Home of the Bouncing Urine--Nijmegen, Netherlands

Casa Grande, Arizona

I'm still having trouble finding the time to blog about our recent river cruise last month--The Romance of the Rhine and Mosel.  I'll just highlight a few things that occured.

Breakfast in the dining room is 7-9 every morning.  Even though we usually arrived at 7 we still didn't make it to the morning stretching at 8 am.  However, we were ready to follow our program director on a walking tour of Nijmegen.
Jorn kept reminding us that the Netherlands were the most beautiful country in the world.  Did I mention he was from Antwerp, Netherlands?  He also told us that the tallest people in the world were from the Netherlands.

As we followed him through the narrow cobblestone streets, he pointed out things along the way.  Here's a car for someone who is handicapped.

Jorn led us up some back steps to the town square.  He told us not to touch those metal triangles in the corner of the staircases.  When we stopped to talk to some small children (who knew English) in the playground, Jorn explained why we shouldn't touch those pieces of metal in the corner.  It seems that when the town folks go out and have too many beers, they would stop in the corner and urinate.  Of course, we're talking about men here.  Now it might also have to do with the fact that it now costs 50 cent in euros in some areas to use the restroom, if you can find one.  The town installed these so that if someone peed on one, they were sloped so that the urine would bounce back on themselves.  

These are the kind of things you can't learn about without a knowledgeable guide.

These towns are nothing like you'd see in the US.  Jorn knew all the details of how the buildings were constructed.  I wish I could remember what all those spires represented on the building.

St. Nicolas Chapel was built in the 11th century.  Now that's old!

The town square was beautiful and the cobblestone streets were so clean.

Jorn also showed us how the Dutch eat their favorite food, herring.

Jorn ordered a platter of herring so that everyone could try it.  I thought it was okay, but wouldn't be number one on a menu for me.

Jorn then talked about marijuana in the Netherlands and took us to a shop.  Because the shop was small, he went in to buy some and we listened from the street.  We could hear the exchange between Jorn and the shopkeeper because of the headphones and receivers everyone is supplied with during the trip.  I thought it was strange that you couldn't go in and smoke a cigarette at the tables in that shop but you could marijuana.

Some of the people returned to the ship and took the supplied bicycles out to tour around the town.  After all the walking and climbing steps we just went back to the ship and took a break in the lounge.  I didn't care that the bicycles were electric assisted.  It wasn't long before it was time for lunch, but we had enough time to play rummikub with Maureen and Russ.  

The ship departed for Remagen while we were walking to the dining room.  We sailed the rest of the day.  The ice cream party was fun, even though we were stuffed we still managed to enjoy it. 

Here's the view out our balcony as we sailed.

We sat on the deck for awhile and just watched the scenery.  There was a gallery tour going on, but we've done those before.  I'll blog the next stop at a late date.


Friday we spent the day with John and Karen Knoll.  She reminded me that the White Elephant thrift store is only open until noon so we headed out early so we'd arrive in time to visit it.  It's a favorite place to visit when we are in Green Valley.  The parking lot was packed but we managed to park in a nearby parking lot.

Karen had been wanting to try an Italian restaurant at the golf course.  It changed management and is now called Dominick's.  

Bill could only eat half of his Italian sandwich, but the rest of us cleaned our plates.

It was great visiting with John and Karen as we hadn't seen them since the Escapade in Sedalia.

Yesterday, we visited with Vern and Polly. 

We mentioned that we want to do a trip to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.  Vern brought out his souvenir from when he served in the military.  He had no desire to return to Vietnam.  If you see him, ask to see his cigarette lighter.





Turtle Safely.......