Praise the Lord!

I thought that would get your attention. Norm and I have just come back from a performance with the University Gospel Choir at St. Julien church a short walk from the hotel. Praise the Lord!! It was quite fun. Not a lot of black people in the choir - maybe 8 out of 30 -- but they had the place rocking. In Utrecht, we spent Thursday exploring Utrecht. Norm visited 3 museums, me one. He saw the Dick Bruna museum and learned about Miffy and followed up with the Utrecht central art museum. I went wandering......and shopping, looking in store windows, eating ice cream and checking the cloister gardens at the Dom Tower. We met up again and then went to the Betje Boerhave's Grocery Museum, a little hard to find but best all, free!! I think I know why, not a lot to see but we went upstairs and viewed the one room of old grocery products, many kinds of soap. I guess they kept things cleaner in those days. The main floor sold lots of candy in glass containers like the old days. We bought lots:) Next to the open-air market  in town had us buying more frites with mayonnaise - so good. We also loaded up on snacks for the train trip to Arles, southern France. I thought we would head back to to our room when Norm said there was another museum to see, the Working Man's Museum. We did finish the evening off with broodjes and ice cream cones. Saturday we took the train to the south of France. Utrecht to Amsterdam, and on to Paris at 300 kmh -- first class with food service -- we were surprised! Took the Metro from Gare de Nord across town to Gare de Lyon and waited 3 hours till the fast train to Arles, famous for its association with Vincent Van Gogh. We arrived at at 9:45 Saturday night. Couldn't find a taxi but by asking a man if he was a taxi or knew how far to town, he offered to take us to our hotel room, quickly!!! Wow, what an exciting five-minute ride through narrow narrow streets with high walls. So we have now met up with Doug and Maureen this morning. After breakfast we toured the sights that Van Gogh had painted -- even the Hotel Dieu hospital where he was treated after cutting off a piece of his ear. A short walklong the Rhone river demo9nstrated the power of the famed mistral wind. Wow, Doug figured it was was blowing up to 80mh. After a delicious lunch (I had a Nicoise Salad, so good with lots of salty anchovies) and a 500-ml "pichet" of the house white -- delicious. Norm and I toured the coliseum and the amphitheater. We then saw a gospel choir practicing so decided to come back for the show. A full day! Hopefully we will add pictures later.