Blogs from South Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 15

So the interweb Luddite has finally set up his first page for our upcoming trip to India. It is 0635 and I should be getting ready for work. It is cold and grey outside and I have a 30 min walk to the office as I still have not fixed my bike. I use the gas rings to heat the room as the central heating is as temperamental as a Dutch waiter. Work is pretty hectic after a couple of trips that need reports written, progress measured, plans made and presentations given. Still, it could be worse…... read more

I love the ocean when it's wild.... read more

July 24th Good sleep, good LONG sleep… 9 hours or so of more or less unbroken sleep. These are the benefits of having your own room! The bathroom IS shared however, and the guy who was in there before me (for at least 10 minutes) must have used up all the hot water because the room was full of steam but when I got the shower going, that shit was icy! Not great either because you want a good shower if you happen to be recycling socks and underwear again on account of having had a run of hostels that don’t have laundry facilities! After some faffing about over which of the EIGHT bus stops outside the train station the girl at the hostel meant when she said; “the bus stop outside the train station” I’ve ... read more

Geo: 52.0677, 4.32697We got up and had another fantastic breakfast before making our way to the station for the train to Den Haag. A train arrived just as we did so we quickly hopped on and found two empty seats in a remarkably empty, comfortable carriage. We were almost into Den Haag and no one else was in the carriage when along came a ticket inspector. That was no problem as we had our tickets. Apparently we were sitting in first class with second class tickets! We had no idea that there even were two classes on these trains. When we purchased the tickets at the station, at a manned ticket counter, we weren't asked which class we wanted. No wonder the seats and carriage were so comfortable! Fortunately the ticket collector was quite happy so ... read more

Today Jaap and Ria picked us up at 9:45 for a tour of the Numansdorp area. I don't think I can do justice to this day, but will highlight our activities. Coffee and cookies, then soup and sandwiches at Jaap's. The baker drove by, so Ria hustled outside for two loaves of bread. We spent quite some time at Jaap's nephew's farm. They were in their second day pear harvesting, and also have apples to harvest, all in a window of 6 to 8 weeks.They use workers contracted from Poland who are not yet trained, so one of them drove a tractor into a ditch. This requires them to have a crane come in to pull it out. Case and Ton de Ruiter say this is the worst of bad days! We are invite in for ... read more