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Geen Het Jammerin

Went for a bike ride today and ended up having a coffee in Holland. Jon and I rode along the canals on our way out to the North Sea coastline; somewhere along the line we passed a sign saying we were approaching the town of Sluis. At this point Jon whips out a map and tells me we have made a wrong turn and are in Holland. Yay.

Instead of dashing of to the nearest hash bar we settled instead for a nice coffee. An "Espresso" here is a cup of coffee and a "Mokka Espresso" is a regular shot of espresso. Dunno how to order a Mocha but it would probably involve the word chocolade. So I ordered a mokka espresso and Jon had a cappuccino and an appelbol.

As we drank our coffee we speculated as to what the Appelbol would be. A bowl of apple? Mais non, it was a ball of apple. More precisely is was a peeled and cored apple, stuffed with cinnamon butter and wrapped in pastry crust. The effect is a spherical piece of apple pie. Delicious.

Satisfied, we cycled off, circling Sluis on a dirt path and then popping back out onto our canal road. We decided to make a detour so the ride wouldn't be just an out-and-back but when we arrived at the beginning of our detour (a canal crossing) we were greeted by a barge/cable/pulley system instead of the expected bridge. The barge was on the opposite side of the canal so we started cranking the wheel- pulling the barge back to our side. After about 10 meters the barge stopped moving... the barge wouldn't budge. Oh well, so we decided to skip the detour and just ride on back to Brugge.

Comments

Dave said…
Cyndi, Sounds like you guys are having fun in Europe! Just found out that Jones is making the trip to race the Pijnacker, World Cup. Give him a shout for us stuck stateside!
Pooks said…
Wow... cool. We'll definitely give him a shout each ronde (Dutch for lap). It will be great to have some more Americans racing here; the fans are very receptive. Has he made up some postcards to handout to fans? Children (and sometimes grownups) are always running up to Jon asking for one.

It's a whole different ballgame here :)
robbin said…
A whole different ballgame, indeed.
Awesome commentary, Cyndi.
Miss you guys. I am so excited about our visit coming up to Belgium.
Just got back from Edmonton, Canada. I have broken my baby toe. So finding boots that felt good was out of the question. Will have to search in Belgium for some stylish one. Maybe my toe will be ready by then. Edmonton had the nicest people and the cutest boots. I was so sorry not to be able to choose one pair (boots, not people). But at $200+ a whack I did not want to guess at it. Just more shopping to do in Brugge. Yeah!
Love,
Mom