Day 117: Middleburg - Vlissingen, Netherlands

Today was a great day in the Netherlands.  I slept in really late, which was wonderful.  I woke up a little after 11, and went downstairs around noon.  The family was watching TV and eating breakfast.  The show was basically a Dutch version of Desperate Housewives.  It was the same as ours, but basically all of the women had blonde hair.  After some food, I practiced for a while.  It was so great to play without a stupid practice mute in my bell.  I sounded horrible, though.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will be over the mute. 

Here is my chambre for my stay.  It is very compact. 

At around 14h30, we left for Middleburg to do some shopping.  Middleburg is a very nice town, with a nice shopping area.  There was a large market in the town square, which I don't believe was Christmas related.  We also had several delicious local delicacies.  It ain't France, but the food is still pretty good.  And better than Belgium. 

This is the former Middleburg town hall, which now serves as a university.

This shopping street is curved along the route of the former, circular dike built to keep the city dry, before there were dikes to keep the whole country dry. 

This is a really delicious wurst, AKA sausage.

Me eating a haring(herring) in the traditional fashion.  It is cleaned, de-boned, decapitated, and served raw.  It was a little different, but once I got used to it, it was really good.

This is just hunks of deep fried cod.  It was really good.

Stroopwafels are thin, crispy waffles in sandwich form, with a thin layer of syrup in between.  Really, really great!

Once we finished with the shopping, we came back to Vlissingen for a bit, before we headed out to go bowling.  We had the lane reserved for one hour, so we didn't stay long, but it was fun.  Here, the pins have strings attached to the top, and they are reset by the strings being pulled up an lowered. 

Junior's wife, son, and niece, watching him bowl.

 On the way home, we stopped and got fries, and some kind of sausage-y thing.  The fries here have different kinds of sauces including curry ketchup, peanut sauce, and a mix of the ketchup and mayo, with raw onions.  It was all great.   We sat around the living room table, and watched Home Alone 2.  It was a nice evening.

Junior's nine month old baby, Naomi, watching TV. Or whatever happens to be around.