We had a great time in The Netherlands!! We had originally planned to go to Madrid to the temple and then onto the beaches of Portugal, but we scrapped that plan and ate our Ryanair tickets to Madrid at the last minute. We had our reasons: SECAF visit and my participation in a ceremony, Britt’s first military wife tea-party with the SECAF’s, attaché’s, and ambassador’s wives, the fact that it might not be beach weather at all in Portugal, and (after the decision was made) we also found out that I’ve got some weird medical condition requiring surgery. So, despite the fact that I had permission to miss class on Friday (meaning we could have started vacationing Tuesday night), we stayed home for the festivities mentioned and hit the road on Friday.
We loaded up our VW Polo diesel with food and camping gear (much to Britt’s dismay) and headed off. We arrived at the UNESCO Windmill heritage site just as the sun was going down after about 5 hours driving and 18 euros in tolls. The windmills were gorgeous! Britt decided to get more film footage of the “cute little duckies” in the canal than the actual windmills.
We loaded up our VW Polo diesel with food and camping gear (much to Britt’s dismay) and headed off. We arrived at the UNESCO Windmill heritage site just as the sun was going down after about 5 hours driving and 18 euros in tolls. The windmills were gorgeous! Britt decided to get more film footage of the “cute little duckies” in the canal than the actual windmills.
We later arrived in Zoetermeer, a neighboring town to The Hague, where the temple is. Despite our efforts, we only found two hotels and had to settle for the cheaper of the two, which was still way above our budget. The Golden Tulip was quite a nice hotel and I became overwhelmed with TV in English! The room came with breakfast, and so the next morning we ate our weight in dark bread, meat, cheese, and OJ and filled our pockets with nutella packets and gingerbread.
The temple is rather small and was actually built where the church used to be. The church was torn down to make room for the temple, since land is so hard to come by. We parked underneath the building in the protected parking garage. As we walked in, Britt says “I bet you run into someone you know here.” I didn’t think much of it, but sure enough, in the recommend line we were standing behind a missionary I knew in Canada named Yannick and then later saw my friend Betty who also served in the CMM. She invited us to stay at her place for the weekend, which we did, and had a great time!
Betty and her brother Dave took good care of us and even came with us on some of our sight-seeing. Betty came with us to Delft, a town known for its blue delft-ware: basically blue pottery. She also turned us on to Dutch pancakes: as expensive as a French crepe, but a little thicker! Britt and I strolled around the beach at The Hague that night and then went to the English branch at Leiden on Sunday. Dave came with us to the Keukenhoff and we both went nuts taking photos (I’d say Dave went more nuts than me). The tulips were gorgeous and were arranged in every way and in every combination you can imagine.
On Monday we went to Amsterdam for a total of 4 hours, long enough to take public trasnspo into the city from the outskirts (a mistake, I would say in retrospect), see the Anne Frank house (britt did it alone since I had seen it already), and take a nice stroll through the red-light district. Few women are up for work at 1130, but we “window-shopped” nonetheless and still saw plenty of gals in their undies trying to lure us in. For as much competition as there is, I wouldn’t think that the 200 lb, 50+ Filipino types could stay in business, but I guess they do somehow.
Later we went to Volendam and saw wooden shoes get made and also tried cheese samples until we were sick. Once again, Britt burned much film time on ‘duckies’ and sheep, hitting the jackpot with a yellow chick that ate bread from her hand.
We thought we’d stay in Mons, Belgium and hit the commissary the next day, but couldn’t justify the hotel costs and drove on to Paris. We capitalized on the lack of traffic and drove around Paris for an hour when we finally got home from about 0130-0230. It was a lot of fun driving around the arc de triomphe without the constant fear of being side-swiped. The next morning, we used up the rental car yet again by driving around Paris for about 3 hours to get some good film footage for Brittney.
All in all, a fun trip. Rental cars add up fast, though, when you’re paying so much for gas!
The temple is rather small and was actually built where the church used to be. The church was torn down to make room for the temple, since land is so hard to come by. We parked underneath the building in the protected parking garage. As we walked in, Britt says “I bet you run into someone you know here.” I didn’t think much of it, but sure enough, in the recommend line we were standing behind a missionary I knew in Canada named Yannick and then later saw my friend Betty who also served in the CMM. She invited us to stay at her place for the weekend, which we did, and had a great time!
Betty and her brother Dave took good care of us and even came with us on some of our sight-seeing. Betty came with us to Delft, a town known for its blue delft-ware: basically blue pottery. She also turned us on to Dutch pancakes: as expensive as a French crepe, but a little thicker! Britt and I strolled around the beach at The Hague that night and then went to the English branch at Leiden on Sunday. Dave came with us to the Keukenhoff and we both went nuts taking photos (I’d say Dave went more nuts than me). The tulips were gorgeous and were arranged in every way and in every combination you can imagine.
On Monday we went to Amsterdam for a total of 4 hours, long enough to take public trasnspo into the city from the outskirts (a mistake, I would say in retrospect), see the Anne Frank house (britt did it alone since I had seen it already), and take a nice stroll through the red-light district. Few women are up for work at 1130, but we “window-shopped” nonetheless and still saw plenty of gals in their undies trying to lure us in. For as much competition as there is, I wouldn’t think that the 200 lb, 50+ Filipino types could stay in business, but I guess they do somehow.
Later we went to Volendam and saw wooden shoes get made and also tried cheese samples until we were sick. Once again, Britt burned much film time on ‘duckies’ and sheep, hitting the jackpot with a yellow chick that ate bread from her hand.
We thought we’d stay in Mons, Belgium and hit the commissary the next day, but couldn’t justify the hotel costs and drove on to Paris. We capitalized on the lack of traffic and drove around Paris for an hour when we finally got home from about 0130-0230. It was a lot of fun driving around the arc de triomphe without the constant fear of being side-swiped. The next morning, we used up the rental car yet again by driving around Paris for about 3 hours to get some good film footage for Brittney.
All in all, a fun trip. Rental cars add up fast, though, when you’re paying so much for gas!
2 comments:
Happy Anniversary! And come on, you live in france, and you only have one blog?!?
I agree with Fuller. You have a lot more to blog about I'm sure!
Post a Comment