Best Western Grand De L'Empereur Maastricht

... that stations often had cheap eateries attached (there had been one at s'-Hertsogenbosch but it was too early) so I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone. When I got to the bike shop, DISASTER! The racks I had seen all over the Netherlands are not suited to my bike, apparently my only option is front panniers which I have considered but abandoned due to the expense. I suspect there must be a way of rigging something up but for now that door was ...

... I can still hear the cars - I keep missing sentences because of them)
It dulled over as the day went on but I kept the hammer down and even a bit of light rain couldn't stop me. Although some of the roads slowed me down (it was almost reassuring to see second rate public services again). I made only one wrong turn in Opglabeek (I missed As in what must have been very similar to yesterday's 'Eindhoven' incident (I leave it to readers to devise their own jokes ...

... I spent the afternoon wandering along the foreshore and the marina, admiring not only the ridiculously expensive yachts moored there, but also the Mercedes, BMWs, Bentleys, Jaguars and Aston Martins of the people who owned them. Each evening involved lively, entertaining discussion with Uncle Peter about the state of the world, which I always love. Saturday was a quiet day - we went out to lunch close by then had a quiet afternoon. And on Sunday I taught both Aunty Joyce and Uncle ...

(Steve)

Before heading off on our trip, I contacted some of our relatives in Holland and they invited us to spend a few nights with them. So whilst in the Netherlands we stayed with two families and were treated very well, enjoying home cooked meals, fantastic dutch beer and good company. We first travelled to Boukoul to stay with Peter, Ingeborg (Dad's cousin) and their family Maud(14), Hugo(12) and Twan(10).
Arriving in Roermond late in the ...

... though, as a parade came into view, all our questions were answered. The whole town came out to celebrate a Catholic festival. They were marching and signing. The local priest was followed by tons of little girls carrying an over sized rosary (made out of tennis balls).

It was fun to watch. It was also interesting to note that this whole southern region of the Netherlands had remained Catholic, while the rest of ...

... part has some grooves that our male part doesn't have coinciding... Today it is raining big time and we are off to Metz France- all of western Europe is wet by the looks of the weather reports on TV, oh well....

... leave. The locals are very different here. They personal space, aka "bubble" just does not exist for most dutch people. Therefore, they are very close to you all the time and tend to bump you and usually if you are lucky you can feel them breathing on the back of your next! That is a little bit about my home and the area I am living for the next four months! I will continue to blog about Maastrict as I live here more!

... we have been constantly amazed by the number of annual festivals we have happened upon. The classic example is when we decided to leave England just before the bank holiday weekend (when 18 million extra cars hit the road for their annual holiday to a town 29 miles away) and went via Calais to Belgium. Stopping in Bruges, we rode into town to explore and were amazed to see so many tourists lining the streets - was it for us? We had lucked upon the ...

... therefore consisted of chips (which were almost always rubbish in Belgium. It seems that after inventing them the Belgians have stopped trying)a deep-fried shish kebab and a coke. This ought to provide enough energy to power a small town. It got me half-way up the first hill, 500m further on, where a coffee shop proved too much to resist. My coffee arrived accompanied, to my surprise and delight, by Belgiumīs true greatest contribution to world culture - a waffle. It was ...

... natuurlijk een jaar lang niet zien. Ik vraag me nu al af hoe het gaat zijn als ik terugkom. Vooral naar studiekeuzes van vrienden, hoe mijn broers en zussen er gaan uitzien over een jaar, ...

Ik ben er dus volledig klaar voor. Koffer is gepakt (en ik hoop dat ik ook alles bij heb) en zit niet over de maximum limiet van het gewicht. Moet je ook kunnen: een jaar weggaan en maar 20 kg meenemen. Al zou ik het liefst met al mijn hebben en houden ...