Watch out Groningen, I've gone mobile. Not a bad way to see the canals of the city, perhaps I should take tickets... the beauty of a photograph is that you can't tell I'm crawling at about 2 kph on the only vaguely tilted piece of roading in the city.
It was a great day for shoes. The pink ones were bought in Stockholm I am told. There were delightful faces at the other end of them also as it turned out. And what's more, Gabby and her daughter gave me some of the most beautiful (and weird) chocolate I have ever tasted.
This is Youge (I think it is Dutch for George). He'd spent a few months travelling around New Zealand in a camper van and we had an interesting conversation about Able Tasman, who was an 18th century Dutch explorer who was the first European to chart the waters of New Zealand. There is a museum near here in a town called Lutjefast (not sure of my spelling) about him. In fact, the story I heard was that Able Tasman arrived in his boat and on seeing the Native Maori coming towards them in their canoes, he had a Barroque trumpeter reply to their conch shell calls. It appears there was some musical differences or aural confusion because when Tasman's men met them mid-seas in their row boat, the natives attached them with paddles, killing five of his crew members. Able Tasman took this as a sign that the Dutch were happy to leave New Zealand to the current owners, and it took the English another 60years to come back with rifles and trading goods to convince their way on shore and ultimately colonise the place.
What I would like to know, is if that trumpeter had played a different tune, would it perhaps be thatched-roof Dutch house I would now be sitting in?
And this is Pierre, the frenchman with a lens wider than his smile. He took some beautiful photos this day, I'll try and get a link for you if you are interested....
She was curious about what I was doing here on the street. I could have asked the same thing.
In case you are wondering, she got the club-tropicana nails done here, though she actually lives in the Carribean.
Above is a demonstration of some of the diffcult preparation exercises I must do in the evenings to prepare mentally and physically for my time in the house, and to the right receiving a little tuition from Femke. Sometimes this preparation can be very demanding.
