Musings on a Wet Maasbracht Sunday

One advantage for us of being in the Netherlands is that most of the movies shown in the theaters are in English, with Dutch subtitles, i.e., pretty much everything is equivalent to the hard-to-find French VO (Version Originale). We discovered that there is a multiplex in the town of Echt, about 3.5 miles from us, so on this rainy afternoon we are borrowing a car from the shipyard owner and are planning to see the new "Top Gun" sequel. Had it been sunny, we'd be able to get there with a 20-minute bicycle ride, but we'll save that for another day. 

Our salon refit is essentially done. We're waiting for a few new furnishings to be delivered--bar stools, rug, ottoman--but the only unfinished "work" is the installation of a couple of wall outlets and staining two small floor boards. And we need to repaint the walls, but that is a project for us to complete at the end of the cruising season. What follows are several pictures of what we ended up with. We still have some paper on the floor for protection, as we are expecting a welder to be going into our engine room this week to work on our fuel tank issues.

L

Lest anyone think Lon has just been sitting around during this time, he tackled a smaller boat painting project--making our steel tender beautiful again.

Today Maasbracht celebrated its "Spring Market." Vendors stretched along several of the main roads into and through downtown. The market had just opened when we started our walk at around 11 a.m., but the crowds were growing by the time we wandered back to the boat 30 minutes later. I suppose the Dutch have to disregard less-than-optimal weather or they'd never do anything!

There were lots of food vendors and clothing vendors, a few
places to buy fresh produce, and a variety of miscellaneous products.
Some of the local residents had set up "Sunday garage sale" displays

A few rides for the children in the Markt

A local, very enthusiastic, drum corps (no bugles!)

Our one purchase of the morning was strawberry
tartlets from the local bakery 

Tomorrow we will be visited by Lon's youngest sister Sarah Bazey and her husband Joe. They have been travelling in Germany for over a week, and are stopping by to see us on their way back to Amsterdam to catch their flight home. They'll spend one night on the boat and we are so looking forward to hosting them!