Socializing

The nice part of being back in the Netherlands is there's loads of socializing to do. Wednesday morning Kristien hopped over from Amsterdam with typical Dutch treats: perentaart en uierkruier. That's also nice, enjoying all the Dutch lekkerkies! This year Kristien & Maud have their 35 Years of Friendship' anniversary - we'll organize a celebration...


Thursday evening our neighbours Winny & Dancker and we stroll across the road to have dinner with Steef & Carien. This will come as a shock to our Botswana & RSA friends: in the Netherlands we don't have a car. Neither do Winny & Dancker. A car is a headache in the Randstad, and Leiden is right in the middle of that big urbanized region. On top of that having a car is expensive tax- and insurance wise. It's much easier to go everywhere by foot, bicycle, boat and train!
We missed the communal New Years eve do, but get that feeling still, cause Winny brought pre-dinner bubbles to accompany the Turkish pre-meal snacks. Don't know whether it's Dutch or (Western or Continental) European, but there're always snacks: sweets until about 17:00, salty stuff before dinner, and either sweet or salty in the evening. We sip our drinks, snack a bit, and talk a lot - super!


This is Holland, so instead of a braai for dinner we get fabulous grilled vegetables & cheese, boeuf Stroganoff (Maud has to get the recipe for Steef's special secret luscious sauce, which he perfected over a 30 years span), white & green asparagus, Kirsch-drenched grilled fruit with cream & mascarpone, and a cheese-platter with port. It's around 1:00 am when we stumble back home...