December 30, 2009 - Den Haag and Zaandam

Our days start the same….get up and eat breakfast and then get ready.  This day was nice because all the young folks got up early and headed out on their own, so we didn’t have to fight for the shower.  We finished up getting ready and packing up our things to switch places with Marsha and Bill. I should have taken a picture of Ed and Bill hauling all of our stuff up and down the steep stairs, but I didn’t think about it at the time. 

Once that was taken care of, we headed to Den Haag, where Marsha and Bill were going to visit a man whose wife was friends with their mother.  He had been in contact with her until her death, so they thought it would be nice to visit him while we were here.  He only thought that Marsha and Bill were going to visit him and freaked out a little when she mentioned all of us going, so they went alone.  We dropped them off and had an address for a mall we were going to kill some time at.  Unfortuantley, we never made it there.  Our GPS, (we have named her Garmina) gave us weird directions and we could never get to the ramp that led us into the parking structure.  Instead, we ended up in this area that was restricted and we had to turn around on the sidewalk to get out.  It was frustrating because I wanted to see how this “mega store” compared to the malls at home. 

By this time, I was starving and we just wanted to find somewhere to eat.  For some reason, the GPS was sending us in weird places.  We ended up in, what I called the hood and found a chicken place there.  We figured we just needed to stop at the first place we found because by the time we ate, Marsha may be done and we needed to go back and pick her up in order to head to our next destination.  Here is where we ate.  The last picture translates into something like, "Fried Chicken like the Americans."  I thought that was funny.

After eating, we headed back to where Marsha was.  The only problem is that traffic was horrible and the streets were similar to driving in NY.  It took forever to get back to where Marsha was.  The cool thing is that we had to turn on this street:

We finally picked her up and headed to Zaandam where we were meeting Oom Paul, Ed’s uncle from his mom’s side.  He came out to the US for her funeral and this is how we started talking about meeting up with the Stook side of the family when in Holland again.  We visited and heard stories about family we are not familiar with as well as telling them stories about Andy, Marsha, and Ed.  It was fun to get to know part of the family we didn’t know as well.  Oom Paul and his wife, Mary, have one child, Jamie.  He is married and has twins, Lyndon and Rodney.  They are too cute!  There will be more pics of them from the Stook Reunion entry.

Of course, we ate like fools!  Mostly because it is great food but also because we don’t get Indo food much anymore since Mom G passed away.   Mary (Andy’s wife) knows how to make some things but they live in CA, so it’s not as convenient as it used to be.  So, we were all determined to eat up!  Apparently, I was in such a hurry to eat, I failed to take a food picture!

We headed home after a nice dinner with Oom Paul and his family.  The drive home was about 2 hours, so I slept most of the way.  Marsha and I have a talent for falling asleep pretty quick after the car starts moving if the trip is long.  It’s a trick I learned back in the days when I would get car sick.  A few times of puking in the car and one time actually on my cousin taught me that sleeping through a car ride was safer and less embarrassing.  Now, I can pretty much do it on command. 

We dropped Marsha and Bill off at Theresa’s and headed to Wendy’s.  We visited for a bit, checked in online, and then headed to bed.  A long but fun day!