Merry CHRISTmas!

We finally got our month-long trip to Europe posted and it's already Christmas! So we wanted to pause and wish you all a very Merry CHRISTmas!

Our Christmas letter explained that this was the first time in 36 years (since we became parents) that our Christmas card didn't include a picture of our children. But let's face it, they still look the same as they did last year. But happily, our two grandchildren just keep getting bigger and cuter. Sadly, Mark and Denisa just keep looking older--with less hair and more wrinkles.

The back side of our card includes more pictures from Europe and grandchildren--two of our highlights from 2024. We've enjoyed a fun advent season with those grandchildren stopping by almost every day that we are in town. Since Eli isn't in school yet, he stops by most frequently, and he knows the drill. We first add another crocheted ornament on the crocheted Christmas tree in the hall. Then we head to the chocolate advent calendar to open up a treat each day.

Then we check another advent calendar to put together the next nativity puzzle. That has been a fun new project this year!

In December we made the trip down to the Crown Center for one of Kansas City's famous "Christmas Experience" traditions.

Carter is busy with first grade, but we get to see her in the evenings and for fun on the weekends!

She got her Christmas present early--an electric keyboard so she could start taking piano lessons from Gram.

Another Kansas City tradition is the beautiful displays inside downtown's Union Station.

Union Station is all decked out with lights and trains and singing reindeers and penguins. It's a magical Christmas experience for children and adults as well!

Besides spending time with our grandchildren, we were blessed with precious time with other relatives. We will see both Mark and Denisa's sides of the family before the Christmas holiday is over. But earlier in December we got together with Denisa's sisters and mother for another family tradition.

Each December, our grandparents made a huge batch of tiny spicy German cookies called peppernuts. We've continued that tradition with a baking day of making these labor-intensive cookies.

We followed that up with a new tradition of playing piano trios! Our mother was glad to see that paying for all those piano lessons for three daughters was worth it.

We had our first snow of the season in Kansas City, and it was the perfect consistency for rolling giant snowballs in the back yard.

While we did make one snowman . . .

the kids' favorite project was a snow fort. We lost a mitten while pushing those giant balls of snow across the back yard because the packed snow covered it so quickly. We didn't find that mitten for many days until the snow fort walls melted.

We visited a live nativity scene and had fun listening to the Christmas story and then feeding the camel. We also have a plastic nativity set at our house that Eli loves to play with. When Denisa suggested that we might add some of our plastic animals to the stable, she was thinking a cow and maybe some sheep. But Eli added a polar bear, a lion, a panda, a dinosaur . . . Who knew the stable was so crowded?

It's been a great advent season, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus! We wish you a very merry and crowded CHRISTmas as well!

What was that flu?

We have to say that the last day or so in Europe, Denisa continued to feel worse from the flu. It was hard to push through, and our travel days were shorter than usual. It was a very long flight back to the United States, and standing in the customs line at the Chicago airport for two hours seemed like an eternity. Then it was one more flight to get to Kansas City. Denisa couldn't wait to get home and recover. But what was she recovering from? What was that flu?

While Mark bounced back after four days, Denisa was still feeling sick after a week . . . and then two weeks . . . and then three weeks . . . She had a round of antibiotics, and a round of steroids, and two full rounds of prescription cough medicine. But she continued to cough and the symptoms continued. Almost every part of her was affected--she got pink eye, sores in her mouth, a terrible cough, burning sensation in her legs. What was that flu?

Denisa had four different blood tests, and a chest xray determined she also had pneumonia. The final diagnosis was "long Covid." It's the virus that just keeps giving with new symptoms and a cough that hacked day and night and lingered for a month. During this month Denisa spent a lot of time resting, and got pretty bored. But it was a good time to do some research. She researched home-made bread recipes. She researched RV trailers. She researched places to travel. This flu might keep her down for a little while, but she needs to be ready to travel as soon as she gets well!

So even though we got sick on our one-month trip through Europe, we would do it all over again. While our symptoms started while on the cruise, we feel we probably were exposed on the crowded trains in Germany before we got on the ship. Sometimes being in crowds will mean that you are also immersed in a petri dish of germs. That's one of the reasons that we loved our years of RV-traveling that insulated us from crowds during the Covid outbreak in the United States. So even after enduring a nasty case of long Covid that continued for more than a month, we will continue to travel!

