day 2 - de lier

Saturday we picked up a small van and headed south to De Lier, the birthplace of my father of course, Abraham Poot. The drive was good albeit quite rainy. De Lier is a very nice place, known primarily for greenhouses and farms. The center of town seems very progressive, modern, and friendly. We were lucky to have been there when a firefighter recruiting demo / party was going on, which made it very busy and fun in the rain.

Before the center of town though, we walked around the house where my dad was born, and grew up. This is right down a short road to the church that was home to his family, and the now gone shoe shop that his father worked at and then moved to Kalamazoo, MI. There is no real way to describe how wonderful and weird it is to see the brick road that my dad walked back and forth on, alleys that he played in, the numbers on his door that he saw every day, etc. I can only imagine how out-of-body this felt for him.

We spent a while walking around downtown and found a hidden coffee house / restaurant that had the best coffee; wow... We relaxed here for a while, then went to a museum where we found that the owners knew our family well. Within 15 minutes, we were met by family and led to my father's cousin's house a short (and fast...) drive away.

We spent the afternoon talking, touring their gardens, drinking coffee, looking through pictures, then cemetery exploring. I saw the grave of my great-grandfather and we marked and photographed the sites of a number of other family members.

The highlight though was being able to walk into the church where my dad's uncle played organ for 60 years. My dad walked in and knew immediately where to sit as if he was still 9 years old. There is simply no way to describe the power of these things. I have tears running down my cheeks as I type. Kora of course lightened us with playing twinkle-twinkle-little-star on an organ that has been there 10X longer than she's been alive...

We grabbed tons of groceries (holy expensive if you try to shop in Amsterdam!) and headed home. We made a huge dinner with wine & candles, settled down, and relaxed. All of us 'kids' packed up and headed to Rembrandt Square for debauchery. Crazy people and bars just up the road. Very New-Years-Eve'ish. We walked back with french fries & mayonnaise and crashed...