Richard did it...thanks so much!

Richard was successful in opening the file with the 1976 letters and I guess I must have posted them to my blog at some point. I completely forgot about that. It was really fun to read them.

My introduction to this correspondence which is somewhere on my blog:

Now that the weather is turning I’m continuing my organization of old photos and memorabilia.  In 1976-77 we took a year or so out from our teaching jobs to travel in Europe (mainly France) for five months and do courses in French, then returned home to go to the University of Oregon in Eugene to do graduate studies for nine months. I’ve been re-reading the letters I wrote my parents during this time. I’m very glad my mom saved them.

I didn't write letters from Poland or Amsterdam but I did write up our experiences with people we had met in our French course in Cannes when we visited them. We visited  Marian and his family in Poland and  Dorli and Eveline in Amsterdam. At the time, just out of interest, I googled the names of the two women we visited in Amsterdam. I had forgotten this too!

This was taken in our studio apartment in Cannes. We had had the group over for dinner.

Marian (Poland), Jim, Eveline & Dorli (Amsterdam)

Postscript:

Just for fun I googled "Dorli Huvers" as I couldn't remember Eveline's last name except that it began with an "R". Lo and behold the first entry that came up was a notation about a book Dorli Huvers and Eveline Renes had translated together! It's called "Shanghai Baby" and was an erotic book written in China in 2000, subsequently banned and 40,000 copies publicly burned. All of which seems to have made it a cult hit in China and Europe. Too funny. Eveline appears to have translated quite a few books...mostly more mundane things like cookbooks. I think we'll try to track her down through her publisher. It could be fun to be in contact again.

I didn't have any success with contacting them at the time but yesterday Jim found that both had died.

I just looked on Amazon to see if the book "Shanghai Baby" was available and it is...$4.99 for a Kindle edition. I think I just may have to read it. It gets good reviews. They spoke French, English, and German so I expect they translated it from one of those languages into Dutch.

Perhaps I'll suggest it for the Brock House Book Club. That would liven things up!

This is the review on goodreads:

A story of love, sex and self-discovery - banned in China.

Publicly burned in China for its sensual nature and irreverent style, this novel is the semi-autobiographical story of Coco, a cafe waitress, who is full of enthusiasm and impatience for life. She meets a young man, Tian Tian, for whom she feels tenderness and love, but he is reclusive, impotent and an increasing user of drugs. Despite parental objections, Coco moves in with him, leaves her job and throws herself into her writing. 

Shortly afterwards, she meets Mark, a married Westerner. The two are uncontrollably attracted and begin a highly charged, physical affair. Torn between her two lovers, and tormented by her deceit, her unfinished novel and the conflicting feelings involved in love and betrayal, Coco begins to find out who she really is. 

Here is a beautifully written novel with a distinct voice that describes China on the brink of its own social and sexual revolution.