Podium Cafe Peter en Leni Steendam, NE October 3

written by Rob Turner - Tour Manager

I have been humming Surprise Me Mr. Davis' "Home Away From Home," the last few days because that is what the Podium Cafe Peter and Leni has become to Jon and me.  Our hosts, Peter and Leni van Zeijl, have been supremely kind.  They have allowed us to stay here for FOUR nights despite the fact that Jon was only playing one show here.  The have fed us several meals.  They lent us their bicycles, and they gave us a heads-up on many Netherland'y things.

Peter was a long-time DJ for Radio Winschoten and Dollard Radio, each in the north part of The Netherlands.  His programs "Folk en Zo" (Folk and Such) and "Late Night Blues" had many listeners and served to fuel his enthusiasm for acoustic music.  In fact, with the exception of the Jeff Beck Band's Truth cd, he has no interest in electric blues.

A few years back, Peter became disenchanted with his job, and decided to leave it and pursue work in the music business.  He worked in many capacities, including as a booking agent on both sides of the fence.  So, when the economic downturn of the latter part of the last decade rendered this then-dormant restaurant space affordable - Peter jumped at the chance and he and his wife Leni moved in and started preparing it for live music.  They were up and running on May 24, 2013 and today the restaurant is open six days a week (seven days in the summer).  As some of you may have read in my first blog, this is sort of a dream place for me.  However their luck hasn't come easily.  This couple works very hard at what they do.  They are up in the morning early preparing for the restaurant's ten o'clock opening, and the room stays open until ten o'clock at night.  The only other person with which I am aware who also works these kind of hours is......well.....my girlfriend.  They only have one night of music a week (of course the room stays open well past ten on this night), and they book shows 9-18 months in advance.  They have just begun hosting a songwriter's night on Saturdays, which made me wish Atlanta's treasured storyteller Kodac Harrison could speak Dutch.

Despite the demands of their job, they each have wonderful spirits, and it didn't take long for this to have a profound effect on Jon and me.  Peter speaks excellent English, is quick with a smile and despite his intelligence and success, is completely down-to-Earth.  He is constantly cracking wise and not only does he make it clear that he doesn't mind having his own chops busted, he clearly revels in it.  Leni is an extremely engaging woman.  She makes much of the food here from scratch, and based on what I saw while staying here, her pies are particularly popular.  As Jon said from the stage tonight, Leni has taken us in as though she was our mother.....and Peter as though he was our grandfather.  And who laughed the hardest at this?  Peter.

Peter's quote of the week: "You are two Americans, driving a Swedish car with French plates through The Netherlands to get to Germany."

Anyway, I have been having a bit of a rough learning curve with regard to some of the details of this whole blogging thing.  And even though this is in part to promote Jon's music, he sometimes seems annoyed that I am on the computer so much.  Like many great musicians, Jon is not really into the whole promotion side of things.  But friends Jon was, because just as the sun was setting he pried me away from my computer so that I could join him to go watch the sun set over the almost-adjacent Lake Schildimeer.  

Before we even got to the lake I was wowed by the giant bright orange orb that was lying low in the sky.  When I sat down by the lake, the sun was reflecting so brightly off of the water that it looked like two lines of fire were ripping through the water.  It was pretty intense.  Before the lines joined, one little rouge fiery spot took on a cauldron-like effect.  There were also flocks of small birds flying in such tight unison that when they were half-way across the lake they collectively looked like a giant amoeba moving over the water.  Fully cross the lake similar birds would rise and fall over the tree line in a way that made them look like giant plumes of smoke.  It was a nice relaxing moment to ease my mind over my frustration with Google Blogger's inability to "take" my profile picture changes.  This deified silicon valley company is apparently on the cutting edge of everything except how to get the odor of curry out of your carpet, yet their blog platform can't get it together to allow me to change my profile picture.  Super.

We were so fond of our hosts that we really, really wanted a strong night FOR THEM, even more than for the success of the tour.  And much like last night, it didn't seem like that was gonna be the case as close as twenty minutes before the starting time.  But Peter moved the start time back 15 minutes and several people flowed in and all was well.  The crowd dug Jon's sense of humor tonight, and there was a warmth to the performance that I couldn't help but think was due at least in some part to the fact that we had been here so long, we had gotten to calling it home.  Musical highlights of the first set were "Song For JoJo" (performed for Peter, is his favorite), "Dram Lest We Get Dry" continuing its hot streak and a riveting "Peace Like a River" to close the set.  The non-musical highlight (other than my delicious dinner) was the english cocker spaniel who lay quietly, and at times attentively during the music.  He demonstrated more of an ability to behave appropriately at an acoustic music performance than many human beings do back in America.  That's right show-talkers, there are even dogs over here who can respect musical artists more than you.  Be proud.

