History, Royalty and other such sights

This last weekend, Dennis and I did a little sight seeing. On Saturday, We went to the South-West area of the Netherlands and saw the towns of Middelburg and Vlissingen. We went to several museums, one of which was the flood museum. In 1953, a hurricane hit and killed almost 2,000 people and destroyed the homes and properties of 30,000 people. Water control and dykes have always been important to the Dutch people. The land they are able to settle and use and the ability to protect that property from continual flooding is a high priority here and has brought about many amazing technics for building sea walls, and water management.

These are from the top of the dyke, just to give you an idea how tall these are.



In Middelburg, we climbed to the top of the church tower - only 280ish stairs. The view was great.



The pipe organ in the church Lange Jan is so beautiful. We happened to be there during a choir practice so we got to hear the beautiful sound from the organ.
The inner garden in the Abbey was beautiful and very peaceful.

Dennis enjoyed "snuffling" in front of the town hall.
We went to the beach and enjoyed watching the wind surfers.
It was a great little day trip. Dennis then left for the Utah and I took some outings with some friends. Here's a little something about the first one:

On Tuesday, I met some of my sewing friends and we took a train trip into Dan Haag for Prinsjesdag. The American Womens Club in the Haag reserve a whole top floor of a resturaunt along the parade route. So not only did we get to have a great view of the parade but we got to meet a lot of other American women and eat a yummy rijsttafel buffet.

On Prinsjesdag, the Queen rides in a golden coach from Noordeinde Palace to the Binnenhog to address the joint sessions of the Senate and House of Representatives. She gives her speech and then the whole parade returns to the palace. Before the queen comes, there are many branches of the military that parade by, first the marchers and then the horses. There is a military band and all the pomp and ceremony that occurs for royal ceremonies.


Many of the Dutch citizens wear hats - everything from paper to very elaborate and beautiful ones. I had heard that only the ladies who actually attend the speech wore hats but as you can see, many people get in on the activity.
It was also fun to see the ladies in their traditional Dutch clothing.

Another Day in Nijmegen

Nijmegen is becoming on of my favorite cities in Holland. It is so old and beautiful. And.....it has a really big market on Monday mornings. Since there aren't any other stores open on Monday mornings it makes Nijmegen all the more attractive, at least for me.

Anyway, this past Monday, Tehawna Moore was in town again and so Armanda picked her up at her hotel and they came and picked me up and we went into Nijmegen for the day. We had a delightful time brousing through all the street vendor stalls, eating hot, fresh strop waffles and looking at all the old buildings in the center of town.



One of the interesting things we did was go into Stevenskerk and look for one of Armanda's ancestors, Hans Noot who was suppose to be buried there.
Armanda had never been there so after looking at all the names on the floor for a while, she went and inlisted help from someone who had access to the records of were different memorial slabs were in the church. We had to have some tables moved out of the way but we found it.





We bought lots of great fabric. Nijmegen has one of the best fabric markets I've seen. They sell everything from really cheap knits to beautiful and expensive upholsetry and drapery fabrics. The notions stalls sell amazing trims, laces, buttons, zippers and all kinds of other interesting things that I'm not sure how to use or what to use it on. It is soooooo much fun to look and imagine what could be made out of the more unusual and bizzare fabrics and how wonderful it would be if we had the skills to do some of the sewing that some of the more expensive fabrics would require.

Here's what I bought:

This was an interesting trim. It is a black pressed plether with velvet beaded leaves adn satin ribbon roses. I was thinking of using it as a belt on a cute top I bought that needs a wider belt than the 1/2" one that came with it.

These are two different pieces - one is black and silver and the other is brown and silver. I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I bought both. They are so cute!!! Not cheap so I didn't get to big a piece. I'm thinking - a purse or bag.

This brown satin is just begging me to make it into a skirt. I can't wait to comply.

We had lunch down at a little cafe along the Waal river. It was very interesting to watch all the barges going up and down the river. The weather was perfect and it was a wonderful day. It was very different from going with Alyna, Jessica or Tina (I missed their energy, laughter and craziness) but it was nice.

Annual Airborne Walk

This past weekend was the annual Airborne March, the world's largest one day march. These remembrance marches are held every year on the first Saturday in September at the village of Oosterbeek (near Arnhem) in The Netherlands.

With distances of 10, 15, 25 and 40 kilometres, it is an "all-age"-march.

There are British and Polish military veterans and participants from 15 different countries.
The routes are laid out through the several villages of the municipality of Renkum in the Netherlands, along the battlefields and drop zones of the operation Market Garden of September 1944.

With so many thousands of people of all ages participating, it is hardly a march except for the military groups who come in all their gear, from young boy-scout aged to some that are quite old. For the majority of us it is more of a shuffle at first and then a stroll and finally the strings of walkers spreads out and it becomes a good walk.

