Paasbrunch (Easter Brunch) the Dutch Way

The first thing to say is....

More Dutch you cannot get!

And then, out of the 145 apartments where we live in our senior complex, with 200+ residents, there is always a core of us who get together for special holiday events...like Easter brunch.  For those of us who don't have relatives nearby...or a church service...we have something to make us feel festive.  

This time there were 23 of us.  We started at 11 a.m. and finished two hours later.  But pay attention because this all happens in a sequence and in separate courses, one at a time.  Just when you think there couldn't possibly be more, it goes on...and on.

The table was set, waiting for us with glasses of orange juice.

Look at all that yellow.  So perfect for Spring and Easter.

As we all gathered, champagne was served and we gave our toast:  "Proost!"

Then baskets of French bread were added to the tables,

with both plain and herbal butters nearby....

...to accompany the choice of soup next being served:  chicken or vegetable (with meatballs).

Many, like Astrid, had one bowl of each.  And why not!

It wouldn't be Easter (or Sunday!) without a hard-boiled egg, of course.

But for some reason, I always forget that a salad is coming.

It's a ground potato-ham mixture with accompanying cherry tomatoes and silver onions,

and another boiled egg on top.

Notice that by this point my champagne is gone.

Which made for the perfect timing of the coffee or tea making its rounds.

Of course, we hadn't had enough to eat by then, so...

bring out the feeststol...the Dutch bread served at Christmas and Easter!

It's the almond-paste center that makes it different from the German stollen.

Astrid calls it a sugar bomb, but at only two times a year, who cares, right?!

Oh, and as if we hadn't had enough eggs already, there were scrambled eggs with Dutch spek/bacon!

The deli plate was for the rolls, in case you weren't full enough.

And finally, there was the canned fruit cocktail (which I actually grew up on, interestingly).

And a surprise Belgian chocolate Easter bunny, one for everybody.

Are you still hungry????

Over the course of 2 hours, it all settles in.

As does the getting to know each other better.

This is why we love these times together.  Fellowship.  Koinonia.

Going around the table, one by one, yakkity-yak.

These are the people we have grown to love, some of whom are my Rummikub mates on Fridays.

Riet and Ria (top-center) were two, besides Ineke, who bought and organized all the food,

with heavy financial subsidizing by our Poort 6 management:

we paid €3 per person!

All the familiar suspects....with Ineke, top right and bottom.

The lady sitting next to me turns 91 in June, 3 days after I turn 71.

I told Astrid I may rethink not wanting to live that long...if I can look like that!

As they say, all good things come to an end,

but not without help.

The residents' committee had everything under control, of course.

Let's call it  Dutch Cleaning Clean-up.

The remains of the day, with email addresses handed out....
(they all knew I was taking pictures for something).

Yup.  This was our celebration for Easter, and....

More Dutch you cannot get!

A Knee Replacement the Dutch Way

Exactly 2 weeks ago yesterday, yes, it happened!  And now that I'm on this side of it all, I do have my impressions...but sure would love to compare notes with someone in the US.

There are hundreds of images to show the knee prosthesis I now have.

I like this one because of the crucial "talking points."

Lucky for me, all my arthritic bits-n-bobs are now gone.

Starting 5 days before my January 8th surgery, I had to do all bathing and shampooing with a Betadine scrub
(iodine antispetic), including daubing both nostrils with Bactroban 3x/day.

This was to cut down on bacteria entering the hospital.

Astrid says the nose is one of the worst places for carrying bacteria!

Following the surgery, I must inject myself with Fraxiparine every day for 6 weeks

to prevent thrombosis.  It's not one of my favorite things to do, seriously.

It so happens our Beatrixziekenhuis here in Gorinchem is only a 10-minute bike ride from home.

They do 300 knee replacements there every year with a team of 4 excellent doctors.

My room for 5 days was up on the 6th floor, with a view of many Gorinchem landmarks

(which many of you will recognize by now).
My friend, Jannie, from our senior complex, had her surgery right after mine by the same doctor,
and we became roommates for the duration (with 2 other roomies).

To make a long story short, my surgery took only 45 minutes instead of the anticipated 1.5-2 hours.

They said it was because I had no fatty tissue to navigate.  Well, then.

However, I did have a low-blood-pressure "episode" that set me back my first 2 days.

Let's just say it scared the bejesus out of Astrid...but after I bounced back,

I was my old self again...except for the knee part.
Cheers!

The 5 days in the hospital were mainly for this CPM contraption:
Continous Passive Motion.

Every day my knee was stretched for 2 hours, first at 30-degrees, then, 50, 60 and 65.

I actually got into the swing of it and could even read or use my iPad.

What did they do in the days before this  miracle contraption?
(And yes, that's Dan Brown's Digital Fortress which I finished the day I got home.)

Did I ever mention that Astrid's DIL, Eva, is a security guard at this hospital?
When she visited me, she brought me this bear, bringing tears to my eyes.
How can something so "simple" be so soulful!

