Today I swam in the Zuider Zee!

I am staying in Leeuwarden, a town of 100,000 in the north of Holland. Jeannette Madema is a friend I met on a bicycling hospitality website called warmshowers.org. People who bicycle, travel and stay with those who offer a warm shower and safe place for tent, couch sleeping, and one's bicycle. Jeannette spent two years traveling from Alaska to the southern parts of South America by bike with a friend a few years ago, and enjoys the world of bicycling.
After I purchased a Dutch touring bike today (sweet or what!) we had lunch here at her house. She then provided me maps of how to travel west to Harlingen, the town near which my Dad landed when shot down from his B-17 bomber in WW2. We guessed Harlingen to be about 30 kilometers from here one way, about 18 miles. I set off rather late, 3pm, and headed west with a tailwind. I arrived after 4, and spent lots of time biking up and down the streets, many of which are on canals, and have buildings well over 100 years old. I rode to the sea, now dammed up with an ocean wall, still full of ocean water, the old name of Zuider Zee. Many companies handling storage containers and ocean shipping do business there. I kept looking for a place to swim (hey Ray!) and didn't see one immediately. I biked south to where I was near the 1 mile south and 3/4 mile inland where Dad had been shot down. I found a few empty fields nearby, saw a tiny panel wagon like the one he bought in 1972 for book travels, and took pictures. I found small pink roses along the roadway and picked a few. Then, going north, I saw a bicyclist go up along a walking path above the seawall. I pulled my bike up the embankment and there was the open sea!! With a footpath along the seawall/damwall, I went south out of view, and in I swam- three swims out and under and back. Salty wonderful ocean water, cold and refreshing. Even took a couple of pictures for proof :) I'll download them in Germany at my friend's.
Then the trip back, and it's after 8pm. On the way I got turned around and asked a man on a bicycle for help to Leeuwarden. He kept pointing the way and then said "would you like coffee? Come!" So I had coffee with Jacob Beuker and his wife from Yugoslavia, older and neither of them spoke but a few words of English. When he saw my wet hair and I told where I'd swum, he motioned, Do you want to wash it off and shower? I said No! I must be going! His coffee was strong and delicious, and his wife gave me three apples, a banana, rice cakes and sweet frosted cookies. She kept trying to get me to eat bread with the frozen strawberry cake she'd given me already.
Back on the road, with the dynamo lights which operate when you turn the switch on and the bike is pedaled. Thank goodness for lights, for I got turned around once more near town, got help from an older woman who got me headed home. She asked why my trip to Holland, and when told, said "Oh! did your father lose his life in the war?" Uh, no, or I wouldn't be here...But aloud I said, No, he did not.
Jeannette was happy to see me, knew how bikers make long days sometimes. Said I'll check your mileage, came back and said It should've been 60 kilometers but you made it 94 somehow, I don't know where you've been! And I sent you out with a banana and apple and you come back with a banana and 3 apples!
She is running a 10k race tomorrow with her sister, leaving at 9:30 so I'll be off sometime after that.
What an amazing incredible day! I'll be so happy to share photos.