Arriving in Doesburg

We're here and we're glad to be here.  Getting to Doesburg involved driving to Tourlouse, flying from Toulouse to Amsterdam, taking 3 different trains to Dieren and a short car ride to the house.  We started our day really early and were glad that it was a Sunday so that there was very little traffic getting to Toulouse.  We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to check our baggage and then meet Christine and Pierre (our French home exchange partners) who were arriving from Mexico via Madrid.  We had a delightful but short visit with them over an expresso and swapped stories of our exchange.  Then we flew KLM to Amsterdam - everything was on time.  Schipol is a huge airport - it seemed like we walked miles to get to the baggage claim but it felt good to walk after sitting.  We already knew where to buy train tickets from our previous time in the airport.  The ticket seller was very helpful and even spoke English.  He fixed us up with the best way to get to Dieren but it involved 2 train changes - not a happy prospect with luggage to carry. The train station is located right under the airport terminal so we just went down an escalator and were on the platform for the first train which would take us to Utrecht.  A very nice young Norwegian couple noticed us two old folks with our luggage (2 normal size suitcases and 2 carryons) and came to our rescue. We were able to put the bags on empty seats and it worked fine.  They were changing at Utrecht also onto the same train as we were so the young man helped us again. Our second stop was Arnhem where we changed to the last train to Dieren which is only a few miles from Doesburg. The whole journey was only about an hour and a half.  We were supposed to call our home exchanger's sister from Arnhem but there was no time to find a pay phone between trains.  At Dieren, we looked for a phone and there were none.  However, another very nice young man offered his cell phone for me to make the call and all worked out just fine.  It was minutes to the house.

Our Home Exchange in Doesburg - the white one

We checked into the house and it was getting close to dinner time. We were ready because lunch was a dry sandwich on the plane and practically no breakfast.  We walked less than a block to have a nice dinner at a cozy restaurant where we couldn't read a word on the menu.  The waitress, however, bailed us out with a little English and we ended up with sea bass, lots of salad, veggies and potatoes.  We were pretty worn out from getting up before 5 a.m. and all the travel so we retired early to the sound of the church bells next door, which, by the way, are quite nice - a carillon plays different tunes on the hour and then strikes the hour. It plays partial tunes every 15 minutes.  However, I think they shut down at 10 because we didn't hear any music during the night or we were dead asleep.

The weather is not great - overcast, coolish and a bit rainy.  It is supposed to get better.  However, our first task this morning was to figure out how to use the expresso maker in the kitchen.  The instructions were in Dutch, of course.  So, I looked it up on the Internet and found a couple of YouTube "How-To's" and we were soon enjoying delicious morning expresso.  It turned out to be incredibly easy - it's a Nespresso Machine with an automatic milk frother.  We didn't have any milk so I can hardly wait to have a latte tomorrow morning.

We have a car to use as part of our exchange but there is a good sized supermarket only 2 blocks away so we walked there and to a bakery and bought enough food to get us going.  This town is just downright cute! And, walk-able and I know we will love it.  This afternoon the sun came out - sort of.  I grabbed my camera and we headed out the door to take a walk to the river or canal or whatever it is a couple of blocks from here.  There were still lots of clouds so we didn't need the sun screen but I got a few pictures for a start.  However, before we got to the water, it started raining so we turned around and went back home since we didn't take umbrellas.  The neighbor from 2 doors down spoke with us briefly and in excellent English welcomed us and said to just ring their doorbell if we needed help with anything.  Very nice folks everywhere we go!

So, now I am going to go cook some salmon for dinner.  When you're close to the sea -" Eat Fish", I always say.

LINK TO A FEW PICTURES ON A CLOUDY DAY