On day 5 of my one week trip to my motherland, The Netherlands ( Nederland ), I had two speculaasjes with my coffee.
My eye fell on the faded cookie jar that my mother has had for decades. I then read the writing on the lid and realized that they might be Scottish
This never really stood out to me before but it does now, as I have been together with a Scottish lassie, 
According to my mom, she bought this tin in 1996, when we spent our Summer holidays in Scotland. I felt that they might have been bought even earlier, as I was 14 years old in '96 and remember we already ate cookies from this jar when I was in primary school. Anyhow... suffice to say that this is at least almost 30 years old. It must have seen a lot of cookies.
Not much more than an hour later, on a trip to the city center of Gouda, I bought some stroopwafels at a well-known stroopwafel stand/shop.
FYI: These are typical Dutch cookies and something Gouda is famous for. They are sweet and almost melt in your mouth. I recommend having them with tea or coffee.
As Clare had to stay behind, in Italy, and she likes stroopwafels, how could I not buy some to bring along/send to the South?
I'm not that heartless.
I told the woman at the stroopwafel stand about the cookies' upcoming trip and about me being born in Gouda but now living in Italy with a woman from Scotland.
As per usual, it made the other person smile, as did my Italian words, when I left.
Bon lavoro! Buona giornata! Arrivederci!
And then, mere minutes later, when I was about to walk out of the city and back to my mom's house, I passed this tourist 'attraction'...
Stroopwafelmuur ( Sirup waffle wall )
Acting like a true tourist ( born here or not ), as that is how I look at this place these days, through a tourist' eyes, I took two photos.
The one above this paragraph and the one below...
This shop looks like a big vending machine and they only sell stroopwafels.
Modern Times!
Let me end this with a photo of one stroopwafel balancing on top of my tea cup, about an hour ago, with another pack of stroopwafels ( a gift from my younger brother ) in the background. This tea cup shows an illustration made by me that is used on the cover of my book Hypersensitivosaurus and Cold Turkey ( 2023 ). Funny enough, this is the only tea cup in existence with this exact illustration ( gifted to my mom ). The only other person who ever bought my tea cup ( two of them, in fact! ) can be found on Hive ( 
Let's say that this merch was not worth the effort.
If I feel like it, I might follow this up with a post about Gouda ( cheese ), hence the Part 1.
P.S. Talking about Clare and about Love... If you haven't done so already, I recommend that you check out her latest write up: Not Long 'til Vincent Returns. I'm sure you'll like it :^)