rolf's party

usually i keep the blog on topic with DR related stories, but i wanted to post some photos from Rolf's party (Veronica's dad) in Holland. the party was to celebrate Rolf's 70th birthday. they had invited 90 or so family and friends to go out sailing for a day on a huge 3 masted ship. i think the boat was about 180 feet long. it was a beauty and the party was a great success and lots of fun. we had fairly typical Dutch weather with clouds and a bit of a chilly day, but not much rain, so that was good.

here's another picture of the boat:

Veronica, her sisters, and her mother created a song for everyone on board to sing to Rolf and about Rolf of course and in Dutch, so too tough for me to sing along to. here's the family singing it all together:


the sisters each made speeches. this is Priscilla, Veronica's sister, leading off with her speech:


for a present, Elisabeth arranged for a small sculpture to be made of Rolf. the family opened up the present together up in front of the captain's area, which was a great vantage point for all the guests to see them:


and here's the sculpture of Rolf on his scooter - a fairly typical mode of transportation in Holland when one does not feel like biking or fighting the traffic in a car:


here's me with Fiona, Nincke (V's aunt), Carsten (F's boyfriend), and Priscilla:


this is V with her cousin, Barbara, and her aunt, Nincke:

as a side note, Barbara did a semester at UVM when she was in college, which is a neat thing for me have in common with her. we have talked Burlington and Vermont in the past. Barbara studied art history. i took one class at UVM in art history - my only Pass/Fail class. she actually did something relevant with that degree and worked at Sotheby's for a long time and recently starting working at a gallery in Amsterdam.

here's some of the group onboard - lots of bundled up people you can see:


a ship full of former expats....this is Rolf and his friends from the shipping industry that he met while living in various parts of the world during his career - friends from Sydney, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires. they're all Dutch and many now live in some of the warmer areas of Europe like southern France, Spain, and Portugal.


another boat sailing by us, with V's uncle, Jan, looking toward the camera:


Rolf really enjoyed himself. here he is with V's mom: