Thanksgiving at the Holiday Inn

We were fortunate that ISD had a break on Thursday and Friday. It wasn't for Thanksgiving, since that's not a holiday here. It just happened to fall that way.

So along with several other American families in Duessedorf, we drove up to Leiden, Holland where the Pilgrims lived for several years before heading to the "new world." There's a church there that isn't used as a church, but every Thanksgiving hosts an interfaith Thanksgiving Day service.

Leiden is a beautiful, historic town with canals and the oldest university in Holland. Rembrandt grew up there and there are tons of little art galleries along narrow alley ways. I got to wander while Skip took Maddie back to the Holiday Inn to swim.

The Holiday Inn put out a huge Thanksgiving Day buffet. It was fairly authentic. No cornbread dressing or sweet potato casserole or mashed potatoes. But there was turkey and pumpkin pie and all the food was delicious. They even had chicken nuggets and french fries for the kids--complete with ice cream for dessert.

Maddie was pretty much a pain the whole day unless she was swimming or playing, and sure enough, she woke up with an ear ache Friday morning. We decided to cancel going up to Amsterdam as planned and brought her back to Duessedorf to the doc. He looked at her ear, gave me a prescription for antibiotics, but suggested that I hold off for a day on getting it filled. He said that her ear was at a place where it could become a full-blown, terribly painful middle ear infection, or it might just go away on its own. Kept her dosed with Tylenol yesterday for the pain, and sure enough, this morning, she is pain free.

This afternoon, we will go over the our friends the Fosters. Most of the Foster family was in Leiden with us, but dad Ron had to work, so they wanted to have a second get-together. Madison Foster (who is Maddie's age) is recovering from busting up her chin at the aforementioned Holiday Inn pool. You may be getting the picture that it wasn't a seamless holiday.