Friday, April 27, 2007

We're HERE!

It's the "Lucy & Ethel Paint Holland"show! Slow start, and we got no (that's right, NO) painting done yesterday. Internet cafe's may be all over the place in Amsterdam, but here in little Haarlem, not so much! I'll try to find one tonight and tomorrow to upload some photos. We had a safe, smooth, quick (although this is not something I would have said athour #5 on the plane, with two hours to go... curled into a vertical fetal position) flight, nice taxi ride and smooth check in at an inexpensive, but clean and charming hotel.
We didn't plan too well and arrived at 8 a.m., but couldn't check in till 3 p.m. Snafau about the car, too, with a day's delay in getting it...Then Paula and I managed to get absolutely, completely LOST in an Industrial Park area, and walked in almost 90 degree heat for 2 hours, with no water, bathroom, etc... FINALLY saw an IKEA of all places and got refreshed, then found a bus & friendly, semi-english-speaking bus driver to get us back.
PAINTING: Today we took the car to Lisse (it's a 15 minute ride and you should have seen the difficulty in getting directions). The tulips, dear friends, are DEAD. There's been this heat wave (I did mention the heat) and they're all blown. Here's where we all got a little cranky, especially me, who was driving. After we disccovered this someone said they didn't want to paint the windmills tomorrow, and like an angry Mom, I told them I wasn't leaving Holland without painting the WINDMILLS. Right after this we found a farm that still had a couple of fields. We painted, and ate dinner in Lisse, and now are all calm and happy. Not snappy, anymore! Still not leaving without painting the windmills though....

4 comments:

Nini said...

It's funny what a difference eating dinner can make :-p

Sounds like the trip is wonderful so far!

TS said...

I glad you are with good friends. Miss u. love TS

Kelley Carey MacDonald said...

Nini... you are so right, everything looks a little better on a full belly!

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

I'm loving this!!