Today I took the train to Amsterdam again for two days of visits with friends. I love the beautifully restored building of the central train station. Right in front of this station is a small restaurant where Mary and I had a wedding party one week after the formal wedding & party in Sparta, Ontario. The place has changed but I can still see us dancing the night away in this place 32 years ago.
Outside of the restaurant all the guests gathered when Mary and I arrived in a watertaxi, and they sang a welcoming song. It was such a nice surprise. We arrived in a small boat like this one...
For lunch I got together with Esther who was in 1993 and 1994 the babysitter for us when we lived in Haarlem (while I worked two years in the MSF Holland office in Amsterdam). She is now in her forties and the mother of three children while at the same time holding a job as Director for an arts organization. Her husband is a MD who - before their marriage - did also work for MSF. Esther visited us a few times in Canada, and we hope she will come again in the future. We ate in a place which no longer accepts cash; apparently becoming quickly more common in Holland...
Esther works in the northern area of Amsterdam, where we also had lunch. I had never been in that part of the city which has fast been developed during the past few decades. Behind the central train station are ferry boats bringing people back and forth (for free) over the river connecting Amsterdam with the North Sea (part of the Atlantic Ocean).
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