On Sunday morning, we arrived in the Netherlands after a long flight. Our plane had to make an emergency landing in Dublin, Ireland because a woman in their row was actually unresponsive when they turned on the lights and started to serve breakfast. They called medical professionals to the front of the plane and were doing CPR. By the time the plane landed, she was responding, but having seizures. So the EMTs took her off the plane. Then we had to wait for some to refuel us (which apparently there are not many people that are trained to fuel a plane that size in Dublin, so they had to wake him up at 6 AM on a Sunday morning and have him come to the airport. So we sat on the plane for about an hour and half . Michiel (my dad's second cousin) and his wife picked us up from the airport. We arrived in time to shower and have coffee with Michiel, Grandmom, Grandad, Neil and Ryann at King Arthur's before mass. We went to an English mass at St. Augustine's at 12:30 pm. It was a beautiful church. The Dutch walk or ride their bikes everywhere. It was very different than anything I have ever seen. Everything is old, beautiful and small. I loved the narrow brick streets, old buildings and canal. It was picture perfect scenery. And there were bikes parked everywhere! In the afternoon, we walked to Michiel's house to meet other relatives and have dinner. We met all of Michiel's kids, one of his sisters, his brother and some of his nieces and nephews. We also met his mom, Dad's Uncle Frans and a couple of Dad's cousins. It was interesting to learn more about Dad's family and hear all of the relatives talk. Michiel translated what they were saying for us. The children were so sweet. I enjoyed talking with them. One of Michiel's daughters looks so much like Emily Szczepanski and is around the same age, too! We had a very nice dinner and watched the Netherlands vs. Mexico soccer game while we were there. The Netherlands won. Soccer is huge there and everyone was celebrating. People even set off fireworks after the game! After we left Michiel's house, we headed back to our hotel. We were exhausted so we went to bed while Sarah, Mom, Neil & Ryann went out to a couple of bars to celebrate the win!
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the main international airport of the Netherlands.
John & Laura in Utrecht
The church we went to for mass
The girls on Sunday afternoon after mass ~ Ryann Sarah, Laura & Mom
The guys on Sunday afternoon after mass ~ Dad, Michiel, Neil & John
The Dom Tower of Utrecht is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands, at 112.5 meters in height, and the Gothic-style tower is the symbol of the city.
Laura & John
Michiel, John, Dad & Neil
Grandmom & Granddad
Laura, Sarah, Ry & Mom
There are bikes everywhere in Utrecht!
Giant windmill
The canal
Walking in Utrecht
This is the way you get around with little kids in Utrecht. Triplets would be tough!
Utrecht, Netherlands
The red light district in Utrecht was shut down by the city's mayor in July 2013.
Pictures from the family reunion at Michiel's house and our trip to the bars afterward are coming in Part 2.
**Blog post courtesy of Ryann
No comments:
Post a Comment