Barbara Thompson

Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Just after 3am I woke up rolling downhill toward the floor. We made our room reservations with twin beds for this trip, because it is cooler and European A/C isn’t always quite as cold as we like. My mattress somehow fell off the bedsprings – the nightstand kept it all from

Monday, July 13, 2026 A day or so ago, our guide Rob said he would be taking us on a walking tour of Amsterdam. I asked if we would be going to see the world’s shortest escalator. He had never heard of it. I told him I had done no research – it was not

Sunday, July 12, 2026 We took a walking tour of the Hague with our tour guide Leon. It was his 22nd birthday. He was delightful. Someone taught Leon Bruce’s name and Bruce was the catchall of all of the jokes. As expected with Bruce, he took it all with good grace. We stopped by King

Saturday, July 11, 2026 The drive to Brussels had several things to look at out our side (the right side) of the bus. There was nothing on the left side. Just as we got to town, Todd jumped up and cried out about all the amazing things that he was seeing that no one on

Friday, July 10, 2026 At the bus rest stop this morning, Jenny got Grillz. She and Steve modeled how we think they are supposed to be played with before being eaten. We went on a walking tour and saw the butchers’ guild house with bacon themed brickwork other guild houses with shinies on the top

Thursday, July 9, 2026 We had one more fabulous breakfast and waved goodbye to Bruges. It was a 3-hour-ish drive that took a lot longer because we crept along the highway for quite a while. I wondered why – must be construction, because there is always construction. Nope. The burned out bus seems to have

Wednesday, July 8, 2026 I found hot chocolate in the fancy coffee machine. It was so cool watching it come out of the machine – first chocolately, then milky, then foamy. It made a beautiful cup of hot chocolate. It was too dark for me and Keith had to drink it. He always saves me.

Tuesday, July 7, 2026 As our group waited to get on a morning canal boat ride, another tour guide led his group up the street. Someone pointed out that that tour guide was apparently Steve, our solo horn player. As the doppleganger tried to cross our path, we asked (and got) a picture. Steve got

Monday, July 6, 2026 We slept well and met up with all the new arrivals this morning. We met Rob, our tour guide, who seems like a really good guy. We bussed to Delft and walked around for a couple of hours. Delft is of course famous for its pottery, so blue and white was

Sunday, July 5, 2026 Greetings from the Hyatt near the Amsterdam airport. When we got on the plane last night (took off about 1:30am) I was completely irrationally upset. I walked the airport and talked to Maren on the phone for almost two hours – which kept me sane and happy while waiting through the