, two fresh fish vendors, the library, three flower shops, a drug store, a bank, a video store, to name only a few. The best was that on Tuesday mornings the block-long fresh market
Pamela & Wm. Saupe
We biked in the sand dunes with these old friends from Alaska. Yes, Wm. is VERY tall so many locals thought he was Dutch - the tallest people in Western Europe went up on a nearby street, literally around the corner from our flat. I could get the usual fresh veggies and fruits, but there were also Turkish vendors selling prepared foods - think stuffed grape leaves. The Indonesian vendor sold lumpias and different rice dishes. The fish vendors would cook up any kind of fish or seafood imaginable, as well as having the fresh herring (typically eaten raw) when in season. Needless to say, on Tuesdays I didn't cook.
France, Spain & Portugal
We didn’t stay in Oegstgeest long before heading out to our summer travels in France, Portugal and Spain. If you are interested in an account of those travels see blog: France, Spain & Portugal, coming soon.
The Netherlands (Continued)
August brought
Pamela and William Saupe (Alaska) for a short visit - they had been on vacation in Spain and were headed home via Amsterdam. We only had a day, but it turned out to be a nice one so we biked to a nearby
North Sea beach and along the dunes. Found a nice beach restaurant and had fresh mussels for lunch, always a treat.
Next to visit were niece
Denise & Mac
We biked all over South Holland Denise with daughter
McKayla, aka, Mac (New Jersey). Denise rented a bike with a child-carrier on the back and we spent most of their week with us riding all over this lovely country. We managed to squeeze in the Van Gogh museum and a boat tour of
Amsterdam, as well as a day in
The Hague (Den Haag) at the beach in
Scheveningen with a visit to
Maduradam - all the famous sights of Holland in miniature. Do I have to tell you which was Mac’s favorite?
Bruges, Belgium
Bernard had a conference in Bruges and I got to tag along and revisit this beautiful city - one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe. It is Belgium’s most visited town, and also famous for its beautiful canals, lace-making shops, art museums, chocolate shops and good restaurants. My main focus was art museums as this was the center of the Flemish Primitive art movement in the 12th through 15th centuries. But since B was busy with the conference I actually got to - SHOP - and wonderful shopping it was - lots of great one-of-a-kind stores with innovative crafts.
Back to Holland
The day
Bruges, Belgium
We visited Bruges at least 4 times, and enjoyed it every time after getting back to Oegstgeest we headed south again to
Den Bosch to visit a friend,
Celia. She had moved there from The Hague and invited us to visit and tour her new city with her. It was great. The canals in Den Bosch are very different from other Dutch towns in that they are mostly enclosed, so the boat trip on the canals was new and interesting. (Thank you Celia!)
England
Mid-September found us back in England. We did a quick stay with
Joanne, Robert and little Sophie. Joanne was very pregnant by now, but looking beautiful and healthy. And as usual she cooked amazing meals - thank you again Joanne and Robert!*
*Joanne and Robert have three daughters now; see photo of oldest two at end of blog. Ahum, J & R, that current photo of all three girls doesn’t seemed to have made it to me, any idea why?
The wedding we were in England to attend was in
Barnack, not too far from
Cambridge. Meredith, a co-student from Leiden, and
Steve, took their vows in her church that is over 1,000 years old. The reception was magnificent and Meredith looked like
Steve & Meredith
Their wedding in Barnach, England was like a fairy tale -EXACTLY as Meredith had planned it. a princess. The whole wedding weekend was fabulous. (Special thanks to Meredith’s parents.)
USA
We spent the whole month of November in the USA - first in Tucson and then in Washington State for Thanksgiving. We enjoyed being in our own home (yes, our renters the
Pargeters were so very kind as to let us have a month - thank you Bill & Barb!). We had to do some up-keep work, but generally spent our time during the days at doctor and dentist appointments (B got two crowns and I got one - this aging process isn’t fun), and in the evenings having dinner with friends. It was so great to see everybody and we truly treasure our friends - all over the world.
My friend
Mara, whom I met in the Netherlands and now lives in El Paso, came for a visit - her third annual! I got a wonderful all girls’ day with
Almarene and Pat, met with my book club friends.
Almarene and Richard had us for dinner the day after we arrived, and we got to see
Rand and Peggy as well.
