Dutch Letters: Great Company, Lousy Weather

My brothers, Tom & Dave, were in town recently. It was great to be together, but I have to admit the weather was pretty bad. Lots of November wind, rain and cold. It limited our outdoor sightseeing agenda but as you can see we still managed to enjoy the Dutch national pastime -- cycling.

Tom came for a week, so he & I cycled to Den Haag to visit the Mauritshuis, an appropriately sized art museum. It's set in a beautiful 1600's home and you can view all the paintings in about an hour -- perfect. Of course one of the most famous paintings is the Vermeer's "Girl with the Pearl Earring". As you can see, unlike the Louvre, at the Mauritshuis you can get quite close to the art.

We visited the Leiden market where Tom & Dave could witness raw herring preparation first-hand. After a walking tour of the city we warmed up with another Dutch tradition, pannekoeken.

Pannekoeken -- large thin pancakes with ham, cheese or fruit.

Graber loved having visitors. He got two walks every day.

But he was sad when all the people left.

When the weather was bad I taught them how to play cribbage. Dave won every time.

On Sunday Sinter Klaas came to town with Zwarte Piet.

Grant spent most of the weekend in London which worked out well -- it gave us enough beds.

This was Dave's first visit to see "residential Holland" so he took many more photo's than I did. Many are of things I now consider "everyday" but were new for him. When I saw the photo's I said "these are great shots. I'll include them in the Blog". So here they are.

Dutch Limousine: Tandem bicycle for mother and child plus a child seat in the back and a shopping basket in the front. Note the Mother steers from the back. Given that an eight year old is up front that seems like a good idea.

A wooden bicycle. For real.

Site of the first V-2 Rocket fired at England in September 1944. Located right here in Wassenaar about 2 km from my house.

The stairway to our top floor.

Most of the time I find cooking things I need in the Dutch grocery stores. But when I can't (Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce) this is where I go. A box of Life Cereal is 8 euros ($9).