Well, this morning I thought I was going to have tons of time at this library with free Internet to figure out uploading my pictures to Judy's Shutterfly account. NOT!! It's NOT free (older guidebook) but it's still a gorgeous library - 7 years old. Wasn't even built when I was here in around 2000. Not sure what year I was here with Barbara. We had a week in February, when I switched jobs and had a Feb. vacation. Maybe when I moved to Bethel. Anyway, my brother-in-law Michael was working here for the year and he showed us around a bit. Also I met up with Henny, one of my volunteers from PES and also she was renting the house that I ended up buying in Southbury. We met up with her family and they took us out to their home, out for a traditional Dutch dinner and showed us the countryside. It was a great week!!
This morning after sleeping until almost 8 a.m. ( I was again really tired from all that walking on King's Day). My plan was to go to the Van Gogh and Riksmuseums and printed out discounted passes last night at the hostel, so I wouldn't have to wait in two lines, the ticket AND the security lines. On my way there by train and then tram, I saw a guy holding a concert ticket and knew I had passed the Concertgebouw (concert hall, I assume) near the museums. He said yes, they were from Utrecht (remember, I trained there by mistake as the one I hopped onto didn't stop at MY stop!) Anyway, he said it was an hour long Mozart concert. So I got off to see if there might be tickets available. I got the LAST seat in the house - held for handicapped/wheelchair on the end of a row. They can sell it if no one asks for it. Turns out it's in a smaller concert hall - maybe 150 people. It was a quartet - two violinists, an altoviolinist and a cellist, Claire, Alina, Pablo and Emilie!! (that's about all I could read on the program). They are the Chiaroscuro Kwartet from somewhere! They played Mozart's Strijkkwartet nr. l5, and then Mendelssohn's Tweede Strijkkwartet, op. 13. It was lovely!! I wished I had dressed a bit more but this was very serendipitous that I even went to this!!
Then I took a tram to Centraal Station and walked to the library where Rick said there was a great restaurant on the top with a view (had lovely soup, bread, strawberry lemonade) and free wifi. I did connect a bit with Kerry but couldn't hear very well so we cut it short. Kids were busy playing but waved to Nana!!!! out of sight, out of mind!!
I'll try to find an Internet café to help me with pictures later today or tomorrow. Checked out where I catch the bus from on Tuesday night and found a place to put my bags until my 10 p.m. departure! so I'll have the whole day to bike around or do something!
Ciao!!
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