Highlights from European Travels - Haarlem, The Netherlands

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Europe. Other than Canada, this is first time I have ever been out of the country, so it was quite an experience. One of my favorite places was the Netherlands.
I was traveling with my father, his wife, a young girl my step-mom referred to as "the preacha's daughta," and our hosts were my stepmom's niece and her husband. On this particular part of the journey, we also had some other friends of theirs with us. I was sharing a room with the preacher's daughter, aka Emily, for economy's sake, which was a little weird at times, but we dealt with it. I mean, we were getting to go to Europe, right?
So we checked in to this very posh hotel in Haarlem- see picture below.
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It was a beautiful hotel and there were these gigantic apples in the lobby where we checked in. That was our breakfast the following day and it was plenty. At the time, I was struggling with trying to figure out how to call my husband. It seemed that the odds were against me. The phone I bought specifically to use overseas was useless. So I bought a phone card, but I couldn't get the blasted thing to work. There was also the time difference that seemed to interfere. Whenever someone was available to help me, it was a time when my husband would not be available or sleeping. That night the issue was that I don't speak Dutch and no one at the front desk spoke English, so no one could assist me in figuring out how to use the phone. There was a lovely man traveling with us who was able to make the card work for me that night, but unfortunately, my husband was not at home (and did not have a cell).
So...the next day we went to Haarlem. We raced out to the bus chewing on our apples went first to the market, which was wonderful. There were stands with flowers, meats and cheeses, fruit and (my favorite) cookies and baked goods.

These were my favorite treats I discovered. They are like crispy thin waffle cookies with honey or caramel in the middle. I got one that was hot and it was delicious. I discovered some later at a grocery store in Germany and I was eating them on the airplane ride home. The lady next to me was staring, so I offered her one. She was from Germany. "Those are Christmas Cookies!" she said. Merry Christmas to me- even if it is October.

Next, we visited the Corrie Ten Boom house. For those of you who don't know, Corrie Ten Boom hid Jews in her home and helped to smuggle them out to safety. She was eventually captured and placed in a concentration camp, but she survived.

Below is a picture of her. Goes to show, you never know what a hero looks like.
This is a picture of the famous hiding place. There is a hole cut out of the wall (blue part), where people can look, or stand in if they want to, so that people can see just how narrow the space was. The hole was not there during that time. Rather, look to the left and you see the blue space at the bottom? People had to crawl under there and wedge themselves behind the wall. If you want to know more about the story, there is both a book and a movie called The Hiding Place.

The most striking thing that stood out to me was how narrow and steep the stairs were. It was several flights up. People would have had to go up those steep, skinny stairs quickly and quietly. Pretty amazing stuff. It was a great tour with lots of other great information, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you with all the details.
Next, we went to Amsterdam. I will tell you what that was like in my next post. Happy Trails!