The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same

Things change…..or do they?

Entertainment, Delft style

Imagine you are in your early 20s and your dream is to learn Dutch so that you can work for KLM Airlines.  Your family has close friends who own a shop on the main square in Delft, so off you go for three months, living above the store with a Dutch family. 

Your home-grown language immersion program teaches you how to ask the butcher for a half pound of minced meat for the evening’s soup.  Not exactly KLM material.

Your dreams aren’t dashed though, they’re just put on hold for a good many years.  But, some 52 years later, after a varied career (including working as a flight attendant for another airline) you get the chance to return to Delft.

Our friend Felicity searching Delft's square for her store

                                

What do you find?  A bigger more modern town sprawling across the landscape, of course.  But the lovely old square that sits between the big church and the fanciful town hall is still thriving.  The shops and restaurants lining its edges are filled with tourists speaking Italian or English or French, all busily buying souvenirs, eating, drinking, chatting or just people-watching. And you find your shop, looking as prosperous as ever, right on the corner between the church and the Vermeer museum.  

The old store, De Bakker Van de Hoek. Felicity's room was the very top one in the red brick building.

Your best discovery is that your family’s old friend, although certainly a nonagenarian now, still lives upstairs, coming down each day to walk past his store’s windows, albeit slower, satisfying himself that all is well with his business.

Lovely.