"These pillows hurt my head."

Now there's something I never imagined I would say.

We are staying with Tante (Aunt) Ali. She lives in Baarn (about twenty minutes from Naarden, where Jan's father lives), in a beautiful and immaculate home on Drakenburgerweg, across the street from a working farm with horses and cows. The A1 (one of the major highways) is just on the other side of the farmfield but, surprisingly, isn't very noisy at all.

Ali is wonderful host--she has really gone to great pains to make us feel comfortable and at ease in her home. I have no complaints at all...except about the pillows. She's given us down-filled pillows that fluff up like nobody's business but then collapse in weird ways as soon as you put your head on them. No, it's not that she has especially bizarre pillows--I've had the same experience with down pillows elsewhere, too. I get a sort of "princess and the pea" syndrome with those things, though: I feel like my head is resting on a rock, and I just can't get comfortable. After a good hour of tossing and turning last night--during which I kept telling myself, "It's a pillow for crying out loud--I shouldn't have a problem with it"--I finally gave up and snagged a throw pillow from a small couch. Ahhhhhhhh...much better. Zzzzzz.