Hi everyone,
Here I sit in Willemshoeve, the old Dutch farmhouse in Wageningen where I have a room for the next month.  It has been a beautiful day, clear sky, the crocuses and forsythia in bloom, early spring with the sun shining and people out on their bicycles. 
You never saw so many people on bicycles elsewhere in Europe; the street bike should be the symbol of Holland, not the tulip.  Everybody with legs has got one.  The Dutch bike is a special design.  Given the flat landscape and the daily ordinary use of the bike by adults, it is a sturdy frame, simple gears (usually three), and the rider sits upright as if in a chair, not crouched over like with racing bikes.  The handlebars are wide, like on a kid’s bicycle, and the whole frame is rock solid, built to take a rider in the saddle, a passenger on the carrier over the back wheel, and maybe a little kid in the basket in front.  I’ve seen whole families riding one bike here.
The Dutch love their bikes and most streets have bicycle lanes so that everyone can travel safely.  Even in rainy weather they are biking; a lot of people don’t even bother to own a car; a bike is perfectly sufficient for them.  Bicycle racks everywhere, and the bikes usually lock with a key underneath the saddle.
So of course I had to get a bike right away, it is the only way to move around easily here, and with a bike you are able to go anywhere.  I had not been in the saddle for six years, so my first trial rides around the B&B, wobbling like a drunk, sent the old folks roaring with laughter….but the balance eventually came back.  I’ve only taken one tumble so far and that is because I cannot judge distance at night and plowed right into my companion after dinner, ending up in a heap of wheels and waving legs.  No damage though;  Dutch are as tough as the bikes.
I’ve seen some old friends, checked out Wageningen to see what has changed without my permission since I last prowled around here, and in general planted my bottom into Dutch living as if I had never left.  Wageningen is a second home to me, and I don’t ever want to lose the connection again.  Letting it slide four years…..
Spent the afternoon down near the Rhine, where two of my former students and their three children have a little home in the water meadows, in a place that was once inhabited by brickmakers in the 1920’s.  A little tenement house but a big garden and that suits them.
I spent last night at dinner with an old friend and his wife, soon to retire from his professorship and move to Greece.  We’ve been friends twenty years or more; I look at him and realize hell, we’ve gotten old.  He was young when I first met him…..
Tomorrow I got to Zutphen to see my friends the Cohens, my age (58) but both are retired now due to physical and mental handicaps.  They would still be working in America or Israel; here they are pensioned off and live safely and comfortably in subsidized housing.  It’s neatly kept and comfortable; I will stay overnight there before coming home, and have never felt their home was poor.  Holland takes care of its own, that’s for sure – although that is getting harder in today’s  economic climate.
This just got interrupted as another  old friend burst in to see if I am really in Holland.  Pieter Kettner  is a retired professor and both he and his wife Rita are Quakers.   I attended Quaker meetings for worship with them here, and they were pleased as can be when I finally became a member of the Society of Friends.  The Bennekom Meeting here in Holland is also a kind of second home, but on Sunday we will go to the Hague for a BIG Quaker meeting (maybe twenty people, which is huge for a meeting for worship) followed by a visit to the museum and a Bach concert. 
After that, the next week gets busy.  I was not sure I would connect so much with people but it is going quite well.  One day will be spent with Staatsbosbeheer (the Dutch forestry and nature conservation service) and one day in Leiden at the National Biodiversity Center, and three days here meeting with scientists and students, lecturing, networking.  What looked like a risky venture a month ago looks like a solid trip now and my guess is I will barely get a day off at the end before flying home.  This venture seems to have worked.
Shabbat shalom,
Linda