Utrecht day trip

Today we rode with Cousin John to Utrecht because he was heading into his new office for a meeting. Utrecht center is a very old town with a famous church tower called the Dom. We spent a couple hours walking around the canals, avoiding being hit by bikes, and having a morning coffee.

The canals serve as a transport and so one of the boats we saw was the delivery boat for all the beer, wine, and other drinks to the cafes along the river. It has a crane on it and hoists up the beverages to street level where they are delivered. This is apparently manditory so that there aren't any big trucks on the narrow streets.

I did have the best appel gebak I've had since I arrived and it was great fun to be back in an "old city" that had the canals and bikes.

After we met up with John to head back, we went to Spakenburg (another old, Dutch village) for lunch. Some of the people who live there still wear the traditional dress, so we saw the old harbor and then had lunch. I got to check off another thing from my food list: an uitsmijter. This is an open faced sandwich with egg and, today, it also had ham and cheese on it. We did see a couple women in the traditional dress, but I only managed to get a picture from the back as they biked by quickly.

The rest of the day was just a relaxing day at the house. Tomorrow we travel back to Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Gre.