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Kees had us up early this morning and headed for the flower auctions in Naaldwyk. A most incredible sight! Giant warehouses full of potted and cut flowers where hundreds of buyers bid for purchases every day. Apparently the bidding can get pretty tense as prices are called out in the reverse of a normal auction. Thousands of dollars change hands in seconds! Hundreds of people drive stand-up carts shuffling trolleys full of plants around as they are bid on and bought. The colours and varieties were beyond description. From there we went to Scheveningen where there are miniatures of all aspects of the countryside and cities in The Netherlands. All to 1.25 scale, there's an airport, shipyard, castles, farms, cathedrals, factories and townscapes. A popular tourist spot where I finished off ANOTHER roll of film. By this time Al and Kees were complaining about lack of food, so we headed for the beach at Utrecht, on the North Sea. We tried a Dutch favourite, french fries with mayonnaise and croquettes. Not bad! Unfortunately for the guys, I sensed a shopping mall in the area so we did a quick tour of it. (Kees had told me before we arrived that all the shopping malls in Holland were closed for the two weeks we would be here....<G>). After dinner we went on a bicycle ride past canals, along a dyke,by fields of grazing cows and sheep, and through a tiny village to watch Wilco (Kees' son) play Karfbal, a mix of basketball, and soccer (kind of). We cycled home in the dark as Kees chuckled about our lack of speed and technique (just wait a couple of days, then we'll see who's laughing...!) The weather has been perfect and we're all hoping that it will be just like this for Sunday's walkathon. BTW more pledges are arriving daily! See you tomorrow! Lynda and Al