Throwing it Back to Summer ~ My Summer Breeze

Throwing it Back to Summer

My Summer Breeze

As I sit here in Texas on a crystal clear blue sky kind of day, it’s hard to remember that it’s actually winter. I’m wearing a t-shirt and jeans and my daughter is here with shorts on. We’ve got 4 dogs romping around in the backyard playing and the door is open a tad just to let a little breeze come into the house. It feels like a lazy day in summer. Not quite the blazing hot days of summer here in Texas but the beautiful summer days in The Netherlands.

It’s funny, but as an expat you get an assignment for a certain amount of time. Some just a few months and some very long. Ours we were told would be about 3-5 years. It truly felt like we had all the time in the world. But as news of our departure finely came to be there were so many mixed emotions for me. The first few years really our time back to the States was once a year and only at Christmas as I wanted to be with my whole family for the Holidays. We were held to only certain times during the years as my daughter was finishing her high school in The Netherlands. After she graduated, yes it’s true… I went into the Empty Nest Syndrome. Not only had she left to go back to the United States for college, she was my friend, my buddy, my best friend who had gone through all the struggles and triumph of our adventure of living abroad.

Months passed and as she fell totally in love with her school, my anxiety of having her so far away eased. But then... White tulle, lace, flowers and cake took over our lives. With two of our daughters getting married within a few months of each other a lot of time was spent back in the States planning for the weddings. One of our daughters got married this past summer but we were still blessed to be able to have best friends visit us.

Having too much fun in London!

First our friends Chris and Kathy, from my husband’s high school days came for a visit. It was their first trip to Europe and London was their choice of cities to see. So we took a fabulous weekend visit across the pond.

The Guys

As stories from High School and just good ole’ life took over the conversations, it was such a joy to see the “boys” stride side by side as they have throughout their lives. Friends for life!

The Girls

After my daughter’s wedding, I headed back to The Netherlands as our best friends Scott, Dawn and their son Trevor, who were also at the wedding would be arriving in a few days. Dawn would be arriving a few days later as grandbaby #5 would be arriving any minute. My husband had to work, so the boys and I took off for Normandy, France. Scott had booked our stay with Airbnb.com and we truly had no idea what we were getting.

Our villa in Normandy!!

Wellllll.... ummmm yes! It was stunning. We had the run of an old stunning Normandy house set on about 5 acres of beauty.

Scott and Trev in front of the stunning

garden shed.

I absolutely love Normandy and the beauty that surrounds it.

Scott, Trev and I enjoying a little "Happy Hour" outside our Villa in Normandy.

But above all the beauty for me,

American Cemetery Normandy

is the love that was poured out over the beaches and countryside of this stunning region as our US boys stormed the beaches and air during World War II ready to save people in need of our help.

Omaha Beach Normandy

This reverent land will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Heading back to Amsterdam to pick up Dawn from the airport, I started to feel a little not well. I think throwing a wedding, traveling overseas, jet lag then driving to France and back was taking its toll.

Our apartment in Rome.

But... that wasn’t going to stop me going to Rome with my besties! I did take one day off while they went roaming around Rome,

Scott and Dawn on tour at the Vatican

but the next day I rallied for the Vatican and a few other fun stops. Again, we stayed in amazing Airbnb.com just a few blocks from the Vatican City. 

Rome is amazing to me, with all the history and artistic architecture everywhere you look. I will say it was a tad hot in Rome during the summer,

Trev and I enjoying Ribs at The Hard Rock Rome

but that was to be expected. It’s just an amazing city.

St. Peter's Basilica

After we dropped the boys off at the airport, Dawn and I were excited to have just a girl’s week to explore The Netherlands. I took her to all my favorite places... The Kinderdijk to enjoy the windmills, in and around my little village of Leende, off to Nuenen where

The van Gogh Windmill in Nuenen

van Gogh lived and painted and of course my love... Monschau, Germany. It was a great, low key girl’s week and I’m blessed to have shared it with

one of my best friends.

Dawn getting some puppy love.

It was a crazy busy summer... but the kind where a summer breeze... makes me feel fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC1K1AYvtAo

Enjoying the Texas Heat

Picture of the Day ~ Bright

Picture of the Day

September 8~Bright

The sun shining brightly through The London Eye

Down & Out ~My Night with Slowhand

Have you ever been with someone and you know instantly you’re in the presence of someone special? You get tingles all over your body and sometimes the hair on the back of your neck will, as they say, stand up. Well… that’s what my night with Eric Clapton was like.

My husband and I skipped across the pond from Amsterdam to London for a weekend to see Eric Clapton live in concert.  London is by far one of my favorite cities in Europe. First of all.. they speak English, the signs are in English, I understand the English and did I mention.. it’s all in English? Second.. London is the essence of Cool! It seems like everywhere you turn there’s something fun to see. But for the concert would be held at the Royal Albert Hall and that was just the icing on the cake.

Our flight arrived mid afternoon. We had just enough time to change and head across the street from our hotel right in Paddington Station to have a bite to eat before the concert.

I’m always ever so grateful to the British for putting signs on the ground on which way you should look before stepping into traffic.

We arrived at the Royal Albert Hall in time to purchase a few goodies and find our seats. My husband had purchased the tickets on line right as they went on sale. As the concert got closer and closer we only worried a tad that the tickets were fake. Gentle e mail reminders kept informing us that we would receive them in the mail before the concert. The week before the concert, we received an e mail saying that our tickets were over booked. Ummmm how is that possible? But the company assured us that they were working very hard to clear up the matter and we would have tickets. They would deliver our tickets to the hotel. And when we arrived.. yes they were there. And the seats were better than we had purchased. NICE!

