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Then there was the trip:
Belgium and the Netherlands
Jerry Frankhouser
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The train was on time, as are most of all the trains in Europe. We had very nice train ride. We met a young couple from Austin, Texas. He was in the army and she is an executive recruiter. They were on the way from England to Amsterdam. We got off the train and the Holland-Spoor train station in "The Haag" and took a cab to Chrissy's aunt Dina's house. Anne and I stayed in a very nice Crown Plaza hotel.
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The monday after easter is a European holiday, so Spencer went with us to the Mauritshuis. The Mauritshuis is a very nice museum. They have two of the most famous dutch paintings, the little dutch girl and the large cow along with about 12 self portraits of Rembrandt. After we saw the Mauritshuis, we took in the street carnival, where they serve the local delicacy of raw herring. one way to eat it is, stick the head of the fish in your mouth up to the tail and close your teeth and strip the meat off the bones. Anne
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was the only brave one and chose to have two herring filets on a hotdog bun with raw onions. pretty good, very healthful. They also like to have french fries with mayonnasie (no one could go for this). We looked at the booths and then walked down embassy row and saw a lot of different countries' embassies. Then we went back to Dina and Bob's house for a great meal prepaired by our hosts. On Tuesday, we visited the Keukenhoff tulip gardens. This is a park similar to Florida's Cypress Gardens. Many Holland tulip bulb growers display
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their latest and greatest new bulbs in this garden setting: tulips, hyacinth,
orchids, lilac and other bulbs and flowering plants that can also be found in the northern United States. We stopped to enjoy some wonderful small pancakes with fruit and powdered sugar. That evening we went to the north sea beach at Scheveningen, they have a neat broadwalk, and a great italian restaurant where we had dinner. We all have a fun evening. On Wednesday morning, Dina drove us to the train station so we could board a train to Brugge.
 __The restaurant that we went to is in the middle of the picture along the beach.
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