Rudy writes:

We seem to have squeezed the European leg of our trip between a record setting wind storm that covered large parts of Europe the day before we left Winnipeg, to snow storms that were closing in on Frankfurt as our plane left for Cairo this past Thursday. We squeezed in 1600 kms in 5 days with no trouble on the road. The one hour lost in Bielefeld and 2 hours lost in Amsterdam trying to find the hotel (once around the city perimeter and twice around the hotel) were in hindsight minor issues when compared to what could have been.

We had a great time visiting Irene's cousins & aunts, my cousins (Peter & Victor Isaak; Johann &Sara Derksen) and uncle Peter Derksen & their families. We missed some cousins and Tante Katharina (my father's sister) whom I had never met and was really hoping to meet. Let's just say family dynamics and a tight schedlue contributed to this.

With Heike Pottast and her mother in Hagedorn we have developed a long history, since I first walked across a farmer's field in 1972 with Willi Funk, to visit where my mother worked after WW2. Heike, the African drumming./yoga teacher, developer (converted the farmhouse into 4 suites), has a $230,000 soalr system on her roof for which the German government has guaranteed her 57 euro cents per kilowatt generated over the next 20 years while she pays 13 euro cents for power she uses in her home and we in Winnipeg pay about 3 euro cents for power. Last year she generated about 27,000 KWHs. Heike is running about 8 different business ventures, is slowly winding down her food stand at music festivals (Dave will run 4 events instead of 13 this coming summer) and all in all is making the most of life as it presents itself. The name of her friend is Klaus. He buys and renovates mobile holiday trailers in Germany and sells them in Crete.

It was a long drive to Amsterdam for dinner with Peter & Gerda, but always worth it! They are doing well and Gerda looks great as she nears 60 (was I not supposed to say that part?) Freek & Christa are living and working on their own and keeping well as well.

As we leave the Krasnapolsky we have no regrets about taking a week to vo\isit the preverbial "relatives". We wish we had more time instead of just running in and out.