I so love making fun of show-ruining babblers that I am almost thankful for them.

I DID say almost.

The second set started with Hank Williams' "California Zephyr" which was again strong, but nothing like last night's show-stopping version.  Jon spoke about the decline of certain industries inspired, "Dyehouse Blues," and riveted the audience with "Station Master."   Some Farenheit/Celsius confusion provided an unintentional moment of comedy during the "constant 32 degrees" verse of "The Deep Freeze."  I rarely catch "Maple Leaf Rag," and tonight's version seemed longer than the ones I had previously enjoyed, and Jon told the whole story behind Den Bosch Blues......not gonna get into that song on this blog.  Last tour the times Jon asked audiences if they were familiar with Mississippi John Hurt, most of the people were not.  So, as he told the audience before the 2nd set-closing "My Creole Belle" tonight, he is on a mission to make these two countries more familiar with him.  Very cool.  Should indicate that this and "Mermaids" are just the tip of the Hurt iceberg this tour.  Jon wondered aloud if there were any Mississippi John Hurt videos on YouTube.  Anyone else wondering the same thing should visit my links section after the setlist below.

His encore demonstrated some of my favorite things about Jon.  He played "Get What You Deserve," which not only was a nod to the spaniel (Jon traditionally gives a li'l dog bark after the "loyal dog" line), but he referenced some set break conversations by deftly weaving in Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken" and that silly little "Tequila" song into the instrumental.  I was kicking myself for not videoing this, but lo and behold as I was working on this very blog I heard the song coming from around the corner......and sure enough, Peter had captured it.  Gotta love this guy.

Setlist

Jon Shain

Podium Cafe Peter and Leni

Steendam, The Netherlands

October 3, 2014

Seven Thieves

Cornershops + Subway Trains

Level It Out

Luckier Than Most

Song For JoJo

Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me

Another Month of Mondays

Ordinary Cats

Song For Maria

Dram Lest We Get Dry

Peace Like a River

--------------------------------------

California Zephyr

Getaway Car

Dyehouse Blues

Maple Leaf Rag

The Deep Freeze

Den Bosch Blues  video

Moonshiner

My Creole Belle

-------------------------------------

Get What You Deserve video

Links

Jeff Beck's Truth record
Kodac Harrison
Mississippi John Hurt

De Bunker in Gemert, The Netherlands October 2

written by Rob Turner - Tour Manager

Rotaries can be confusing here.  There are multiple lanes surrounding a center island, and you better be in the correct lane to exit the way you want or you may end up on the wrong road.  And at the moment of decision it can be kinda hard to figure out on which side of the curved, cement lane dividers you need to be.  Thankfully, people here seem to signal and respect the rotary right of way.  In case any of you don't know - the vehicle **already in the rotary** has the right of way - NOT the vehicle entering the rotary.  This also serves as a shout-out to my peeps in Decatur, Georgia.....a city that on the one hand has gone rotary-happy, yet on the other hand harbors many citizens who seem to be struggling with this somewhat basic right-of-way concept.  Please share this paragraph with anyone who fits this description.  Public service announcement'd.

So yeah, as we were closing in on Gemert we delayed ourselves by ending up in the wrong lane in the rotary.....or roundabout.....or whatever, and then being forced to scramble to find a place to turn around.  And our rent-a-car is French, so most of the other drivers weren't exactly dying to help us out.  I think this is when I started singing my self-criticizing song parody of a certain David Bowie song, my version being, "Dumb Americans."  We had ahead of us a 3ish hour post-show ride back to Peter and Leni's in Steendam, so even though we had a quarter tank of gasoline (yes that was for you, Bloodkin-lovers) we went to get gas at a normal-looking Texaco.  Turns out it was also a car wash, car dealership, curio shop, convenience store....and the place at which it took us about 15 minutes to figure out how to gain access to the tank.  You guessed it, I was already singing our Bowie parody again.  It turns out you just have to push the damn thing in and it pops right out.  Not exactly engineering degree stuff.

