Bill & Hagen Visit...

On May 26, I picked up Bill at Schiphol after he flew in from Lucerne for a long weekend. While we have seen him in Switzerland, it’s been a long time since he’d been in Holland. A few hours later, we went to the train station to pick up his nephew Hagen who came from Germany. Bill takes Hagen on a vacation every year and this year he decided to bring him somewhere he could practice his English, although Hagen really didn’t need our help as his English was already great. Unfortunately for Hagen, Ashlynn was very busy studying for her GCSE exams, so he was stuck with me as tour guide. Ironically, Jimmy was in Switzerland for a conference for much of their visit.

That Friday we went to Rotterdam. We went up the giant staircase by Rotterdam Centraal, visited the Markthal, saw the cube houses, had lunch at the historic harbor and took a cruise around the port.

Here’s Bill posing with that strange Santa Claus that I just can’t resist photographing.

The following day we cycled to Wassenaar Beach for lunch. It was nearly impossible for Bill to keep himself out of the water.

Instead he went for a swim at Vlietland. The beach was pretty deserted and Bill was definitely the only swimmer in the lake. I’m not sure why the inflatable playground was already set up, but Bill took the opportunity for one quick ride down the slide. That evening Ashlynn and Jimmy joined us for dinner at our favorite pannekoeken (pancake) restaurant in Leiden, and then the guys left on Sunday morning.