Friesland, Food, Footwear, Falls, Friends and Family

Try and beat that title! I could have also added Franeker but since it is in Friesland I thought it would be a bit excessive. This is going to be a double post. I believe this is the first time that Marc and I have both authored a post together. I will do the first four F's and he will then add in the last two with some details about the first one. Are you ready?????

Friesland
Marc's ancestors are from the land of Friesland in northern Holland. We travelled to this province on Saturday and then went to some smaller towns yesterday. We stayed in the town of Franeker and headed out from there. Franeker was a welcome break from the busyness of Amsterdam. It is a wonderful small city with canals and farms and sheep. Just how you would picture Holland to look. Everyone was so friendly and said hello as we were walking around town. There were also a lot of dogs in Friesland, although none of them looked like Niko. I did notice a sheep looking quite Nikoesque though when it laid it's head down to eat grass. A stretch maybe but it really did look like Niko.

On the train to Franeker:
Our hotel room (just above a little French restaurant)
Marc sticking his head out our hotel window:

A church in Franeker:



Food

We have (AHHHH I can't get the bold off) been enjoying the food here very much and have gotten away with only buying dinner. Breakfast is usually provided at the hotels here and we have managed to make that into a lunch as well. Breakfast here usually consists of bread, raisin buns, meat, cheese, (think cold cuts) fruit, cereal, yogurt and coffee. At our hotel in Amsterdam Marc managed to stuff a hard boiled egg, some bread, buns, meat and cheese into the cargo pockets of his pants and we would eat that for lunch. Most days it was really tasty but the other day on the train we had a kiwi in the lunch bag and it mushed all over our food. I still ate kiwi mush bun. Those of you who know me know that this is quite a feat. Here is a picture of Marc with our leftover breakfast packed as a lunch at our hotel in Franeker. We weren't as subtle with the lunch stealing there but hey what do you expect when you give two people half a loaf of bread. ;)


We ate at the restaurant below our hotel in Franeker on Saturday evening. It was a French/Dutch restaurant (Fruntch??) and we thought that the serving sizes would be fairly small. We ordered a soup to start (mmmm delicious) and went a little crazy with the bread. Then our meal came. This is what was left over. (There is also half my pasta under my napkin.) Again, those of you who know Marc and his famous (or infamous) appetite will be surprised that he could not finish much of his meal. He did tell the waiter he was upset that he couldn't make a meat sandwich the next day because we didn't have a fridge to store our left over food. The waiter looked at us quite puzzled and exclaimed - "But we are a restaurant, we have a very large fridge, you are staying here, we will keep your food!" So Marc got his meat sandwich after all. (and one less sandwich to steal!)

Okay no more bold. Footwear
When we were leaving Chilliwack I packed a box of clothes that I would be able to wear in Amsterdam and Lethbridge. Unfortunately in the chaos of packing that box got packed and did not make its way to Lethbridge. In Lethbridge I was able to use some pants my mother in law Bette hemmed for me and I bought a cheap pair of jeans to add to the one pair of pants I had worn to Lethbridge. I also acquired a sweater and a jacket. I did not however pick up any socks and realized when we got to Amsterdam that I only had 3 pairs. I wore the same pair for a couple of days then wore Marc's and realized that we had lovely fashionable socks from British Airways as well. I bought this pair of shoes in Lethbridge and it is a bit big so it fits perfectly with 3 pairs of socks. (Good for Holland, maybe not so good for Kenya.) Anyways one morning Marc saw me sneakily looking through his socks for a pair and asked why I didn't just buy socks here. What a concept! I also thought my feet were looking a bit cankleish with the thick British Airways socks and thought my feet could look a little more fashionable.


In Franeker we went to a local store and I found a pair of very cute brown socks with flowers. I bought them and we found a little garden with a shell path for me to put them on. Here is the shell path:
Marc started taking pictures in this beautiful garden while I was changing my socks. I opened the socks and found I had bought children's tights. Marc caught my laughing reaction on camera: (Yes it is hard to tell I'm laughing but I am laughing so hard I am doubled over, that is a laugh!)
We did go find some other pairs and I changed out of my British Airways socks in front of our hotel (very subtlely I must add.)
And now for the fall:

Yesterday as I mentioned we did a lot of walking. We also walked through Franeker with our backpacks and did a lot of walking with our packs at the train station. My pack isn't that heavy right now but with all the walking I was tired. As we were walking through one of the stations to change trains I stepped on an uneven piece of pavement. As mentioned before my shoes are loose (even with 3 pairs of socks) and when I stepped my ankle buckled. Usually I would be able to keep walking (thankfully) but this time with the weight of my pack I crumbled along with my ankle. This of course would usually not be a big deal (did I mention I was tired and we did a lot of walking and I had a large pack on my back) but because of the weight of my pack I could not get up. So I am laying on the ground in the train station saying Help Marc I can't get up. I start trying to get up but it doesn't work so I just end up writhing under my pack on the station floor. At this point I found this very amusing and started laughing. Marc eventually got me up (after a lot of readjusting of limbs and packs) and some very nice gentlemen picked up my magazine which I managed to throw across the lane. I wonder what they thought of the crazy falling writhing English girl who just happened to be reading Scientific American Mind's special on Sex and the Secret Nerve. Oh dear. This story gives me the giggles every time I think of it so hopefully you all had a good giggle too.

If you are still awake I commend you. As this is already an immensely long post you will have to wait for Marc to do the friends and family post tomorrow. Sadly this will not be the first ever collaborative post, we will have to save that for the future. Now you just have more to look forward to!