Europe - Trip 5

Day 8 - February 11, 2002

Hunebed with Sue and Willemien

Today was Sue’s birthday – 31 years old. Not as fabulous as being 30 or anything but still she’s getting older and little slower. She received a nice morning welcome for breakfast with the special birthday breakfast setting and some lovely gifts from Willemien, Ite and Rolf.

Willemien had the day off and was able to bring us on a short road trip, seeing some the local sites including the source of the Wierengas, Todd’s mother’s mother’s family. Ite had also mentioned some hunebedden (dolmens) that were nearby and like most other dolmens dated to the stone age with no real knowledge of their origin or orginal use. We got lots of pictures of the rocks sitting there doing rock type things, sometimes with people in the picture and sometimes with just the rocks. Some of the rocks were green and some of them were only grey but they were impressive in a part of the world that is not generally well known for significant rocks of any kind.

Next we stopped by at Ite’s older brother’s place for a short visit where were asked many interesting questions.about us, our religion, our prospects for children and what we did for livings. We had answers for all of the questions posed. Some of those answers were good.

Rocks of a hunebed without people

We then headed for lunch to the new showroom of the furniture company where Willimien works (she also writes articles for one of the regional papers) - they also had a restaurant, hence the eating.

Off to Uithuisen, down lovely country roads. We drove to Todd’s Grandma’s old house where her and her many, many siblings lived before they packed up and moved to Canada near Edmonton (mostly to a town called Neerlandia). The house was very small – very interesting to see where the family originated before moving in the 20’s. Also very interesting to see in contrast to the local head farm in the area and the house that it housed. We then headed to an antique barn owned by one of Ite’s cousins (and hence my mother’s cousin as well) that was packed full of a wild variety of bits from wardrobes to biscuit tins to old forge bellows.

Willemien had to be back in town to do an interview for her next newspaper article so we dashed home to Groningen. Sue had a prompt nap and Todd took the fiets into town with Ite and did a bit of shopping and sight seeing. First the book store and then off to a couple of almost ancient alms houses (essentially hostels for pilgrims) that were in mostly authentic shape – like little oases in the middle of the city. Ite then trundled Todd off to the Martini Kerk for a bit of a private showing – pointing out the many features and historical points of the cathedral. A quick stop for cigars and back to the house for dinner.

The whole family again decended on the house for the evening as it was Sue’s birthday dinner. Small gifts were brought and the photo albums from the Wierenga’s last North American trip were brought out. Lots of final chatting as this would be our last night and then off to bed.

END OF TRIP 5 - go to Trip 6

Very nice day with lots of sun and big puffy clouds.