In years past, many veterans of this campaign would come and participate but there aren't very many of them left now and they watch from the sidelines.



The whole event is quite a site. This year there were 32,000 people who participated. It is amazing to see endless lines of people - even very young children walking the 10K. There are also longer walks but I think the majority of the people just do the 10K.


We are blessed to have some wonderful ward members who help make this a great event each year. The Stekkinger family has participated in the walk for many, many years. About a week before the walk, the father, Glen, usually gives a fireside that teaches about the war here . (We weren't able to attend this year because we were in Paris.) Then their daughter, Lydia, is the Walk coordinator for our ward. She makes sure we are all registered and then researches names of people who are buried at the cemetery. Just before we start the walk, she gives each of us a name and a rose to put at the headstone.

This year, there were 10 ward members who participated: Lydia Stekkinger, Joey Stekkinger, Doug and Mickey Vermillion, Tico and Mei Martes, Elder Maurer, Elder Ertelt and Dennis and me. It was a nice size group.
At the meeting point. They moved the tank this year so "meeting" was a little more of a challenge. Thank heavens for cell phones. Tico and Mei aren't here yet.

Off we go. You can tell it is the beginning of the walk - everyone still has big smiles on their faces.

Bagpipers playing at the tomb of the unknown soldiers. There are stands along the walk that sell flowers so you can lay them here or other graves throughout the cemetery.


This church has bullet pit marks all over it. It kept some of the troops safe and miraculously was not destroyed by bombs as most of the churches in the area were.


There were 32 bands that were either along the side of the route or marching along with the walkers so that kept things fun.



People from the town sit out in their yards and watch the "people parade".

It had predicted rain all week but we had a perfect walk with only rain right at the very end.

It was a nice day and we were all stiff and sore when we got done but were glad that we had been able to participate. We even got medals!

The Arts

Recently, I've been listening to The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It uses architecture as a vehicle for the story - the old style of the great buildings of the world vs. the new, modern and unusual. The story is long and complex and I won't go into it here. My verdict is still out on how I feel about the story. But my recent trip to Paris was a great opportunity to look at architecture and the see how it shapes the city and the activities that go around the various style of buildings. It was a time to ponder on what is beautiful and desirable and what is art. Earlier this month, Dennis and I went to the Rodin Museum and the Orsay Museum which have many great works of art and are contained in amazing and beautiful buildings and grounds. This trip, I wanted to see some of the different type of art, although there were still some beautiful buildings that I either hadn't seen before or hadn't seen for many years.

St. Sulpice - although there was restoration work being done on the highest domes the history and beauty of the building are still remarkable.
Luxenbourg Museum and gardens - a little bit of heaven in the hustle and bustle of a big city.
I was busy taking pictures of this area and the monument in the gardens when I suddenly noticed what was on the skyline behind it.


Huge statues surrounded by large grassy areas surrounded by trees, shrubs and chairs. Parisians come to paint, read, eat, sunbathe, play and exercise. It is the kind of park I wish we had in our back yard.


Sailing boats in the pond of Luxenbough garden. One of the many pleasures had here. There are also tennis courts, basketball courts, a boule court and huge playground.


The incongruity of this statue caught my attention. This fairly stern looking woman, which is beautifully made has wires sticking out of her head. They are usually used on the tops of buidlings and doorways to keep birds from perching there but this is the only statue that I noticed that had spikes.Notre Dame - so simple in comparison to the Koln Cathedral and yet still one of the crowning jewels of Paris.

A quartet of singers outside Notre Dame. They sang traditional French folk songs and the crowd around them sang and danced with them. They were very fun to watch - especially as it gave me an excuse to sit and relax for a while.


The walkway along the top of the Centre du Pompidou -the museum that houses the modern art of Paris. The building itself is ultra modern. All the pipes, heating ducts and escalator are on the outside.




A juggler/acrobat performing outside the Pompidou. In the hour that I spent in the squares outside the buiding, I saw 6 different entertainers - mostly singers but also a little odd puppet show. There were so many interesting people to watch and see.

The modern art pool to the side of the Pompidou with a old church - such a huge contrast of the silly and odd against the great, solid and aged.

A building in the Montparnasse area. It is 1/3 glass with nothing inside. In front of the building is a long wall of very impressive graffitti. The main floor windows are also covered with paint that makes one wonder if it is a purposeful grafetti or just an overflow from the wall.
It was a fun and interesting trip. We had dinner Thursday night at a popular French restaurant, La Couple, and on Friday night we went to a Moroccan restaurant. We also went on a nighttime river cruise. We made a quick stop on the way down to pick up my new residency card and on the way back at a mall in St. Niklaas. It was good to get home but we were already talking of were else we wanted to travel to and what we should see. Regardless of how far or near our travels take us, there will always be interesting buildings to see and things to love and things to ridicule.