The Netherlands--Delft and the windmills

After a long train ride from Koln, and a long day of wandering through the streets of Amsterdam, we were ready for a nice train ride to the picturesque little village of Delft to spend the night.

We had picked out this touristy village as our last stop in this European adventure, because it's an easy train ride from Amsterdam and several other places we might visit. 

But just like the trains were on strike in Sorrento, and the metro workers were on strike in Rome, and the buses didn't stop as scheduled on the Amalfi coast . . . we ran into transportation changes around Delft. Instead of an easy train ride, the tracks outside of town were closed for maintenance. So we had to ride the train to the capitol city of The Hague, find the correct bus to the station, and then ride another bus to Delft. We've learned that traveling on public transportation in Europe means you must be flexible.

After checking into our hotel across from the train station, we set out to explore Delft. Instead of taking public transportation, we chose to walk our way around town. 

Those that choose to drive in The Netherlands must have good parking skills. These coveted parking spots next to the canal take a careful driver to back in between the trees without backing right into the water.

Most people choose to ride bikes, the favorite form of transportation in the flat land of The Netherlands.

While most of the water in the canals was clear, some was a little green. We're not completely sure why these houses have doors that open right into the water of the canal.

Our destination was the Market Center with its open plaza ringed by stores and restaurants. The plaza was anchored on one end with the Old Church.

The other end of the plaza was the Delft City Hall with its trademark red shutters.

In between the two, was an unusually large number of unusually large cheese shops.

But Denisa was on a mission to shop for the pottery that made this village famous. The Delft Pottery factory was down the street, and Denisa was looking for a blue Delft pottery cross. She was successful!

Delft was a good place to stay to make day trips to the capitol of The Netherlands at The Hague, or the cheese-loving town of Gouda. If we weren't battling the flu, we probably would have visited both of those stops. But we weren't running in high gear, so we opted for one main stop. Besides, having to catch a bus and then transfer to a train made traveling in this section of south Holland more difficult than usual. So we opted for a bus/train ride to Rotterdam. From the station, we walked to the Erasmusburg bridge to ride that strange boat that was approaching. That was the Netherlands version of a water taxi.

In a few minutes, we were on Waterbus #21, gliding under the bridge. All of our bus, train, and water taxi transportation was covered by the tourist-day-ticket we bought this morning at the tourist information office in Delft. 

Unexpectedly, our water taxi took us right beside Noah's ark!

Our destination for the day was Kinderdijk. This was the home of some big wooden shoes . . .

and wooden windmills.

A UNESCO world heritage site, Kinderdijk has 19 wooden windmills from the 18th century on display. This is the largest wooden windmill complex in the world.

These windmills were used to pump the water out of the polder for centuries. Much of this country was under water before the innovative Dutch figured out a way to reclaim the land from the sea to increase their land mass.

Windmills were everywhere along a walking trail that winds through the park. Entrance into this national park was free, and visitors are welcome to walk the trails and see the windmills from this distance. 

But if visitors want to ride on the boat coming down the canal, or watch the informational film, or enter the museum, they must purchase a ticket for 19 Euro.

We opted for the free walk on this beautiful day. We had once again wandered through more of God's wonders sprinkled with a few man-made windmills for interest.

This was our last full day in Europe, and it took all of our energy to make this day trip. This flu had really taken its toll on our energy level these last few days.

We had planned to make several stops in Rotterdam, and perhaps stop in the village of Gouda on the way back to Delft. But it was all Denisa could do to make it back to our hotel room in Delft. This flu and its cough were really getting worse on our last full day in Europe.

The next day we made the bus/train ride to the Amsterdam airport for the long airplane trip across seven time zones back to the United States. After two-hours of inching our way through the customs line at the Chicago airport, we narrowly caught our final plane to Kansas City. What a journey! 

Amsterdam with Rick Steves

We used another day of our Eurail pass to make the trip out of Koln's busy train station. The high speed ICE train required reservations, and whisked us across Germany and into another new-to-us country. We arrived at the historic Amsterdam train station for our first day in The Netherlands.