 "Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0"

 The Royal Albert Hall was opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria and is absolutely stunning!

After a nice warm up guitarist, a man in a blue short sleeved Polo shirt, well-worn jeans and a pair of cumfy Sperry’s came on stage. The background music started as someone handed him a guitar. He easily let his hands bring the guitar to life and the place came alive.

Eric Clapton played for three hours straight. There were no wardrobe changes and he never leapt off the stage. Just a man and his guitar... it was perfect!

London Baby!

One of the great things about living in Europe is that Europeans truly believe in vacations or holidays. When we first moved to The Netherlands, we did not meet any of our neighbors for about a month because they were all gone on holiday. One neighbor came rushing over after they had returned from a month long holiday to say hello and to say they would be gone for the next two weeks because they were leaving for holiday. That’s when I began to understand that they do truly love their time off.

Not only do they believe in time off they believe in making it as affordable as possible so that people can travel around Europe. People choose from a variety of plane, trains and automobiles to get to their destinations. But as American’s, our pleasure is finding the airline tickets very inexpensive to travel to the many new sites to see. This holiday…. Accession Thursday, a lovely four day weekend that we decided to spend in London, England. Our ticket price… 100E round trip, left right from Eindhoven. After a short 45 min. flight across the English Channel we were in the United Kingdom. Ya got to love Ryan air who announces their arrivals by sounding a horse racing starting gate trumpet if they are on time. They pride themselves with being on time and claim to be the number one on time airline in the world.

As we trained in from the airport to London I couldn’t help singing Chim Chimney, Step in Time and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I swear I would have become a chimney sweep if someone had asked me to right then. I was giddy with delight. Two trains and a short walk from the station, we found our hotel. We gathered our thoughts and made a plan. First stop a little shopping on Oxford Street and then take in a show, Rock of Ages! I should have listened a little better when they said no flash photography or video recording. I did turn off the flash on my camera, but I guess that wasn’t good enough as I got yelled at immediately to shut it down or it was to be taken away. (But not before a few little shots were taken). The show was fantastic!!

After a well-deserved night’s sleep, we headed off to do some major bucket list checking off. After walking along the Thames River we hopped aboard the Big Red double decker hop on, hop off tour bus. I’ve learned that this is a wonderful way to not only see the sights, but to listen to so many details that I didn’t know before about each area. Ok, and yes, the riding around when the feet are too tired to move is a big plus too! Perched above the city, we were able to drive past with ease the places we wanted to see and get off the bus at the places we wanted a closer look at. Past the London Eye (yes, we wanted to go on but somehow ran out of time), and past Big Ben!

First stop… Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards! We had been told to arrive early but our first bus was over crowded pushing us to wait for the second one. Not a problem, we’ll just jaunt over this way (by jaunt I mean what seemed like a 10 mile hike) to catch a different bus. But we arrived in time to get positioning by the gate. After a while of bonding with a few thousand of my closest friends the ceremony began. Just like in Washington DC at Arlington National Cemetery where they do the changing of the guards at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the guards guarding the Queen’s residence are real soldiers. They are not ornamental. It was very cool and I was so happy I was able to see this! At one area there were guards out near the people. I stepped up to the young man and said " I know you're not going to answer me, but I write a little blog called American Girl in Holland and I would like to put a picture of you in it." He smiled slightly, nodded slightly, and I stepped in for the picture!  I love all the pride and pomp of traditional ceremonies.

We next strolled through Green Park, passing along the way the Horse Guards. Then we walked to St. James Park, past the beautiful pelicans, Duck Island and the Duck Island Cottage. This beautiful cottage is home to the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust.

After a lovely lunch in Piccadilly Circus (I just LOVE the names here), we went on a walking Harry Potter Tour. I haven’t read any of the books and the movies were good but my kids are the real fans. Many, many nights were spent waiting in line at midnight for the opening of a new movie or the release of a new book at the local bookstore. The sleepless hours were well worth the excitement on my children’s faces. I love the fact that J.K. Rowling wrote wonderful books that turned the children of the world, and my own children, onto the love of reading. Our guide was wonderful and led us through the streets of London not only pointing out various places where movie sets had taken place but also infamous people or places that had been there before.

For dinner we headed toward the Hard Rock Café, or let me say this… the Original Hard Rock Café. Yes, London is the home to the very first Hard Rock. Me I was in search of a little slice of America. Mission accomplished! The perfect hamburger. And as an added bonus, the girls were able to see Kim Kardashian coming out of her hotel. They had noticed a crowd gathered and asked what was going on. Of course they wanted to wait five minutes to see if they could see her. Two hours later they made it to the Hard Rock victorious and with pictures as well. A hamburger and a Kardashian, sounds pretty All American to me.

On our last day we casually spent time seeing the last few places on our lists. I really wanted to go inside Westminster Abbey, but they were charging 16 pounds a person. So I settled for more time outside and a visit to their store. Every church we have visited has of course been free. You can make donations of course but charging.. hmmmm. Oh well. My oldest daughter has been doing some work on our family tree via ansestory.com. Apparently my family goes back to King John. So, I’m sure the next time there’s a royal wedding I’ll be getting a nice little invite in the mail. J

After a few short days in London, I’ve come to one conclusion; I definitely love this city and will be back. This American Girl says “Jolly good ‘ole chap, well done London!”