27-31 December 2010

This week began with sightseeing with Danielle in the Netherlands. Here is an open market we went to in Amsterdam (I asked the tram lady and she told us where to get off). I love the open markets here - we bought cute scarfs and shawls, and lots of different food things. I almost bought some boots but couldn't really tell if they would be comfortable since my toes were a little cold to be able to feel.

We bought our lunch here - lots of seafood fried and hot. We had cod and shrimp. Yummy.

Just another one of the many booths with things for sale - this was a fish market.

The canals of Amsterdam were a little frozen! Loel and Danielle went to the Anne Frank house and I opted to go shopping. There are lots of cool stores here. I bought a few things in the H & M store right on Dam Square - they said it was the signature H & M store of the world, I guess! We also went to a Fatboy bag outlet and bought some cool bags that are all the rage here.
After taking the tram back to the church where our car was parked, we headed out to Broek in Waterland, a darling little town where we had dinner at the Brubaker's favorite pannekoeken house, The White Swan, - Dutch pancakes. Very yummy. It was fun to see the lake we had so admired in the summer now turned into an ice-skating rink in the winter. Very Hollandy.

We stayed up near Amsterdam in an empty apartment the mission has and then went to Delft the next day. This is a picture of the top of the new church (built in the 1500's) there in the center of town. We love the feel of Delft - little cobblestone streets, canals, bridges, etc. We wandered around doing some shopping and sightseeing. As we were in the square they started a bell concert. You can see some of the bells in the bell tower.

Every visitor has to see Kinderdijk, the place with 19 windmills. We've now been here in the summer, late fall, and winter.

Cool windmills in the snow.

The canals were totally frozen over. We saw people walking on them. It doesn't get super cold here (only about 25-30 degrees farenheit), but it stays at these temperatures and the days are short, so every thing freezes over. Because of the pictures of Holland and ice skaters, I assumed they got lots of snow. But actually they get very little snow. It just gets to freezing and stays there.

We said good-bye to Danielle on Wednesday morning. She made it home fine but her baggage got left here at the Brussels airport for some unknown reason! We think it was on an airplane this morning. We hope she gets it soon.

This is the dessert we bought at a French bakery for our New Year's Eve dinner. The Brubakers had us over - we brought this and some appetizers; they made pasta and salad. We enjoyed our evening in their beautiful home. Fireworks started going off as we got home around 11:30 pm. They were really loud at midnight. All of our missionaries were instructed to stay in their apartments from 4:00 pm on as the fireworks, especially in the Netherlands, can get quite rowdy and dangerous.

We hope your New Year's celebration was fun. We pray that your New Year will be filled with prosperity, joy and happiness. We look forward to continued association with fantastic missionaries, wonderful investigators and great, supportive members.