251. Europe Bicycle Trip--Goodbye Daniel, Hello Penpal Corry and Husband Nico and Cousin Lia

Day 88, Sunday, July13,2014  My reading for today was Psalm 128. "Blessed be everyone that feareth the Lord that walketh in His ways." I had brunch with Dick, Carla and Daniel.

At coffee and tea (for me) time, we talked about doing daring things, such as parachuting, bungee jumping and  helicopter rides.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Daniel. We are Facebook friends now so I can follow his adventures around Europe.

Daniel (top) and Marnix --paintings by Carla

A dog they had in the past--Painting by Carla  I had made an arrangement yesterday to visit my cousin Lia who lives not too far away. Carla and the dogs walked me to Lia`s apartment where I got a big surprise.

Nico and Corry--When I was in high school, I had a Dutch penpal, Corry Snoeks. Corry`s mother, Cor, was the sister of my Ome Juur`s second wife, Martha and also a friend of my mother.  Corry`s father, Piet, was a friend of my father  and two of my father`s  brothers, Wim and Cor. To improve her English, Corry became my penpal and between 1962 and 1967, we wrote letters back and forth. I also had a penpal in the Philippines during that time and also was busy with sports and then moving to Windsor to go to university. Corry had saved some of the pictures that I had sent her in the letters and brought them with her. One was of my dog, Flopsy and her puppies and another was of me with a high school friend before going to the school prom. I remembered the photos but I felt very AWFUL because  I had a bit of a memory lapse about our correspondences. Corry`s name definitely rang a bell in my brain but I couldn`t remember the actual letters. They probably got left behind when Dave and I married and moved to Northern Ontario. I wondered why I hadn`t looked her up in 1978 when I came to the Netherlands with my husband and daughter. Probably we had too busy a schedule on that trip.  Nevertheless it was wonderful to see Corry and her husband, Nico, that she has been married to for 46 years. They also do a lot of bicycling.  I was sorry that the end of my trip was at hand and I wouldn`t be able to visit them again.

Close up

Nico, Lia and Corry-- My cousin, Lia`s father, Ome Juur and my father, John were brothers. I did see Lia briefly at my Ome Doris` house back in 1978.  It was very nice to see her and visit even if it was for a short while..

Lia, Mary Ann and Corry

Mary Ann and penpal Corry--Thank you for remembering me, Corry.

Lia's hobby is stained glass work as illustrated in the window of this door. Corry and Nico had to leave so Lia showed me some of her work.

I believe she did one of these for my cousin Cook who is a car collector.

Lia makes these fancy candle holders and gave one to me as a gift.She also gave me a little souvenir from Lourdes where her father is buried because he died on the way to traveling there when he was ill.

Lia's father, my Ome Juur and mother,  my Tante

A beautiful sailboat--I would love to have her do a cross country skier for me  if she lived in Canada.

Lia also had other commitments so we had to say goodbye. I was so blessed to have had this visit at he end of my trip with another close relative. Lia walked me down and outside to the bus stop that would take me to Schiphol airport where I planned to do some shopping.

Close up-Thank you for the visit, Lia.

Selfie

Nice flowers to sit by

It is not too busy at the Iamsterdam sign this afternoon.

A big Dutch shoe in the flower shop in the mall part of the airport. I bought a  HOLLAND Tshirt for Dave, some birthday calendars and some zoute dropjes (salt licorice).

The plane that you can tour sits on the viewing deck.

I checked it out and asked a guy to take my photo.

The KLM section always has lots of planes on the tarmac.

Welcome to Schiphol sign----I arrived back at Dick and Carla`s at 6:30. They were at a party at the neighbors across the street. I let out the dogs, fed them and had my supper. I skyped Dave and found out that XXL was too big a T-shirt for him now because of all the weight he has lost. Later there was a knock at the door and I talked for quite a while with a carpenter friend of Daniel`s who is also a client of Dick`s. He and his wife just had a new baby and he was hand delivering the announcement. He said he has a brother who with his girl friend are going to bicycle on a tandem from the Netherlands to Australia. When Dick and Carla came home, we chatted about our day and then watched the World Cup Soccer Final between Germany and Argentina which Germany won 1-0.