How time flies! We are in our third week in the Netherlands. I have been busy exploring and visiting. Last weekend Harlan and I went to visit another former student of his, Yvette and her family. What a wonderful day we had! First a train ride, with several changes so we had to keep on our toes so we would get off at the right station. We went to the town of Houten.
Here is a map to show you the approximate route we took(this map shows roads not the train tracks!) You can get rid of the 'directions" by clicking on the little <<.




Here are Yvette and her husband Roland.










Here are their adorable children, Jasper and Fionna.
They are almost 5 and 3. We had a lot of fun with them even though we can’t speak Dutch. Jasper can say a few things in English…he can count to ten. He helped me practice counting to 20 in Dutch. I needed a lot of help! They like to watch Dora the Explorer…do you watch that show too? But they watch the show in Dutch.

My friends, here is some advice for you. When you are older and get to take language in school, such as French and Spanish, really work hard at it. It is so special to be able to speak more than one language! I can only make friends with people who speak English (luckily a lot of people in the world speak English). I am learning a little Dutch but it is not enough. When I get home, I plan to practice my Spanish more. That is what I learned when I was in school but that was a long time ago and I have forgotten most of it. But if I work very hard, I might be able to have nice conversation in Spanish someday especially when I travel to Mexico or South America.

The train ride was very pretty, with lots of canals, windmills, cows, pasture…. Yvette told me that we had gone through the Groene Hart (Green Heart) of the Netherlands. It is an agricultural area in the Netherlands which is surrounded by the major cities of Rotterdam, Den Haag, Leiden, Haarlem, Amsterdam and Utrecht, somewhat in the shape of a heart.


We spent the day talking, eating and a bike ride to the center of Houten where we had delicious ice cream…pistachio for me, some of the best I’ve ever had!

We stayed much later than we planned. We lost track of time and it doesn’t get dark here until 10 at night! So after getting back to the Delft train station, Harlan and I walked the twenty minutes back to the campground. But there we encountered a problem! The campground has a gate they close at 11:00 pm and we didn't have a card to open it! It was pouring rain! Luckily since it was a Saturday night we figured someone would still be coming in and after about 10 minutes some people showed up and let us in. Now we have a card so if we are out late again we won't have to swim the canal! It was rather amusing.