Hup Holland Hup

The five days between choir tour and villa in France, we chose to spend in the Netherlands with Schemeit cousins. We’d thought we might have rented a car and driven leisurely down to France stopping at cafés on the way. But instead, we made the better choice of hopping on a train for 8 hours and visiting with family in Meerssen, near Maastricht. Liège, in Belgium, was our favourite train station. I remember when I made a train switch there when I was travelling on my year off. At that time it was under construction. This time construction was complete and impressive. We had some time to wait there so we enjoyed taking pictures.

We stayed with Antje, Guido and Kimberly. Cassandra was still at uni in Aachen so we didn’t get to see her. We went to visit Tante Bärbel every day at the home she’s staying at for the moment. She’s working on getting back enough strength and mobility so that she can get in and out of her wheelchair on her own, and walk with a walker at least. When she can do that she’ll be able to go back home. Onkel Kurt is keeping things organized at home. It was very good to see everyone. Tante Bärbel’s spirits were good. There was one day when we’d arrived where they had just had a concert for all the residents. She was practically dancing in her wheelchair. And then we brought along Käsekuchen (cheesecake) with Mandarins that Onkel Kurt had baked. He makes the best of those Käsekuchens. And apparently he hadn’t baked since Tante Bärbel went into the hospital so it tasted extra great.

We didn’t do any sightseeing or touring at all. We didn’t feel like it. Firstly it was too hot, and we had low energy, and we really just felt good about visiting. Another highlight was going to the Holland party. The coach of the Netherland’s 2nd place World Cup winning soccer team lives in Meerssen and there was a homecoming party for him on Thursday. It was very cool to go and be a part of the joy and celebration. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand, people came from many villages in the area, most wearing orange. Beer flowed, music played, flags were waving, speeches were spoken, everyone cheered and cheered and cheered. We hung out until long afterwards at a local pub joining some of Guido’s crazy friends.

Wednesday afternoon we had a wicked storm. It was so surprising how fast it came on. We were outside on the patio, the wind picked up a bit, the clouds went dark. They were beautiful how they moved and changed, a rushing sound began growing louder and louder. And seconds later blew everything off the table, the rain began pelting and we rushed inside in wonder. I ran upstairs to close our bedroom window. The wind had already blown many things across the room. I had a brief thought of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. If we’d been in Kansas, I’m sure that storm would have been a tornado! The storm was the topic of the next few days of discussion. It had left quite an aftermath in its wake, it turned out.

Maybe my favourite time was on Friday night. Dirk had come up from Germany later in the evening and we enjoyed each other’s company for much of the evening. After Guido and Larry went to bed, it was just the 3 cousins. It felt so good to just be us together. We connected on deeper, more meaningful levels as we talked about our difficult year and reminisced and compared and laughed and cried. It’s good to be a Schemeit.