Dorli had invited us to stay with her; however, since she was back teaching we felt it would be better if we got our own accommodation. We were standing around the train station looking very dazed and dirty and thinking about how to find a cheap hotel when a middle-aged woman approached us and said she had a room for rent. She seemed quite respectable so we agreed. We wanted to take a taxi but she insisted on the bus and also insisted on Jim standing in line to get a book of tickets since it was cheaper (we never did see the rest of these tickets). She talked incessantly and pointed out the sights but we were too tired to really take anything in or have second thoughts about going along with her.
When we finally arrived her house and neighbourhood seemed very pleasant and the location did turn out to be centrally located. However, she had forgotten her key...but “luckily” she had a ladder, and “luckily” there was a second floor window open, and “luckily” Jim could climb up then let us in the front door. She seemed completely nonplussed by the whole thing and laughed heartily repeating, “Oh...what an adventure!”. We had had enough adventures for a while but were too worn out to do anything but agree. I suppose it could have been a scam and we were breaking into someone else’s house but all turned out well. Her house was spotless and beautifully furnished and we had a great room with a wonderfully comfortable bed that we collapsed into after having a breakfast she prepared for us. Very welcome as we hadn’t eaten for several hours.
We were pretty worn out so it was great to have our friends take us round to see everything in Amsterdam. They treated us to a wonderful “rijsttafel”...Indonesian Rice Table and took us to really neat “standing room only” pubs. Dorli had spent the early years of her life in a Japanese Prison Camp in Indonesia. She mainly remembers it not being that bad although it wasn’t that great. Where she was they all sang a lot to keep their spirits up and they seemed to have enough food.
We gave them some of the posters from Poland and they were thrilled with them. We hadn't quite got so far as to figure out how to get back to London so they booked us on an overnight voyage to London and drove us to the port. It was a relief to be taken care of at this point. We had our B & B booked in London so we had another good week there then home and onto our Oregon adventure.
Eveline and me.
Eveline took us round to the little villages in Holland in her Deux Chevaux...we just loved this car! It was a Sunday and interestingly enough the Protestant villages were very sombre and quiet and no shops were open whereas in the Catholic villages the atmosphere was lively and vibrant and ALL the shops were open selling all sorts of things. Eveline introduced us that day to smoked eel and raw herring...great stuff!
