Hourn (whore in) as in Tyson Jay Van Horn

We were supposed to sail early this mouning to Hourn, the key word being were. I mentioned the Power outage the other day that impacted Amsterdam. Well it seems it impacted all of Northern Holland including the major airport Schiphol. It also disabled the locks between Amsterdam and Hourn. Thus we couldn't get there. So todays cruise will be dockside with buses arranged to take us to our Hourn excursions. Fortunately it isn't a far trip and it was rainy and grey anyway and once there we would have been on a bus anyway.

Our first tour of the day was to walk through Hourn and have a coffee with a local. The city of Hourn is very quaint and our group was led by the now retired City Manager, Jos.

He talks about how he was born here and spent the last several decades managing the city which is very proud of its heritage. They should be proud as it is the heritage of my friend Tyson Jay Van Horn who is an absolutely gem of an individual and one helluva blues harp player. Check out his band Four Square on facebook. Anyway, Jos took us to the town square and delighted in pointing out the flying dutchman.

I took this shot for Jay of Shooters a blues club in Hourn.

Chocolate is a favorite throughout the Netherlands and Belgium. We strole through the streets untill we break into smaller groups if eight to visit a home and have coffee or tea with the host family.

This is the home we stoped at owned by an artists and his wife. Together they bought these two run down holmes on a small water way and renovated them over the last several decades. She was a delightful hostess and offered both coffee and an assortment of Dutch cookies. She appologized for not having the apple pie she intended but the power outage had put a severe dent in her preparation. She shared photos of the demotion and reconstruction. Her home was lovely as was she and her husband. Our hour passed quickly and we were back on the bus headed to Amsterdam for lunch.