Life: Idiotropic

A couple weeks ago, I was talking with Andrea and we realized that we were both "craving" those wonderful Dutch pannekoeken that we'd eated a couple months ago together in Thorn. Since our husbands had last Tuesday off, we decided to take a trip back there together.

Thorn is small and really doesn't change, so there was no need to do the tour. We went directly to the pannekoeken place and headed to the keller (basement) where the play room was. It was dark as any proper keller should be, but off in a side room was a wonderful little climbing play structure for the kids. We were able to enjoy a wonderful meal and the kids ran back and forth grabbing a bite or two of food, then running off to play. It was the most peaceful meal I've had in a long time.

It was also the most expensive pancake meal I've ever had and I've firmly decided that while I love pannekoeken, I will definitely find a good recipe from a Dutch friend and forego eating there again. A pannekoeken for each, dessert pannekoeken, and drinks= $105. Cha-ching. Sorry visitors... you'll just have to have pancakes at my house.

But, if you're willing to be extravagent, you can go to Thorn for just about anything imaginable on a pancake... Mexican pancake, Gyro pancake, strawberries with whipped cream, ham with cheese and leaks, amaretto with fruit, etc... And you won't need to eat for a week. They are filling.

Post meal we stopped at a little antique store we'd been to once before. They have birds - not antique ones, real ones, so the girls were all entertained watching those while we browsed. There was nothing tempting, but I did like the old fashioned doorbell. It was a metal wheel with bells on it. A string ran from an arm on the wheel through the wall. Your visitor would pull the string and the belled wheel would spin sounding the bells. It was orange with rust, but interesting.


Kirk liked the old scythe and the rusty pitchfork. I thought that the antique ice skates would be great in his "man room" someday, but that began quite a long dialogue that ended up continuing at work among his friends. Apparently, ice skates, no matter how old, are not manly, and I, no matter how long we are married, am not allowed to decorate his "man room" at all. Fair enough... less work for me.

Walking back to the car we saw the same orange flowers I'd seen the week before in Sittard. They really are beautiful. And, I saw this old door with the 1648 above it. The funny thing is that houses here are absolutely built to last forever. I've seen several new brick homes here with dates above them as well... 2004 on one! But, in 100 years someone will walk by that house and think, "wow, that's an old house!" The last photo is of a window... nothing overly tremendous except that I am always interested in what people have in their windows. Windowsills are wider here and every window usually has some object d' art in it.