Rotterdam, and Eindhoven.

So on Monday evening we hung out in a park for awhile in Rotterdam, and a duck came to hang out with us.  He was very, very interested in the food we were eating and must have stayed around for a good 15 minutes or so.  Here he is, begging for bread crusts...

And here he is, eating right out of my hand.  He was a cute duck.
On Tuesday morning we caught the train to Eindhoven and spent the day there.  The idea was that we would try to see sites there associated with Operation Market Garden and particularly with the soldiers from 101st Airborne.  I didn't expect it to be too complicated but the day proved once again that getting around in another country is always more complicated (and will take much, much longer) than you think.  My goodness.  It was kind of a long list of predicaments, though it came out all right in the end.  So first thing in the morning we took the train to Eindhoven.  This was a hassle in itself because we realized when we got to the train station closest to our hostel (Rotterdam Blaak Station) that there were only automated ticket machines at that particular station, no actual people selling tickets, and the machines would only accept the sorts of credit card that we didn't have.  So right at the outset we had to walk to the other train station (Rotterdam Centraal) and buy the tickets there.  This wasn't a huge deal but it did mean that we had to walk an extra mile or so in the morning and that we got away later than we were expecting.  

One exciting moment of the morning was finding waffles in a vending machine.  Travis would love this place!  I guess I don't know how delicious they would be.  But I bet they'd be good.  I tried buying one but the machine didn't want to take my money.  Anyway...

So we finally got to Eindhoven on the train and then had to go about trying to figure out the bus system; one of the places that I had heard about that sounded like it would be worth going to was a museum, quite a ways out of the town centre, which apparently focused on the 101st and their participation in Operation Market Garden.  It sounded cool so we decided to try and get there.  After talking to several people working for the bus lines (different from the train company) it seemed like we had it all worked out; we would take one bus to a station called Best and then connect there to a second bus that would (in theory) take us right to the museum.  Ah yes.  This is where things started to really get a bit chaotic, and make us (well me, anyway,) want to start ripping my hair out.  So we got to Best alright, at which point we had a wait of almost an hour for the second bus to show up.  This was sort of frustrating but we had known it before we set out, so I was resigned to the fact of waiting.  The more dreadful part occurred when the second bus showed up and DROVE OFF WITHOUT US.  I was not impressed.  It was partly my fault I suppose, because in retrospect we were likely supposed to wave it down.  But it was a small bus (sort of the size of the handy buses back home) and I had it in my head that we were waiting for a big bus, so it didn't even occur to me that it might be the one we were waiting for.  Ah my.  So at this point we were like ARGHH.  I did NOT feel like waiting a whole nother hour for bus #2 to come around yet again, so we decided to try walking to the museum from the bus stop, since it didn't SEEM like it would be very far (guessing from the rather dubious map that was posted at the station).  So off we started walking.  Pretty soon we were out in the countryside, which was quite pretty, and feeling optimistic about getting to the museum pretty quickly and then catching the bus back from it in good time.  

HOWEVER.  You can probably guess that things did not go quite that simply.  We kept walking, and walking, and becoming more and more uneasy but still pretty sure we were on the right track, and finally we passed a middle-aged man working in his yard and I asked him for directions (not really, because he didn't speak English, but I had a printout of the bus route with me and showed him the name of the place we wanted to go).  He looked exceedingly concerned (which did nothing to lift my spirits, ahem) and then gestured that he would DRIVE US there!  What a wonderful man.  Seriously.  I love all Dutch people now because of this one wonderful man.  It turned out that we were, like, MILES AND MILES off from where we should have been.  It was very embarrassing (and also of course INTENSELY RELIEVING to realize that although we had been so lost we had had the great good chance to ask this man who not only helped us out but drove us to where we wanted to be!  It could have ended up so much worse.  Whew.  Like, as in, we could have been basically stuck in the Dutch countryside with very little idea of how to get back into town).  As we were driving  I said that we were from Canada, and he was all "ah!  yes!" and seemed, again, exceedingly friendly, and asked if we were on vacation, and it took me a minute or two to figure out what he meant (because he said something like 'vacazieh" and I didn't clue in at first that he meant vacation).  That was about all we said because of the language barrier but I will seriously be forever grateful.  Whew.  Grandma must have been praying extra hard that day. :)

So we finally got to the museum, and it was actually somewhat less awesome than I had hoped it might be, but it was still cool.  This is a signpost they had outside the place, showing the distance to various places associated with Market Garden.   (A couple of them will likely be on that map I posted a few weeks ago.) 

Out back behind the museum they had a bunch of army trucks and other vehicles.  This is me posing by one of them that had a Canadian flag on it...I don't know if there was any significance to the fact that that particular one had the flag, or if someone had just stuck it there randomly.

They also had some planes out back!  I don't know what any of them were...there weren't signs.  But I thought you'd like to see them anyway, Joe.  Maybe you will know what they are.  You will at least be able to guess better than I would!  I assume they are all planes that were involved in WWII in some way.

This one was HUGE, and was parked in the midst of some trees...it was very impressive.
This one was quite small and was parked in a hanger.  It seems oddly angular to me.  Any ideas what it might be, Joe?  
This is some sort of radar or radio receiver that they had inside the museum, but the signs were all in Dutch so I don't actually know what it was.  Alas.  But I thought you might like to see it, Josiah.  I have a few more pics to show you when I get home.
When we finally made it back into the main part of Eindhoven, we went to find a church that I had seen in old war photographs, specifically this one.  

And here I am in front of it!  

OK that's all for now!  As I write this we are in Brussels, so I am now officially a day behind.  Oh no.  Hopefully I won't get any further behind.  Bye for now.

P.S.  Hi Mom !