We were blessed with yet Another sunny day which warmed up well. Sunday in the Kolbe household is rather different from what we’re used to. It’s a day for sleeping in and having a substantial breakfast (brunch?) mid-morning! I was feeling a bit sad that we hadn't seen any churches in the neighbourhood that we might have attended (although Bruce wouldn't have understood any of the German), and started thinking about how much people who don't have faith in Christ miss out on in life. Reading the prophecy in Isaiah 42 about Christ's ministry and how people would respond to Him and His message - many act as if they are both blind and deaf and refuse to believe. Just a few of my thoughts on Palm Sunday leading up to Easter!
After breakfast, the computer was back in use again to check the train details for going to Holland. We had only booked the journey back from Haarlem to Düsseldorf the night before as it was a cheaper fare that day. The other ticket would be purchased at Dorsten station.
We sent a text to the Weavers to let them know our arrival details then managed to coax the misbehaving printer into printing off some tickets for us. Jeremy was busy packing up a bag for us to take back to NZ as we had so little luggage ourselves (one bag weighing under 15 kg plus our two small cabin bags!). He and Judith were planning to move to NZ in May and didn't want to have to pay too much excess. Anthony was also going to bring some luggage back with him. The suitcase was quite heavy when finished, but at 22kgs wouldn't exceed our baggage allowance.
It was soon time to go to the station by car, as it is a few kilometres from where the Kolbes live. Most railway stations in Germany have automatic ticket machines which can even print you a rather useful overview of your journey as well as the ticket.
The train was very short and had a diesel engine. We were amazed at wide carriages with fold-up seats. It stopped many times on the way to Cologne, where we had to change trains. We bought some peanut bars from a platform vending machine whilst we waited and coffee on the way to keep us going as there was no time for lunch.
Our first impressions of Holland were good - despite the flatness of most of the land, it is still interesting. There are so many new things to see, from the numerous ditches and canals with their barges and longboats, to the different types of housing.
It was quite cloudy from Arnhem to Utrecht, which seemed a very interesting place to visit. As we passed by a large canal, we saw what looked like floating houses, and an import/export building that had loading doors opening directly onto the water
At Amsterdam, we had to change to a small local train which went from a rather isolated platform that was a very long way for poor Bruce to carry that heavy suitcase! It wasn't very well signposted so it took us a while to find it.
On arriving at Haarlem, no-one was waiting to pick us up, so we sent some more texts, and were picked up after a shortish wait. No-one had picked up our earlier text with our train details!
After dropping off our bags at the Weavers', we were taken on a bit of a tour of the area as the evening was so fine and warm. So we drove to a local windmill, to the statue commemorating what is apparently an English legend about the boy and the dyke and the North Sea Canal where we watched the progress of a ferry boat, which apparently used to be free.
It's so different in Holland from NZ, there are so many, to us, unusual things - the almost omnipresence of bicycles, the narrow, bricked streets with many speed humps (it must be excruciating if you have to go to hospital by ambulance!), the canals with so many different types of bridges, the different types of housing..... Fascinating!
The Weavers spent many years as missionaries in a former Communist country and are now based in Holland running Kairos courses in Europe. It was delightful to see them again, and we had fun having a bit of a catch up on news since it was probably a couple of years since we'd last seen them. After a late tea around 8pm of soup, rolls, and cake we watched Bourne Supremacy before going to bed.
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