Well, I finally did it. I drove like an old lady. After years of speeding around and taking too many chances on the road in the manner of a 17-year old boy, today I drove very slowly, peering over my steering wheel trying to figure out which way to go, stalling the car, and listening to the honks of impatient drivers behind me. All because of a manual transmission and lack of street signs. It really was pretty funny and, after all, I did make it from the Avis (pronounced Ah-Veesh here) car rental place to my hotel. It’s been years since I drove a stick shift and this car requires pushing certain buttons to get into certain gears and the car is really new so the pedals are quite tight and take a bit of getting used to. I didn’t have much time to get acquainted with my new car when I found myself in traffic on roundabouts desperately trying to find a street sign so I’d know which of the many roads I should take. I never did find a sign so I just headed off in the general direction I thought I should go, finally spotted some familiar tall buildings to use as a reference, recognized some streets I had walked before, and found the hotel. After stalling out the car a few times.
Tomorrow I’m off to Drachten for my mandatory time-out from my hotel. My usual hotel is filled with dozens of little yapping dogs and a few very large dogs and lots of people speaking various languages and wearing Eukanuba tee shirts. The All European Dog Show is in full swing and the hotel is very different from its usual dignified self. There are dogs in the hallways, dogs in the dining room, dogs in the outdoor café, dogs in the elevators, and dogs in the rooms next to mine. I of course have the yappiest of all yappy dogs in the adjacent rooms as well as an insomniac who slams his door when he goes for a walk with his yappy dog in the middle of the night. Drachten may be a little more restful.
I got a great weekend deal on my rental car so I picked it up this afternoon and I’m keeping it until Monday. I’ll spend tomorrow night in Drachten and them I’ll spend Sunday night in Dokkum, returning to Leeuwarden on Monday. I was able to reserve a room in the same hotel in Dokkum where we stayed in 1998. Dokkum is the oldest city in the Netherlands and this hotel is the oldest building in Dokkum. The building itself dates from the 1600’s and some of the beams date from the 1300’s. This photo is from our original visit to Dokkum:
The plan is that I will visit and photograph the several villages where my ancestors lived. There are a goodly number of them but they are mostly within a sort of triangle that includes Leeuwarden, Drachten, and Dokkum. It’s only some 15-20 miles from one of these cities to the next and the ancestral villages are mostly within that area. I’ll have 2 full days and then some time on Monday as well. Hopefully that will be enough time for photos.
Then I’m going to assess what comes next. The research has come so much more quickly than anticipated and the most important thing is that I’ve learned how to access almost everything I’ll need in the future from the online files. I'm now an official card-carrying member of the Tresoar research museum and have access to amazing pieces of history. There are only a couple of mysteries still to be solved and then I need to make some decisions.
Decision #1: Next rental car will have an automatic transmission.
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