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Well we certainly have some catching up to do then - yes Laura we know, you keen subscriber you!! heeheh...... we have since travelled through the Netherlands and are now free camping outside a camping ground 5km outside of Cologne (or Koln) in Germany.
First stop was Den Haag, quite a large city about 2 hours south of Amsterdam. We drove around for about 2 hours trying to find a camping ground so that we could free camp outside of it. The most frustrating driving time we have had thus far. The GPS simply couldn’t take us where we needed to go, and with me driving, and Suz in the passenger seat.... well need I say more....? women and maps!!? Ha ha. We finally found a suitable camp site only to be told by our first Dutch habitant encounter (we will refer to her as grumpy old hag) to move on, as the grumpy old hag didn’t appreciate us free parking outside her luxurious home. So we moved on, only to drive around for another hour to find our next nice little roadside camping spot (the joys of free camping). But hey at the end of the day we saved
Escher Muesum
All about perception is the water running upwards??around 30 Euros by not paying for a campsite.
During this frustrating driving time we also parked up near the campsite so that I could do a #2! Which is where I learnt a vital lesson...... Put yourself in my shoes. You have just walked 10 minutes away from the car, have sat down on the dunny dying to do a (well you know what), then you look over and realise there aint no toilet paper in sight, no hand towels outside, and you cant handle the thought of having to hold it for 20 minutes whilst you walk back to the car squeezing your butt cheeks together.... what would you do??? Well if your response was go get the toilet paper, you would be wrong. No not me, instead I whipped off my grey Bonds jocks and wiped away! Bahahahah, but don’t worry it was quite a clean #2, and I even scrubbed them after in the hand basin.... in fact I think I am wearing them right now... he he. So the lesson was to always.... always... carry tissues/toilet paper in your man bag!
So in Den Haag we did some sight seeing... of course, the
Escher Muesum
Escher's drawing hands - pretty cool hey - you may have seen this one before. best of which was Madurodam (basically a site full of miniature replica buildings from all over the Netherlands), it was pretty cool. Also Escher’s museum. He was an artist that I think smoked too much wacky tobaccy! His greatest works were based around perception (see some photos below you may have seen his work before).
Another toilet story for you from our free campsite at Den Haag. We had parked near a reserve (dense park like bush/scrub/rainforest). When we returned from dinner along the beach at a nice Italian place, followed by a few beers (Heinekens are huge over here in Netherlands), Suz needed to go... #1 this time. So we decided to head into the reserve with our bikes on the way back to Jonesy, it was dusk after all. We waited, quite suspiciously, near what looked like a really choice peeing bush, for some people up ahead to walk off. When the perfect moment was upon us, Suz dropped her duds, only to jump back up like a jack in the box followed by a roaring YYYYEEEEEOOOWWW!!! Turns out the choice looking bush was some type of poison ivy or something which left some nice welts on Suz’s
My new shoes
What do you think of my new shoes - suit me? behind! He he.
We then made our way to Keukenhof (about 1 hour drive North), “the world’s greatest, most famous, flower show”!.......... Bahahahahahahah.... All we can do is laugh about it, maybe this is true, but in May..... and at the end of May, there was absolutely nothing there except Tulip STALKS! The gardeners had already chopped off ALL of the flowers in the entire show so that they could preserve the bulbs for growing in future apparently. Yet they didn’t tell us this before we had already paid FULL price (14.50 Euros each) to get in! And even worse they wouldn’t give us our money back, even after a tense 20 minutes of Suz arguing with the Manager (as you can imagine I am sure!.. he he). So what did we do, well we sold our tickets (well the part of the tickets that we still had in our hands) to some other tourists for a tenner each. Dont worry, we are sure they must have got in! Or possibly not because we think later Karma may have come back to bite us (see Fridge story below)!
Suz here now - Vince types too slow!! Heheh Ok,
Madurodam
Mini Holland so we arrived in Amsterdam Wednesday afternoon - very peeved off! Anyway we soon got that out of our system after we visited a few weird and wonderful shops in Amsterdam! To chill us out we had some herbal relaxing Amsterdam tea (legal herbs, supposed to be like marijuana relaxation) which tasted like dirty dish water and basically we couldn’t drink it so it relaxed jack squat! Thursday we planned our route and had an awesome rest day in the sun. Come Friday we cruised the lovely canals and learnt about the sites of Amsterdam, we also did Rembrandt House (where the great man lived and worked), The Dam - which is a public square (with its National Monument), and most importantly the Heneiken Experience - basically a very interactive tour of the factory with the draw card being 3 free beers and it is heaps of fun cause you can make your own videos, beers “brewed by you” and lots of other little fun bits and pieces . Would definitely recommend Rembrandt House and Heneiken!
