Hello there. Apologies for my lack of updates lately – I’ve been a busy girl! So, I have now left the Netherlands behind after a wonderful four week stay. To my great surprise and pleasure, there was actually a late burst of summery weather during my final week in Utrecht which meant that there was plenty of casual strolls, lying in parks, cycling around town and even a trip to the beach! Okay, so it wasn’t anything near an Australian summer, but 24 degrees and sunny feels like heaven after two weeks of cold, grey drabness (I think I just invented a new word).
I was very lucky to be able to catch up with so many friends in Utrecht and also visit Amsterdam for the day and catch up with two friends I met at summer school in Sweden back in mid 2007. Oh, some breaking news for you - at Amsterdam central station, I had my first ever wall kroket! For those of you who are thinking “huh?”, let me explain. Well, a kroket is a very Dutch stick of gooey meat stuff, crumbed and deep fried into a tasy snack and usually eaten with mustard. Mmm, lekker . At some fast food snack places like Febo and Smuller’s, they have a wall with small slots or windows in them, where you put the right money into the slot and you can open the window of your choice to retrieve your kroket…or hamburger or frikendel or whatever you have picked from the columns of tiny, treat-filled windows (Note: don’t put in a 2 euro coin for a 1.50 euro kroket. The don’t give change. Bastards.). So I bought a 1.50 euro meat kroket from Smullers for 2 euros, and Bart told me the story of how one night he was really tired and hungry, so he went to the snack wall and put in his money…and then in his tired and hunger-induced state, opened an empty window! That story made me happy and sad at the same time.
Last weekend I took the train across to Nijmegen to meet my friend Ralf, who met me at the station and showed me around town. I had visited there 4 years ago but didn’t get to see a lot of the city, so it was nice to have a good wander around and visit the bar where he used to work and so forth. It just so happened that the carnival was in town, so we checked it out that night and went on the Break Dance ride – felt like a teenager at the Croydon festival again! (only this one was faster and went for longer, woop woop)
The next day we went to Efteling, which is an amusement park based on a fairytale/whimsical kind of theme. Think of it as a Dutch Disneyland…minus Mickey Mouse. It’s mainly for kids and a lot of the rides are more about stories, songs and entertainment rather than sheer thrills, but there were also a few rides for the older kids! The park was really busy that day for some reason, so there was a lot of lining up to be done L We had waited around 40 minutes to go on Ralf’s favourite ride – the ‘George & the dragon’ rollercoaster – and we were right at the front with only one couple in front of us when there was a technical malfunction. Boo. The people on the ride had to get out of the carriages and walk back to the exit and the Efteling mechanics tried to fix the problem. We decided to stick around and wait seeing as we had come that far, and it ended up being a good hour wait in total to finally go on the ride. I think the first bend with the big drop that makes you feel like you are going to die made it worth the wait!
As always, there are photos on Facebook if you want the visual version of my day at Efteling…
The next day I was on the move again (don’t you just love unpacking and repacking?) and was very kindly picked up by the lovely Anna who drove me to her place in Arnhem, around 30 minutes from Nijmegen. We had a look around the city and went up the tower of the main church there which is under construction at the moment (but what isn’t in this country?). We had to look out through all the scaffolding, but still got a nice view all over the city and also had a chat with these two little old men who were super cute. I think they were excited to be talking to two people who were closer to kindergarten than a retirement village. The next day Anna took me to the open air museum in Arnhem which is going to turn 100 years old next year…it’s not that much younger than Australia! Well, the “official”, white people claiming it version anyway. It was a huge plot of land with heaps of buildings on it that were set up like they would have been hundreds of years ago. Some of them were actually from the era they represented, but some had been built more recently in the older style. There were staff there dressed in olden days attire who did demonstrations of things like wood carving, making linseed oil and brewing beer and some that would just give you a mini history lesson about the building and what like was like back then and answer all your questions. The grounds were beautiful and we had a really fun day exploring everything and chatting to all the staff who were all 60+ and loved talking to two young girls! At the end of the day, we went to this “show” called Holland Rama which was a visual journey through some of the history of the area in a theatre where the benches moved up and down on hydrolics and the theatre rotated to show different scenes/sets. I was thought it was just going to be some video on a projection screen when I first walked in, so I was pleasantly surprised that the show was far more creative and entertaining that I had expected! Anna’s financé, Bob had dinner ready for us when we got home, which was a nice chance to sit down and relax after a full day of being a tourist…ahh.
The next morning, Anna had to drive to her office near Amsterdam for a meeting, so she dropped me off at the nearby station and I said farewell and headed over to the Dam, where I had arranged to carpool with someone from there to where Wolfgang lives, just south of Frankfurt. I had thought that maybe I would just hang at a cafe inside the station until 3pm when we were due to depart, but there wasn’t really anything around that had good seating (even Starbucks only had a couple of tall tables with chairs, what’s up with that?) or free wifi advertised, so I chucked my backpack into a locker and headed out into the city for the day. Browsed through H&M before heading to McDonalds where I bought a coffee and sat and used their free internet until about 2pm when I realised I still had to go to the post office and the supermarket, so I went off on my errands and raced back to the station lockers to collect my bag and get to the nearby pick-up point. I arrived about 5 minutes late and a little out of breath, only to find that my ride wasn’t even there yet. There was a couple standing nearby who asked me if I was waiting for the same person, Asmaa, who in my mind was a guy, but in reality was a girl! The couple were from Frankfurt and had just nipped over to the Dam for a 2 day mini break and thankfully only had basically a large handbag between them as luggage! More room for my stuff in the boot – yay! Apparently Asmaa was running late, so we waited in the chilly Amsterdam afternoon air until she showed up at 3:40pm and apologised profusely before giving us all a welcome hug. She was very cool and reminded me a lot of my friend Ceda for those of you who know her. Her parents are Moroccan but she was born and raised in Germany and she’s a bit of a free spirit, especially for a German! ;) It took us ages to get to the German border due to traffic jams and stupid 50km signs on the Dutch freeways, but eventually we crossed over and were greeted by the open road and a lack of speed limits. Listened to music and chatted a bit and eventually arrived in Frankfurt around 9:45pm to drop off the other two, before heading south. Asmaa kindly dropped me off at Wolfgang’s door and didn’t charge me any extra than going to Frankfurt. What a nice girl. I was greeted by Wolfy who had made me a little welcome sign/note that made me laugh so much that I cried. Oh that boy is hilarious.
So now I’m sitting at Wolfy’s place in Lorsch, Germany and he’s at work and it’s cold and the internet isn’t working. But it’s all good! I think I’m going to go explore this little town and see what’s out there, so auf wiedersehen to you (and you and you and you) and I will write again when I do! Thanks for reading. Mwa!
Lou :)
PS: Apologies for the lack of photos, but I'm not on my computer at the moment!
