Rudi's town of Tielte-Winge is small & quaint. in the morning, he takes us 'sight-seeing', and makes us trudge up a long and muddy path to the highest spot in town. it's beautiful

Rudi mentions a nearby castle, and i -being american!- have never been to one, so he takes us to see it. i believe it was called Castle Horscht, or something like that. we poke around inside and i marvel over the old frescoes and sculpted ceilings. we also climb up the tower, and Rudi tells us that the extreme narrowness of the stairway is a defense-system, to keep too many people from storming up the stairs at once. i guess so... i can barely get my wide ass through it! :)

it's time for frank & i to catch our train back to holland. we have a 1/2 hour 'layover' in antwerp, and take a quick stroll through the streets around the train station. what i can see of this town is gorgeous... ancient architecture and brick-lined streets.

on our train from antwerp, we happen to sit next to a group of americans. i'm happy to be speaking sloppy english again, as are they. ;) they tell us of their adventures, and the things they're discovering they don't like about holland ("no ice served in beverages" was the best one). i also point out to frank that these people are from louisiana and are speaking 'southern'; i've had a hard time getting this concept across to frank & jan, and i'm happy to have live subjects to demonstrate. ;)

i should take a moment to mention that i had *no* problems speaking english in the netherlands. frank told me that he had 6 years of english in school, and most young people seem all too happy to practice english around me (though they are schooled in British-english, so invariably 'americanisms' will be met with a confused look). the older people are a little more rusty, knowing only a few phrases, but when i had to change trains on this trip -in Zwolle- by myself (i was going back to jan, as frank was heading back home to his wife) there were several women on the train that could see my confusion at dutch instructions, and were quite helpful in translating for me.

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