mooi, heh?

i think i spelled that right.
so much has happened since my last post!
so: last day in paris...so long ago...we walked. walked and walked...finally found back this store that we'd found on our first day of wandering...and after all that walking, i didn't buy anything. boo! kinda grouchy about that one...of course.
so we went directly home after that. vegged and napped, cleaned up our stuff and packed, washed dishes, ate pasta. then we went back out, up to sacre coeur and montmartre. didn't bring anything because we were just walking, so of course i found THE scarf! so we had to walk all the way down those flippin stairs, and back to the flat, to get some money and some cameras...and then all the way back up.
never did see the moulin rouge, but that's ok...i'll be back...
i miss paris already!
the next day we were up at 5.30 to get to our 7:30 train. metro-train to brussels-train to amsterdam-train to apeldoorn-bus to voorthuizen-there's oma, running out onto the street waving her arms so the bus will stop. hahaha...everyone on the bus was laughing at us while we hugged oma. :) and there we were, cottaging with 9 old dutchies. kisses all around, got a little dizzy...and right away, coffee time! or...koffie. that's better. we went swimming with oma, om ton, and some tantes. i still don't know all their names properly, and i couldn't really properly have a conversation with any of them ***gotta learn dutch***but it was fun. oma especially--she'd be talking dutch to her family and then forget to switch when she talked to brine and me--a little confusing.
dinner was fun too, although om ton's pants didn't survive. it's that sense of humour that we're all so familiar with in canada thru uncle tony and dad...hehe...
so...koffie and boderkoek after dinner, sudokus (oma's learning!), family pictures, more hanging out, and sleep. breakfast the next morning (that's yesterday!) was fun---i'm bringing home a little package of chocolate sprinkles (dunno how to spell that in dutch!) because it's so cute!
after koffie and some dutch devos, om ton drove us to the train station in putten----after 9x3 kisses!
cutest little train station ever, exceut you gotta buy your ticket with coins. we had a 20 and a 5. so we went to this little hardware store and bought candy (yaaah) and soon we were in zwolle.
zwolle's awesome--about the same size as burlington, but everything feels smaller. we're staying with christein, mom's cousin, and her husband marco. right away, christein and adopted chinese baby lusan walked downtown with us and we were able to look around a bit in the centrum, a star-shaped island surrounded by canal...aaaah i love holland. found a bead store! went in but didn't buy anything--saved it for today. looking forward to it.
lusan, this little chinese baby, is SO cute! maybe i can upload pictures at kees', i dunno. if not, you'll have to wait till oct.11 or something. she's so full of life and happy and...wow. so last night we had koffie and ...gebekjes? dunno if i spelled that right, but whatever--we need gebekjes in canada! what is this craziness!? makes tim hortons look like...mcdonalds. ew.
yah, so klass and annemarie, more of mom's cousins, came over with their 2 kids ninke( and iris (11 weeks old) weird, coming from oma's 80 yr old family and then spending time with little babies...hehe.
that was fun. today, we walked downtown again, and then met christein and lusan for koffie/lunch at van orsouw--apparently the best place to be! (really good) we've been walking around, shopping and eating droppjes ever since. and tomorrow, off to utrecht.

oh yeah--lusan's favourite phrase is mooi, heh---means beautiful, eh? of course referring to me...