We went to a concert on Saturday evening in the Concertgebouw: Hayden's Symphony #98, two Strauss songs and Mahler's 4th Symphony. The concert hall is just beautiful. Very similar to others we've seen in Europe. Really ornate and fitting for such a wealthy city. The music was good, I much prefer Hayden to Mahler and was sorry the bill wasn't reversed, with the Mahler the shorter selection. Still, it was good to get out to hear music. Earlier in the day we did another part of the Rijks Museum, I'm up to 1800. I was resolved to remember one thing well and I focused on the Roentgen Writing Desk. This is a truly amazing piece of furniture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC5Hqk7wl7U


On Sunday, we went on a bike tour to "the countryside". It was a very well led group. The young man leading the group, Stuart, reminded me of the leader of a Bikecentennial adventure way back in the olden days of 1976. It was fun to follow someone so fit, who really knew how to keep the group engaged, interested, and moving! On a bike, that's pretty critical. It was a fun adventure. We were exhausted when we got back in the evening.

We took it easy on Monday, catching up with laundry and the like. And today we took our first trip outside Amsterdam. We went to The Hague to start Alan's ancestor search.

The trip to The Hague was quite successful in finding information about Alan's family. In fact, finding all he needed to really get into the community we will visit where the Balkema name and Alan's ancestor, Jakub, originate has been made available. It was quick and easy. He was able to get in a half hour, what would have taken months otherwise. His brother had earlier done some digging, but Alan's research was the first among official documents. He started with Jakub's self report to the marriage license place in Lafayette, Indiana (home of Purdue), that he arrived in New York from Amsterdam in 1851. Turns out it was 1850, but one could see how he would get that wrong since he didn't have any paperwork. From that, Alan got the town and a list of the parents and siblings of his ancestor. It's a wealth of information. He's pretty engaged in it I think.

We are planning to do another area of the Rijks Museum tomorrow. Alan will plan the next trip to his ancestral region. We also made a commitment to return to The Hague because a museum that's been highly recommended, the Mauritzhuis is closed for the next 11 days. There's a countdown flag in front of the museum and it looks like it's been closed for a long time. Still, it also looks like the perfect museum, small, interesting rooms and an amazing collection. We will likely combine that with a trip to Delft.The time is going so quickly, I'm starting to wonder if we will even fit all this in.