George and Peggy Brown had
Celia & Bernard
Celia was Vicky & Marcela's brother Pablo's girlfriend at the time and remains a good friend to us and the whole Sahade family - a sterling young lady us over for a wonderful dinner and, bonus - we got to see
Dale & Dan too.
Monica Contreras and Gonzalo made us an amazing Mexican meal.
Mary Cawley had us and another friend,
Julie for a wonderful brunch. We also managed to see two plays, something we miss over here.
We then flew to
Seattle and drove to
Gig Harbor where my sister,
Mary Jean, and husband
Buzz live. Daughter
Christina and husband
Mark live in Seattle, and daughter
JJ and partner
Leanna flew down from Anchorage, so we all converged on my sister’s lovely home in the marvelous little town of Gig Harbor. The week was full of chatter and laughter. Both of Mary Jean’s boys,
Daniel & Matt, were home for the holiday and my brother
Cliff and wife
Terri drove over from Sequim. Good food, wonderful family - uuummmm, warm feelings.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving we drove to
Sequim to visit my
Aunt Betty who had spent Thanksgiving with friends. Also caught up with good friends
Nora & Harry. I’m not including any of these photos as they were in my holiday letter.
Europe, Again
We flew back to Tucson from Seattle,
Victoria
Everybody who came seemed to enjoy the biking and Vicky was no exception but only had one day before heading back to the Netherlands.
Mid-December brought Argentine daughter
Vicky to us from Spain. She had been working as a masseuse on a beach in
Ibiza, Spain this year. She was heading back to
Argentina, but was able to fit in a visit with us in Oegstgeest, and then we three flew together to
Malta (see previous blog: Malta.) We spent a week there and celebrated Christmas on that magical island. Then back to Holland for us; to Madrid and eventually Argentina for Vicky.
Friend Celia (from Den Bosch; Vicky’s brother Pablo’s girlfriend) met her at the airport and came with her for the weekend in Oegstgeest. Celia headed home and we to Malta on the Sunday.
We didn’t have many visitors in Oegstgeest, but
Noelle, whom Bernie had worked with in Germany, her husband
Ivan and his mother came for a weekend on their way to England where Ivan was going to be presented with his Doctorate. Ivan’s mom is an English teacher in Russia, so communication was easy. It was her first trip to Western, so she was drinking in the sights. When they returned from England Ivan told
Kathy, Ivan's mom, Ivan & Noelle
That is our "local" windmill behind them - we could see it from our front window. It is a polder windmill, which means it works to regulate the water in the canals and ponds me that her favorite place in her travels that summer had been Oegstgeest! She had loved all the gardens and openness - of the communities and the people in the Netherlands.
Good friends
Emre and Fuyla Ilter from Germany came for a weekend also. We always love going to the markets, boating on the canals, visiting “tourist” sights, and with Emre & Fuyla we did it all.
Meredith, England, and Anna, Norway, came for a weekend. We used that as an excuse to have a dinner party and invited some other friends from their international law class at the University of Leiden, a friend, Robert, from Germany, and the young Greek man, Thomas, who had been the coordinator of the LL.M program.
Dutch Language Class
I once again enrolled in a Dutch language class. My German accent was horrible because of studying Dutch before going to Germany, so now my Dutch accent was horrible (more horrible?) because of studying German. Awe well, a linguist I'm not, but I sure enjoyed the classes and especially all the wonderful young ladies I met there.*
*I still hear occasionally from Denise & Carolyn, and Anagry and I stay
Emre & Fuyla
That is the Peace Palace, The Hague, behind them. It was conceived and financed by Andrew Carnegie in touch regularly. She and husband Anders had a little boy, who must be close to 4 now, and Anagry is great about sending photos. She recently went back to work as an airline attendant in Norway. See a recent photo of them at the end of this blog.
The Netherlands Gets Even Better
In January of 05 our lives were made brighter by the arrival of
Andra Mobberly, her six-month old daughter,
Rebecca, and Andra’s mom,
Barbara, from
New Zealand. Andra had been in the Public International Law program in 2001 (with Bernie), when she was on temporary leave from the Rwanda Tribunals (genocide trials) in which she was a prosecutor. Because she had to return to Rwanda, she hadn’t finished the LL.M, so was back to complete the course.
