De Rijp

In the evening we went to see cousin Rivka, her boyfriend Daniel and the children Micky, Hidde and Darius. They live in the North of Holland in a village called De Rijp - a beautiful compact area with buildings dating back to the 1600's.

We started off with dinner at Rivka's before heading off to the nearby 'Canoe club' where the children do their canoeing. Hidde an Darius had already gone to their canoe thing straight after dinner and we went to meet them there later on.

At the Canoe club Rivka helps out on a roster basis, something like once every six weeks. This means she needs to set up the club house area - coffee and tea for the parents and cool drink and sweets for the children. The sweets are priced at between 2 and 5 cents each and its funny to watch the little ones deliberate so intently over the buckets of sweets as they blow through 50 cents!

We cleared out our change to get some sweets for Hidde and Darius and waited for them to join us in the club.

Hidde came in with the last group of the older children.

After they had cleaned down their boats every one gathered in the club for refreshments. Rivka's work was done once all the canoeists were given their drinks and we could go back to the house to finish catching up.

It was good to see Rivka and family again - hopefully we can catch up some more before we leave Holland.