the end of the madness

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So, we had our couple of days in a field watching bands and fending off wasps. Ash danced like a mad thing to the offspring, we escaped unscathed walking through the tented German city and dealt very badly with the heat but due to a terrible forecast and some silly weather, we decided to cut our festival short and head off to get clean a day earlier than planned. So on Sunday we headed on a five hour journey to Osnabruck to a very nice hotel, literally to get clean and eat a proper meal. Cleaned up, we headed on Monday to Amsterdam. Theoretically we knew where to go having been to this hotel four times before . Sadly Europe is being dug up. Including the road our hotel is on. The nearby park and ride was gloriously empty and no barriers but apparently not open. Great. Cue driving around Amsterdam for what felt like days to find somewhere big enough to park the van and where no towing would happen. Finally, the slottersdick park and ride (not actually spelt like that but who cares) appeared on Simon (who was being characteristically unhelpful sending us through downtown Amsterdam rather than round the beautiful fast ring road) a short wait and we got on our way by tram to the quirky and amazing citizen m hotel. A quick relax and it was time to head out in the rain. Lots of rain. First for pizza ( and great pizza at that) then to do an escape room. Dressed as medieval knights (well, in a faux medieval tabard anyway) we had an hour to escape from a room by solving puzzles and riddles. It was great. We didn't fall out and only had a few hints and escaped within the hour. A quick wander in the rain for a drink and it was time to hit the hay. Tuesday was less rainy but so lovely and cold!!! First port of call was food then a (very long) walk to glow golf. We walked via a flea market which, from what I could see sold junk, rags and scissors. Trays and trays of scissors. All types. I have literally never seen so many scissors in one place!! Eventually we made it to the address of the glow golf. All we saw was a pub......a nice, if slightly odd bloke, saw our confusion and pointed us behind a sheet and down some glowing stairs. Glow golf is crazy. Just crazy. All black lit, crazy colours and it's crazy golf. And it's under a pub!! Fifteen holes later we felt like we'd been smoking Amsterdam's finest after having the strange music on repeat and having been underground in black light for an hour so had a quick drink to recover. With a super massive box of mayonnaise sachets which was randomly on our table.....until some bloke gave us a strange look ( I think he saw us posing for pictures with the box of mayo) and took it away. We headed back to the tram and the hotel for a pre dinner nap. Having had an amazing Thai before in Amsterdam, we booked a table and headed back there for a very nice tea followed by a wander round the lovely Amsterdam. Lovely until we wandered into party central, about seven thousand students with balloons, banners, trolleys and decorations, apparently getting ready for a big party with drums. We walked fast in the opposite direction and back for a drink.
Today saw the final country of the thirteen we've travelled, Belgium. The journey from Amsterdam was strangely straightforward despite the best efforts of gert and Simon; gert had no internet and Simon is still clearly mental, trying to send us through city centres, long routes the lot. We even find our usual parking spot in Bruges (eventually) Bruges is one of my favourite places in the world, with chocolate like that what else could it be others than amazing. Today's brief was simple, beer and hot choc, chocolate buying and beer buying. This was accomplished despite the hoardes of tourists. I think though today I heard something which will haunt me for life.....in Bruges there's shop selling kids toys next to a shop selling 'adult' toys. As we walked past the adult shop two very old ladies were discussing toys they had owned and the benefits of hard pink plastic over softer red plastic.........We both did a double take to make sure we weren't still in Amsterdam and kept on walking, talking about anything except what we'd just heard. Beer and chocolate bought, drunk and eaten and we headed to my favourite hotel ever, the van Der valk in oostkamp for a posh dinner and nice drinks before our last holiday night. It was nice not to be sat here dreading the drive back ( two hundred miles in torrential rain with no wipers was great fun last year) and just to reflect on the crazy mad three weeks we've had.

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