Saturday we tried to sight see, but major tip - don’t even bother trying on weekends in a big city like Amsterdam. The lines
Madurodam
Mini Holland again with my favourite the windmill were HUGE!! So all we go to see was Blomenmarkt (the big flower market of Amsterdam - very pretty but no doubt would be awesome a month earlier when the tulips are out). So most of Saturday we chilled and waited for Hayley and Nov to arrive from London for the fun to begin. Saturday night we “experienced” Amsterdam. Went to a few coffee shops, ate far too much Febo (the most awesome fast food place ever - basically like vending machines with hot food, the best being the meat Croquettens) and McDonalds and went to the Red Light District. The Red light district was definitely not what we expected. I think we thought it would be more spread out and glamorous with girls dotted in windows. But it was a serious meat market with a girl every 1 metre in their tiny rooms! Definately a funny experience, and would recommend it. Can’t believe how many pretty and young girls there are (they must only be like 18 or 19 some of them) - but also just as many big fat gross ones too - something for every budget hahahaha!!
Sunday we basically repeated Saturday after a long sleep
Red Light District
How do you like our photo in the RLD? hahah yes its Madurodam in. Had the best poffertjes ever (mini dutch pancakes) and again far too much food (more croquettens). We sat at a cafe by the canal and enjoyed the sun, FOOD (again) and people watching. A good time was had with the group of us after we visited yet another coffee shop. Randomly ran into Adam and Jody (friends of ours from London) in the middle of Amsterdam - not once but twice, only in Amsterdam hey. Weather was still glorious.
Monday was the start of the fridge story (see below). After recovering from a huge weekend of coffee shops and food, we chilled out and then went to Ann Frank house and some night sight seeing of Amsterdam. Ann Frank house is the house of the Frank family (funnily enough). One of the Jewish families who suffered at the hands of the German Nazi’s. They hid out in their home in a secret annex for 2 years (not stepping out ever into the daylight). One day they were betrayed by one of their helpers who was keeping them in hiding. They were shipped off to Auschwitz, where all but the father Otto Frank died. Very sad, but very interesting
and the house has all her diary information which she wrote during this time. Definately recommend. After this we did some night sight seeing, checked out the red light district again, as we couldn’t remember it from Saturday night (wonder why) and then got caught in a massive thunder storm and got absolutely drowned. Rode back to the van soaking wet to our free campsite (outside the camp ground we were just in the day before, heheheh!)
Tuesday woke up to face the fact that our fridge had stopped working off gas 6 days earlier........... and it doesn’t run on battery either.
THE FRIDGE STORY: Vince here - It looks like this fridge hasn’t missed a beat since the year 1721, but yet 2 weeks into our tour, it buggers up... typical Williams luck, welcome to the unluckiest family on the planet Suz. The fridge still worked off mains power in Amsterdam, so the fridge wasn’t completely stuffed! After spending around 20 Euros on phone calls to Germans who couldn’t speak English, we decided to try someone in the Netherlands instead (considering we were in Amsterdam at this stage anyway). The Dutch can speak fluent English, which helped a
lot. So we finally found an Electrolux workshop an hour south of Amsterdam so we high tailed it there on Tuesday morning....... what a bloody hell of a day Tuesday was! Raining all day, took me 2 hours to get the fridge out of the van, 3 hours for the guy to install one small part into the fridge, 100 Euros!!!! For the fix it job, and 3 hours for me to put it back into the van (I had to completely dismount the entire kitchen to get it out, not to mention the hundreds of gas pipes and electric wires). So I got it all working by about 6pm, but still had about 7 or so screws left over and a couple of wires... oops! And now turns out our top gun switch for the sink pump isn’t working, so Im gonna have to don the tool belt again to fix that sometime soon! The joys of a 20 year old VW Kombi hey! He he... no offence Jonesy!
Sorry for the long blog guys, lots happened! Hope it wasn’t too painful! 😊
So we are off to the Rhine region in Germany now. Hopefully lots of
Chips anyone?
Yes they are Holland's dish not Belgium as we originally thought castles, historic villages, wine tasting and sunshine to be had.
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Mel
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How good are the croquettens!!! We loved then when we visited Heineken House at Olympics.... so good. Sounds like you guys are having an awesome time xoxox lots of love mel and max