Wednesday morning I slept through my alarm, but oh well! We're still unemployed! We "worked" in the office in the morning. We got a temporary computer, which is really nice. (We can also use a computer where the grad students work, but it's so hot in there!)
We decided to ditch midday and rode the bikes back to Dwingeloo, taking a slightly different route around to the west. There are so many Dutch tourists around here right now! Apparently Drenthe is a really popular area for biking and camping while everyone's on holiday in July and August. It's nice for us that, even though we might stand out as not being Dutch, we're not the only outsiders around.
The real purpose of the trip was to look at cell phones, so we rode around the shops first to try and find a store (no luck). We parked the bikes, perused a bike shop, bought some post cards and stamps ("Ik wil deze kaart naar der Verigden Staten sturen") and then wandered around the flea market in de brink. Found a Dutch/English dictionary at the library's table for one euro!
It was really hot out, so we went back to the place where we had dinner Monday and sat under an umbrella to write postcards and have a beer.
Dinner at the guest house was our own strange concoction of ground beef, onions, garlic, red wine, potatoes, tomato sauce and pasta. (We're making do with what's stocked in the guest house pantry and cooking pans and utensils that aren't our own. I'm quite glad now that we decided to ship some of our own, but I wonder how long it will take us to start regularly making food we like from what we find on our own at the store.) We made too much of our weird dinner, so we invited Adam the Australian grad student and Bob the Australian visiting researcher to share with us. It wasn't bad - just odd - and they cleaned their plates anyway. Perhaps they were just being polite.
We were invited to join the weekly gathering of foreigners to play bridge at Jan & Joanna's house in Pesse, so around 8:00 we hopped on the bikes again to ride down there (13km). There was a group of about 12-14. Joanna tried teaching Charles and I and refreshing Bob's memory. I just kept thinking "What a ridiculous game!" but maybe I just need more time and practice. Just a reminder of how I don't like doing things I'm not good at and am unfamiliar with. And with a little competition and being in the spotlight (I kept being dealt good enough hands to be the one to make the contract) - the bridge itself was not particularly enjoyable.
But then when it got too dark in the garden to see very well, we all gathered around one table. Someone had previously brought a nice bottle of vodka, and it had become a tradition of sorts to sit around with different bottles of alcohol people had brought from around the world and just talk. There was a lot of bashing of American politics and media as expected, but it was all in good fun. It was midnight before we left, so Charles, Bob, Marcik, Ana and I all switched on our bike lamps and rode home in the dark. 40 minutes riding in the dark countryside isn't nearly as scary or dangerous as I would have thought!
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