Viewing page 87 of 199

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Today Sid is going to Utrecht to a botanical museum and we shall go about sightseeing. It is dark and a pouring rain now at 7 am. but maybe it will clear, - we haven't had a rainy day before. There is another botanist here, - a fellow born & bred in Sharon, who is teaching at Cornell- and he & Sid flew here together and are going to the same bot. place today. This chap wants to go over to Belgium at the end of the week but there is so much trouble just now that he doesn't know whether it will be safe to go. I am going to get around to the American Embassy this forenoon, and hope we may find some word from you there. If we don't, perhaps in London at the end of the week. Anyhow when we get to London, I shall feel that we are settled and mail will arrive O.K. Now it is time to go for breakfast and Sid is in a rush because he has to take the 8.30 train-
So long
                              Doris


Amsterdam Holland
2 Aug 1950

Dear Ma:
      
Well, we have come the long ride from Copenhagen down thru Germany to Holland. We started at 1 pm. rode on a train, then a ferry - for Copenhagen is on an island - then another train all night, and just over the border of Holland changed to another small train and rode across Holland - Sid was waiting anxiously for us when we reached Amsterdam. He had flown down in a couple of hours the previous day. But we hadn't had such a bad time. Doris had discovered an empty compartment & pulled all the curtains and closed the door tightly and we had stretched out on the hard, narrow seat and dozed between stops, so the night hadn't seemed endless. Then at the customs crossing where all the German officials had examined our passports, and we had had to wait an hour (3.30 A.M.) we had another wait in Holland of an hour at 4.30 - she had gotten hot coffee and a bar of Holland sweet chocolate, which together with our Copenhagen bread & cheese & tomato had braced us up. 

Sid took us to a hotel in the middle of Amsterdam where we washed up and he wanted to show us the town. So we walked down along the canal,- the canals here are