There's No Place Like Home part II

I last wrote on Friday evening.  We had just arrived in Maastricht and gotten caught up with Erik and Sylvia and their wonderful girls.  Now it's Monday evening, and we're back in Rotterdam thinking about getting Rijstafel for dinner, where to go and how to get there.  I'll get caught up on our time in Maastricht before we go.  We didn't do much really, but we had a wonderful time.

Saturday we went for a walk with the goal of meeting Sylvia's mother, Tini, in mid-afternoon.  We walked down the street, turned left past the university, and almost immediately were in a park.  Here's a statue of the Comte d'Artignan, one of the Three Musketeers.  I haven't read the book, but apparently while the story is fiction the Musketeers were factual, and the Comte d'Artignan did indeed die in 1673 during the French siege of the city.  The inscription on the statue (in French) is "One for all and all for one."  I suppose it's reflective of the idiosyncratic nature of Maastricht that there is a statue honoring someone who was in fact attacking the city.  Actually, after 1794 Maastricht for twenty years actually was a French city after which it became part of the Netherlands, then almost became part of Belgium.  Perhaps the statue dates back to when Maastricht was French.  Perhaps I have no idea what I'm talking about.

A boundary of the park is the ancient city wall of Maastricht.

There were lots of people walking on this yet again most beautiful day.  There were school children accompanied by a couple of Catholic sisters and brothers, walking along

and climbing in a tree.

This is one of the sisters.  She's contemplating the cage where a captive bear once lived.

Now it holds this rather bizarre (to my eyes) sculpture of a girl with her arms around the neck of a dead giraffe.

In the moat are statues of extinct animals, at least that's what Sylvie said.  So this is presumably an extinct, sort of reverse zebra.  Any help here would be appreciated.

Here's a long line of people on electric wheelchairs, complete with orange flags, heading off for adventure.

On with our walk.

Sadie was very fashionably dressed complete with pink flip-flops and a flower in her hair.

We strolled on, Sylvia pushing the stroller containing Nora, and Sadie running on ahead or sometimes standing on a little rolling platform connected to the stroller.

This is a pedestrian bridge over the Meuse (Maas in Dutch).

In the distance you see the St. Servaas bridge.  The building of that bridge was begun in 1280.  Nancy recognizes it from a Christmas card her father sent her mother in 1944 when he was stationed in Maastricht.

We had coffee in this restaurant when we were first in Maastricht three years ago.  It's fun to come here and have it look familiar.

I don't know what these folks were about, but they were making the most god-awful racket.  It was a sort of drum and bugle corps without the bugles.

Finally we got to where we were going, and there was Sylvia's mom, Tini.  It was good to see her again.

And Erik showed up.

Here's a little sequence to illustrate how loving those who hurt you can indeed be the best policy.

Nora's distress didn't last forever.

Finally, a photo of Sylvia taken by none other than Sadie!  That girl's got talent!

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On Sunday, after a delicious breakfast of pancakes made the special Erik way, he and Sadie, Nancy and I went to the American World War II cemetery.

This cemetery is the only American World War II cemetery in the Netherlands.  It is a beautiful, serene place.  I liked that Sadie came with us.  It was good, I thought, to see a child, repository of so much hope, in that place memorializing 10,000 U.S. servicemen who died in the effort to free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany.

I'll just show you some photos.  No commentary necessary.

This is the view from the cemetery.

We drove home and then went out for a walk.

And stopped for lunch.

Erik shared his soup with Sadie who proceeded to eat most of it.  She tried very hard to do it right even though the bowl was nearly up to her chin and the spoon as large as her mouth.

And then we walked home.

And that was pretty much the day.  Erik and Sylvia let us babysit while they went out for dinner.  Nora really didn't want to go to sleep, so I got to rock her and sing to her while she ever slow slowly gave up the fight.  Sounds silly I know, but putting that beautiful, determined little baby to sleep was for me a highlight of our trip.