Departures, Arrivals, & Calamities

If you count carefully, you can get all 12 bags, and 4 travelers (including our photographer, Erzo) getting ready to head out from Logan airport. After a quick stop in Iceland to change planes, 12 hours later we touched down in Amsterdam, and, later on Thursday entered our new apartment for the first time... Ellen is proud that she carried all 12 bags up the stairs to the apartment while Erzo figured out how to shoehorn our rental car into our parking space nearby.  Back at the apartment, note the vertigo-inducing spiral staircase to the upper level where the kids sleep.  We are all afraid of these stairs even though they look nice, but I think they are probably better than yoga for balance...

Ellen in the living room of our apartment in Delft.

Frans & Rose in front of the fallen tree at 2:30 am...

 It often rains in the Netherlands, but usually lightly, and thunder of any kind is unusual.  Thursday night, while staying at Erzo's mother's house, we all awoke at 1 am to a shocking storm with lightening, torrential rain, and heavy winds.  A few moments after the storm died down, we heard a familiar Hanover sound of chainsaws.  An enormous old tree along the canal had blown across the street, totaling 2 cars in the process (not ours, parked only 2 cars away).






On Friday, we spent many hours on administrative details like visas, registering our residence in Delft, visiting the kids' school (where the kids were having the last day of school before the summer vacation) and unpacking.  On Sunday, we travelled again to drop Rose and Frans at Neptunus sailing camp, for a week of sailing (perhaps rain) and fun.

Frans in his wetsuit, ready to go...

Look closely and you'll know Rose as the one to the left of the instructor since she is, characteristically, pinching her neck, even through her wetsuit!  I guess she's still  a little nervous, but she is already to go & speaking Dutch.