Houseboat and House Cats

Wednesday, July 30, was the worst transition day of our trip. A lot of it, I think, has to do with choosing to go with Easyjet airline. This low cost carrier had the furthest out gates at both Copenhagen and Schipol (Amsterdam) Airport. Walking, walking, walking.

But there were other factors. Security at Copenhagen Airport, for one. They seemed to have a pretty clever system. Dividing a huge line into several smaller ones based on the size of the smaller queues. Letting families cut ahead in one of the lines (ours). So ahead of us was a family with a disabled child. Fair enough. But the tray with Gail’s electronics was selected for a random special security screening. And she had to wait for the family ahead of us, as the security guy went through every single toy that the family had. She was understandably very upset when her electronics were finally released.

Gail did get some cool photos from the flight. A rainbow in the sky

The new windmills over the Dutch countryside.

Then the train to Utrecht took twice as long as advertised, I think because we got on the local instead of the express. Finally, we got to our Airbnb, a houseboat with 2 bonus house cats.

View from our deck

Over a couple of hours, only once or twice was the street on the other side of the canal not filled with bicycles.

There were parked cars, but we only saw one car being driven

The cats are so cute. The brown one is called Coco; the grey one is called Moos.

Coco looking down on us

Coco clowning

We took it easy the next day (Thursday, July 31), just exploring the neighborhood. We found my dance studio.

And a church converted to an Arts Center

Then something strange happened that hadn’t happened all summer: it rained. I mean really rained, not just sprinkled. It did decrease the bicycles, and increase the pedestrians, but the super cool cyclists who ride without touching the handlebars, still rode without touching the handlebars. There has to be some constancy in the world.

Tomorrow, we have a food tour. In the rain? Only tomorrow will tell.