Yesterday

I have skipped a lot of the trip so far that I will get back to, but I have to talk about yesterday while it is still in my mind. Mirjam and I drove to Heemskerk, where her parents live and we dropped off the baby Evy to them for a bit so we could go to the beach. It wasn't too sunny yesterday and sprinkled a bit, but we sat on a terrace of a restaurant and had some bitterballen and I had one of my favorite beers, Wiekse Witte. We walked a bit on the beach and for some reason the seagulls here are at least twice the size of any I have ever seen.

The beach was near her Oma's (Grandma) house, so we stopped by. She spoke no English, but I still had a good time listening to them speak Dutch. Or having Mirjam translate. Oma said last time I was in the area of Heemskerk when I was six that she was in Scotland and missed us, but it was nice to meet finally and it feels like we are family because of the time Mirjam spent with us. I agree, I was honored to meet her!

Then we went back to have dinner with her parents. They are the kindest and most joyous. Her mother speaks English pretty well, and her father tries his hardest and I usually get it. The thing is, when he speaks English he says about 2 words of English for every 10 in Dutch. Quite funny. And I noticed both of us doing that thing where when you don't understand someone, you just kind of chuckle and nod like you do.

So her dad is 70 years old and looks ab

out 45. And has the energy as well. I told him this and he started to laugh and do high kicks for me. I am not kidding. HIGH KICKS UP TO HIS CHEST. Mayb

e ten of them. I cannot begin to explain the amount of joy it brought to the room.

He also told me about how in Heemskerk there are many, many people with the last name Beentjes, so they each have a second last name that goes along with it to identify which family they come from. So his grandfather used to drive a carriage and so his name is Beentjes-Bus. Very interesting. He showed me a phonebook for just Heemskerk after that and sure enough, there was about a page of Beentjes.