This Sunday afternoon the streets were already crowded with locals and tourists wandering through another of Europe's most popular cities. We wouldn't know where to start our exploration of Amsterdam, but we had a secret weapon this day. We had downloaded an audio tour from the Rick Steves web site. We became fans of this famous travel guide when we visited Europe over twenty years ago. He's still the best source of good information in his iconic "Europe Through the Back Door" handbooks and guides.  Some of his information is free, like the audio guides for Rome, Paris, Florence, Amsterdam . . . As we started the audio guide, it told us to turn with our back to the central train station facing south to see the city streets that spread out like a fan. We were instructed to walk down Damrack Street--which was once a river.

Because we weren't spending the night in Amsterdam, we were wheeling our suitcases around for this stop. In hindsight, we would recommend finding a luggage storage spot, as we really looked like tourists as we made the stops recommended in our Rick Steves' audio tour. For example, this was the entrance to a tiny shopping mall at #68 Damrack. Thanks Steve, for reminding us to fill our water bottles from the fish fountain here.

We each had one airpod in one ear as we listened to the directions and commentary that our favorite Europe tour guide provided for free. Rick led us to Dam Square, ringed with historic buildings in this city that has been here since 1250. The Royal Palace here was Holland's most recognizable building. 

After a couple turns, our next stop was right next to McDonald's at #58 Calverstradt. This hidden Catholic Church was behind a very plain small door in a very plain neighborhood. It was built and used when Catholics had to hide to worship in this country.

Rick's next stop would take several more twists and turns to a hard-to-find entrance into the Begijnhof community. Now it is a quiet neighborhood built around a church. But it was built to house poor widows dedicated to God who lived pious lives in Christian poverty. The last Begijnhof died in the 1970's, but single women still live here and tourists are forbidden from taking their pictures.

We stepped into the small church that was the center of their community.

Rick gave directions (that were sometimes hard to follow) down to one of the many canals that fan out from central Amsterdam.

This canal was on the edge of the Bloomingmarkt. From one bridge to the next, this canal was lined with products that celebrate Holland's flowers.

Everything from seeds to bulbs to fresh flowers and vases can be bought at this huge flower market. Of course, they are best known for their tulips. We managed to find room in our limited luggage to bring home a package of certified tulip bulbs that are guaranteed to go through international customs.

Across the tram tracks, we entered Koningsplein Square (King's Square). Another stop that Rick Steves has made famous was this local herring stand.

Rick recommends getting the local treat of raw herring covered in raw onions. For the less adventurous, the fried cod is quite good. For two travelers still feeling a bit flu-ish, we decided to just watch this local icon from a distance.

Instead, we stopped in at a local bakery that smelled less fishy. We bought this flaky spinach pastry that honestly looked better than it tasted.

We had a beautiful weather day to wander through the streets of Amsterdam. We walked over many of the 100 bridges that cross the canals of Amsterdam. 

We also found more of the random bike parking spaces that are peppered throughout this city. They even have bicycle parking garages here! Rick warned us to always be watching out for bikes as we walked around Amsterdam. His audio told us that there were 700,000 people and 700,000 bikes in Amsterdam.

Our next stop was Dam Square, home of the National Monument commemorating the casualties of World War II.

We enjoyed listening to Rick Steves' comments and historical background as we finished up our "Amsterdam City Walk" audio tour. We were getting tired, but we decided to start one more audio tour . . .

the "Red Light District" tour. Instead of making their jails bigger, the Dutch just decided to make more things legal. That would include prostitution (no pictures allowed on the red light streets) and marijuana. Rick's audio tour took us to the most famous convenience store--The Bulldog. Customers were enjoying their perfectly legal marijuana products inside and outside as well.

We decided not to finish all of the red light district tour. So we wandered our way back through the city on this beautiful blue-sky day. 

Amsterdam was a lovely place to spend a day. While many visit this city to go to the Anne Frank House Museum or the National Holocaust Memorial, we enjoyed our walk around the city while listening to one of the premier European travel guides.

We continued to follow the canal as it angled back towards the center of town. Eventually it brought us back to the train station where we first started our walk with Rick Steves.  Rick might recommend an overnight stay and spending several days to see more of Amsterdam. But we're heading on down the train tracks to our next destination in The Netherlands.