Adventure to Holland

Okay, what started out to be a lovely short easter break to Holland turned out to be a bit of a disaster in the end!!

Marco and I drove south to the Channel is hideous peak hour traffic stressed we wouldn't make the ferry in time but fortunately we actually caught the previous ferry! However this still meant we had a long way to go to Weert where my first stop was. We drove along the coast on the E40, then the E17 when I genuinly asked "what country are we in now??" it turned out we were in Belgium! We arrived in Weert at 3.30am.

The next beautiful sunny morning I headed north all the way across Holland to Groningen to visit Anja (an old colleague of mine in Melbourne). It was a four hour journey but my music made it very enjoyable indeed! When I arrived the German flower markets were just finishing up in Groningen and we had a bit of a walk around and I had my first Dutch Hoegaarden! And I learnt the most important phrase in Holland - Een Hoegaarden alstublieft!

The label is actually different to UK and Australian labels which I thought was interesting. After a lovely home cooked meal we went out that night and saw some bars and nightlife in Groningen and then to a renowned 'coffee shop' and bought some 'coffee'! I aslo discovered Wieckse Witte which I have labelled as the second best beer in the world so far, very refreshing!

Saturday was a bit more planned, we drove with a friend to Zandvoort to a hens day out as one her friends was getting married (they call it a partnership, there are two options!) and had a lovely day out on the beach drinking tea at Mango's Beach Bar (our receipt came in a gorgeous kids shoe!) and a bit of walking. However this was when disaster struck because on returning to the car we discovered it had been broken into and 3 of our bags had been stolen; worst of which was mine because it had my passport in it...! So it took me a little while to realise how devastating this was because after calling the Australian embassy I found out that I couldn't visit the emabssy until Tuesday when I was supposed to be at work! As the politie station in Zandvoort was closed and they were most unhelpful, we spent the next few hours at the Politie station in Haarlem with a very cute policeman who made remarks about being nervous with four women haha!! After it all ended it was 11.30 by then so we decided to hit the town and the rest of the night was quite fun considering.

Sunday the plan was to head back to Weert because we were flying back together so I visited him anyway and we went for some dinner at a Napoleon themed restaurant that was most interesting! It was an open grill and you helped yourself to food. After that we drive to Belgium illegally (as I had no passport!) and had some Belgium blonde beers that I hadn't tried before; Caney Blonde Grimbergen Blonde and Kovenwolf Witbier. So many blonde beers!!! :) I also had a Bier of Gist - Witte Trappist in Groningen which was nice too! That day Marco also bravely let me drive his car for a while on the right hand side of the road a - I was stoked!! It was a lot easier than I had expected. As a result I now have exciting plans to go driving in Europe in a peugeot before heading back home :)

Monday I headed back west to Wijsrijk to meet Anja and her family and then back to Haarlem for a relaxing day after much previous excitement and stress! And now it is Tuesday and I am sitting in the embassy waiting for my passport which I'm told is coming very soon as they had problems with my name because I changed it. Silly me, who would have thought I'd have problems 18 years later sitting the Dutch Australian embassy!! Anyway I'll book my flight now and hopefully be back in my lovely bed tonight with any luck as my passport still isn't in my hand yet!!

Dag!

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Cool things I found while in Holland... A semi-permanent survey marker -

These streets were parallel next to each other a few streets aways from the Australian embassy on my way to the photo shop... and the Dutch did name Australia New Holland!

While waiting for my passport I went for a walk and in the window of a games shop in Den Haag I found this... Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot... I really want a copy!!!