We walked around the city and saw things like an old synagogue that was transformed into a dance studio and performance theater, an old orphanage that had been transformed into a nature museum, a Jewish monument (there had been many before WWII and only 14 after), a ceramic store with Delft, and a beautiful protestant church (below) with the orange tree symbol over the back door (for the Queen they come from the family Oranje which means orange). We saw an almshouse for rich people that is now currently in use by elderly.
We also saw a courtyard in the middle of an area where only women were allowed to live that was very tranquil and quaint. From there we went to see the leaning tower of Leeuwarden called Oldehove. It was a church that started to lean so the constructors tried to compensate with the next level of bricks by shifting them, but it didn't help! It leans toward the back right corner (from the view below) so it is different from the tower in Pisa in this aspect because it is leaning in two angles (the one in Pisa is round).
In the street we saw a Draaiorgel which is an instrument on a trailer/car thing that plays music!
In English it is called a barrel organ and it consists of bellows and ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the same as a traditional pipe organ, but rather than being played by an organist, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs. The pieces of music are encoded onto wooden barrels (or cylinders), which are analogous to the keyboard of the traditional pipe organ.Below, I've posted a picture I found online:
On the backside of the Draaiorgel you could see the paper with coding/holes in it as it passed through the instrument to be played aloud. It was really neat!
We went to lunch in a shopping complex called VD similar to El Corte Ingles in Spain. It is kind of like a large department store (very high quality with designer brands) but with a nice cafeteria and the one here was only 4 floors high. We ate lunch out on the balcony and waited for the rain to stop. I saw the Town Hall and old court that was a palace and stopped to get some postcards. After that we stopped at a nursery to get flowers for Nel's garden. I saw all sorts of gorgeous plants including yellow orchids! Oh so beautiful.
After that we headed to downtown Drachten for a bit. We parked and walked around and I got to see the museum where Nel's father volunteers. The museum used to be a monastery and had a neat facade. The center has a lot of good shopping and stores of every sort.
When we got home, Nel's cat Rakker seemed very sick with a cough and sneezing. It had been feeling bad earlier in the day too, but she seemed worse when we got back. Nel took Rakert to the vet while I sent a few emails and when she got back at 7:30 we went to Beetsterzwag to pick up Nel's parents and go to a nice restaurant called "Lyf's."
Nel and her parent's go to Lyf's for important occasions and it was very classy and expensive. I felt honored to be the cause of the occasion! Our waiter brought us a small appetizer with smoked salmon, quail egg, and caviar that was delicious! Nel and I both got the daily special for our main course which was "rog," in English "stingray." It was very tender and full of taste. We got an Italian white wine which tasted like champagne to me, french fries, salad, dessert (mine was gallettes with ice cream), and coffee! We didn't finish our meal until around 10 pm and it was a fantastic time! :)
Back at home, Nel showed me how to look up the ancestors who had come to America and passed through Ellis Island (Rolf and Tunna being the farthest link back) and how to find the online document that Geert signed to bring our last name into existence.
You can find both documents at these websites:
Ellis Island Document
(you can sign up for free to see it)
Overzetter Familienamen
(I can't find the exact document without Nel's help, but this is the website she found it on.)
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