We were pretty early (Jon was slated for a 9:30 sound check, latest starting gig of the tour), so when we saw some funky, marsupial'y-looking animals in a yard right off of the road we decided to swing the car around and took a look.  I walked up to the fence and took some pics of these kangaroo-like things....they might even have been kangaroos. Am not really sure. One of them seemed to be getting upset, so even though there was barbed-wire atop the fencing, I quickly high-tailed it out of there for fear that the bugger might bound over and Arjen Robben my face.  There were also sheep, but they seemed more than willing to just go along with whatever was happening.  We also were wow'd at a particularly enormous windmill, but didn't stop to gawk at that until the ride home.

After a pretty cool greek dinner (I had some sort of meat thing wrapped around feta and vegetables with a perfectly complimenting cucumber sauce which really sat well in my formidable belly) we made our way over to De Bunker.  I have to admit I was a little concerned because the only posters we had seen for the club had only the September shows on it.  Seemed like we might suffer from "early month gig" promotional syndrome (monthly posters put up late obviously are of no help to the gigs of the early month acts).  The club had most certainly promoted the show on its web site, and most say that is more important these days - although I am a firm believer in poster promotions, as these often reach people when they are out with like-minded music friends.  Oh yeah, his first name was also misspelled on the handbills I would later see, kind of a bummer, but not something about which we were in a position to freak out.

Also, a quick pre-dinner visit to the then-closed club had revealed that this was clearly a rock club - which can often be problematic for a solo acoustic performer.  Rock audiences can be fantastic (particularly those of some of my favorite bands), but they also seem to often not have the ability to shut up and listen to acoustic music for one song, let alone an entire performance.  I call those who represent extreme examples of this, "Starbuckers."  You know, cuz they can't shut up and pay attention to anything other than that which is most mainstream'y and/or because they behave in a music venue like they were in a loud coffee shop.

Some of my trepidation was also born out of my experience on last year's tour - which had begun in Sissoch, Switzerland.  Let me be clear - we had a great time there.  I took a wonderful, lengthy walk around the town only to return to the hotel room and find out that I had inadvertently locked Jon in the room.  Although this bummed me out for hours that night, time has revealed it to be a hilarious story I will tell the rest of my life.  My first-ever day as a Tour Manager, and I locked my act in a hotel room.  Gold.

Anyway the people who actually came to the Sissoch gig last year had been fantastic.  One guy showed up requesting Jon's version of Vigilante Man as he had seen the YouTube of Jon's Trayvon Martin tragedy-inspired version of the song (link is beneath tonight's setlist below).  Another woman had taken to line dancing during Jon's set, eliciting an impromptu version of Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" in the middle of Jon's own-daughter-inspired, "Song For JoJo."  But the gig had been a failure.  Not many more people showed up, and even though the venue paid Jon generously (the owner LOVED the show), we had been rendered discouraged.

So as we went back to the club after dinner, I couldn't help but be a bit pessimistic about this gig.  Neither of us wanted the Tour to start negatively like last year's had.

I had just over dinner mentioned how much I was already missing my little dog, Birdie....so when I walked into the club and was greeted by a very friendly dog about the same size as Birdie while my boy Bob Dylan was blaring over the speakers.....I was pretty pleased.  Soon I would meet Peter Snydres.  He is a former professional singer-turned club general manager (he actually referred to himself as the "social worker"), and a lively and friendly guy.  He showed us our little green room, gave us the skinny on Wifi, soundcheck, beverage and set length issues and he showed me how to climb into the unused balcony to shoot footage.  De Bunker is part of a complex that also includes a flat floor theater and a youth club.  All of it used to be a milk factory, but De Bunker had been a rock club since 1982.  They had three generations of employees there, ranging in age from 15 to the 72-year-old Jann Van Der Welf.  (Van Der Welf later seemed to be having the time of his life....but truth be told this may have been as much due to the fact that his doctor had told him that he was about to go off of dialysis as it was about Jon's stellar performance.)

