Guus Bosman

The last time I was in Albany, NY was 11 years ago, the summer that Sasha and I first met. Tonight I arrived here alone for a short stay in between work and travel back home on Sunday.

There's a seminar of the New Netherlands Institute in Albany tomorrow so tomorrow I'll be listening to a number of presentations on the history of New Netherland, the area of New York City and Albany in the mid-1600's.

On the way to here I drove past Kingston and Tannersville, two places we have fond memories of.

It's funny to see so many Dutch names and half-Dutch names in the names of villages and streets. One of the exits of the toll road is called Amsterdam.

You know when you're at a Southern dentist if they ask you:

"Do you smoke? Drink coffee? Drink sweetened tea?"

We ate boerenkool for dinner. It was sunny today but it is getting dark earlier these days, so I figured it was okay to make a traditional winter dish. The boerenkool, as always, was delicious and we did our duty in researching a rookworst substitute -- more on that later. We even had my favorite Zaanse mustard. Now if only we had gele vla it would have been a fully Dutch dinner.

Yesterday over dinner we watched some Dutch TV online. That was fun as always, with Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima on orange bikes in New York. We didn't get to see the weather report though.

The moon rock that was a prized part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam turned out to be false. A few weeks ago researchers of the Vrije University announced that the moon rock was in fact petrified wood, possibly from Arizona.

The 'moon rock' had been a gift to Prime Minister Willem Drees by the American Ambassador when the three Apollo 11 astronauts visited the Netherlands in 1969.

After Willem Drees passed away in 1988, the moon rock was presented to the Rijksmuseum. According to Novum/AP this may have been where things got a little confused:

"Spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder said that after it received the moon rock in 1992 from the heirs of Mr. Drees the museum verified with NASA if this was indeed a moon rock. Without physical inspection, NASA said it was 'possibly' a moon rock. However, the rock was 89 grams -- much bigger than most other moon rocks that the US government has given to other countries over the years.

The Epoch Times adds: "There is much speculation about the purpose of giving the stone as a gift. Was the stone intentionally given to mislead people, or did Drees misinterpret the gift?

Van Gelder continued, "On the card that was given along with the stone, it did not literally say that it was a moon stone ... But what is odd about it: 'Why would you give such an insignificant stone as a keepsake?' I don’t get that."

In any case, you won't have to go without seeing moon stone in Netherlands this fall. The Boerhaave Museum in Leiden has extended their moon exhibition with 4 weeks, and through September 30 you can visit their display of undisputed moon rock.

Two tiny pieces of moon rock are on display in Leiden; one from Apollo 11 from Mare Tranquillitatis, the other from Apollo 17, the last flight to the moon. Both were gifts by President Nixon to Queen Juliana who donated them to the museum.