House of Houben

i forgot to tell about Sat and our adventures. the rain stopped and we toured Haarlem which is only 10 min by bus. we ate breakfast at 9 which is when everything opens. we visited Corrie ten Boom's house which was wonderful...i've wanted to see it since i was a teenager...she and her family saved many Jews in WW II and were put in jail for it and Ravensbruck concentration camp. some members of her family died in jail or camp but she was let out and she has a marvelous story of God's love and forgiveness..we crawled into the hiding place in her bedroom...took lots of photos! we visited St Bavo's church built in 1360 just around the corner from her house...there are over 1000 graves stones that you walk on all over in the church floor...gave me the shivers...saw the wonderful organ Mozart played on when he was 10...sang along in Dutch at a pretty concert...ate Belgium waffles for lunch...mmmm....just delicious... a sign just popped up...only 5 mintutes left...it's hard to think under pressure.... i hope the rest of holland is just as lovely as this...i must be part dutch...i love the intelligent way that they think and they are soooo efficient... hi again to everyone back home...i miss you all but i'm not homesick yet...i'm having too much fun.. yesterday when we went to the train station to go to Volendam we found out we needed our passports...we'd left them at the hotel safe so we had to go back...the trains are very speedy and efficient here...like everything else. we sit in 2nd class...we used our eurorail pass yesterday as we have extra days on it so decided to begin to use them up before we're off to Paris. today is sunny and warm but supposed to rain later. they are astonished by all the rain here, just like back home. we saw on the news last night that the weather is HOT and full of wild fires in the US ...hope everyone there is safe. we love you!