Poffertjes and Biking

If you ever get the chance to travel to the Netherlands, at some point during the trip you MUST buy Poffertjes. If you've had them before you know that they're absolutely delicious, and if you haven't had them then you're missing out. Poffertjes are a bit like pancakes formed into a flattish ball, but they're made with a batter that's a little bit different (I don't know what changes, but whatever it is makes them delectable). Then, they're covered in heaps of big chunks of butter and so much powdered sugar that you can hardly see the plate. Sadly, they're mostly a Dutch thing (we had them at a place called Dutch Diner) and I don't think that we'll be having them again anytime soon :( . 

Us, right before digging into delicious Poffertjies.

Grandpa, waiting for the picture to be over so that he can chow down.

Update fom Monday, June 16: Yay! We got to eat Poffertjies one more time before leaving the Netherlands. I wonder if I can use Poffertjies as an excuse to come back sometime soon...

After we were done eating, we checked out the nearby flea market. I liked this one better than the last one we went to in France, partly because they had a larger selection of stalls and partly because there were so many flower venders and their merchandise. We ended up only buying olives and hair ties (if you see me wearing puffy colored ties in my hair, you know wear I got them)

After taking the train back to Jean's house (the diner was in Rotterdam), we played a game called "trimino," which is basically like playing dominos with three sides. 

Then, a little after noon, we drove into town and negotiated out a few rented bikes and rode the bike paths by the house. 

We ended up going for a really long ride (as my bike informed me, in the end we rode for roughly 33 kilometers (20 miles) and for a duration of 4 1/2 hours, just cruising mostly). We went by a few flower farms, a river, a forest, and other stuff of the like during the first half of our ride. Then, Carolyn declared that she was hungry so we headed back to the house for a snack. Afterwards, Carolyn decided to hang out and veg, but Grandpa and I kept going. This time, we went in the opposite direction and rode through rows and rows of various crops, some of which looked a lot like kale and lettuce (we also saw a lot of wild rabbits. I've always thought that Truckee had a relatively high wildlife population including bunnies, but it seems that Europe has even more. They were having a blast in the lettuce fields). Next we traveled through horse country. I don't really see why anyone would need so many horses, 'cause it seemed like every farmer had three horses for every member in his family, and two more if he had a dog.  At first I thought that it was really cool, since I've never seen so many horses all together, but after a while the horse poop started to bug me. In the end, our road ended up being a dead end so we turned around and rode back. By the time we got back I was exhausted, so I think that I'm gonna go take a nap for a while...