But when Jon sound-checked about 30 minutes before show time almost no customers had yet arrived.  Not comforting.  This made it hard for me to enjoy the fact that the room had surprisingly excellent sound even though the balcony hung over 3/4's of it.  I had sequestered myself in the green room to work on my blog, catch up with email and reviewing some product that had been sent to the club for us....and worrying.  And usually I make fun of Jon for being the big worrier.  So, when I walked out for the beginning of the show and saw that a bunch of folks had arrived, I was very pleased.  And then Jon opened with a song I had never previously heard or seen, the gospel-tinged bluesy "Seven Thieves."  Nothing pleases this old music nerd like hearing one of my favorite artists perform brand new material.  Jon moved through his set with strength despite it being the first show of the tour.  The club's soundman Lawrence had the guitar and vocals sounding balanced, rich and clear.  Only his version of the piedmont blues song "The Letter" revealed any indications of rust.  He brought forth the European debut of "Den Bosch Blues" inspired by our experience in the elegant city of Den Bosch (just 40 kilometers from tonight's venue) during last year.  Much of Jon's set was received quite well, although they didn't seem to respond to his humor that much, and the highlight of the set, a stellar reading of Hank Williams' "California Zephyr," received tepid applause.  Jon also played two other brand new songs, one of which has not yet a title (I am hoping to name it myself :), and the other, "All Your Neon Dollars" referenced the Flagstaff Mountains, which I had visited last December with my girlfriend - and which also was brand new to me.

Sadly, I might have unintentionally elicited the best laugh out of the mostly-attentive audience (given that this was a rock club, I was very pleased).  Not that Jon is a comedian, but his between-song banter usually gets the crowd chuckling a few times during his performances.  Anyway, when I am at these gigs I keep pretty busy.  Over the course of the night I shoot video on my li'l magic phone box, sell cds, take notes, keep a setlist, chat with venue staff, work on these long-winded blogs, GroupMe with Jefferson Waful and David Saslavsky, scour the Internet for tour promotion possibilities and I think there is other stuff I do too just can't think of it all at this moment.  So, when at one point I heard Jon ask where I was and say he needed a beer, I quickly grabbed a one out of the fridge.   I hadn't been drinking myself, so I didn't know where the bottle opener was.  It took me a few seconds to find it, crack the beer open and bound down the stairs.  But one of the ladies at the front table had beaten me to it, and I got downstairs just in time to see her hand a delicious-looking high gravity adult beverage to Jon.  So, I shrugged my shoulders and took a huge swig off of the beer.  Crowd loved it.  Great prelude to an introduction of this wing-man - although it didn't turn into as many cd sales as I would have liked.

SETLIST:

Jon Shain
De Bunker
Gemert, NE
October 2, 2014

Seven Thieves
The Letter
Den Bosch Blues
Ordinary Cats
Getaway Car
California Zephyr
Yadkin River Blues
Dram Lest We Get Dry  video
If You Ever Flew Away
Peace Like a River
Cut-Out Bin
Ten Days
Level It Out
One Way Gal
untitled new song
All Your Neon Dollars
Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me
Love Is a Lovely Thing
Ooncha Ooncha Music
--------------------------------
Meet Me In The Morning



More related links -

Bloodkin reference

Arjen Robben reference

Jon Shain Vigilante Man video

Visiting the Kroller-Muller Museum at the Hoge Veluwe National Park

written by Rob Turner - Tour Manager

Although the first gig of the tour was at a place called De Bunker in Gemert, we decided to divert our journey 40 kilometers or so to the Hoge Veluwe National Park.  The park is home to a place called the Kroller-Muller museum (if I knew how to do umlauts, there would be a couple in there).  Amsterdam may have the Van Gogh museum, but this museum also houses close to 90 Van Goghs itself.  It also does not attract nearly as many tourists as the Amsterdam museum.  So, we saw it as an opportunity to get Gogh’y without having to fight crowds.  We were right.

We pulled up to the park and were immediately impressed that we were asked to park our car, grab one of the plethora of bikes available at the park entrance and pedal the 2 or 3 kilometers to the museum.  Never in my life did I think I would be biking to see a ton of Van Goghs.  In the interest of clarity, I’m not in any way trying to pass myself off as Johnny-post-impressionist-expert - but come ON, we are talking the Big VG here.  Even a casual art fan can get excited about seeing a bunch of his work in the same place.  I am pretty sure that I had previously only seen his work many years ago at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

