The First Day Is Always the Hardest

Here's the report:  Gayle didn't sleep a wink.  Mom slept for maybe an hour.  I slept the whole time. Gayle reflected on how looooonnnng the time seems when you check your watch at 2:00 a.m., sit and sit, then check it again and it's only 2:05 a.m.

We landed on time and stopped for a cup of Dutch coffee before going through customs.  We were served by the coffee shop owner, whose lifelong dream is to open a coffee shop in New York, her favorite city. Funny how people always seem to want to be somewhere they're not.  She served us tiny cups of coffee and insisted they were large.  Mom almost didn't pay--I've never seen her so disgusted.  Must be the Dutch blood.  Two cups of coffee, one mug of tea, and an itsy-bitsy cupcake came to $18.00.  We vowed to look for Starbucks after this.

We gratefully climbed into our rental station wagon and drove the 20 minutes to Broek in Waterland, a small and lovely town settled in the 1500s along the banks of canals and streams.  We arrived at Inn on the Lake around 1:00 and found a charming, quaint old rectory turned B&B.

Mom was done for the day, so we left her there and went to the grocery store for some lunch items, then came back to read and relax.

Some views from our windows:

The 500-year-old Reformed church is just across a narrow lane from us.  Gayle and I explored inside--lots of history and an amazing 17th-century stained glass window depicting how the Spaniards burned the church to the ground in the 1500s and the townspeople rebuilt it.  Today only 40-50 people worship on a Sunday, and they're all old.

In the meanwhile, we've managed to break a serious house rule here at Inn on the Lake.  After eating cheese and bread and leaving crumbs all over the carpet, I read the list of rules, one of which is that no food can be eaten in the house or gardens except that which is prepared at the Inn itself.  So tomorrow when we go out we will hide all the grocery store food in the closet and hope they don't find it.

Toward evening I took a photo walk through Broek to capture the feel of this unusual, historic, and charming town, complete with an unusual cemetery:

And now, at long last, it's 8:00 p.m., a time when we can decently retire to bed.  The curtains are drawn, our showers are taken, and teeth are brushed.  Gayle is already breathing deeply, eyes closed, unconscious of where she is or what our adventures have been in this day.  Soon sleep will embrace us all, and our bodies will heal and restore, and we wake in the morning and struggle to remember where we are and why we are here.  And then we will enjoy a fine breakfast!