Gouda was good-a with Loretta

Hello again after this really long wait! So much has happened in the last week so I'm going to divide up my blogs into four parts you can expect in the next four days (didn't realize how demanding my readers were!) This one will be about Loretta and I going to Gouda, then I will write about visiting my grandfather's hometown Bleiswijk, then our trek to Freisland with a night in Amsterdam and finally the tulip fields. I hope you all love to read.

Now that it's mid-April Loretta's world adventures are coming to an end. I was so flattered that she wanted to spend her last week hanging out with me. Originally, we had wanted to do something crazy and exciting like Italy.... but then I lost my passport and about $400 trying to recover from that mistake. So we decided we would make my easter week off all about touring Holland and discovering more places in this small country. As usual, when you put the two of us together, everything we do turns out crazy!

Loretta arrived at my door after a very hectic trek to Holland from Vienna. The poor girl had slept in and missed the intended train.... on top of that she had been pickpocketed a few days before and lost her entire wallet!! We allowed for ample time to settle in and so we didn't do any travelling until Wednesday. But when Wednesday arrived..... it was cheese time!! (Loretta and I reuniting over some awful diebetic chocolate...)

We arrived in Gouda by noon hour and headed straight for the information booth so we could orient ourselves and find the best way to appreciate this cheese-loving town. It was in this information centre that I met probably the nicest, most helpful and sweet senior Dutch couple EVER! (Besides Grandma and Grandpa of course) The lady stepped in to take over from a confused tourist information girl I had been speaking to. She was more than willing to tell us how to get into the centrum but once I told them about my Dutch heritage and started practising my Dutch on them...... they were really impressed and helpful. I told them how later in the day I was going to Bleiswijk to visit my 'opa's' hometown and they were beside themselves trying to show us the most scenic route there. If only we had our bikes with us we could have done it! After a brief chit chat and complements on my Dutch 'accent', I was beaming and ready to see the CHEESE!

(Ow! The door at the Town Hall is a little low!) Now because summer isn't here yet the weekly 'cheese-weighing' event doesn't happen yet... but there was still a really unique town hall and cheese-weighing station to check out. For about 75 euro cents we were able to go inside the town hall and take a look around. We had a lot of fun with the Queen Beatrix head statue inside. After we checked out the town hall, we went to the St Jan's church just around the corner. We didn't realize this but this church happens to be the longest church in the Netherlands and is famous for it's enormous stained-glass windows. Some of the windows were over 60 feet long! It was incredibly beautiful.

But finally... the highlight of Gouda had arrived.... a visit to the cheese-weighing station/museum!! Because we were cheap, we didn't actually pay the fee to go through the museum, but there was plany to keep us busy in the lobby. Such as free samples, souveniours, and cheese wheels to pose with. The elderly ladies at the front were more than happy to humor us and take photos. But one particular souveniour caught my eye..... unless you come from a Dutch family, you don't quite understand how important it is to be able to slice cheese properly. I always thought the cheese slicer was a testament to Dutch ingenuity, but the museum lady said it is more of a testament to Dutch stinginess (wastes less cheese than chopping with knives)

But anyway.... I spluged on a lovely new cheese slicer as a special gift for mom - sorry I had to spoil the surprise mom but it goes with this story. Loretta's new appreciation of Dutch cheese forced her to buy a few slicers as well.

But at this point we had seen what we wanted to see in Gouda.... it was time to take a bus to Bleiswijk!

On a side note.... my Easter was a wonderful! The people that were left in our building had a lovely Easter brunch outside. I cooked over 50 Canadian pancakes for everyone and Una and Annalise covered the eggs, beans, toast and bacon. We had some nice weather to enjoy our meal and the company.