{"id":30193,"date":"2024-06-09T21:57:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T13:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/?p=30193"},"modified":"2024-06-10T16:04:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T08:04:00","slug":"journal-dutch-trip-2024-last-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/?p=30193","title":{"rendered":"Journal Dutch trip 2024 (last part)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the last part of my journal about my Dutch trip 2024. Here are part1<\/a>, part 2<\/a> and part 3<\/a>. The last week of my stay was more relaxed than the hectic first month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday 29 May<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A (rainy) rest day. In one week time I will fly back to Malaysia. Enjoying another raw herring for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thursday 30 May<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the morning I took my bicycle to visit the Amstel park. It has a famous rhododendron valley and I was hoping to see it in full bloom. But I was too late, only a few bushes were still in bloom. The weather was nice and the park is beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the afternoon I visited my friend Lambert again in the care home. I had bought some cake to cheer him up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Friday 31 May<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend Yolanda celebrated her 75th birthday and organised a party. Here she is, radiant as ever, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a pleasant meeting, followed by a nice Japanese style dinner. In the left photo I am making a toast with Angela, one of Yolanda’s oldest friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Saturday 1 June<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In part 2<\/a> of my journal I wrote that my waterfall gang had presented me with a jigsaw puzzle for my 80th birthday. And that the puzzle was a VERY difficult one, without much structure. Actually it was TOO difficult for me, I hardly made any progress. I asked my siblings if any of them was interested and my brother Ruud wanted to give it a try. As I had sorted the puzzle pieces according to color, I put them back in separate plastic bags. I wish him good luck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sunday 2 June<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A visit to Alphen aan den Rijn, my hometown. My youngest brother is living now in the ancestral home with his family. I arrived by train, he was waiting for me. In the right picture I am standing in the garden. The top window was in my room, when I was a teenager. The family has been living in this house for 75 years! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The front garden is often admired by passers-by. In the backyard I had a chat with Nina, my sister-in -law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As usual we visited my parents’ grave and planted some new shrubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we were kids, my mother got help from a young girl, Janny, who soon became a friend of the family. When my brother told me that she was still alive, now 88 year old, I said that I would love to meet her. It was a remarkable meeting, she told us many details about her and our past. She started helping my mother in 1949, when she was only 13 year old. A few years later she went to the Martha Stichting in Alphen , a home for uncared for children. I always thought she was there as a pupil, but she explained that she worked there as a group leader. A very nice meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After bringing her back home, Otto brought me to the Martha Stichting, now no longer a home, but a beautiful park. The right photo show the main building, now an Arts Center, called Park Villa<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A beautiful park surrounds the buildings. When I was a kid, it was out of bounds and the Martha Stichting had a rather negative reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I used my visit to Alphen to cast my vote for the European elections, held in the Netherlands on 6 June. As I don’t have my domicile anymore in the Netherlands, I am a postal voter, so I needed stamps to send my vote. Otto provided the stamps \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before I left Alphen, I had dinner with Otto and my two nephews, prepared by Nina, wo had to work that evening. Xander and Aswin are identical twins, when they were kids I could not tell them apart, but they have developed differently and now I can \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Monday 3 June<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

n the morning Annelies, a former colleague, came to visit me in Backershagen. We had coffee and cake and had a lot to talk about, because we hadn’t seen each other in years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last few days before my departure, I always am busy preparing the apartment, washing bedsheets, vacuuming the floor etc. I have to empty and clean the fridge, so I try to get myself invited for dinner \ud83d\ude09 Usually Inez does that the last night, but she was not free that day. Instead I visited her one day earlier, she had prepared a nice Dutch meal, melon with smoked ham as a starter, meatballs and spinach as main.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tuesday 4 June<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last evening for departure I visited my friends Johan and Edmund in Vinkeveen. We had a drink in their nice garden and enjoyed Surinam food, prepared by Edmund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view from their garden and Edmund’s meal, BBR<\/a> (brown beans and rice), a popular Surinam dish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wednesday 5 June<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My brother Pim picked me up at 6pm, we were early at Schiphol airport, time enough after check in to enjoy a coffee and a snack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Schiphol can be overcrowded with long queues for the security check, but this time it was a breeze. The flight was full, but I managed to sleep a few hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in Malaysia now and trying to overcome my jet lag<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the last part of my journal about my Dutch trip 2024. Here are part1, part 2 and part 3. The last week of my stay was more relaxed than the hectic first month. Wednesday 29 May A (rainy) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,27,11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-friends","category-netherlands","category-social"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/2024-06-02-17.28.39.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2LqIR-7QZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30193"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30239,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30193\/revisions\/30239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}