May 4th: For some reason a Dutch child asked us for our autograph today...

Field trip!

We rolled out west to Zandvoort aan Zee to check out the beach, but had to be back by 4pm so Matthias could make crew practice. On the way though, we made a pit stop in Haarlem. I wanted to see the Franz Hals Museum full of Dutch master paintings (was definitely worth it). Haarlem is pretty small, and this is a big attraction so...I thought we'd probably see signs leading us straight to the destination. True. But the signs didn't lead us straight to the front door. And Matthias had a sudden espresso craving that had to be dealt with immediately.

We walked into a little cafe, which turned out to be quite long and everyone stared at us as we strutted down the aisle to the coffee counter. Sure, we can just order one espresso at the bar and sit outside. (Good that this was the plan, because outside were the only empty seats in the house!) So we did, strutted back down the aisle, everyone stared at us again. We both found this a bit strange, Matthias thought maybe they were trying to figure out the difference between my boots and socks, I postulated it was his man-model swagger. Anyway, we landed, confused and amused, at a little table out front with one tiny cup. Shortly after seating ourselves, a young man of oh, five or six with red hair and freckles came out of the door and approached us. He seemed shy, looking at his shoes and fidgeting. He asked us something slowly in Dutch. Neither of us understood and simply sat in silence, looking intently at the little person who had now raised his eyes to gauge our response. I repeated what seemed like the key word to him, he confirmed. Silence, fidgeting. "English?" we asked, but he just turned red and went back inside. Matthias repeated the keyword to himself again and squinted into the distance. "Huh. I think...that kid just asked us for an...autograph? Hahahaha, oh man, and we totally shot him down."