We wound our way around a few bike paths until we got to another sea of parked bicycles, where we left ours (you don’t have to lock up bikes anywhere in this country, SO very refreshing) and high-stepped it to the museum entrance, passing a variety of creative sculptures along the way (one triangulated piece stretched for about 40 feet across and deep into the ground).   We were quick to learn that the museum also housed works by many other great artists, most notably Picasso, Seurat and Monet.  This museum may have seemed humble on the surface, but inside it was most impressive.  There were a few loud tours that we were forced to avoid, and it seemed as though a couple of exhibits were closed and not all of the Van Goghs were on display (a couple of older French women seemed to be giving the security an extremely hard time about this) but we still very much enjoyed strolling through and checking out the paintings and other forms of art.  Many of the Picasso and VG paintings REALLY rendered me in awe.  I also was able to discover other artists like Fantin-Lotour and Balla.  I’m not gonna lie.  I most certainly did NOT “get” a lot of the not-painted art.  One item seemed to be a piece of Tupperware on a chair.  Super.  Others were just large pieces of Styrofoam’ish material in odd shapes.  One just seemed to be a stuff-mashup.  I guess that like beauty, art is in the eye of the beholder.  

Note to self: when I get back to Georgia I need to grab a bunch of crap out of my storage area, throw it in a hamper, toss it on the ground and create my own, “art.”

It most certainly was a learning experience.  I knew Picasso was huge, but I didn’t know that he pretty much dominated the art world for 70-80 years and worked in a variety of art forms…..was even considered a patriarch a many different art movements.  Van Gogh was a bit of a twisted soul, and in his lifetime was even seen as a failure.  His greatness wasn’t discovered by most until well after he died.  I can relate.  His brother funded him for most of his life.  All of Van Gogh’s works were created in his last ten years on the planet.  This is stunning when you consider that he is responsible for hundreds of paintings.  He never sold a piece for a significant amount of money until the last year of his life.  And when one of the write-ups referred to the, "ear incident," it elicited a bit of a chuckle from me.

There were quite a few paintings with which I was familiar, and I would like to say that it is because I am cultured…..but the reality is that this is probably due to the fact that I used to play an art business-themed game called “Masterpiece” with my sister Cindy when I was young.

As we discussed our day over lunch (I had a brie sandwich on brown bread with local honey – was very tasty) I realized that I wasn’t a big fan of symmetrical art.  Perhaps this is because of the fact that my own life hasn’t had much symmetry.  I also am not very fond of art featuring characters with unclear facial features.  Maybe this is because of trust issues due to past experiences with two-faced people?

We wrapped up the meal, I grabbed a Monet print for that gal of mine back home and moved to the outside area behind the museum.  Here there were multiple courtyards and plenty of trees, some of which had bright green sections on their branches.  This was an idyllic setting for a sculpture garden, and there were about forty installments of varying sizes sprawled across the lawn and woven through the trees.  One giant white piece was vaguely shaped like a giant duck bathtub toy and it floated upon a li’l pond.  Red, white and blue barrels sat atop each other…..and then atop others, (I thought) to poke fun at a certain country’s mindless excessive use of oil.  One installment looked from afar like a modern condo building, but as you walked closer its artistic beauty revealed itself and it also housed other inspiring pieces.  I overheard another museum patron describe one as a busty angel.  Again.  Someone ELSE said this.  Unfortunately, the museum closed before we could get to its biggest piece.  A friendly woman herded us to the exit on her bicycle (they seem to do just about everything on bicycle here).  Although, she did allow me to return to get the name of the creator of one of the pieces we had photographed.  I am gonna have to try to get back there.

We hopped back on our bikes and decided to explore the park a bit before leaving.  We came across a statue of Christiaan de Wet, who was apparently a pivotal General in the Last Great Boar War.   We learned that he was one of Helene Kroller-Muller’s lifetime heroes.  Helene and her husband Anton were the driving force behind the creation of the museum, which first opened about 75 years ago.  What I enjoyed most about the statue was its circular base, which featured 16 soldiers of seemingly different ethnicities peering out of the statue as if it was a fort.  The general stood proudly high atop the statue.

After a little more biking, we returned to our starting spot, left the bikes and climbed back into the car.  I was sweating a bit, but given the fact that I am neither single nor was I planning on performing tonight, it didn't matter.

We got nervous for a second as the highway we were supposed to take was stopped with traffic.  However, the GPS in our rental car automatically found us an alternate route!!  This was Ortiz-clutch.  We ended up winding through a part of The Netherlands unlike that which we had seen last year, with long stretches of wooded areas, quaint little railroad-traversed downtown areas, thatched-roofed domiciles and even a couple of seemingly high-end resort areas.  And we went on to find tonight’s venue (De Bunker in Gemert) and kick off Jon's 2nd-ever European Tour.

