Our tour took us from Amsterdam across Holland. A man I worked with told me that when we were in Europe we should stay in guesthouses because they were cheaper, but after a few nights we began to suspect that they saw us coming because the prices were very high. We stopped in several small towns in Holland trying to find a guesthouse, but none were open. Finally we found a nice old hotel in Hertogonbush, Holland. The room was three flights up, there were no elevators and luggage had to be carried up by hand. There was no soap in the room and so my husband told the woman that we would need some soap. We thought the people were awful nice to bring us bowls of soup, until we realized that she thought we had asked for soup, not soap. I'm not sure we ever got any soap. The toilet was out in the hall and the tub upstairs. We found that there were no supermarkets in those towns, only specialty shops.

The electrical system in Europe was different than the U.S.A. so we carried a small transformer with us for our coffeepot. The transformer blew out the lights. Each meal that we ate in the guesthouse restaurants served more French fries or Pome Fritz. Breakfast each morning consisted of hard rolls, cheese, jam and muddy coffee.

From the land of windmills our rented van traveled to the rolling countryside of Belgium. My daughter had a year of German in high school so she could understand some of what was said in Holland, but in Belgium they spoke French so we didn't understand a word anyone was saying.

When we came to Bastogne, Belgium we decided to stay and rest. The guesthouse we found was four flights up again, and as usual the toilet sat at the end of the hall. The notices telling where the bathtubs were located were in English, everything else was written in French, so we suspected that the Americans used more bathtubs than others.

The girls and I went shopping for souvenirs in the town and found a bakery that had luscious looking baked goods. We were hungry and went crazy when we saw all the good looking pastry, but that evening when we tried to eat them we discovered to our sorrow that they didn't taste good. It was a sad thing to have to throw away those looking cakes.

We found that we had trouble communicating at times. It was in Bastogne that we tried to get something different than the same French fries each meal. Potato salad sounded good, so we told the waitress that we would like potato salad and when she didn't understand us we told her "You know, Pome fritz with mayonnaise on them." She understood and brought us an order of French fries with a side bowl of mayonnaise.

Back at the hotel that night we ate cheese and crackers for supper. It tasted much better than French fries. We tried to get ice at the guesthouse, but they would only give us one glass of ice. By this time we had stopped drinking coffee because it was strong and bitter.

Bastogne was the scene of one of the major battles of the European campaign, the Battle of the Bulge. During that warfare the Germans demanded that the Allies surrender. American General McAuliffe answered with a telegram of one word "Nuts." Bastogne has a museum called the "Nuts Museum" that we visited. A tank and a statue of General McAuliffe sit in the town square.

Outside of Bastogne is a huge war memorial dedicated to the USA. Every state in the Union was named on the memorial. As I saw the scene of this great battle once again I was reminded how precious and fragile a gift freedom is.