Bastion Hotel Breda Rotterdam

Well, the trip has finally started! After getting up way too early (nerves I guess) and repacking my backpack twice, I traveled to Schiphol. I tried to get a seat with enough room for my legs, but unfortunately those seats were already reserved. (So why does it say on the China Airlines website that those seats cannot be reserved?) Here we (a friend of mine who's also going to Bangkok and I) enjoyed a last meal on Dutch soil (a nice tosti) and afterward we boarded the Boeing 747 to Bangkok.

... midday, should have been approximately south). This seemed to work (I'll plot the route later, I stopped for lunch in what I think was Amstelveen) and just before I encountered a forecourt I found a helpful signpost - so I decided to follow that.

Signposts in the Netherlands can be confusing - there are the major routes in Blue (which are often - but not always unsuitable - for cycles) much like British motorway signs. Then there are the minor routes that are ...

Here I am, a week ago I could never imagine that i would be starting whit the preparations of my journey to Thailand.
In
some kind of rush I followed my feelings and booked a trip to Bangkok.
Nothing more nothing less. Till now this is one of my best steps ever.

... I got a good photo with Osmo Buller, the top bloke in the head office of the UEA. He doesn't seem to be wearing a name card either. The venue was great as it was just at some pub. I certainly didn't expect to see the normally retiring Osmo Buller out at this venue knocking back the drinks. The pub closed at about 2 but of course by now we weren't about to go home so early. We found some run-down place open in the next street where one ...

... Russia, and here for a big Esperanto Congress. For those that don't know about Esperanto, it's a language developed by a Polish man by combining elements of several other European languages, and designed to be a universal second language, that is easy to learn. How do I know this? Sadly, it's the language used in the movie "Blade 2", for all the street and business signs. I learned this while watching the "Making ...

... zo de hele vlucht door dus ik kwam tonnetje rond de kist uit! thuis was alles helemaal superschoon achtergelaten, ik was echt blij! dat is lekker thuiskomen. er ligt alleen een berg post op me te wachten! daar ben ik nog wel even mee bezig, vooral met jalle aaropgaves ben ik wel weer even bezig... mijn eigen bedje is ...

... town in the afternoon, we talked and did an improved city tour until we reached Jeroen's place where we had a meal, a pretty good vegetarian meal. After it, Tijs needed to leave to his driving class and I used the Internet in the meantime by the evening before I got ready to leave with the bike back to Scheveningen. Until I noticed I forgot my camera and cycle back to get it and Tijs was back and we talked some more while having for once a pretty tasty pils. Jeroen ...

... pictures. We bought some souvenirs there, then got on the tram to go back to the B&B to pick up our luggage and head out of town. We did have an interesting adventure on the tram, however, when a very intoxicated man in a military camouflage outfit with a Netherlands flag on the shirt got on the tram, screaming and yelling loudly and belligerently to someone outside the tram. This "someone" came up and spat in his face while he was yelling, before the ...

The 2005 Rotterdam Street Festival was a personal highlight for me because it was the first time I performed in front of a stadium audience. I had previously been part of the official festival opening, standing in the background while a well-known Dutch television personality spoke with the cameras and live audience, now I was the opening stadium act on the festival's final day. At the ...

... than Brugge. We went on a walk that took in all the old buildings and the river that the city sits on. We each got a pizza for lunch, and saved half for dinner, go the cost savings :) We were very proud of ourselves. We wandered back to the train station and went on to Den Haag. When ariving at the other end, we were a bit lost, as all we had was the address of the place we were heading to. But there was help, in the form of a fantastic, god-send, computer. This ...