Now that I'm home, I have my main mode of transportation:  crutches.
It actually feels GOOD to walk, even outside, with them.  They help me stand tall and straight.
But when I need to transport items (like for breakfast and lunch when Astrid is at work),
the rollator comes to my rescue.  I use it for grocery shopping, too.

Then there's PT, of course, twice a week (4 sessions thus far, out of 24).
Right now I'm still doing half-moons on the exerciser, even at home, to increase ROM.
Talk about S.T.I.F.F.  Also, I still have one place that dang hurts,
which Eline, my PT, thinks is where the patella was stiched back on.  OUCH.

Exercise.  Exercise.  Exercise.
They told us to get a skateboard, which Astrid could have borrowed from her son.
Instead, she bought this home-improvement gismo (for moving furniture)
which is small enough to carry around with me, even to Rummikub.

And throughout everything, Astrid is always there wanting to help!  My Angel!
My foot really swelled up once after PT and she massaged it. 
You may remember that I was a licensed massage therapist for 8 years after my divorce,
but did I tell you Astrid was a sport's massage therapist in her day?  Yup.
I LOVE her hands.  Lucky me.

Speaking of Astrid, she went back to work this week, leaving me to my Ms. Independent self.  HA!
It's amazing how quickly the body bounces back to health and rehabiltation.

And to celebrate a milestone, yesterday at PT I was able to raise my foot 8" off the PT table,
the first time since my surgery.  I hope that means there's no stopping me now!

For all of you who stood in the background rooting me on, THANK YOU.
It's a long row to hoe and I have no illusions about the time it will take to get back into shape.
But I do like the idea that maybe Spring will "resurrect" the new me.  It's a good goal.

Saturday ADDENDUM:
Believe it or not, you can find an hour YouTube that shows a live knee-replacement surgery.
You would need a big stomach to...stomach it.  Trust me.
But dear Astrid found this very simple animated version which I find most educational.
It explains why I still have some sore spots.  HA!

The Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen, NL

Put on your seatbelt because this one is quite the ride, which I want to keep together in one post.

This past Sunday Astrid and I drove 135km north to Enkhuizen to visit the Zuiderzee Museum on the shores of the IJsselmeer.  We had already visited the harbor briefly back in 2010, so I remembered it, but this time we were on a mission and we took Margreeth and Natascha with us.  Remember that they were the ones who encouraged us to buy the annual museum card, which we did.

So, here goes....

You enter the building, fetch your tickets, and grab the next boat to the open-air museum.

On that 15-minute boat ride, you pass the magnificent harbor of Enkhuizen, part of the museum fee.

And you end up at the chalk-factory chimneys, to start your open-air museum experience.

Before going off into the museum's town, we stopped at the bronze-age display near the chalk factory.

That's when I realized this museum was a lot about interactive play for kids of all ages.

That's the kind of museum I LOVE.

From the bronze-age site we walked along the shore to the museum's open-air village.

What you could see from the shore was its own special "museum."

But before we did anything else, we stopped at this darling café for koffie,

and to get our bearings (on a very off-n-on blustery, rainy day).

After koffie, first up was the fishing village.

(The Dutch use underground telephone lines today.)

The fun thing was to walk into the houses and see how they lived back then.

 And since it was the fishing village, we saw the fishing nets out everywhere.

Even real fish were being dried...which I wished I could have tried.

The windmill was nearby in the polder, where Astrid could demonstrate the drill for pumping out water.

As you'd guess, the animals were right at home, never guessing this was a museum.

 From the polder and fishing village we entered the Town Canal.
I just LOVE the little pedestrian bridges of the Netherlands, don't you?

I fell in love with all the boats everywhere within this open-air museum.
I love the Dutch harbors but canals are so cozy.

From that point we walked back-n-forth between the Town Canal and the Church Quarter.
After awhile my images started running together, but it doesn't matter.

We spent a lot of time in this man's sign/calligraphy shop.
It's a dying art and Astrid spent time talking to him intelligently about his profession.
She knows how hard it is because she once dabbled in it!

In fact, there were many professions/trades to see or watch in action.

I'm a sucker for tools of the trade, as you know by now.

 There even was a school where you could practice your penmanship skills.
See what I mean by interactive?!

Remember that this is an open-air museum.  It could be a real village!

 And just like everywhere, you had a chance to play.

The kids could even dress up from the dressing-up chest.
Doesn't this remind you of Humans of New York:  Microfashion!

 I don't think it gets better than this for an interactive museum.

Speaking of dressing up, there was even a room where you could find your shoe size
and try to walk around in wooden clogs.

You know the Dutch and their wooden shoes, of course.
They're everywhere, even if only for show.

 I told you this would be a ride!  There was something for everyone.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As an aside, you may recall that we started our museum card in early May at another open-air museum, in Arnhem, NL:  the Openluchtmuseum.  I didn't think anything could get better than that.  But it did, with this Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen.  There are many similarities but also many differences.

Both museums have got to be right up at the top of the list of all open-air museums anywhere!