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Published: November 9th 2006
In Holland!
Well, a miniature Holland in Maduradam.Greetings all,
As the resident expert on Holland, Meg has let me take over duties for blogging today. This is Cam by the way - that's right, not just good for making a monkey out of myself in photos. So what's with the weird title?
Well, after leaving our fine German friends, we caught a train to Amsterdam. Our journey started badly when we we're unable to buy tickets at the train station and ended up paying almost double for our tickets on the train. This is due to the machine not accepting notes or credit cards, but the ticket inspector would cut us no slack. So Meg's first impressions of Holland we're unfavourable to say the least.
Our hosts in Amsterdam put us up for the next two nights and showed us a little of Amsterdam. The city is still one big mix of sleaze and tourism so it hasn't really changed much since I was last there. Remrandt house was pretty good though. To tell you the truth, it was kind of the low point of our trip so far because it was just so touristy and blech so we decided to cut short our time
there and head to Leiden and Den Haag on Monday.
Leiden, for those not in the know, is where I went to university. My university was a small branch of a larger American one, but when Meg saw it's one building, her reaction was,
"That's it? There are toilet blocks bigger at UQ than that place!"
I was deeply hurt. We were allowed to amble through and have a look and it hadn't changed much, I half expected to see some old faces there but of course it has been 10 years. Then we went onto Den Haag, or the Hague for those of you culturally unaware, where I lived for two years.
It was great actually being back there, because Den Haag is such a nice looking city, and the scene of so many of my youthful indiscretions. A lot was still the same, enough that I could navigate around with only minor map references. We went out to Schevenigen, the seaside area that I used to live in and indulged in some good dutch Pomme Frites with Mayo and satay. Then it was off to my old house, next to a nice little
Rembrandt House
In Amsterdam - no other photos of Amsterdam........not a great place! kids school and opposite the local knock shop. Ah Holland, land of diversity.
We then went to Madurodam, a kind of model land of Holland with everything in miniature. Very cool and lots of goofy moments to be had. We went back to our hotel and collapsed for the night, foot sore but happy.
Well, I've been told to wrap it up as it is one of those rare sunny days in London today so we should go make the best of it. Coming up, London, with tales of creepy wax figures ( not Iain ) good sausage rolls and of course, GEEK SHOPS!
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Susan
non-member comment
awesome...
... to finally hear from cam. A fine blog, (but tis no pool, english... hehe) I hope you guys have a fab time in England!! Can't wait till you get back! Whilst understanding that you definitely can... love you!!