Groningen

written by Rob Turner - Tour Manager

Jon and I just returned to Podium Cafe Peter en Leni after a quick drive to and hangout in Groningen.  It is a delightful city in which to walk.  Century-old architecture mingles with the more modern.  It is crawling with young, vibrant people, which elicited some Logan's Run jokes from Jon.  It seems as though everyone is healthy, and certainly this is in part due to the fact that so many use their own feet or bicycles for transportation.  I was the fattest guy Jon saw all day.  Back in Atlanta, many people stroll blindly into the street without checking for oncoming traffic.  These folks would get swallowed up and spat out here, as you constantly have to be mindful of the (often very speedy) bicycle traffic.  Foot pedestrians often take refuge on cobblestone'd areas.  Even the occasional automobiles are constantly yielding to bicycles.  Which seems appropriate, as the bicyclists aren't wasting any gas.  We saw three churches' breathtaking architecture and a ton of pubs.  Was sorta difficult to find parking, and then to figure out how to pay for it, although a couple of local lovelies helped us out.  We chose a pub and had a beer while watching the people.  I quickly discovered that surprisingly many text while bicycling.  One particularly adventurous young lad was riding while walking his dog and playing a harmonica as a guitar sat precariously in his bicycle basket.  I tried to get a pic, but the dude was moving along too fast for us.

Getting Started

written by Rob Turner - Tour Manager

I am writing to you from the Podium Cafe Peter en Leni in Steendam, The Netherlands.  This is an intimate acoustic music room by a gorgeous lake in this delightfully quiet town.  Peter and Leni van Zeijl own the venue and live in a flat just above it.  They are extremely enthusiastic fans of acoustic music, and also very kind souls - case in point: Jon lost his first gig of the tour due to a last minute cancellation (which meant we also lost the lodging), and this couple stepped up and invited us to stay in their house two extra days.  So, after we arrived in the Amsterdam airport yesterday (and I was held in a dreary back room while they ran a "second check" on my passport due to a poor photo), we drove directly here.

It didn't take long to be reminded how different things are here.  Wind turbines abound, and a canal was visible to the right of us on the highway virtually the entire trip.  We stopped at a little rest area off of the highway, and felt like we had driven into a state park.  It featured two little restaurants, an elegant curio shop which also had some elaborate pastries and clean bathrooms - although they cost a half a Euro to use (to be fair, they also give you a coupon so that if you spend money there, you get the half-Euro back).  Healthy food and beverage options were in abundant supply, and served with warmth and enthusiasm.   Best of all, it was next to a tiny lake, at which there were paddle boats, other tiny boats and plenty of places to eat.  There was even a rope going across it, presumably for those far more athletic than I to....sort of shimmy across the water.  Jon and I ate blurry-eyed by the water.  He had only slept a couple of hours on the flight, and I hadn't slept at all (thanks in large part to the On Demand video on the plane which allowed me to immerse myself into multiple episodes of Silicon Valley and Ray Donovan, as well as some Louie CK comedy and an absolutely outstanding documentary on Stephen Sondheim).  We finished our meal and contemplated sleeping in the car for a while as we had some time to kill.  Jon rallied though.  He bought a small, but very strong coffee (common here) and drove us to Steendam while I drifted in and out of sleep.  Live Wilco and the audio from a PBS Tribute to Gram Parsons kept Jon awake.

We arrived and did indeed sleep in the car until our hosts arrived, seemingly amused by the fact that we were splayed out in the vehicle like it was 1987 and we were on our way to see The Grateful Dead in Hampton, Virginia.  They brought us into the house, and after we brought up our stuff and had the first of what would become many music-themed conversations before taking a walk around the surrounding area.  Lake Schildmeer is just a few hundred feet away (Jon and I are about to bike around it) and we walked around and enjoyed the birds, rabbits and other wildlife.  Magpies are like pigeons here, and Peter and Leni seemed amused when Jon and I marveled at them.  After a wonderful meal of frikandel, krokets and dutch fries and more conversation about everything from Elizabeth Cotton and Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy, we retired to our beds.  I woke up around 1 am, and rather than get frustrated with my inability to sleep, I popped on my Sirius app and listened to an absolutely incredible wildcard game between the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland A's, then fell back asleep.  Hopefully, I have beaten the jetlag.