A Kaleidoscope

Hello Friends & Family,
We're back! Sorry we have not posted in awhile, but we have been busy travelling around the Netherlands these past few weeks and have had sporadic and limited access to internet. This update may be a bit of a long one, but I will try to keep it interesting!

We spent the week of Sept 24-Oct 1 in Sorendonk, a small town in the province of North Brabant where my cousins have a cabin. We started the weekend off with a fun family BBQ and then stayed for the rest of the week on our own to explore the South a bit more. We started off by biking to Belgium (sounds impressive but we were right on the boarder, still about 15km each way) where there is a monastery where the monks brew beer. Unfortunately you could not go into many of the buildings, but we explored the grounds and the court yard, tasted the beer in the little cafe and visited the beer store which had more types of beer than you could ever imagine! We spent quite a bit of time in there looking at all the different kinds of beer, many of them abbey brewed and bought a bunch to try. The weather while we were at the cabin was fantastic, which was great for all the biking we did. We also got the chance to visit Weert, the town that Jeff, Jolene and Noelle lived in while they were here. Jolene set us up with their friends Neils and Caroline, who showed us where Jeff and Jolene had lived, had us for a BBQ and even rescued us when both my bike tires exploded right before we left (we think from the heat)! We plan to go back to Weert and visit again for sure! It was a really chill week, with lots of biking, sunshine, cafes, and markets to keep us busy. We are really learning to embrace the slower pace of life here and are getting pretty good at lounging in cafes and strolling or biking around towns/cities.

As soon as we got back from Sorendonk we touched base with Joel's parents and were off to Amsterdam the next day! A bit of a whirlwind, but well worth it. We spent Mon-Thurs in Amsterdam with Ruth and Joel's Aunt Arlene and Uncle Arch. We had the opportunity to go on a canal cruise with their tour group (in place of Marten who was in France for business), visited the Anne Frank Huis, the Rijks Museum and explored old Amsterdam. The hotel we stayed in was right in Rembrandt square which has a ton of cafes, pubs, clubs and shops and is busy all the time! It was a really fun location to be in! Walking distance from pretty much everything and right in the hub of old Amsterdam. One night Joel and I picked up a beer from the corner store and just walked around exploring before we sat down in the square to listen to a musician play, pretty awesome.

On Thursday Marten got back from France and the four of us went to Scheveningen to show them the outside of our place and the neighbourhood we will be living in. We then had dinner on a VERY windy beach in a super cute restaurant. The weather has changed now and oh man does it get crazy windy and the torrential downpours sure are something, soaked in seconds if you get stuck in them. Fall is here to stay now I think.

On Friday we drove with Marten and Ruth to Fryslan for the day, which was really neat!! We got to see where our roots are from and met a bunch of Joel's family and saw the house where Marten was born (Holwerd) as well as the town my Pake was from (Dokkum). Martens Uncle Enne took us for a tour to see all the family houses which was cool to see. We visited a church graveyard that had some family members of Joel's buried in it as well as a ton of Olivier's...I don't know if I am related, but it was cool to see so many people with the same last name. There was actually two gravestones that you will see pictures of below, of Marten's uncle and his wife who was an Olivier and a Bilker/Olivier couple which is Marten's mom's side of the family so looks like there were a few Olivier's in the family before I came along, so crazy, even more so if they are actually my relatives! (Don't worry it was through marriage!) We had a chance to walk through Dokkum and see the town and even got ourselves a pair of frys klompen and wilhelmina pepermunts (yummy!) Fryslan is beautiful as you will see from the pictures and despite that rather wet and windy weather it was a great trip. We really enjoyed seeing where our families had come from and being able to spend some time with Marten and Ruth here in Europe! They left today for London on their way home and so we are back at my cousins in Den Haag for one more week before we move into our apartment next weekend!! We will likely take it easy this week and then next week sometime Robyn and Brian arrive!! Lots to look forward to!

Well I think that is all for now, Cheers everyone!
Doi
Megan & Joel

Achelse Kluis- Belgium