Friday,
May 25, 2007
Last night we arrived at the Amsterdam Airport, after a short, pleas antly
uneventful, day of traveling from Glasgow. We were met at the airport
by Alex Braad, Robert's friend since 1983. We are staying in their
home in Zuid-Scharwoude, about an hour north of Amsterdam, near the town
of Alkmaar ,
which is where Alex took us on Friday morning, to see the famous
cheese market. We watched a re-enactment of how the huge rounds
of gouda & edam cheeses were carried to market and auct ioned
off. The weight of each round is about 25 - 30 pounds, and the weight
of each of the sleds (called berries), once it is loaded with 8 rounds of
gouda, is about 300 pounds. We also watched a
man making
wooden shoes by car ving
out a piece of something like poplar wood. There were some
ladies dressed in traditional dress, and they kindly obliged to pose for
us. The buildings around the market were mostly apartments and
small shops, originally built around the 16t h
century, very pretty. Alex had fun teasing us about Robert's lunch
of
raw herring, and he got this silly shot of us as cheese makers.
Next,
Alex
drove us over to the quaint vacation town of Bergen, w here Alex's wife Chiely
owns a salon, "Slender You Bergen". She has several pieces of unique
"passive" exercise equipment for maintaining
muscle tone without actually exercising! The Dutch are really on to
something now!
We met up
with Alex & Chiely's son Axel & his girlfriend Lotte the next morning, and
they took us back to Alkmaar to do some shopping and tasting in the
Saturday markets. The delicacy of the day was my personal favorite,
fresh stroopwafels, thin waffles with hot butter and syrup smeared in
between. Yummy!!
We also bou ght
some licorice drops, a local favorite treat.
We
returned to the Braad's beautiful home at 91 Voorburggracht in the
evening,
 and
the next day were joined by their daughter Michelle & her boyfriend Jacob,
and their Jack Russell terrier puppy, Bo. He is curious, very
photogenic, and a ham. He even has his own passport. Lucky
dog!
-Jeanie |
