Sylvia's Journal

We left the island before anyone in our hotel was up. With only a handful of people who boarded the ferry at 7 AM on a Saturday, we had the huge boat mostly to ourselves. We settled down in the stern , watching the islands fade into the mist behind a curtain of rain as we ate our breakfast.

I was surprised to see sailboats at the early hour of 7 AM on a cold and rainy day until I was told that they sail until the tide has gone out and the boat gets stuck on a sandbank where it stays until the tide comes in again.

After one and a half hour on the water we picked up our car and drove through the polders that used to be the Zuiderzee until the water was pumped out and land remained. This turned some islands into dry lands; their populations emigrated en masse to try their (fishing) luck in Canada or elsewhere in the New World, as farming wasn’t quite their thing.

We arrived early in another watery part of Holland and waited in a small cafe until it was time to board the boat that took two extended families for a long ride across lakes and through small channels. It was the pre-wedding celebration of my nephew and his Scottish bride to accommodate the many aunts and uncles and their children/grandchildren, a group that would have overwhelmed the small family of the bride when the actual wedding takes place 2 weeks from now. It was a wonderful, noisy and joyous affair that made up for the dismal weather.

Word has come from Kabul that the two Afghans who were supposed to present at a conference in Washington in 10 days will probably not get their visas (in time or at all). The fact that my boss manages 88 million dollars that come from the US doesn’t seem to sway the Department of Homeland Security to give him a visa to visit our country. The upshot of this is that I might be travelling to the US next week for a very quick round trip, less than 4 days, to present in their stead. But for now I am trying to remain in vacation mode and not think about the implications of this.