Thursday, May 9, 2019

Haarlem to just outside of Haarlem

Well hello again!!!! This morning the weather cleared and improved dramatically, which was nice.  I didn't even need my down coat for some of the time!!!! X, Chuck and I all went into town this morning for a bit of a wander around.  Touring this way is an odd mixture of being a complete tourist and living like a local.  We have errands we need to run.  We tried to get some keys cut, no luck, we had to buy a chart and batteries and go to the bank, we went to the grocery store, and we also gaped at all the lovely buildings and the really really big square and church. 

The Chuckster got tired of the walk fairly early so we headed back, then X went out for a run and a shower, after discovering that the soap container had broken in the cockpit.  Damn.  Anyway, Chuck and I hung out in the cockpit amd I chatted with my wonderful sister and discussed her son's stupid physics teacher.  Man teachers are just terrible.

The shower? It was a gift!!!!! Hot as you want, and I like a really hot shower and as long as you wanted.  Now, I'm fine with a 4 minute shower, but I stood there for a fair while just cause I could. 

After all that we decided to have some lunch before setting out. Actually, we'd called the bridgemaster first cause some northbound boats had been stuck for half a day!!!! We were good to go though whenever we wanted to. 

While we were having lunch, a couple walked by looking at the boat.  They were young, our kids' age, just graduated from uni in Canada, a pair of Canadians!!!!! Yipeeeee.  We had a nice long chat and as they were going the girl, Hanna, said she was all excited to see the bridge turn.  We told them that it would be in the next half hour or so.  As we left the dock, we could see them sitting by a mill waiting for it.  Big waves were exchanged, then they walked up and over the bridge.  In the end, we asked if they wanted to go through with us, they said yes, as you might imagine. 

So that was good fun!!!! They were chatty and friendly and interested and had a bit of a hike back into town by the time we dropped them off, but seemed very content about it. 

That's us!!!!




Photos courtesy of Kevin, who resourcefully got our email address off Chuck's tag. 

Went to take Chuckster for a walk this afternoon, and he didn't want to go.  Didn't even want to stand up and we had to carry him off the boat.  He also cut the walk short.  Probably 15 min in total, so that wasn't great.  He ate his dinner happily though, and some dog treats!!!!

Finally here's a photo of a ferry that is exactly the shape of a boat you'd make out of newspaper or that a four year old would draw.  It's super cute, small and very very busy!!!!


We motored down to an attractive looking place to stop, just past Haarlem, but we had to go through a bridge and if we didn't like it, another one, so we just came back up to where we are, just outside the bridges in Haarlem near a nice big park where I took a lovely walk.

2 comments:

sea dog said...

Looks like a great day. Talking to people and interacting with them is the essence of you guys enjoying this.

oreneta said...

True in many ways. Though we are meeting fewer people than we did going to the Bahamas, there everyone pretty much goes in the same direction and stays in similar places, here not so much.