For the next few weeks I’m going to be traveling a great deal. When you get this blog, I’ll be in Europe on a train from Amsterdam to Basel Switzerland!! Wahoo! I’m blessed to be doing a Castles Along the Rhine cruise tour with fellow writers Cathy Marie Hake and Kelly Eileen Hake. Oh yeah, Cathy and I are bringing our husbands, too.
Heidelberg Castle, Germany
I hope to post some pictures for you when I get back. We’ll start in Amsterdam and take a train to Basel, Switzerland. I can say, “Is dit de trein naar Basel?” So hopefully I won’t get lost. My husband and I are using Rosetta Stone to learn German, so we will go armed with our little Dutch and German translation books, and pray that all the Dutch and Germans will speak fluent English.
Riquewihr, a medieval city between mountain and vineyards
in eastern France on the Rhine River
So why am I heading to Europe? Research! I love incorporating interesting cultural details into my stories. My area of Montana has many Dutch families who settled back in the 1860’s. My son attended a private Dutch Reform Christian High School and the cultural influences were fascinating. Not only that, but a wee bit of my family background has some Dutch ancestry, as well as German, Scottish, Irish and Swiss. So I hope to incorporate this into books to come, as well as find new stories as I research.
So “dag” for now. Auf Wiedersehen!
Tracie
