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Published: September 13th 2009
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The Netherlands
It was wonderful to arrive at an airport and have a friendly face to great you. The flight from Gatwick was uneventful and going through Dutch passport control fast despite the queues. No questions asked and I was soon out the door and enjoying a coffee with Lovice. It was about an hour and a halfs drive to reach Lovice's home in Wijchen, toward the west of the Netherlands.
It was wonderful to know that I could unpack and just be in one place for a while. To eat home cooked meals and just get to see how Lovice and family lived here in the Netherlands. The first week I visited the local lake with Jeromy and saw his and Natajsha's school; went supermarket shopping and clothes shopping and got my hair cut etc. We also walked into the local farming area, as where Lovice lives is on the edge of town.
We went for a visit to an outdoor historical musuem showing the way of life of the dutch over the years. Apart from the interesting houses, barns and windmills there was a Collections musuem inside that displayed items ordinary and strange that people have
collected. There was a floor to ceiling display of money boxes from around the world and an amazing collection of airline “sick” bags. The latter was wonderfully displayed in oblong room, with airline reclining seats for us to watch the video of the story of the man who made this his hobby.
The second week we headed off for a week at a farmhouse in the nearby village of Klarenbeek only about 40 minutes away. It was a small town with just one supermarket and a couple of restaurants, but the farmhouse was anything but rustic. A little bit of luxury amidst the local farmlands - this farmhouse had been wonderfully renovated and had everything we needed.
We spent the days going for walks, doing jig-saw puzzles, reading Harry Potter (as we had planned to see the movie the following week) and visiting the local lake for a swim. We also drove to the nearby Ape Zoo in Apeldoorn. This was a wonderfully set up venue for primates of various kinds, many of them allowed to roam free within the bounds of the grounds so we had to be very careful of our pocessions. The Madagascar area was
particularly interesting, with the gibbons roaming overhead and gifting many an unwarey passerby a gibbon shower.
The Gorilla area was also well done - a pity I didn’t understand the commentary of the keepers but I think watching animals is pretty universal. There were also some chimpanzee like animals I‘d never heard of before, called Bonobo's, which were very interesting. The had been separated in the Congo on an island and had developed somewhat differently, with longer arms and legs; they had also developed a complex Matriachal society that worked on a “make love not war” ethos.
All too soon we were packing up having finished the jigsaw puzzle, watching the 5 Harry Potter DVD's as well as re-reading book 6!
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tezzakezza
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Michaela said she would like to go to the Ape Zoo. I'm thinking maybe we could donate Liam to start a new exhibit of cheeky monkey's...and I'm sure he'd like to share his own version of a gibbon shower!! What a great time it sounds like you had with Lovice and family, relaxed and so lovely to have a change of pace, to be able to slow down and recharge the battery's. Very nice spot to do it in too...