The Mobberly bunch rented a furnished flat in downtown Leiden. Since we now had a car we often did weekend excursions - to the beach, villages, etc. Being indoors most of the day Rebecca would get “bored” according to mum and grandmum, and taking her out, no matter how cold it was or how hard the wind was blowing, was the answer. So we
Dutch Language Students
These were some of my classmates - Carolyn (Canadian), Anagry (Norwegian), Denise (Dominican Republic) and a Russian gal whose name I've forgotten (sorry!) had many an inclement day pushing Rebecca on the windy beach, sometimes we couldn’t even go forward, before running to a beach cafe for the most amazing hot chocolate. Dutch folk are “hardy” so the restaurants and cafes (some of them anyway) along the North Sea beaches stay open all year round. The eateries put up plexiglass partitions that shelter customers from the wind - very popular!
Bernard started working on his research for his Ph.D project, and also writing opinions for the institute he worked for in Germany. This time in Holland Bernie wasn't studying so hard, so we got out on our bikes more often. We went for a "2-hour" ride to Delft, but got lost and rode for over four hours - through picturesque towns, around lakes, through farmers' fields. I kept saying, "isn't this a cute town" and Bernard's answer was always "aren't they all?" Yes, this is a really nice place to live and we didn't for a minute regret our decision to come back for another year.
International Center
I reconnected in a big way with the International Center run by the University of Leiden and with the wonderful ladies who
Andra & Rebecca
Rebecca was extremely personable, but she particularly liked Bernie - her face lit up whenever he came into the room. No doubt she was missing Grandpa Graham back in New Zealand made it the amazing place it was. I'm sorry to say that recently Macki, one of those wonderful ladies, informed me that it no longer is functioning - lack of funding, plus they needed the beautiful old building it occupied for other purposes. It a great loss to the University and the community - I learned more about the Netherlands from field trips, lectures, book clubs, cooking classes - all the fun activities the ladies coordinated.
On our last night in the Netherlands we'd been invited to Henk & Macki's house for a quiet dinner. Having packed all day, they knew we'd be exhausted. We were. We showed up beat, but with the apartment cleaned, everything ready to ship to South Africa. As we settled in their living room with a glass of wine, out popped all the International Center ladies plus spouses who had been hiding in the kitchen! Yeah, you guessed it - a surprise going-away party, and it WAS a surprise. They handed us our menu for the evening as they'd prepared a truly international meal. Many of them had lived in foreign countries, plus some were from different countries, so the food was to-die-for. Henk
Going Away Party
You may recognize Macki and Henk from our "Christmas Markets, Germany 07" blog as they met us in one of the towns near Nuremberg. They were our going away party hosts and remain dear friends wouldn't let me help with anything and kept my wine glass full - my kind of party! (Sorry dear ladies, since it WAS a surprise party, I didn't have my camera, so no photos of your lovely faces. However, one of you sent me a photo of Macki, me and Henk, which I’ve incorporated.)
In June of 2005 Andra,* Rebecca & Barbara moved back to
Arusha, Tanzania where Andra went back to work as a prosecutor having finished the Master's program in Leiden. Shortly after they left, we moved to
Pretoria, South Africa (see previous blogs: South Africa 05; South Africa 06; South Africa, Arathusa; Part I Namibia; Part II Namibia/Part I Botswana; Zambia & Botswana Part II) where Bernie was attached to the Human Rights Centre at the University of Pretoria (TUKS).
*Spoke to Andra in New Zealand last November - we talked about the presidential race - she knew as much as we did about McCain and Obama. When talking to our many friends all over the world, we are reminded how much they all know about the USA. My Norwegian friend, Anagry, said she'd grown up with Oprah and English/American rock and roll, not to
Barbara Mobberly & Rebecca
We had quite a bit of cold weather and snow that winter, but it didn't stay cold long enough to keep the canals frozen to skate on - a disappointment to all mention everything American dominating the news - she felt connected to us in a strange way.
EPILOG: After a fabulous four years in Europe and a year in South Africa, in June 2006 we returned to Tucson, Arizona and have been here more or less steadily since. MORE PHOTOS ON PAGE 2 - CLICK BELOW ON THE "2" OR "NEXT"
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