Vote!

Take part in democracy today! Vote on whether or not the orange colour scheme should remain as the new permanent scheme. Voting ends promptly at the close of the World Cup or whenever I get around to posting an update after that.

Sneek-y

Went on two outings this weekend. The first was to a sail-thru vegetable auction musuem north of Alkmaar. This included a boat ride. The tour was in dutch and with my keen language skills all I was able to glean was that sailors used to leave bits of rope dangling over the side of the ship to wipe themselves with (I kid you not). Needless to say this was not terribly helpful information. While interesting in it's own way, note the lack of pictures.

For outing number two (aka, the Tour de IJsselmeer) I ventured up to Sneek. Having heard so many people speak positively of the place, I figured I'd give it a go. When I arrived, it was raining and the streets were deserted. Let me clarify that, deserted. So I drove through town and back out and heading to an alternate destination. I wound up at an old steam powered water pumping station. This, in fact, was quite interesting as it was all in working condition and there was much interesting mechanical things to look at. Pictures of this are here.

Move Phase II: The Unloadening

I'm really bad about keeping this updated in a timely way when things happen. Mainly this is because when things happen I don't have time to write and update because, well, I'm busy doing said thing. In keeping with the trend of out of date posts, I present the following for your consideration.

Well it finally happened; after a brief visit to Surrey, my long lost furniture arrived a couple weeks ago. They managed to bring the biggest truck they could find to drive my stuff over from the UK. Somehow, they managed to squeeze it in without being run over by a tram. It was actually quite an impressive sight. Here are some pics of the arrival and the now furnished place. It's amazing how much one can miss having a couch, one's own dishes, and miscellaneous odds and ends.

Not very up to date update

Two weekends ago (?) I took advantage of a long weekend to go to Heidelberg. Again, another place out of my past. Seemed pretty much unchanged over the years. I was there for one of their fireworks weekends. Stumbling around in the dark, I wasn't able to find the path up the hillside to where I wanted to watch from, so I had to watch from the riverbank. On the plus side, there was a really attractive firefighter/water rescue/something girl there. I thought about throwing myself into the river... Spent one day driving around through the hills around Eberbach and the Odenwald. Very scenic drives and, once I started following the motorcyles, nicely twisty. For more asparagus soup, it was a worthwhile weekend. Pics are here.

More backlogged reports to come this week!

More ways to confuse your friends

So today I finally did it. I worked up the courage to have a hagelslag sandwich. For those of you not familiar with this, it is a chocolate sprinkles sandwich. It's not as bad as you'd think. Actually, it's pretty good, but leaves you kinda hyper all afternoon. If you're looking for a good way to completely freak out non-dutch people, just have one of these and act like it's perfectly normal.

Hup Holland Hup

Note the hideous new color scheme in honor of the world cup. Oranje!

Stroopwafels

Just when I thought my appelflap habit was bad enough, I had to go and discover stroopwafels. Possibly coming to a mailbox near you.

Long weekend

This past long weekend I went to Trier since I had nothing better to do. When you do things at the spur of the moment, sometimes they cost extra. This was the view out of my window:

As you might be guessing from the picture, it rained most of the time. I went and saw all the roman sights I saw a long time ago. One afternoon I drove down the Saar valley in search of some nice twisty roads, but found most of the really interesting-looking ones were private. Sadly, I was often halfway up a vineyard when I would figure this out, leaving me to back down the mountain. I ended up in Saarburg and decided to stop and have a strudel. For those of you not knowing Saarburg, it's a curious town. One day, hundreds of years ago, someone found a waterfall. Then he said, I know, I'll build a town around it. And so there you have it. A perfectly normal town, except with a big ravine and waterfall right where main street should be.

On the way back I finally managed to get some dry autobahn, but with construction I couldn't keep at cruising speed for too long. Along the way I stopped off at another relic of my past, Burg Eltz. For a place that hasn't changed much in the last 800yrs, it hasn't changed much in the last 15 either. It was still a good castle and this time I got to spend the tour with a hoarde of 13yo english girls.

Something about Germany suits me, and still coming home to the Netherlands felt good. The only thing I haven't understood is, what the hell is up with all the giant gummy bears?


You can find the rest of the pictures from the trip here.

Sand Sculptures

A couple weeks ago I walked down to the beach to take a look at the sand sculpture competition. It wasn't quite as exciting as I had hoped, especially with everything fenced in so you couldn't get too close. What I didn't quite understand was why they all needed to be 500m apart from each other. That made for quite a lot of walking. Pics are here.

Why I learned to Hate Belgium and Start Loving Luxembourg

Last weekend I cut through Belgium on the way to Germany. Passing signs for places like Spa, Malmedy, Stavelot; places that hold so many meanings for so many. Before I entered Belgium, I knew I needed gas to make it the rest of the way, but still had plenty in the tank. With 100km of range left I began looking for a place to stop. Curiously, motorway services suddenly ceased to exist, although there were two in the first two kms after entering the country. Seeing no towns and only 50km range remaining, I resorted to asking the nav to tell me where nearest station was. Fortunately, it was a few kms from the next exit. When I get there, it is closed, but it does have pay at the pump. By pay at the pump, we mean it accepts Belgian bank cards. Other bank cards are accepted, but you have to sign at the cashier. This does not help when the station, like the remainder of the not french fry stand parts of Belgium, is closed. I ask the nav for the next nearest station. It is 15km away on the other side of the highway. Snaking through the Ardennes behind slow moving caravans that do not believe in letting others pass, I realise that I am going to run out of gas. I can see it coming. I have never been this certain before. I realise that if this next station is closed, I will not make it back to the highway and probably won't make it to any other station. When I arrive, it is closed. Dejected customers are driving away without gas, thwarted by the pay at the pump. In desperation I give it a try. It is the same bank card saga. As a last resort, I try my credit card. For the first time in Europe, a pump accepts my card and lets me pump gas. I am saved. I turn around and see a sign that says Belgie. It is then I understand, I am in Luxembourg, home of cheap gas and working pay at the pumps. Long live Luxembourg.