hilarity

Today we reached the point at which we could spend the day goofing off, especially after Jos was nice enough to give us free run of his car. We met him in the morning and commented on his new haircut and other car... "Other job, other wife," he added cheerfully. He drove us to a lovely recently restored Petit & Fritsen carillon in the Sint-Jacobskerk in Vlissingen and demonstrated the 1968 Flentrop organ, driving by the beach on the way back. How I miss large bodies of water!

A kleine frieten that really was tiny substituted for lunch until I was able to run home. The small fries in Flanders, in comparison, are enough for two hungry people. And I could really taste the difference; even the Andalouse sauce was less satisfying than that in Belgium. Oh how I'll miss you, Frituur Veemarkt and Frituur No. 1!

Then Jos handed Janno the keys to his car and we navigated our way to Veere, which is so small we could put the map away. On the Veerseweg, we tailgated a car carrying four bikes on the back, two with child seats! Only in the Netherlands, this strange and delightful place. Squeezing much more deftly than yesterday through the three tiny stairway passages, we took turns at a workshop in improvision with Kees van Eersel--my first official instruction in the discipline (a relief now to go to Bill Porter in the fall with the most basic experience). To pass the time before Kees' concert, we wandered--me stopping for cinnamon and oma's appeltaart gelato--and came upon the river cruise upon which Janno had lost one shoe as a little child. We set out on the windy cruise to find the shoe with the assistance of some beer, and great hilarity, joke-telling, and jabs at Japanese tourists ensued.

Following a brief but desperate search during which Janno insisted that it was the ladies who wanted pannenkoeken, we found the Veerse restaurant specializing in them and sat down for a scrumptious Dutch dinner accompanied by Kees' brilliant improvised recital. My ginger pancake was amazing but a bit too bold to stomach in its entirety. Kasia finally arrived by bus, train, and bike from Poland, just in time to join us for drinks and dessert--which for me consisted of poffertjes that I managed to mostly get rid of while currying favor by sharing with everyone (for the calories, not because they weren't delectable)! Afterwards Kees joined us, informing us indignantly that his listeners think he's practicing when he's playing a concert.

This was incomprehensible to us. His improvisations could hardly be distinguished from composed pieces (and he had only written down one melody for the entire concert), and the sound of those ancient Van den Gheyn bells exceeded all expectation.

Back in Middelburg, who should come by and see me practicing the finale of van Noordt's Sonata but Albert Clement and faculty from the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Antwerp, including director Pascale De Groote! Dr. Clement gave me the chance to speak with her, which was a pleasure, although I wish I'd remembered to put in a good word in for Geert. Not as if he doesn't have enough people of greater influence to put in a good word already. But they seemed to respect my playing, at least. The Conservatory is planning a choral collaboration next year with the Roosevelt Academy so the two can complement each other in performance and theory/history. I was skeptical of RA at first, but with Dr. Clement at the helm, I'm expecting great things of the university in the years to come.

He promised to show us his recording of the news segment and give us photocopies of the newspaper article. Hot!